Pawgang's Ramblings

flash animation cat

2011-07-31T23:45:00.000-04:00

finally happened to find the lost mouse-over flash animation cat:

Google Toolbar 7

2011-04-19T23:18:00.000-04:00

Today Google is bringing the speed of Google Instant to the latest version of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, with a fresh, clean look that personalizes Toolbar with the tools you use most.

Toolbar Instant
If you’ve used Instant on google.com or in Chrome, you’ll be right at home with Toolbar Instant. Just start typing in the search box and search predictions and results will appear instantly as you type, getting you the results you want faster.

You can also type Alt+G to get to the Toolbar search box more quickly.

To enable Toolbar Instant, visit Toolbar Options and click “Enable Instant for faster searching and browsing.” Toolbar Instant works on IE8 and IE9; if you’re on an older browser, you can either upgrade your Internet Explorer version or try Instant in Chrome, which includes many of the same tools you’re familiar with in Toolbar.

Personalized Toolbar
This new version of Toolbar is simpler, cleaner and emphasizes what’s important to you. The tools that you use most will remain visible on the toolbar, while buttons that you haven’t used recently will be moved to the new “More” button.

From Pawgang's news

As you discover and use particular tools that help your browsing experience, like Share or Translate, they’ll automatically appear on the toolbar, making your most relevant tools easy to access. This personalization is stored only on your computer, so no information is sent to Google unless your usage statistics are enabled. You can learn more about this personalization at the Help Center.

Making Toolbar work for you
Some Google Toolbar features, such as PageRank and spell check, require sharing some information with Google in order to function properly. With Google Toolbar 7, it is easier for you to control your privacy settings. From a single settings menu, you can decide which of these features you'd like to enable and which ones you'd like to stay off.

From Pawgang's news

Google also continued to improve the performance of Toolbar 7 without slowing down your browser, making it one of the fastest add-ons you can use in Internet Explorer.

Google Toolbar 7 is available in English on the download page and will be coming to other supported languages over the next week. If you’re already using Toolbar, you’ll automatically be updated to the new version over the next few weeks. You can also find out more about Toolbar on the features page.

source cited: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/google-toolbar-7cleaner-fresher-and.html

USPS Go Green stamps

2011-04-18T14:20:00.000-04:00

released just in time for Earth Day:

The US Postal Service is doing its part to “Go Green” by providing you with eco-friendly mailing materials and stamps.

As part of their Go Green commitment, USPS has designed a series of 16 Forever stamps showing what each of us can do to promote the health of our environment:

See each stamp | Buy Go Green stamps now

With Go Green, a pane of 16 stamps, the U.S. Postal Service seeks to raise awareness of simple actions each of us can take to conserve natural resources and promote the health of our environment.

Artist Eli Noyes of San Francisco, California, gets the points across in a colorful and playful manner. The art shows both genders and a range of ages, from a small girl turning off a light switch to an adult choosing to walk instead of drive. It conveys a positive message: things we can easily do to have an immediate impact on the air we breathe and the energy we consume.

Google Doodle honoring Charlie Chaplin

2011-04-16T00:40:00.000-04:00

Charlie Chaplin wasn’t just the greatest star of the silent film era; he also wrote, directed and produced more than 80 movies in a career that spanned decades and included such masterpieces as The Kid, The Gold Rush and Modern Times. He scored many of his pictures as well, and on at least one occasion served as an on-set hairdresser.

Chaplin is also one of my creative heroes. Despite being an art-obsessed high schooler preemptively bored by anything in black and white, I borrowed a VHS tape of Chaplin’s work from the library on a lark. It’s not an exaggeration to say watching it changed my life. I laughed, I cried—I cried from laughter. For the first time I realized the power of visual storytelling.

We sometimes tell small stories with Google’s logo, but for Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin’s 122nd birthday tomorrow, April 16, the Doodle team created something extra fun. For the next 36 hours the Google homepage will pay homage to Charlie Chaplin’s creative legacy with our first-ever live action video doodle.

The simple, silent short film stars the entire Doodle team (with fellow doodler Mike Dutton sporting that famous mustache, hat and eyeliner) and was shot on location in Niles, Calif., the setting of several of Chaplin’s early classics including The Tramp. Niles is also home to our advisers for this doodle, the ever-helpful Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.

True pieces of art, Chaplin’s films still feel fresh today even though some of them are nearly a century old. We hope that our homage gets people talking about his work and the many virtues of silent film.

As a bonus, check out some of these fun behind-the-scenes shots:

source cited: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/lights-camera-doodle.html

Gmail customized with a background image of your own

2011-04-15T23:17:00.003-04:00

Precustomized themes in Gmail are nice to give your inbox a more personalized look and to distinguish the gmail-accounts from each other in case you have more than one gmail.

The more recent option to create your own theme with the colors of your choice I loved even more.

Now it's possible to even add your own background image:

From Pawgang's news

how to?

go to the Themes tab in Settings and choose “Create your own theme.” There, you can select background images for the main area and the footer. You can pick from any of your Picasa images or upload a new one. It's fun, isn't it?

From Pawgang's news

source: Custom background image themes - Official Gmail Blog

“Don't forget Bob” and “Got the wrong Bob?” graduate from Labs

2011-04-15T13:18:00.001-04:00

“Don’t forget Bob” and “Got the wrong Bob?” are two Gmail Labs features that help prevent you from making two common mistakes: forgetting to include someone on an email, and sending a message to the wrong person with a similar name to the person you meant to email — like emailing Bob (your boss) instead of Bob (your friend).

We’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback from people who avoided some embarrassing situations thanks to these features. And today, we’re excited to graduate them from Gmail Labs and start turning them on for everyone (they should start working in all Gmail accounts over the next day or so). Once that happens, as you type in your recipients, Gmail will automatically make suggestions based on the groups of people you email most often. When you see a suggestion to add a person you’ve forgotten, all you have to do is click on their name to add them.

From Pawgang's news

Similarly, if you click on a suggestion to replace a mistakenly added recipient, the proverbial “wrong Bob” will be replaced by the right one.

From Pawgang's news

We hope these suggestions help you avoid some sticky situations — before you hit send. As you compose messages and see these features in actions, let us know what you think by tweeting @gmail with your ideas and impressions or leaving a message in the Gmail Help forum.

source cited: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-forget-bob-and-got-wrong-bob.html

Gmail Lets You Disable Auto-Adding Contacts

2011-04-08T15:25:00.001-04:00

As previously announced, Gmail added a setting that lets you disable automatically saving email addresses to your contacts. Go to the Settings page, find the section "Create contacts for auto-complete" and you'll notice that the following option is enabled by default: "When I send a message to a new person, add them to Other Contacts so that I can auto-complete to them next time". Now you can disable this feature and select "I'll add contacts myself".

