.: On Tokyo Time :.

I was pleasantly surprised that PG&E includes graphs for usage and billing history on their website. You can view electricity usage and charges in a pretty neat (but simple) graph.

I’ve been living in my current apartment since March 2007 which is the first data point on the x-axis. I wonder if there is a limit to how many months they show?

Making it easier to compare

The electricity usage is obviously seasonal and you can see the ups and downs in the graph. It would make more sense to have a 1 year wide graph and overlay last years data over the current data in a line or area chart. This would make the comparison easier and more meaningful. Alternatively a 12-months trend line would provide additional information but with a significant delay.

I created the above graph using Google Docs. I like the look and it makes comparing the charges from one year to the next a lot easier. Even adding another year shouldn’t impact readability. Now I have to find out why I’m paying 15-20% more this year.

It would also be interesting to compare usage and charges in the same graph. Am I paying more because I’m using more or because electricity is more expensive?

What are other companies providing?

Not much. I would love to have similar graphs for my bank account, credit card and phone bill. In fact I initially started this post rambling about AT&T and how they make it really hard to look at usage history. I’ll save that for another post. Maybe I’ll whip out Greasemonkey and create a little script…

Update 7/8/08: I’ll have to check out Skydeck for my AT&T billing needs. Still in closed beta.

Has this ever happened to you? You remember reading something but can’t find it again!

It’s happening to me constantly. While discussing a topic with a friend or co-worker I remember having read a relevant blog post a few days ago. I want to send the link for reference. I know I’ve seen it in my feed reader but can’t remember in which feed. A Web search returns too many results and rarely the one I’m looking for. What I really want is a search for my feeds only!

The solution? I finally got around to setting up Google Custom Search. I entered the URL of all my feeds (watch out for the feedburner redirect ones) and named it appropriately “Search my feeds”. It seems to work pretty well but I would like a way to sort by publishing date as I often look for recent posts. New posts are often ranked lower as they haven’t had time to accumulate links.

It would be awesome if google.com would automatically add my custom searches so that I can run them from there. Getting to my custom search right now is painful. Bookmarking the link or adding a module to iGoogle works but is far from ideal. Going to google.com/custom doesn’t work. google.com/cse gets you within 2 clicks of your search. Adding it to the Firefox search bar would also be cool.

Ideally Google Reader would create such a custom search automatically given your feed subscriptions. Or use the subscription information they have in FeedBurner.

Nokia has announced three interesting acquisitions in the last 9 months:

Navteq is the leading provider of Maps data for GPS, mobile devices and Internet. This acquisition will allow Nokia to provide improved location-based services and at the same time making it harder for competitors to get this data. Smart move! It looks like the acquisition hasn’t closed yet and is still undergoing regulatory approval.

I first heard of Plazes back in June 2006 from Laurent Haug. The basic idea at the time was to have members report their location and record their IP address (or subnet). The system would then assume that any visitor with a similar IP is in the same location. They extended this to mobile phones and cell towers if I remember correctly. A dedicated community emerged on Plazes (basically a social network around places). I didn’t end up using the service on a regular basis after trying it out. It looks like the product has come a long way since then and is now more centered around organizing social activities (with a corresponding place and time).

These two companies combined are a great foundation for location based services and applications! However turning acquisitions into new and exciting products is always a huge challenge. It’s been too quiet around Google and Dodgeball or GrandCentral for example.

The latest announcement is the acquisition of the remaining shares of Symbian to create the Symbian foundation [press release] and partially open source the OS. An interesting move given Google’s Android project and other closed source OS for mobile devices. It looks like Nokia wants to ensure that Symbian survives as an independent OS.

Nokia’s shares have been on a downward trend for a while now. I hope these acquisitons will start the turnaround.

Disclaimer: I have owned several Nokia phones and the brand has always kept a special spot in my heart. I do not own a Nokia phone (or shares) right now. And I’m eyeing an iPhone.