Disable the Google Grid Navigation, Revert Back to Top Bar Navigation

If you’re a Google user (which most of us are), you’ve probably noticed an annoying new navigation system that they’ve slowly been rolling out to the public. It takes the tried and true Top Bar navigation with quick, one-click access to their most popular Google Products…

Google Top Nav

and groups everything into what they are calling the grid…

Google Grid Navigation

Which is irritating because, among other things, it adds an additional click to get to where I need to go (e.g. Getting to Google Calendar from Gmail). Their welcome message is equally as annoying:

Welcome to the new way to find your favorite Google products. Click the grid to have a look.

I noticed though that my Chrome sessions varied from computer to computer (some showed Top Nav action while others showed the stupid Grid). So I did a little toying around and may’ve found a possible solution. Although not ideal and possible temporary (until Google really decides to force this down our throats), here’s the simple solution that brought my holy Top Nav back.

The Solution

1. In Chrome, go to Settings


Google Chrome Settings

2. On the left nav, click on History and click the Clear browsing data… button


Google Chrome History Settings

3. On the Clear browsing data popup, check all boxes and click on the Clear browsing data button.


Clear browsing data popup window

4. Close your Chrome session and go back to Google where you’ll find your Nav back where it should be… On Top!

A few notes/caveats:

• As mentioned above, this is by no means a permanent solution. Once Google decides that this is the (ill-advised) direction they’d like to go, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
• I’ve also actually once did this before and the Grid nav returned! I don’t recall how or when, but I’ll try to update this article once I figure it out after the next occurrence. For now, this seems to work at least for a little while.
• On step 3 above, you don’t necessarily need to check all boxes. If you want to preserve your settings for some of these and have the time, by all means, feel free to experiment with which checkbox exactly resolves this for you. I’m guessing it’ll be the cache one. I just tried to simplify things by checking all boxes.
• Not sure if it makes much of a difference, but in my tests, I used the standalone Google Notifier app for Windows with HTTPS patch installed. I am logged in through the app/Program, and double-click to launch Gmail within a non-Incognito Chrome session.
• Google ideally needs to make this an option in your account settings. For a company whose main focus seems to be speed and efficiency, they should know better than to add an extra click in everyone’s main navigation path.

I hope this helps you out! Feel free to leave your feedback below.

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Sort/Group Your Outlook Email by Conversation Like Gmail

I’ve been using this “trick” for quite some time, but finally got around to posting a blog about it. This basically outlines, step-by-step, how to make your Outlook email act like your email in Gmail. That is of course, grouped by conversation.

I’ve grown so used to having all of my email conversations grouped into one set in Gmail (so I don’t have to go chasing them all over the place), that I wanted the same convenience for my work email, which uses Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Not only will it make you 10 times more productive, it will also help to prevent that embarrassing late response to an email that has already been answered (since all messages in that conversation will be grouped together visually).

Anyway, here’s how to set up your Outlook to act like Gmail:

1) Be sure that your inbox (or folder) is not already arranged in a group (it is often grouped by date by default). To make sure this is off, right click on the header bar, go to Arrange By –> and make sure Show in Groups is unchecked.

2) Right click on the header bar and select Field Chooser. The Field Chooser window appears.

3) In the Field Chooser window, select Conversation and drag it to your header bar.

4) Close the Field Chooser window.

5) Right click on the header bar and select Group by Box.

6) An area above the header bar will appear that says, “Drag a column header here to group by that column.”

7) Select the Conversation column header and drag it into that area above the header bar.

8 ) Your inbox (or folder) is now sorted and grouped by conversation like Gmail.

Awesome right?

Sometimes, when you’re looking for a specific email, you’ll want to sort by “Received” or “From” or “Size”, etc. What do you do then?

• Just drag the Conversation box back to the header and you can sort by any column.
• When you want to group by Conversation again, just drag the Conversation column header back to that area above the header bar (step 7 above).

Hope this helped y’all! Have fun!

The Droid Experience

Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God
I don’t know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dog, no smog
And momma cooked the breakfast with no hog

Ok, so it wasn’t quite like how Ice Cube rapped it, but “today was like one of those fly dreams” and definitely “A Good Day“. 8)

Why you axe? Welp, this morning, the much anticipated Motorola Droid was released to the public through Verizon Wireless, and, like every other nerd out there, I found myself standing in line, waiting to get mine.

Billed as the iPhone killer (watch iDont commercial here), this smartphone attacks and addresses all of the iPhone’s shortcomings. Being a non-AT&T Wireless sub and a Google and open source fiend, I literally NEEDED it. It’s running the newest Android 2.0 OS (the first phone with it) and has neat features like seamless Gmail and Facebook integration as well as free navigation via Google maps. I literally just got it, so I didn’t have much time to play with it yet, but here are a few quick tips/things I learned in this short time. Perhaps it’ll help some of y’all out.

Ed’s Tips/Notes:

* Not sure how crowded the other stores are, but the Pearl Highlands one I went to was not too bad. They opened at 7AM, and when I got there at about 6:30, there were only 4 people ahead of me. The woman at the front of the line said she got there at 5:15 with the next guy coming at 6:15. Before the doors opened, there were just about 15-20 of us (including couples). From what I heard, Verizon had 200 in stock, so if you get down there now, you should be ok.