This is one of the features from a long changelog of small improvements. "Refresh" is now a button, the keyboard shortcuts guide is now available even if keyboard shortcuts are disabled (just press Shift+?), Gmail shows more useful warnings when you leave out the "." in ".com" from an email address and there are fewer warnings when you reply to a message in the Trash.

source cited: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/04/gmail-lets-you-disable-auto-adding.html

Comic Sans MS as standard font in Google Chrome

2011-04-08T15:08:00.002-04:00

I always was a little bit unhappy, that it was a bit tricky to set Chrome to my preferred reading font "Comic Sans Ms":
goto:
Options > Under the Hood > Web Content > Customize Fonts...
and
at the page Fonts and Encoding set your standard font to Comic Sans MS
and this (on my laptop at least) didn't work out for all pages with a standard font set by the page itself...

BUT a few days ago I stumbled upon this:

Comic Sans for Everyone

"""Here at Google, the Webmaster Team is always running experiments and conducting research to improve user experience and increase conversion rates across our websites.

Following some rigorous user testing of 41 different fonts, investigating how each affected user experience, we discovered one font consistently outperformed all others when it comes to user satisfaction, level of engagement, understanding web content, productivity, click-through rates and conversion rates: Comic Sans.

We’ll therefore be rolling out Comic Sans as our default font across all Google products on April 4, 2011.

For today only, we’re inviting a limited number of lucky Google users to take part in our Google Labs Trusted Tester Beta Preview Sandbox program. To participate, follow these easy steps:

If you haven’t done already, install Google Chrome.
Open Google Chrome and install the “Comic Sans for Everyone” extension from the Chrome Web Store.
Your account will be automatically activated once the extension is installed, allowing you to browse the entire World Wide Web using Comic Sans. In the extremely unlikely event that you decide to opt-out of the preview, you can simply disable or uninstall the extension by visiting your Extensions page.

For the latest news and updates, be sure to follow @GoogleWebTeam on Twitter.""""

worked like a charm and now I'm happy :-)

Chrome Bookmarks Integrate with Google Search

2011-03-29T17:10:00.002-04:00

ever wondered, how to search your Chrome-Bookmarks with Google-Search?

it's possible now:
goto https://www.google.com/bookmarks/ and search from there and YES your Chrome Bookmarks are included in the search's results!

and that's the blogpost telling about this new option:

=======================================

Until recently, Google Bookmarks and Chrome Bookmarks were two separate features that didn't speak the same language. Even if you could save your Chrome bookmarks to a Google account, they weren't saved to Google Bookmarks. For some reason, your bookmarks are available in a special Google Docs folder.

Chrome bookmarks have a web interface, but it's likely that the obvious will happen: Chrome bookmarks could be saved to Google Bookmarks. Jérôme Flipo noticed that the Google Bookmarks OneBox already includes Chrome bookmarks. I've tried to find SmallNetBuilder.com and Google's OneBox returned it even if it was starred in Chrome, not in Google Bookmarks.

Related Links by Google
New Chrome Logo
Google Toolbar 8, Powered by Google Chrome
What's New in Chrome 10?
7 Chrome Annoyances and How to Fix Them

source cited: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/03/chrome-bookmarks-integrate-with-google.html

some books about Google:

Google search now supports Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ)

2011-03-25T19:43:00.001-04:00

source: Official Google Blog

With the help of Cherokee Nation staff and community members, we’ve added Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ) as an interface language on Google, making a small contribution towards preserving one of the world’s endangered languages.

You can now select Cherokee as your default from the Language Tools page (available from the right of the search box), and the entire Google interface will transform into Cherokee:

We’ve also included an on-screen Cherokee keyboard on the search page through the Google Virtual Keyboard API. This makes it easier for people to search web content in Cherokee without a physical Cherokee keyboard. To access the keyboard, simply click the icon at the right side of the search box.

Cherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people. The Cherokee syllabary writing system was developed by Sequoyah in the early 19th century. He realized the power of writing systems, and wanted his people to benefit from that power. Some of the 85 characters he developed for his syllabary were modified from his original handwritten script for a printing press in the 1820s, resulting in characters that resemble Latin and Greek letters. Despite the resemblance, they are pronounced differently. The modified script was quickly adapted for printing Cherokee newspapers, books and pamphlets. The adoption and use of the script enabled the Cherokee people to maintain their language and culture. Today, Cherokee is spoken mostly in the states of Oklahoma and North Carolina. (The Cherokee Nation is the sovereign operating government of the Cherokee people. It is a federally recognized tribe of more than 300,000 Cherokee citizens, with its capital located in Tahlequah, Okla. To learn more, please visit www.cherokee.org.)

We’re honored to have the opportunity to continue this tradition, and we’d like to thank the Cherokee Nation for working with us to translate the interface for Google search into Cherokee.

Search is now available in 146 interface languages—and the list is growing. If you speak an endangered language that you would like us to support, please sign up for Google in Your Language and submit community translations.

Update 10:26 AM: You can find the press release from the Cherokee Nation here.

Posted by ᏇᎩ (Craig Cornelius), Software Engineer, Internationalization

a few books related to The Cherokee Nation:

A Burglar Cat

2011-03-24T20:54:00.008-04:00

The loudest cat in the world?

2011-03-24T00:53:00.001-04:00

For cat lovers, there is nothing more soothing than the sound of their pet purring with contentment.
But when Smokey kicks off, it’s time to reach for the ear plugs.

The sound she produces can reach an incredible 92 decibels – the same as you’d experience watching a Boeing 737 coming in to land, and more than THREE times louder than most cats. Even from five feet away the level is 80 decibels, the same as a car passing 25ft away. Most cats produce around 25 decibels.

Owners Ruth and Mark Adams say the 12-year-old British Shorthair can drown out TV and radio shows and phone conversations with her ‘cooing purr’ which they describe as ‘sounding as if she has a dove stuck in her throat’.

Mrs Adams, from Pitsford, Northampton, said: ‘She even manages to purr while she eats. The only time she is quiet is when she is asleep. 'It’s either adorable or annoying, depending on what mood you’re in. You don’t even have to stroke her to start a purring session. Often she’ll do it for no reason.’

Guinness World Records said it had a category in place for noisiest cat but no entries yet. A spokesman said: ‘If Smokey can purr at over 80dB it would be an astonishing feat.’

Diana Johnson, of Northampton Cats Protection, who has met Smokey, said: 'I have never heard anything like her purr in my life. It can drown out your conversation. 'It is very unusual and I've never found a cat with a purr that is anywhere near as loud.'

Smokey has become an honorary volunteer for Cat Protection's Northampton branch and is helping to raise awareness of the important cat welfare work they do.

source

Chrome beta speech input

2011-03-22T23:26:00.002-04:00

Today, the google-chrome team updated the Chrome beta channel with a couple of new capabilities, especially for web developers. Fresh from the work that they’ve been doing with the HTML Speech Incubator Group, they’ve added support for the HTML5 speech input API. With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe human voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you. Try it out yourself in this little demo. Chrome's Mar-22 beta release also offers a sneak peek of GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, which allows developers to apply slick 3D effects to web page content using CSS.

Lastly, as mentioned in yesterday's blogpost, those of you on the beta channel will start seeing the brand new shiny Chrome icon on your desktops (yes I do, but I liked the old-fashioned icon a lot better).

