With a maximum of 200 users, how are you ever going to get a consensus?

You forgot to look at the next kindergarden and what about schools? Or are you going to take your kids to work every day? :p (obviously ignoring the fact that you need to have some first - it’s always good to plan ahead)

Isn’t there a site where people can rate their apartment complexes? I ran across it a few weeks ago but can’t seem to find it anymore. You could rate your complex on lots of criteria, even if you don’t trust the ratings, at least it’ll tell you something about the neighbors (hey, that’s another important item, but how can you check that ahead of time?).

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 2:08 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Adam,

I thought I was the only one that anal analytical.

I added a few line items for you. It’s too bad the app doesn’t highlight the diffs for you.

There’s apartmentratings.com. Most of the reviews tend to be extremely negative.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 6:40 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Hey JohnMu,

It’s a 200 editor limit on Docs, but Spreadsheets can have an unlimited number of editors.

Rockya… if you’ve seen some of my previous BLADAM lists, you’ll know this is just par for the course for me .  By the way, I even made a Google MyMap to show my desired living area + notes

And yep, apartmentratings is the one I was thinking of.  As is human nature, most of the posts there are complaints, but… wow, when you see some complexes (including one I was looking at) have >90% nasty comments, that’s surely a notable warning sign!

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 9:32 [ Permalink to this comment ]

P.S. - Rockya…

1) Every time I see your username, I think of “rock ya!” instead of “Rocky A” .

2) Thank you for the edits! (there is a “Revisions” tab, but you’re right, a diff like there is in Writely would be helpful)

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 9:33 [ Permalink to this comment ]

I use spreadsheets and sharing pretty regularly and like them.  The thing I don’t like is the integration with offline editing tools.  When the Sun/Google collaboration on OpenOffice.org/StarOffice was announced I assumed that it meant that Google Docs/Spreadsheets would get closely integrated with OO.o.  I’d really like to see the facility to link my OO.o file open/save dialog to my google docs/spreadsheets.  It just makes sense and would take these from “also ran” status to “this will get me laid” status.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 9:48 [ Permalink to this comment ]

I agree on the bad name, I use Trix to call the spreadsheet, it’s the code name under which it was developed and it’s certainly better.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 12:17 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Adam,

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems the authentication model means that any user (see Revisions tab) has access to the gmail address of any editor of the document.

This seems highly undesirable. I’m somewhat OK if the owner of the document has access to this (although I’d prefer that I get the choice), but for any user to see my email address is not good.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 13:57 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Hmm, rockya, you can see the email addresses of all contributors - everyone that clicked on the link and was logged in to their Google account. You could exploit that and have a page automatically redirect to such a spreadsheet - and get your visitor’s email addresses. Of course the redirect would be hard to explain to the visitors, lol.

Adam, just curious and not familiar with the American customs - why do you list a shower? Are there apartments without one? Also, why would you want to use a credit card to pay? Here we just have our bank transfer the money regularly, electronically. Paying with credit card sounds like a really strange idea .

Something else, I don’t know if it applies to you, what about smoking/non-smoking places? pets? Every Googler seems to either have a dog they take to work or a nest of cats they leave at home and blog about.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 14:15 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Rockya,

Your point (which I hadn’t thought of before!) highlights that I’m probably stretching the intended use of this thing.  In the Google documentation, the (relatively) mass editing option is described in the context of a mailing list… where pretty much would have everyone’s e-mail address anyway.  And indeed, I haven’t seen anyone else invite basically the public to edit a sheet.  Perhaps I hit upon a rather unintended or even unexpected use case :o.  I’ve already invited my Google colleagues who work on Spreadsheets to take a look at this thread so that they can see this stuff for themselves .

JohnMu, you have hit upon some very great points.  I actually intentionally made this sheet rather un-comphrensive, because I was eager to see others adding to it (I figured it I made it the size of a novel off the bat, people’d be intimidated).  I had actually thought about gleaning already-existing lists from around the web, but indeed decided against it.

With that said, to hit upon your specific questions…

- I mentioned a shower because water pressure can be an issue in large apartment complexes or very old apartments.  I happen to really really love strong showers, so this is important to me.  I do think, though, that all apartments in the Bay Area probably do at least *have* a shower .

