New Blogger Interface and the New Google Look (Sucks!) / Android a Google product

Hello!
   
Yes I know that I said in my last post that I wasn't going to post again in Blogger... I decided to post one last time because of several emails that I have received about why I am done with the New Google Interface and Google in general.  Here is why I hate Google and the Blogger interface that they have destroyed.

I'm not going to elaborate much so here is the simple explanation in no particular order:

1) The New Interface Is Hard To Read: The new Google interface is all white space with black text making it hard on the eyes especially in low light, which is how I like to use the computer in the evening. I can't easily see what I am typing. The eye strain is obvious (unless you work for Google). Why do this, let's make it hard for everyone to read!!!!!

2) The menus are down the left side instead of across the top, a very unnatural place to look for stuff. Don't we all gravitate to the top of the window to look for "File" or "Edit" or any other common task? It's become natural to scan the top of the page or window to look for the options that are available...  let's "Save" what we are doing (look to the top of the window); "Edit" the text or font (look to the top of the window)... Or... "I want to do something... it should be in the Tool's menu.... at the top.... where the hell is it????... not at the top!!! It's down the side!!!".... Why???

3) All the menu selections are now different. OK I get it, lets take what used to be at the top and put it down the left side of the window... But wait, you didn't do that did you? What used to be a simple click at the top is now buried in some complicated maze of stupidity in your "improved" left hand side bar menu system. Why?? Please tell me why you would do this?

4) Login page. The "blogs I follow" info is bigger and takes up more screen space than my own blog information when I log in. Why is that? Did I log in to see what my buddies are writing or did I login in to create a new post. This is after all about what I want to write about.
Google think tank: "Let's put all the stuff our user's friends are writing about on our users home page because we think our user wants to see that"... When I log in I want to see what is going on with my blog first, everyone else can wait until I'm ready to click on something (CLICK AT THE TOP) and see what other Bloggers are writing about.
Why can't I see on my own login page my own Blog info? Why???

 - Side note: Blogging is a Web Log about me (or you) want to write about. Blogs that I follow are secondary, in other words when I log in TO MY BLOG I expect to see info about MY BLOG and not other people, I can and will get to them later (Unless I use a Google product, because then I have to see everything BUT then things I want to see).... WHY?????

5) Scroll bar and Omnibar. Do you use Google chrome? Good luck if you do. Chrome has a very stupid and annoying scroll bar that is inverted in relation to every sane person in the world (unless you are a idiot). The scroll bar is "dark" where you have to click to scroll, exactly backwards from every other software product I have ever used.
Here is what this amounts to:
Google engineer says " Lets be different and mix it up a bit, lets invert the colors on the scroll bar, everyone will love it"...
A real world example: "Let's reverse the gas and brake pedals in the car we are building, everyone will love it"

Insert frustration, car crashes, cuss words and...

6) The Google Omnibar.... lets not even talk about it.... one word: WHY????? Fill in for me what I typed yesterday??????? REALLY????????

7) Another thing about Google and in this case Andriod...  Here is an example from my phone right now:
Today is Thursday July 5th at 5:11pm
My phone's call Log says I had a call: "incoming call - 2 days ago" When I click on that call the call details say the call was actually made on Sunday July 1st at 8:42pm.
So in other words the call wasn't received "2 days ago" it was received 5 days ago. The call log is wrong! Thanks Google!
This makes the call log useless for me. I have to open the call log and click on Details for every call to see when it was actually made if I want to know when a call was placed or received.

So am I upset at Google, am I upset at Andriod??? AM I upset at both?? Is the new Google Blogger interface all that bad?

Maybe... or maybe it is just me. If the user interfaces for Google products actually made sense to someone like me, an average user, then I could accept the change and improvements with all their bugs and problems...

Unfortunately this isn't the case. Google has across the board created an online environment isn't user friendly, is overly complex to use for what it does and all around "broken what didn't need to be fixed".

Blogger wasn't perfect my any means but now it is trash thanks to the Google team 'Improvements'. Honestly if Goggle had come in a simply fixed what was wrong with Blogger (a few minor tweaks) I would be right there with them cheering them on, even if there were a few bugs.