Stay tuned as they make all these updates widely available in the stable channel soon!

source: the Google Chrome Blog

some books about Google:

What’s new with Blogger

2011-03-14T18:00:00.005-04:00

source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-new-with-blogger.html

3/14/2011 09:22:00 AM

(Cross-posted from Blogger Buzz)

2010 was a big year for Blogger. We cemented ourselves as one of the largest blogging platforms and the sixth largest website in the world, according to Alexa. Blogger users published more than half a billion blog posts, which were read by more than 400 million active readers across the globe. We introduced template designer, real-time stats, comment spam filtering, mobile templates, web fonts and more. And to top it all off, we were dubbed the most reliable blogging service around.

2011 promises to be another exciting year.

To start, we’re kicking things off at SXSW by giving folks a sneak peek at our next-generation user interface. The new design is not only cleaner and more modern, but it also uses Google Web Toolkit, delivering the latest in web technology.

Current post editor

↓

New post editor

Current dashboard

↓

New dashboard

We’ll also be showcasing our new content discovery feature that lets you uncover interesting and related content based on the topics of the blog you’re currently reading.

These are just a couple of new features we want to share with you. We look forward to unveiling more throughout 2011!

If you’re in Austin for SXSW, be sure to visit us at the Google booth—or come by and enjoy a drink with us tonight at our annual Blogger bash.

Posted by Chang Kim, Product Manager, Blogger

Daylight Time

2011-03-12T22:47:00.001-05:00

Starting in 2007, daylight time begins in the United States on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. On the second Sunday in March, clocks are set ahead one hour at 2:00 a.m. local standard time, which becomes 3:00 a.m. local daylight time. On the first Sunday in November, clocks are set back one hour at 2:00 a.m. local daylight time, which becomes 1:00 a.m. local standard time. These dates were established by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. no. 109-58, 119 Stat 594 (2005).

Not all places in the U.S. observe daylight time. In particular, Hawaii and most of Arizona do not use it. Indiana adopted its use beginning in 2006.

Year	Begin	End
2006	April 2	October 29
2007 *	March 11	November 4
2008	March 9	November 2
2009	March 8	November 1
2010	March 14	November 7
2011	March 13	November 6
2012	March 11	November 4
2013	March 10	November 3
2014	March 9	November 2
2015	March 8	November 1

* New law went into effect.

Many countries observe some form of "summer time" and the dates when the changes are made are various and not determined by any international agreements.

Daylight time and time zones in the U.S. are defined in the U.S. Code, Title 15, Chapter 6, Subchapter IX - Standard Time.

History of Daylight Time in the U.S.

Although standard time in time zones was instituted in the U.S. and Canada by the railroads in 1883, it was not established in U.S. law until the Act of March 19, 1918, sometimes called the Standard Time Act. The act also established daylight saving time, a contentious idea then. Daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, but standard time in time zones remained in law. Daylight time became a local matter. It was re-established nationally early in World War II, and was continuously observed from 9 February 1942 to 30 September 1945. After the war its use varied among states and localities. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided standardization in the dates of beginning and end of daylight time in the U.S. but allowed for local exemptions from its observance. The act provided that daylight time begin on the last Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October, with the changeover to occur at 2 a.m. local time.

During the "energy crisis" years, Congress enacted earlier starting dates for daylight time. In 1974, daylight time began on 6 January and in 1975 it began on 23 February. After those two years the starting date reverted back to the last Sunday in April. In 1986, a law was passed that shifted the starting date of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987. The ending date of daylight time was not subject to such changes, and remained the last Sunday in October. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed both the starting and ending dates. Beginning in 2007, daylight time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

For a very readable account of the history of standard and daylight time in the U.S., see

Ian R. Bartky and Elizabeth Harrison: "Standard and Daylight-saving Time", Scientific American, May 1979 (Vol. 240, No. 5), pp. 46-53.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and a wonderful map about all daylight-times all over the world you might find here

my rule of thumb (after years of changing my clocks the wrong way round):

spring ahead,

fall back

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chrome 12 Will Drop Support for Google Gears

2011-03-12T18:33:00.020-05:00

source: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/03/chrome-12-drops-support-for-google.html

While most Chrome users have been upgraded to Chrome 10, Google is fixing the bugs from Chrome 11 and working on Chrome 12. A recent Chromium build made a significant change: Gears is no longer included in Google Chrome.

Gears is a browser plugin released by Google back in 2007, The initial goal was to add support for offline web apps, but the plugin added many other HTML5 features at a time when HTML5 wasn't a priority for most browsers. Google discontinued Gears last year to focus on "bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5" and to implement them in Google Chrome. Features like geolocation, notifications, web workers, application caches are already available in Google Chrome, so it's probably the right time to stop bundling the Gears plugin.

"With all this now available in HTML5, it's finally time to say goodbye to Gears. There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12,"informs Google.

What's surprising is that important services like Gmail and Google Calendar still use Gears to work offline. Other services like Google Docs and Google Reader dropped offline support last year. Google promised that they will use HTML5 features implemented in browsers like Chrome or Firefox, but that hasn't materialized yet.

Related Links by Google
What's New in Chrome 10?
7 Chrome Annoyances and How to Fix Them
9 Things to Try in Google Chrome 9
Enable the Default Web Apps in Chrome 8

Posted by Alex Chitu at 3/12/2011 09:52:00 AM

some books about Google:

Current Situation in Japan

2011-03-12T18:01:00.005-05:00

source: http://answers.usa.gov/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1000&PARTITION_ID=1&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&USERTYPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTRY=US&ARTICLE_ID=13048

Immediate Assistance/Information

The most current information and announcements on the situation in Japan is available directly from the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs.

On Friday, March 11 (Thursday, March 10, in most of the U.S.), an earthquake with preliminary magnitude 8.9 occurred near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. The earthquake generated tsunamis in multiple coastal areas. Aftershocks of varying intensity continue, and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) continues to issue tsunami warnings and advisories as conditions dictate.
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) recommended the immediate evacuation of people living within 20 kilometers of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Okumacho. Japanese authorities confirmed that the situation remains serious. U.S. citizens in the Fukushima Prefecture should follow NISA instructions to evacuate and comply with Japanese government personnel on the ground.
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued a Travel Alert recommending that Americans consider avoiding tourism and non-essential travel to Japan. Temporary shortages of food and water may occur, utilities and transportation are disrupted, particularly in affected areas. Rolling power outages began on March 14, and a schedule is available from local media. U.S. Armed Forces Radio (810 AM)and InterFM (76.1 FM) broadcast emergency information in English.

U.S. Citizens Currently in Japan
The DOS recommends that Americans always carry their U.S. passport and other travel documents and identification at all times, or secure these in a safe, waterproof location. You should also contact friends and family in the United States with updates about your whereabouts. U.S. citizens in Japan are also encouraged to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). Citizens without Internet access may enroll directly with the American Citizen Services (ACS) section of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo at +81 (3)3224.5000. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy/Consulates to contact them in case of emergency.