The line outside Verizon Wireless at about 6:45AM

* The phone itself is $199 ($299 with a $100 mail-in rebate). With the Snap-On Gel Cover ($16.99), expect to pay over $300 out the door.

* With this phone, you must upgrade to a $29.99 data plan (if you didn’t already have it). I was coming from an enV Touch with a $15 VZW Mobile Web plan/package, so it was about double. It made me think about it for a split second, but for the extra goodies and the Wi-Fi action, I think it’s worth it.

* If you’re used to slim (narrow) phones, this one’s pretty wide. Compared to my Touch, it’s a beast. Gonna be interesting to see how it fits/feels in my pocket.

The Motorola Droid next to the LG enV Touch

* To keep the phone as slim (flat) as possible, the QWERTY keypad was built pretty flat. If you have big hands (like me), it may take some getting used to.

Closeup of the Droid’s QWERTY keyboard. Like how I focused on E-D? 8)

* The Snap-On Gel Cover may also feel like it’s getting in the way sometimes, so using it would be up to personal preference.

The Motorola Droid with slider open

* The camera’s a bit tricky to get used to (accessing, saving, sharing, etc.), but once you get the hang of it, the 5 megapixel camera takes pretty good shots. Here’s a pic my friend/co-worker Maribel using the Droid in artificial light.

(resized) 5 Megapixel photo taken with the Droid. Click here for the full version.

* Even though you have VZW backup enabled, you must still manually import your contacts into your Droid (via Gmail). You actually download the CSV file from verizonwireless.com/backupassistant, and then import it into your contact list in Gmail. If you have tons of contacts in your Gmail account and tons of numbers in your addressbook (from your old phone), it could get a little messy. I still have yet to check what it did to my dupes (it said it merged them). Yikes!

Check out the step by step shots (for downloading and uploading your contacts) below.

The Verizon Wireless Backup Assistant login page

Your list of contacts in Backup Assistant

Gmail Contacts page

Import Contacts screen in Gmail Contacts page

Importing CSV into Gmail Contacts

Import complete!

Big ups to Tara Reyna from the Pearl Highlands Verizon Wireless store. She’s really helpful and smart, so go see her a-ight? For more information on the Droid, go to DroidDoes.com or visit Motorola’s consumer page here.

All in all, it was mos def, A Good Day… 😉

Any questions or comments? Post ’em below…

Survey Thursday – Email?

Back in the glory days of the web, us peeps with email addresses were few and far between. As students, we  were hooked up with one by default (with an ugly @uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu suffix), but that was back when we had to log into a UNIX shell and check it via a program called Pine. Good lord! uhunix? Pine!? I’m choking myself up with all the memories! LOL!

Nowadays, every Bill, Sergey, and Jerry Tom, Dick and Harry has an email account from such free services as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Heck, even my momma has not one, but three that is checked on the regular. ISPs like us, offer accounts as part of our services: up to 10 accounts per Road Runner customer (via the sexy @hawaii.rr.com domain 😛 ) to be exact.

Whereas this question would’ve been “Do you have an email account?” in a past WWE column in the Ka Leo, today, I gotsta up my game and stay current with what’s happening on the world wide interwebs. Errrbody pretty much has email. It’s just a matter of provider. With that said…

* Which service do you use for email and why?

I’m a Gmailer fo sho. Their flexibility with forwarding, filtering, sorting, account management, header privacy, etc. is off the chain! There’s no comparison. And I didn’t even mention the searching aspect! Plus my account ties in nicely to the billion other Google “products” I use. I honestly don’t know how/if I’d survive without my Gmail and Google Calendar. Scary!

K, your turn! Share, share!

Have a good weekend y’all! Das right! I get tomorrow off. Wahoooooooo!

Fave Five Friday – Hotties

In my never ending attempt to lure the lurkers out of hiding, I am inviting y’all to participate in this modern day debate: Your list of Sizzlin’ Hotties. Post your list below and teach me a thing or two about today’s eye candy. Since I’ve been out of the game for so long, I wouldn’t be surprised if my list included oldies like Marilyn Monroe or Pamela Anderson. LOL!

1. My Fiancee of course! 8) – Thanks for the wisdom Kel Sr. and M! 😛
2. Jessica Alba – cute, hapa, seems grounded and down to earth.
3. Arianny Celeste – waiting between rounds of the UFC have never been the same…
4. Jessica Biel– just saw “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”… ’nuff said!
5. Halle Berry (with long hair) – K, kinda old school pick, but she’s still got it.
6. Lauren Conrad – Thanks Erin!

While I’m at it, here are my fave five “I don’t get it” Hotties

1. Sarah Jessica Parker
2. Maria Sharapova
3. Rihanna
4. Kim Kardashian
5. Angelina Jolie
6. Gisele Bundchen
7. I can keep going… *grin*

Show me what you got! Post your list below yo! And Ladies… Don’t feel left out! Send us your list too. We want to know what studs you think are hot a-ight?

In other news, Google has come out with their own browser called Chrome. It’s pretty quick with Google related products like Gmail, Google Calendar and Reader, etc. Check it out! Also Randy Couture will be making his retun to the UFC at UFC 91 against Brock Lesnar. Any predictions out there? Also, don’t forget to catch UFC 88 for me tomorrow. I gots more wedding-related meetings lined up. 😦 Here’s all of September’s MMA Programming.