Google Tool Sends Alert When Satellite Imagery Is Updated

Barry Schwartz highlighted this new tool this morning that automatically alerts a user via email when the satellite imagery for a given area has been updated. The tool is super simple to use and provides you with a dashboard to unsubscribe from previous requests.

It is also a super simple way to ascertain lat/log to 14 levels of accuracy. This is useful if you are creating a KML file or an hCard code for you website to signal to Google your businesses’ physical location. The tool can be found at FollowYourWorld.appspot.com. Here is a screen shot of the tool:

Simian: Mac OS X package deployment via App Engine

Administration of software packages on the Mac platform can often be daunting. Google’s Mac Operations and Security teams evaluated several solutions for OS X package deployment, but unfortunately none of them met all of our required features. We decided to build our own solution to do the following:

  • Deploy new or updated software by targeting a single Mac or tens of thousands.
  • Push security patches, whether the Mac is on an internal network/VPN or not.
  • Force mandatory installation of some packages, while allowing others to be optional.
  • Tightly manage Apple-provided updates.
  • Scale without deploying and maintaining additional server infrastructure.
  • Obtain reports on all of this and the fleet overall.

Today we are open-sourcing Simian, our solution to enterprise-class Mac OS X package deployment. Simian uses App Engine-based hosting to scale with the needs of your growing enterprise, and a Munki-based client which will continue to evolve through the outstanding work of Greg Neagle and the Munki community. We hope this to be the first of many announcements in sharing Google’s unique IT approach with the larger community.

For more information, please visit our Simian project page, join the discussion list, and download the code. For more information about Munki, please visit its project page.

By John Randolph and Justin McWilliams, Google Corporate Platforms Engineering Team

Seals on Being Tenacious

“I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity… If knocked down, I will get back up, every time.”

–U.S. Navy SEALs

Sales math…

If you’re not earning the income you’d like to earn, ask yourself…

“Am I working like someone who makes $X thousand a year… someone who makes roughly $Y every money hour* of the day?”

Are you valuing your time at that level? If not, who will?

  • $50,000 = $25 every money hour
  • $75,000 = $37 every money hour
  • $100,000 = $50 every money hour (almost $1 a minute)
  • $120,000 = $60 every money hour ($1 a minute)
  • $150,000 = $75 every money hour
  • $200,000 = $100 every money hour
  • $250,000 = $125 every money hour (more than $2 a minute)

Greater than $250,000 = You probably don’t need the reminder. (“Rich enough not to waste time.”)

Email this sales reminder to a friend without the quote attached.

*money hours: hours during the sales day where you can talk with prospects and customers

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