Concerned Citizens/Family Members
U.S. citizens or family members concerned for the safety of U.S. citizens in Japan may e-mail the DOS atJapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov. You may also call 1.888.407.4747 in the U.S. and Canada, or 1.202.501.4444 for callers outside the U.S. and Canada. So that they may properly address your inquiry, please be sure to provide your full name and contact information, and as much information as possible about the person you are inquiring about. This includes their address, hotel name, and any other known contact information within Japan. The DOS also encourages you to use SMS texting and other social media used by your loved ones.
If you are calling about someone outside of Japan, who may be in the tsunami alert area, please contact the DOS at PacificTsunamiUSC@state.gov. You may also call the phone numbers listed above for information.
For general information, please consult the Country Specific Information (CSI) document on Japan.

Additional Resources:

U.S. Embassy, Japan: Warden Notices

White House: The Earthquake in Japan and Tsunami Preparedness

Physics: Radiation

Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs

International Issues of Interest to U.S. Citizens

International Travel: Crisis Preparedness

Locating an American Citizen Abroad

DOS: Warden Notification System

Post-earthquake imagery of Japan

2011-03-12T18:00:00.002-05:00

source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/post-earthquake-imagery-of-japan.html

3/12/2011 05:28:00 PM

(Cross-posted from the LatLong Blog)

In response to the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan, we’ve worked with our satellite imagery providers to get the latest available data of the areas affected most.

To view this high-resolution imagery, courtesy of our partners at GeoEye, download this KML file and explore it in Google Earth. You can also explore the imagery with Google Maps, or have a look at this Picasa album of before-and-after shots. Here’s a sample:

Before and after the earthquake and tsunami. Above is Yuriage in Natori, below is Yagawahama; both are in Miyagi prefecture. High-resolution version of this photo.

We’re working to provide this data directly to response organizations on the ground to aid their efforts. We hope this new updated satellite imagery is valuable for them as well as everyone else following this situation to help illustrate the extent of the damage.

You can find more information regarding the disaster and resources for those in need at our Crisis Response page in English and Japanese. You can also follow @earthoutreach on Twitter to stay up to date with our mapping and imagery efforts.

Posted by Ryan Falor, Google Crisis Response team

Block Sites from Google's Results

2011-03-11T18:00:00.016-05:00

source: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/03/block-sites-from-googles-results.html

You no longer have to use Google's Chrome extension to hide the results from certain domains. The feature is now available at google.com and the best thing is that the list of blocked sites is saved to your Google Account.

To try this feature, make sure that you are using google.com in English. Click on a search result, then go back to the list of results. You'll notice that there's a new link next to the result you've just clicked: "block all [domain.tld] results".

If you block an entire domain, you'll no longer see results from that site. You'll only notice a small box at the bottom of the search results page which informs you that you've blocked certain results.

There's also a page that lets you manage your blacklist and manually block sites. "Sites will be blocked only for you, but Google may use everyone's blocking information to improve the ranking of search results overall. You may block up to 500 sites."

As Barry Schwarz points out, blocking sites is not a novelty: in 2005, Google tested a similar option. "If you're in this experiment, you'll have newfound powers. Click the 'Remove result' link and with one click you can drop that url from your search results. By default, it will only block that url for that particular search. If you're really annoyed, you can click 'More options' and you'll get two more choices: block this url from all future searches and the ability to block the entire host from all future searches," explained Matt Cutts at that time. The experiment wasn't successful, but Google partially resurrected this feature in SearchWiki: you could only hide a search result for a specific query.

I think that blocking an entire site from Google's results is a feature that's way too powerful for a regular user. Some might use it accidentally and find that Google's results are suddenly less relevant. Google could add a link for explicit feedback ("Not useful?") and use that information to personalize search results.

Related Links by Google
Google Translate's Beatbox Easter Egg
Google Body Browser
Google Docs to Add Preview Pane, Music Player, Collections
Email Alerts for Google Scholar

Posted by Alex Chitu at 3/11/2011 10:35:00 AM

some books about Google:

Person Finder: 2011 Japan Earthquake

2011-03-11T14:27:00.003-05:00

and

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Hide sites to find more of what you want

2011-03-10T15:38:00.006-05:00

source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hide-sites-to-find-more-of-what-you.html

Over the years we’ve experimented with a number of ways to help you personalize the results you find on Google, from SearchWiki to stars in search to location settings. Now there’s yet another way to find more of what you want on Google by blocking the sites you don’t want to see.

You’ve probably had the experience where you’ve clicked a result and it wasn’t quite what you were looking for. Many times you’ll head right back to Google. Perhaps the result just wasn’t quite right, but sometimes you may dislike the site in general, whether it’s offensive, pornographic or of generally low quality. For times like these, you’ll start seeing a new option to block particular domains from your future search results. Now when you click a result and then return to Google, you’ll find a new link next to “Cached” that reads “Block all example.com results.”

As always, Matt’s been gracious enough to let us use him as an example. His site is awesome, though, and we doubt many people will want to block it!

Once you click the link to “Block all example.com results” you’ll get a confirmation message, as well as the option to undo your choice. You’ll see the link whether or not you’re signed in, but the domains you block are connected with your Google Account, so you’ll need to sign in before you can confirm a block.

Once you’ve blocked a domain, you won’t see it in your future search results. (Side note: Sometimes you may have to search on a new term, rather than simply refreshing your browser, before you'll notice the domain has been successfully removed.) The next time you’re searching and a blocked page would have appeared, you’ll see a message telling you results have been blocked, making it easy to manage your personal list of blocked sites. This message will appear at the top or bottom of the results page depending on the relevance of the blocked pages.

You can see a list of your blocked sites in a new settings page, which you can access by visiting your Search Settings or clicking on the “Manage blocked sites” link that appears when you block a domain. On the settings page you can find details about the sites you’ve blocked, block new sites, or unblock sites if you’ve changed your mind.

We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google. In addition, while we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future. The new feature is rolling out today and tomorrow on google.com in English for people using Chrome 9+, IE8+ and Firefox 3.5+, and we’ll be expanding to new regions, languages and browsers soon. We hope you find it useful, and we’ll be listening closely to your suggestions.

Posted by Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang, Search Quality Engineers

some books about Google:

Gmail Smart Labels

2011-03-09T23:39:00.001-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

Gmail Labs has a new feature for organizing your messages: Smart Labels. Many people create filters that label messages from mailing lists, newsletters, so Google decided to use artificial intelligence algorithms to categorize messages. Right now, there are only three smart labels: bulk (for newsletters), notifications (for confirmation messages, alerts) and forums (for mailing lists). By default, all the messages labeled as "bulk" are automatically archived, but you can change this setting.

"Smart Labels play nice with other labels and filters too. On the Filters tab under Settings, you'll find that these filters can be edited just like any others. From there, you can also edit your existing filters to avoid having them Smart Labeled or change whether mail in a Smart Label skips your inbox," explains Google.

In fact, when you create a filter, Google shows an additional option: category. You can choose from: bulk, forums, notifications, personal, promotions. The first three categories already have corresponding smart labels and all the messages classified as "promotions" are labeled "bulk". The "personal" category includes the rest of your messages.