- Regarding credit card payments… well, many of us (including yours truly) use a “rewards"-type credit card.  For every $60,000 dollars I spend on the card, I get a free round-trip flight anywhere in Europe, with only a 14-day advance restriction and no blackout dates.  With rent easily in itself costing $18,000 or more a year, that’s a hefty chunk towards the rewards… and with a 25-30 day interest-free payment cycle, that’s also more time I can earn interest on my money .

- Smoking and non-smoking… well, that’s a very good point!  None of my friends smoke (that I know of), and I wasn’t even thinking that there could be apartments that aren’t non-smoking, but you’re right, that’s a critical criteria to keep in mind!

- Lastly, pets… ah, yes, we can take dogs (though no longer snakes [sigh]) to work, but apartments can be very fussy/restrictive about this, and I don’t really have the time to dedicate to a pet right now :(.  But again, that’s a very important criteria to add; I hope you added it to the sheet .

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 14:27 [ Permalink to this comment ]

John-

Yeah, that makes me really uncomfortable with this product. I only give that email address to friends and others, don’t want it shared with the world.

As to paying by credit card, if Adam is like me he has a rewards card which gets you free flights or other goodies. A year’s worth of Bay Area rents would get you a free plane ticket.

Of course the merchant has to pay for this, so very few apartment buildings take credit cards. (Except for corporate housing, which is super jacked up anyway and usually only for a month.)

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 14:31 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Rocky, very sorry that I hadn’t realized the privacy implications of this funky use type ahead of time.  If it’s any consolation, it appears that the only e-mail address or username which shows up in View Source is mine (and even that’s a bummer, frankly).

Drop me a note privately if you’d like me to (just slightly) revert or replace the worksheet to eliminate your name (and then add a small warning note so that future editors will understand the situation).

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 14:36 [ Permalink to this comment ]

… it appears that the only e-mail address or username which shows up in View Source is mine ...

Well, er.. no. Open the “Share” tab.

This document is currently shared.
Collaborators (12):
[the-email-addresses]

Maybe it would be best to remove the document or unshare it until it’s better hidden .

I was going to put something similar up but was worried about the 200 user limit (thanks for that link), the email addresses would have been really interesting :D - but I don’t think they would really appreciate it.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 14:52 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Yep, unshared.  Again, sorry ‘bout that, and thanks, Rockya and Softplus for highlighting what was going on.

Just to reiterate, though—while I have recommended to my colleagues that they offer an option for the administrator to obfuscate or unlist names in this context—in a workgroup / close-knit/trusted mailing list or hobbyist group or church group or whatever, it’s pretty clear to me how such listings would be desired, not problematic.

I’ve used these sheets a *TON* at work, and the (attributed) collaboration has been invaluable.

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 15:05 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Maybe it would make sense to let the users indicate how they would like to be identified? Either through a nickname (perhaps from the account, from blogger, etc), the email address or anonymously. I can see some big issues as it is now.... Yikes. I need to shut up to avoid giving people bad ideas

- Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 15:13 [ Permalink to this comment ]

It should be up to the contributor whether they want their identity revealed. Of course, the owner of the doc could prohibit anonymous edits if they wanted.

In a spreadsheet open to all, I definitely wouldn’t want my email exposed. If it were only viewable/editable by people I knew it’s a different story.

One of these days, Google will pay me for all my ideas.

Re: Rewards cards. Are you using the Citi PremierPass Elite?

- Posted on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 6:27 [ Permalink to this comment ]

JohnMu and Rockya, yep, good points.

Rockya, yes, I’m using the Citibank PremierPass Elite card and—while I haven’t actually redeemed any rewards yet—I have accumulated nearly 60,000 points in less than six months (enough for a roundtrip flight to Europe with no blackout dates), so I’m pretty pleased so far

- Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 12:04 [ Permalink to this comment ]

i did not know about this

- Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 1:45 [ Permalink to this comment ]

I am not aware of this funda.

- Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 21:37 [ Permalink to this comment ]

Hey Adam,
Me too, i do use standard chartered card,
i had been rewarded more than 40,000 points in 6 months.
Well i’d enjoyed a lot.

- Posted on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 5:53 [ Permalink to this comment ]