blog.ulfw.com

I’m liking the recent speed upgrades from Comcast in my apartment. I hope I’ll find something similar at my new place. They only started this after AT&T started running out their Fibre-to-the-curb U-Verse service in my area. Best example on how competition can be a good thing.

Yes, I did it. I gave notice yesterday. 07/07/08 will be my last day at Google. While I know, 08/08/08 would have a nice ring to it too, I figured it’s as good a time as any.
Now - I won’t use this space to rant or praise Google. There were good times and bad times. I made lots of friends. I met some amazing people. I met some pretty unimpressive people. I guess - after all - Google is just like life everywhere.

It was time for me to move on though and I am excited about the changes ahead in my life. More updates on that to come later, but for now let me just say - a move not only to a new company, a new role, a new job level - but also - to a new location is coming up next month. I’ll be moving down to LA!

Watch out for more info coming in future blog posts.

i just wanted to let you know that the aforementioned iGoogle for iPhone video i was filming with our Google video team has launched together with a redesigned mobile.google.com destination website today. Have a look:

Bill Gates is finally stepping down from his duties at Microsoft. Today a hillarious internal email was published that he sent to a few of his employees depicting his difficulties of downloading and installing Windows Movie Maker.

My favorite excerpt:
“Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

What an absolute mess.
”

Couldn’t have said it better than him…

Today we launched a mobile tricks campaign, where Googlers and everyone else alike is sharing a few (quirky) tricks and tips what they can do with their mobile phone.

I felt compelled to volunteer two of my own. The way those came together were pretty much:
Effie: Ulf, I need you to do at least two videos.
Ulf: Hm ok. No idea. When do you need them?
Effie: Can you come down NOW please?
Ulf: Er… hm.. ok…

Frankly I couldn’t come up with something valuable yet funny on the spot, so I just went with two time wasters.

Mobile Messenger:

I love Pandas:

Without comments…

So I heard there’s a new iPhone coming. I wonder if that’s true. People are mentioning things like GGG and Gee Pee Ess etc. No idea what they’ve been smoking.
Anyways - I feel like I’ll be camping out again on July 11th. Even though I have to say Video iChat and a 3+ MP camera would have been nice. Oh well. iPhone 3.0 here we come…

One thing to mention though: the ‘cheap’ price of $199 for the 8GB model is a lie. Don’t be fooled.
Fact is: AT&T is raising data prices by $10 a month or 24x$10 = $240 over the course of the 2yr (mandatory) contract, thus increasing the total price for the phone to $439 (vs. $399 for the current model). Weird how Steve Jobs completely forgot to mention that…
Update 2: at&t is going more and more ridiculous. So - SMS are NOT included anymore either (used to be 200 SMS included), making a $5 SMS plan necessary and driving up monthly cost for the ‘cheaper’ iPhone 3G to now $15/month extra = $360 over the contract term. Thus the new ‘cheaper’ iPhone is estimated to cost a total of $559 vs. $399 for the older ‘more expensive’ iPhone.

Yay! My new car finally made it to me, after a long 10 week wait and eager anticipation while it crossed the Atlantic and the Panama Canal.
Of course I had to snap a few early pics yesterday in a gorgeous location - the Stanford Oval.

Ok ok I know what you think… Ulf is in an Apple iPhone ad? Is that for the new iPhone? OMG do you know any details when it’s gonna come out and with what features???
In short: No. No. And no. Sadly.
But these shots were taken out of an upcoming video series we’ll have on mobile.google.com. And that’s all I’m gonna be able to say for now
For obvious reasons I am pushing the iPhone again, having been one of the first who helped evangelize the device throughout the company (and even having gone as far as camping out in front of the Burlingame Apple store for 8 hrs this time last year).