Google's categorization algorithms aren't perfect, so you may find messages that don't belong to one of three categories, but they're labeled as "notifications" or "bulk". Use the "labels" drop-down to remove the labels that are incorrectly added and help Google improve its algorithms.

Google Docs Brings Back Details View

2011-03-09T23:25:00.002-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

The latest design refresh of the Google Docs homepage added many useful features, but also made some controversial changes. Google decided to hide useful information like the last modified date and the list of collaborators from the list view because it was available in the sidebar.

If you missed the old interface, you can now switch to the details view and see some additional information next to the filename.

There's also a small icon that lets you temporarily hide the sidebar. For some reason, Google Docs doesn't permanently hide the sidebar when you click on the arrows.

some books about Google:

What's New in Chrome 10?

2011-03-09T23:17:00.004-05:00

Google Chrome 10 is ready for primetime and it comes with a surprising number of new features. Here are some of them:

1. The Options dialog is now a web page that opens in a new tab. Chrome has one less modal dialog and the new Options page is better suited for netbooks. Another advantage is that each section of the Options page has a permalink that can be bookmarked.

Even if Chrome doesn't have too many customizable settings, there's a search box that lets you quickly find an option. Try searching for "cookies" and you'll notice that Chrome finds settings that aren't immediately obvious.

2. You can now change the default page zoom value. Go to the Options page and select "Under the hood" (or paste chrome://settings/advanced in the address bar) and change the "page zoom" value. The default value is 100%, but you can pick values like120% or 144%, which are useful if you want to connect your computer to a TV.

3. The same section of the Options page lets you change the minimum font size. Click "customize fonts" and choose one of the values that are available for the minimum font size.

4. Synchronize passwords and use them from any computer, as long as you can install Google Chrome. The new option is not enabled by default and it requires your confirmation before saving your passwords to your Google Account. There's even an extra security feature that lets you choose a custom encryption passphrase, so that your passwords are safe even if someone guesses your Google Account password. For advanced features and cross-browser functionality, try LastPass.

5. Reorder the apps from the new tab page using drag and drop. This option was available for the frequently visited pages and you can now use it to change the order of your favorite apps.

6. A new version of V8, Chrome's JavaScript engine, includes a better compilation infrastructure codenamed Crankshaft. "By using aggressive optimizations, Crankshaft dramatically improves the performance of compute-intensive JavaScript applications - often by more than a factor of two! This will give users a faster and more responsive experience loading web pages and applications built with complex JavaScript."

7. Chrome 10 comes with hardware acceleration for Web videos. "Traditionally, web browsers relied entirely on the CPU to render web page content. With capable GPUs becoming an integral part of even the smallest of devices and with rich media such as video and 3D graphics playing an increasingly important role to the web experience, attention has turned on finding ways to make more effective utilization of the underlying hardware to achieve better performance and power savings. There's clear indication that getting the GPU directly involved with compositing the contents of a web page can result in very significant speedups. The largest gains are to be had from eliminating unecessary (and very slow) copies of large data, especially copies from video memory to system memory. The most obvious candidates for such for such optimizations are the "video" element and the WebGL canvas, both of which can generate their results in areas of memory that that CPU doesn't have fast access to," explains Google.

Test GPU acceleration for videos at YouTube's HTML5 site. Adobe Flash 10.2 also added full GPU acceleration for videos and YouTube is one of the sites that support this feature, so you can compare Flash 10.2 videos and HTML5 videos to see which version uses less processing power.

8. Chrome 10 for Windows finally sandboxes the built-in Adobe Flash plugin. This is one of the reasons why Google decided to bundle the plugin with Chrome.

9. If you didn't like Gmail's notification feature because it didn't work when you closed Chrome, you'll find it much more useful when Gmail's app adds support for background pages, a feature that's now available in Chrome. "Apps and extensions that use the new background feature can continue to run in the background — even if the user closes down all of Chrome's windows. Background apps will continue to run until Chrome exits. The next time Chrome starts up, any background windows that were previously running will also be re-launched. These windows are not going to be visible but they will be able to perform tasks like checking for server-side changes and pre-emptively loading content into local storage," explains Google.

When you install the first app or extension that supports backgrounding (like this one), Chrome adds a new icon to the system tray (Windows and Linux) and a new entry in the context menu of the Chrome icon from the Dock (Mac). The new icon and context menu entry let you go to a background app, open the task manger or the options page.

10. Chrome disables certain outdated plugins by default and provides an option to update to the latest version. Popular software like Adobe Reader, Java or Apple QuickTime have many security vulnerabilities that are frequently exploited in the wild because users don't install the versions that fix these issues.

Speedier, simpler and safer: Chrome’s basics get even better

2011-03-09T23:07:00.001-05:00

from Google Chrome Blog by Google Chrome Blog

Just three weeks ago, we kicked off the Year of the Rabbit with a speedy Chrome beta. Today, we’re excited to bring these speed improvements and more to everyone using Chrome. With today’s stable release, even your most complex web apps will run more quickly and responsively in the browser. (For the curious, this boost corresponds to a 66% improvement in JavaScript performance on the V8 benchmark suite.)

We realize that speed isn’t just about pure brawn in the browser—it’s also about saving time with simple interfaces. Chrome’s new settings interface will help you get to the right settings quickly so you don’t have to dig endlessly to find a way to import your bookmarks or change your browser’s homepage. We’ve added a search box that shows you the settings you’re looking for, as you type. On top of that, you can also copy and paste a direct link into Chrome’s address bar to jump to a specific settings page. (No more long, frustrating phone conversations with your dad on where to find that specific setting in the browser!) Here’s the new settings interface in action:

For those of you who save your passwords in the browser, you can now quickly log on to the websites you frequent even when you switch computers, by simply synchronizing those passwords across your computers. You can also encrypt those passwords with your own secret passphrase for extra security. To enable syncon each of your computers, visit the “Personal Stuff” section in Chrome’s settings (or just type “sync” in the settings search box). You can also choose to sync bookmarks, extensions, preferences, themes and more.

Finally, you’ll be even safer as you speed around the web, as we’ve extended Chrome’s sandboxing technology to the integrated Flash Player in Chrome. So if you’re using Windows Vista or newer versions, you’ll benefit from the additional layer of protection against malicious webpages. To learn more about sandboxing, check out this animated video:

We hope that Chrome’s speed, simplicity and security will continue to make your daily life on the web more enjoyable. You can download the browser at google.com/chrome, or if you’re already using Chrome, you’ll be automatically updated to this new version soon!

Posted by Tim Steele, Software Engineer

some books about Google:

Google's New Snippets for Twitter Pages

2011-03-09T23:01:00.000-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

Google tests a new feature that replaces the snippets for Twitter account pages with the most recent message and a small thumbnail. For some reason, Google doesn't show the most recent tweet from Lady Gaga despite being sent three days ago.

With the advent of rich snippets, Plus Boxes and real-time information that enhances snippets, Google tries to show even more useful information to help you decide if a result is relevant and to quickly answer the most obvious questions.

