Normally, I’d post this in Mac Software, but I’ll post this here as it may be of interest to more people, and it may also be something that Windows users may want to know about as well.

This morning, my Mac threw this alert box at me:


Now, this rang a few alarms. I know what you can do with Accessibility Features and AppleSCript - basically you can click any button/menu item etc. etc.. You can effectively script an application to run a number of tasks. It can be useful, but also it can go horribly wrong - either by accident or design. So I clicked the Deny button. My thoughts being that if I wanted to do something behind the scenes which was possibly “naughty”, then I’d be considering this course of action. A little bit of social engineering, and Bob’s your uncle. Just what are Google doing to require this kind of control?

It does seem that this is legit.This page gives more info on Terminal typing fun to reid yourself of this behaviour.
http://raamdev.com/2008/howto-remove-go ... -mac-os-x/

Google do detail how to stop the update checking (which is once a day) here:
https://support.google.com/installer/an ... 7176?hl=en

Again - Terminal nonsense. Not everyone is happy about using the Terminal, and it’s easy to cock it up if you don’t know what you are doing. Why not provide us with a GUI for this? Adobe have a control panel in System Preferences which is fine for controlling multiple applications.

As I said, posted here as I think anyone with a Mac will want to know about this (and they may not all head into the Mac areas of this size). I have no idea if they do similar in Windows - but if you do run Redmond’s finest, and have Google software installed, then it may be worth checking to see if similar is (or is not) happening and report back.

My first thought there would be 'run a virus check' on my Windows machine. This [LIFTED]'s getting common though; Firefox now asks if you want to swap your search bar from it's new standard of Yahoo to say Google. The problem is it does this randomly, not when you're actually using or changing the search bar!

Something changed with gmail today. I signed in via a work pc as I quickly needed a phone number from an email I received yesterday. Whole bloody interface had changed and the cnuts had even given a bloody nickname. I don't want a [LIFTED] nickname you tossers. I signed in to gmail to look at a bloody email for crying out loud, not to navigate around some useless pile of [LIFTED] interface that seemed to offer nothing of worth and especially not access to my inbox. Some jobsworth probably thought how much prettier the interface would be, and how hip it would be to give everyone a nickname. Well [LIFTED] you and the horse you rode in on.

[LIFTED].

Matt you obviously liked their improvements the ? </sarcasm>

More anger here. As you remember, I photographed every street name sign in Chelmsford which was cast metal - no mean task, and I diligently plotted every one on a Google map, with a nice custom marker (so you knew what style of lettering it was), and a photo from my Flickr stream. Worked nicely, got some good feedback on it.

Google have updated their maps, and if I view this map using their new maps service, I find that I have lost all the photos in the comments. That’s over 200. Also, I find that I can’t save changes because the new maps system won’t let me use custom markers unless I start paying them cash money for the “pro” version (I also note that if you make changes, it can’t save the map because of an error - I expect my custom markers is the cause as some have now reverted to red default ones). Thankfully, for the moment, I can still use their old map system, but I know that eventually that will go.

I am not impressed by Google’s behaviour this week.

Is Big Dog the new weapon of choice for Google?

Careful Google are buying loads of robot companies. How long before they combine the techs to make killer robots to eliminate those that complain?

Tried to report something that needed mending in the darkroom today. After putting up a warning sign, and making it as safe as I could, I went to file the maintenance request with our estates department.
Last year, this involved downloading a word document, filling in the requisite boxes, and emailing it to someone.
This year, we've updated to Google Docs, so I fill out something online, magic happens and a response lands in my email inbox.
Except Google Docs didn't want to know at 3pm. Or for the rest of the day. Something wrong with a database somewhere. Gah.