But because Google decided to change everything and in the process mess up things that used to work, change around menus that were easy to use, move simple "one click" tasks down to places I don't want to click... and gave me a phone that has a useless and messed OS... instead of making things easier, rather they have made things harder...

Because of everything they have done, I am done with Google.
   

Google I hate you...

GOOGLE,

Thank you for changing everything about Blogger. Thank you for changing the login and the interface that I am now using. I have to say that I HATE YOU GOOGLE.
You are arrogant in your actions, arrogant with your customers, and especially arrogant and stupid with your customer feedback. This is clear if anyone goes to the Google 'help' or ever asks you a question, we can see the thousands of people that hate what you are doing and are asking you to change. You ignore them, you ignore the feedback from the people that are trying to use your products.

GOOGLE, everything that you have done does not add to the experience of using Blogger, it detracts from it.

I would like to update my Blog today and that is all. I WOULD NOT like to learn how to use a new interface to update my blog. With the old interface I could write about what I was doing in a few minutes. Today I have to learn a bunch of new things to write my Blog. New things that will do the same thing that the old ones did without any improvement. I'll spend my time today catering to your idiotic and arrogant new ideas rather than writing about what I was doing. I have decided that I will not do that.

I am done with GOOGLE.

I am through with your stupidity, your arrogant attitude and your so called 'improvements'. I will never use a Google product again.

This is my last post. Goodbye.

Otto Belden

USS Iowa in Richmond CA

A few of weeks ago I visited the USS Iowa anchored in Richmond CA. The USS Iowa is a battleship that not only served in several wars but also has a unique history. Currently out of service the ship is being renovated to be a history museum and ultimately will be anchored in Southern California. My family and I decided that while the ship was in Richmond we should take the opportunity to go see her. Below are a few photos that I took while we were on board. Unfortunately only the bow of the ship was open to the public but just having the opportunity to go on board was outstanding!

  

Update On What I have Been Up To

It must be obvious by now that I have not been updating my Blog for a couple of weeks (maybe more?!). In the past I have been pretty regular with my posts publishing about one a week. Recently that steady stream has stopped because I have not had any spare time to mess around since Christmas. I have been busy with other things and have not had the time to do any projects or experiment in the garage :-(
   
I do have some projects that I was working on and I have received some emails asking me to add more detail and explain some of the things that I have done. I'm going to answer those emails with new Blog posts and finish the projects that are in the works - stay tuned!! I'll have some new info soon!
Check back and you will be surprised... :-)

Thanks for reading my Blog and continuing to read it!

 - Otto Belden

Toyota Highlander Door Panel Lights

I was driving the other night down a dark road and I tried to adjust the mirrors of my Toyota Highlander. I couldn't see the mirror adjust switch, I know more or less where it was but it was so dark I couldn't find the switch. A similar experience happened to me after I got in my car in a parking lot and wanted to lock the doors, I couldn't see the door lock rocker switch and although I knew where it was and I pressed it I wasn't sure if I had locked or unlocked the doors. The Toyota Highlander switches aren't lighted! Today I fixed that by adding a couple of small lights to illuminate the dash area to the left of the Toyota steering column and the drivers side door panel. This little project was a pretty straight forward thing to do and it turned out pretty nice. I only wish that Toyota had added lights to these switches on the base model so I didn't have to do this.

   

The first thing that I did was lift up the switch panel in the drivers door using a guitar pick to pry up the panel. A guitar pick (or a the corner of a credit card) works nicely to lift up car trim because it won't mark of mess up the plastic panels. The switch panel lifts up and unsnaps from the rear.

    

2009 Toyota Highlander Drivers Switch Panel

Once I had the switch panel lifted up I removed it and released the harness from a plastic retainer inside the door. Releasing the harness didn't disconnect it from the switch panel, it just freed up some slack in the wired so I could pull the panel out. The switch panel has a bunch of wires of various gauges going into it and I probed around with my meter to find a couple that had power when the engine was running.