Anna Graceman

2011-03-05T06:37:00.003-05:00

:::Standing Ovations::: to this awesome young lady

she has a website of her own too

Google Chrome Beta has a new Options Interface

2011-03-04T06:37:00.025-05:00

with a lot of nice features - a brief overview:

and lots of useful features added like synchronize your saved passwords across multiple computers, along with your bookmarks, preferences, themes, and extensions.

how to enable or disable sync you find here

read more about the new Chrome Beta here

get Chrome Beta here

some books about Google:

Reintroduced Animal Cruelty Bill Meets Strong Opposition

2011-03-04T06:37:00.008-05:00

Alley Cat Allies calls on supporters to oppose dangerous legislation that would permit the shooting of feral animals in rural areas of Utah.
Posted: March 4, 2011, 3:00 a.m. EST

Alley Cat Allies urges supporters to contact their lawmakers to stop House Bill 210, which would legalize the shooting of feral animals in rural areas of the state.

Alley Cat Allies, the national advocate for stray and feral cats, recently renewed calls to oppose legislation that would legalize the shooting of cats in Utah.

Utah House Bill 210 was amended on the floor of the Utah House of Representatives, after the House Judiciary Committee removed earlier language that allowed for the shooting or killing of cats when that version was criticized for endorsing animal cruelty.
The amended version would still permit the shooting of cats in rural areas of the state. Feral cats are currently protected under Utah anti-cruelty law.
“This dangerous legislation imperils the lives of all cats—pet, stray and feral,” said Becky Robinson, president of Alley Cat Allies. “It is barbaric and essentially declares ‘open season’ on any outdoor cat.”
According to Alley Cat Allies, feral cats are domestic cats, but unlike pets, they are not socialized to people and are therefore unadoptable. Numerous communities across the United States have adopted Trap-Neuter-Return as official policy for feral cats after decades of the failure of catch and kill.
“Feral cats exist in every landscape—from rural to urban,” said Robinson. “Feral cats are not a threat to people—in fact, they are just as healthy as pet cats. It is irrational, dangerous, and in direct opposition to society’s values to endorse shooting cats.”
Robinson further stated that all cats are protected under anti-cruelty statutes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
“Anti-cruelty laws have existed for over a hundred years to protect animals and our communities from violent people,” she said.
Alley Cat Allies urges supporters to contact their lawmakers to stop House Bill 210 by visiting the Alley Cat Allies website. To learn more about how feral cats are protected under anti-cruelty laws, click here.
To read House Bill 210, click here.

article found here

Walk-Score

2011-03-02T14:17:00.001-05:00

found this site today: Walk Score

you can test your address for "ease of running errands on foot (and by public transportation)"

my "walk score" tells "car dependent" though... in spite I use the bus and walk a lot

check out your walk-score here:

Daylight Saving Time Around the World 2011

2011-03-01T20:03:00.002-05:00

USA & Canada: March 13 - November 6
European Union: March 27 - October 30

source: http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/2011.html

FractalFoundation.org

2011-03-01T17:53:00.001-05:00

FractalFoundation.org

many more stunning fractals!!!

New Scientist TV: Travel into 3D fractals

2011-03-01T17:47:00.001-05:00

New Scientist TV: Travel into 3D fractals

just beautiful!!!

Picasa Web's New Homepage

2011-03-01T16:49:00.004-05:00

Picasa Web's homepage has been redesigned to emphasize the photos recently uploaded by the people you're following. The homepage no longer displays all your albums, so you'll only be able to see the most recent 8 albums.

"This new design centers around photos that are interesting to you. We wanted to give you faster access to the newest photos from your family and friends along with some great photos from the talented Picasa community. When you log in to Picasa Web Albums, you will not only see your own albums, but albums that have been shared with you, the latest public albums from people you follow, and featured photos from the Picasa community right on your home page," explains Google's Ping Chen.

While "recent activity" has always been a section on the homepage, now you can no ignore it. YouTube's homepage has recently switched to a feed view, a stream of activities popularized by Facebook.

If you don't like the new homepage, bookmark this URL:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos or click "My Photos" when visiting the homepage.

It's bananas! Fruit gets a second skin with Del Monte packaging

2011-03-01T15:01:00.001-05:00

Mother Nature may have thought she came up with the perfect packaging for the banana, but the man from Del Monte has other ideas.

The company has taken the view the yellow skin is not quite enough, and will sell individually-wrapped bananas at petrol stations, convenience stores, leisure centres and gyms.

The Del Monte bananas will be marketed under the slogan ‘Natural Energy Snack on the Go’.

Gmail back soon for everyone - Official Gmail Blog

2011-02-28T23:24:00.002-05:00

Posted by Ben Treynor, VP Engineering and Site Reliability Czar (24x7)

Imagine the sinking feeling of logging in to your Gmail account and finding it empty. That’s what happened to 0.02% of Gmail users yesterday, and we’re very sorry. The good news is that email was never lost and we’ve restored access for many of those affected. Though it may take longer than we originally expected, we're making good progress and things should be back to normal for everyone soon.

I know what some of you are thinking: how could this happen if we have multiple copies of your data, in multiple data centers? Well, in some rare instances software bugs can affect several copies of the data. That’s what happened here. Some copies of mail were deleted, and we’ve been hard at work over the last 30 hours getting it back for the people affected by this issue.

To protect your information from these unusual bugs, we also back it up to tape. Since the tapes are offline, they’re protected from such software bugs. But restoring data from them also takes longer than transferring your requests to another data center, which is why it’s taken us hours to get the email back instead of milliseconds.

So what caused this problem? We released a storage software update that introduced the unexpected bug, which caused 0.02% of Gmail users to temporarily lose access to their email. When we discovered the problem, we immediately stopped the deployment of the new software and reverted to the old version.

As always, we’ll post a detailed incident report outlining what happened to the Apps Status Dashboard, as well as the corrective actions we’re taking to help prevent it from occurring again. If you were affected by this issue, it’s important to note that email sent to you between 6:00 PM PST on February 27 and 2:00 PM PST on February 28 was likely not delivered to your mailbox, and the senders would have received a notification that their messages weren’t delivered.

Thanks for bearing with us as we fix this, and sorry again for the scare.

Update (3/1/11, 12:20 PM PST): Data for the remaining 0.012% of affected users has been successfully restored from tapes and is now being processed. We plan to begin moving data into mailboxes in 2 hours, and in the hours that follow users will regain access to their data. Accounts with more mail will take more time. Thanks for bearing with us.

Update (3/2/11, 10:55 PM PST): Gmail should be back to normal for the vast majority of people affected by this issue. If you are still experiencing issues, please contact us at the temporary alias we've set up for this particular issue, gmail-maintenance@google.com. Thanks again for bearing with us.

Store More Photos and Videos in Picasa Web Albums

2011-02-26T23:56:00.004-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

You've probably noticed that Picasa Web's storage counter shows that you have more free space than a couple of days ago. It turns out that this is not a bug.

