GMail Down

So GMail went down at 0130AM Pacific Time. The announcement has been posted on their support page only. No reference of the down time has been posted on the GMail Blog as of yet.

Even though the statement on the support page says that it went down at 0130AM PT, I noticed that the mail interface stopped loading around 10:00ET last night. I hope that they get it back up fast.

PS: As of 0730 ET, GMail seems to be working again.

GMail inside and outside

After the recent news of Google increasing the rate of increase of the GMail quota I noticed that the quota had indeed increased from about 2900MB to 2770MB. Today I found out something new regarding GMail quota: GMail's main page shows higher value for the quota than when you are actually logged into the system. Below are the screen captures from the two states: without login and after login showing a difference of a full 100MB. I wonder why there exists the disparity!

Google changes search interface?

Google changed its interface? The new look is only on the google.com site for now. The .ca, .fr, .co.uk, etc. are the usual blue bands. Update: The new interface is due to their combining of various search types they had e.g. web, images, news, etc. They are also supporting a toolbar at the top for various services.

Its so polished that it looks too shiny to me. The shiny bar gives a very Web2.0 feel than the earlier more pleasing colours. Blue band felt plain and simple.

Google: Canada's Not a Real Country Anyway

We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!

Did you ever hear about the South Park song called "Blame Canada"? You can find some details about it on wikipedia or even viewtube™ the song as performed by Robin Williams during the Academy Awards ceremony.

The Know All Google seems to have heard this song too and did some of its part for the blame game. If you go to Google Maps and try to search for a country called Canada, all you get is a flattened out map of earth! Does Google even know where Canada is? I think it is just trying to prove the line in the lyrics that "They're not even a real country anyway" because it cannot find Canada on Earth!

It can find other regular countries like Britain, Germany, France, India, etc. So why not Canada? Is it time to blame Google instead of Canada ;)