Google Themes: Not Dynamic.

Google got a nice bit of buzz when they released their new Google home page themes, and I was an early joiner. But despite the widespread praise they received for the user-friendly act of having dynamically-updating themes, the theme I have applied is completely out of sync with the information it is supposed to be in sync with. In other words, it is not dynamic at all.

Click on the image above, my Google personalized home page, and note two things: the time of day as represented by the image "theme" (sunset) and the time according to my date and time clock widget, which is accurate. It is almost TEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT. I have provided Google with my zip code, which will remain nameless but which is in the Central Standard Time zone.

Not true - at least not from where I sit. The sun set about two hours ago. It is very dark outside. What gives, Google?

The simplicity of the claim and tool pretty much rule out user error. But maybe it's just screwed up for my zip code, or for my time zone. That seems hard to accept - this is the company behind Google Maps, after all - surely they can corrolate my sunrise and sunset to my zip code using the their own mapping data and the METAR data every weather website accesses from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But what's the alternative?

That Google themes are not dynamic at all.

I mentioned a ways up that the sun set about two hours ago. There is a place where it is, metaphorically speaking, two hours ago: the west coast of the United States. Pacific Standard Time. Very far away from my time zone, but very convenient to Google HQ and and the backbone of the Internet. Is it possible - is it even possible... that everyone who has been praising Google Themes and verified their functionality, everyone who actually adopted and lovingly watched their local sunset or sunrise from their Google home page, lives on the West Coast?

I changed my location to "New York, New York." It is now a little past ten o'clock p.m. here in Texas; in New York, for those of you who don't have your pencils handy, that means it's after 11 p.m. The Theme, which "will dynamically change" to "match" my "local sunrise and sunset times," now shows the sun ALMOST having set. Dusk. At 11:15 p.m., it is now OFFICIALLY nighttime in New York City. After 11 p.m., folks.

Let's all take our Google-goggles off for a moment and admit to each other that this is a poor standard of performance. Timeanddate.com identifies today's sunset in NYC as 7:44 p.m. - three and a half hours after it occurred on the Google home page which "matches" New York City's conditions. Insert your own analogy regarding three and a half hour delays here, and then fire them, miss the wedding, or lose the girl.

Why hasn't anyone written about how poorly Google Themes interact dynamically with the simple data they claim to track?

Google Tinkering With Free Presentation Software (Yawn)

Hey, I don't say "yawn" very often. But this is a special occasion.

Google appears to be preparing to enter the free online presentation software game. Based on the hints and the industry standard, the offering is unlikely to contain any of the advanced features PowerPoint offers. I always love rooting for underdogs, but I am seriously tired of text-only slideware being sold as the next PowerPoint killer. It's all about the animations, folks. To slightly modify a quote from Homer Simpson, in the world of presentation software, animation effects are the cause of, and the solution to, all our problems. [Link]

Google Maps Pedometer Mashup Measures Distance Point By Point

Hackszine's Brian Sawyer points to the great Google Maps mashup Gmaps Pedometer, which allows you to "walk off" distances using a simple method: set your starting point, double-click to add new points along the map, and drag the map wherever you want to go. I can't get enough of it; I just confirmed that a popular exercise route around the lake at my work - on nameless roads and footpaths - is just shy of a mile. I am also fairly obsessive about learning the relative lengths of multiple routes to get places I frequent, but I am also very forgetful, so usually forget to check my end odometer when I arrive, and have never been so obsessed as to attempt to keep a log. Now I can just walk them off in one fell swoop and know once and for all which is the shorter route.