"We recently made a change whereby any pictures 800 pixels and under don't count towards used PWA storage. The new GB numbers you're seeing are the result of quota recalculations that were made," informs a Google employee.

The new feature encourages users to upload smaller images. If you use Picasa to upload your photos, there's a setting that lets you pick the dimensions of the photos that are uploaded. The "small" option is recommended "for publishing images on blogs and webpages". Blogger users who resize their photos before uploading them will no longer have to buy extra storage if they're prolific.

Another important change is that "all videos under 15 minutes also don't count towards used PWA storage". That means you can now upload short videos to Picasa Web Albums without worrying about the file size.

Google Docs, Image Search and Copyright

2011-02-25T23:58:00.003-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

Google Docs lets you pick Image Search results and add them to your documents. That's a good thing, but this feature could have been better thought out.

Google restricts the results to images licensed as Creative Commons that can be used commercially and that can also be modified. These restrictions aren't always necessary, since not all documents are used for business purposes. Google also recommends to "only select images that you have confirmed that you have the license to use", but it doesn't link to the pages that included the images. Google doesn't even include a small caption next to the image with links to the Creative Commons license and the original web page.

While this feature makes it easy to add image search results to your documents, it doesn't encourage users to visit the web pages that embedded the images or to give credit to the image creators because it's quite difficult to find these pages. You need to visit Google Image Search, type your query, restrict the results to images "labeled for commercial reuse with modification" and find the image you've previously picked. That's a lot of unnecessary work.

some books about Google:

New ways to experience better collaboration with Google Apps

2011-02-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

from Official Google Blog by A Googler

The Google Apps collaboration tools have steadily and swiftly improved over the last couple years, and many companies have found that Google Docs and Google Sites are faster, simpler and more powerful than traditional software for the majority of common tasks, especially tasks where people need to work efficiently together. Today, we’re launching two new initiatives to help more people experience the productivity benefits of web-powered collaboration.

First, Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available worldwide. This plugin for Microsoft Office is available to anyone with a Google Account, and brings multi-person collaboration to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that you may still need from time to time. The plugin syncs your work through Google’s cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time. Learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration will help more people make a faster transition to 100% web collaboration tools.

We’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program, a way for companies that currently use cumbersome legacy systems to see how web-powered tools help their teams work together more effectively. A nominal fee covers 90-day access to Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Cloud Connect and more, as well as assistance from Google experts to help coworkers quickly become more productive together. And companies trying Google Apps can use the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps control panel to assess the value of our tools. The dashboard provides data on how people are using Apps to collaborate more efficiently without the hassles of document versions, check-in/check-out or attachments.

If you’re curious how your company could become more agile, efficient and innovative with better tools for teams to work together, read more about these updates on the Google Enterprise Blog.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

some books about Google:

Picasa Web's Multiple File Uploader

2011-02-24T00:00:00.002-05:00

from Google Operating System by Alex Chitu

Picasa Web Albums has finally improved the uploading feature. You can now select multiple images from a folder and upload all of them. After uploading images, you can add captions and delete the images you don't like. It's a long overdue improvement that's especially important if you don't use Picasa.

Another change is that you can now upload videos without installing Picasa.

Picasa Web's new uploader uses HTML5 APIs, so it's not available in Internet Explorer, where you still have to install an ActiveX control.

Speech technology at Google: teaching machines to talk and listen

2011-02-22T00:04:00.001-05:00

from Official Google Blog by A Googler

This is the latest post in our series profiling entrepreneurial Googlers working on products across the company and around the world. Here, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how one Googler built an entire R&D team around voice technology that has gone on to power products like YouTube transcriptions and Voice Search. - Ed.

When I first interviewed at Google during the summer of 2004, mobile was just making its way onto the company’s radar. My passion was speech technology, the field in which I’d already worked for 20 years. After 10 years of speech research at SRI, followed by 10 years helping build Nuance Communications, the company I co-founded in 1994, I was ready for a new challenge. I felt that mobile was an area ripe for innovation, with a need for speech technology, and destined to be a key platform for delivery of services.

During my interview, I shared my desire to pursue the mobile space and mentioned that if Google didn’t have any big plans for mobile, then I probably wouldn’t be a good fit for the company. Well, I got the job, and I started soon after, without a team or even a defined role. In classic Google fashion, I was encouraged to explore the company, learn about what various teams were working on and figure out what was needed.

After a few months, I presented an idea to senior management to build a telephone-based spoken interface to local search. Although there was a diversity of opinion at the meeting about what applications made the most sense for Google, all agreed that I should start to build a team focused on speech technology. With help from a couple of Google colleagues who also had speech backgrounds, I began recruiting, and within a few months people were busily building our own speech recognition system.

Six years later, I’m excited by how far we’ve come and, in turn, how our long-term goals have expanded. When I started, I had to sell other teams on the value of speech technology to Google's mission. Now, I’m constantly approached by other teams with ideas and needs for speech. The biggest challenge is scaling our effort to meet the opportunities. We've advanced from GOOG-411, our first speech-driven service, to Voice Search,Voice Input, Voice Actions, a Voice API for Android developers, automatic captioning of YouTube videos,automatic transcription of voicemail for Google Voice and speech-to-speech translation, amongst others. In the past year alone, we’ve ported our technology to more than 20 languages.

Speech technology requires an enormous amount of data to feed our statistical models and lots of computing power to train our systems—and Google is the ideal place to pursue such technical approaches. With large amounts of data, computing power and an infrastructure focused on supporting large-scale services, we’re encouraged to launch quickly and iterate based on real-time feedback.

I’ve been exploring speech technology for nearly three decades, yet I see huge potential for further innovation. We envision a comprehensive interface for voice and text communication that defies all barriers of modality and language and makes information truly universally accessible. And it’s here at Google that I think we have the best chance to make this future a reality.

Update 9:39 PM: Changed title of post to clarify that speech technology is not only used on mobile phones but also for transcription tasks like YouTube captioning and voicemail transcription. -Ed.

Posted by Mike Cohen, Manager, Speech Technology

some books about Google:

12 new file formats in the Google Docs Viewer

2011-02-18T00:06:00.002-05:00

from Official Gmail Blog by The Gmail Team
Posted by: Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager

The Google Docs Viewer is used by millions of people every day to quickly view PDFs, Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint presentations online. Not only is viewing files in your browser far more secure than downloading and opening them locally, but it also saves time and doesn’t clutter up your hard-drive with unwanted files.

Today we’re excited to launch support for 12 new file types:

Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX)
Apple Pages (.PAGES)
Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
TrueType (.TTF)
XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

Not only does this round out support for the major Microsoft Office file types (we now support DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS and XLSX), but it also adds quick viewing capabilities for many of the most popular and highly-requested document and image types.

In Gmail, these types of attachments will now show a “View” link, and clicking on this link will bring up the Google Docs Viewer.

You can also upload and share these files in Google Docs, so that anyone can view the content using their browser.

And as always, the Google Docs Viewer is available for use on any website, with both a full Chrome and embedded option. More information can be found here.

some books about Google:

Email delegation: Granting access to your Gmail account - Official Gmail Blog

2010-12-14T23:28:00.002-05:00

I use two Gmail accounts: one is my personal account and the other I share with my family (we use it to subscribe to groups like my children's classroom mailing list). Checking these two different accounts used to mean I had to sign out and back in to Gmail all the time. Not anymore. Instead, I can grant my personal account access to my shared family account and view, organize and send mail on behalf of our shared account.

We've offered email delegation for Google Apps accounts for a while — it's super useful for people who want their assistants to have access to read or respond to mail on their behalf. Now this functionality is available for anyone using Gmail. To grant access to another account, click the Settings link in the top right corner of Gmail. On the "Accounts" tab, you'll see a new section where you can "Grant access to your account." For example, below we've given hikingfan@gmail.com access to the hikingfanfamily@gmail.com account.

From Pawgang's news

The account you add will get a verification email with links to accept or deny access. Once the account accepts and you've refreshed your browser or logged in and out again, you'll see a small down arrow beside the email address at the top right corner of Gmail which can be used to toggle between accounts — in this case hikingfan@gmail.com and hikingfanfamily@gmail.com.

From Pawgang's news

Each account will open in a different browser tab or window so you can view both accounts simultaneously, all while signed into your primary account. When you send a message from hikingfanfamily@gmail.com while signed in as hikingfan@gmail.com, it will appear as being sent by hikingfan@gmail.com on behalf of hikingfanfamily@gmail.com.

From Pawgang's news

Signing out of any one of the accounts will sign you out of all the accounts you're currently viewing, and, of course, you can revoke access at any time.

source cited: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/email-delegation-granting-access-to.html

Event time zones in Google Calendar - Official Gmail Blog

2010-12-07T23:32:00.001-05:00

Posted by Oleksandr Kyreiev, Software Engineer

Dealing with time zones can be a headache. Whether you’re a regular traveler or trying to plan ahead for your weekend in Paris, it’s often difficult to keep track of time differences. We’ve heard your feedback and are pleased to announce a new addition to Google Calendar: event time zones.

With event time zones, you can specify the time zone for a given event. So when you’re home in Florida, you can more easily set up dinner with your friend in Paris for the following week. Events will appear on your calendar according to the current time zone you’re in, and when you change to your destination time zone they’ll be in the right place. Just click the “Time zone” link to the right of the date and time fields on the event page. You can even set up events which start in one time zone and end in another, ideal for those of you who fly often.

New in Labs: Recently used emoji - Official Gmail Blog

2010-11-30T23:36:00.001-05:00

Posted by Darren Lewis, Software Engineer

When we added emoticons in Gmail, you responded with a nice big smile , but then you asked for more. So we added hundreds more emoticons through Gmail Labs. “But alas!” you cried. “How can I ever keep up with so many different choices? I am overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of emotion , amusement , and cute animals that Gmail has to offer." Well, don’t despair, fine purveyor of emoticons. There is now a solution: “Recently Used Emoji” in Gmail Labs, which keeps track of the ten most recent emoticons you’ve used, and saves them for easy access. To turn it on, just visit the Labs tab of Gmail Settings.

No more searching through dozens of cat faces for the one that says, “I miss you, but I’m still ambivalent about our weekend plans.” You can now triumph over the plethora of emoticons, and easily add a pile of emotion to any email that you choose — let us know how it goes.

New in Labs: Auto-advance to the next conversation - Official Gmail Blog

2010-10-26T23:38:00.002-04:00

Posted by Bruce DiBello, Software Engineer

Today, whenever you open an email in your Gmail inbox and then archive or delete it, you’re taken back to your inbox. Many of you have asked for the ability to instead go to the next conversation. Keyboard ninjas will already be familiar with the “]” and “[“ keyboard shortcuts for archiving and going to the next/previous conversation. For everyone else (and for people who frequently mute or delete conversations rather than archive them) we’re offering a new feature in Gmail Labs called “Auto-advance,” which automatically opens the next conversation after you archive/delete/mute the one you’re on.

To get started with “Auto-advance” go to the Labs tab in Settings, enable it, and click the “Save changes” button. By default, “Auto-advance” will advance to the previous (older) conversation in your inbox -- perfect for people who read their newest mail first. If you usually read your oldest email first and would rather advance to the next (newer) conversation, you can change the direction from theGeneral Settings tab.

Hopefully this will save you some time the next time you have to deal with a crowded inbox. Try it out and let us know what you think.

some books about Google:

Turn off Gmail’s conversation view - Official Gmail Blog

2010-09-29T23:40:00.002-04:00

The way Gmail organizes mail into conversations is like cilantro. You either love it -- and, like me, enjoy the nice citrusy, herbal finish it gives to everything from salsa to curry -- or you hate it. And those of you who hate it hate it enough to launch sites like nocilantro.com and ihatecilantro.com(“an anti cilantro community”), where you can hate it together.

But my fondness for cilantro pales in comparison to my love for Gmail’s conversation view, or message threading. I haven’t had to wade through multiple messages to follow a conversation in years. A centithread hasn’t filled up the entire first page of my inbox in almost as long as I can remember. Having all the replies to an email (and replies to those replies) grouped with the original message simply makes communicating so much easier.

It turns out not everyone feels the same way. And just as an outspoken minority has banded together in unison to declare their distaste of one of nature’s most delicious herbs, some of you have been very vocal about your dislike of conversation threading. So just like you can order your baja fish tacos without cilantro, you can now get Gmail served up sans conversation view. Go to the main Settings page, look for the “Conversation View” section, select the option to turn it off, and save changes. If you change your mind, you can always go back.

From Pawgang's news

This feature will be rolling out over the next few days so if you don’t see it immediately, check back in a bit. And once you try it out, let us know what you think.

source cited: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/turn-off-gmails-conversation-view.html

Happy Birthday Google Chrome

2010-09-03T06:37:00.003-04:00

it's amazing, it's about 2 years, that I'm happily working with Google Chrome (Beta releases)

the google-chrome-blog-post dedicated to 2 years of Google Chrome below:

Back to the future: two years of Google Chrome

Thursday, September 2, 2010 | 7:20 AM

Watching the 1985 classic Back to the Future last night, I was struck by how much things can change with time. The main character Marty McFly travels 30 years back in time, only to find that his house hadn’t been built yet, skateboards hadn’t been invented and nobody had ever heard rock ‘n roll.

Looking back today on Chrome’s second anniversary, it’s amazing to see how much has changed in just a short time. In August 2008, JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn’t yet anessential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project. All browsers have come a long way in the last two years and the web has become much more fun and useful.

Happy 2nd birthday, Google Chrome!
(Illustration: Mike Lemanski, click image to expand)

Since Chrome’s first beta launch for Windows, we’ve brought our Mac and Linux versions up to speed, and continued to make the browser faster, simpler, and safer across all three platforms. We’ve also introduced a boatload of features, including a more customizable New Tab page,browser themes, side-by-side view, password manager, better privacy controls, built-in Adobe Flash Player, Autofill, automatic translation, HTML5 capabilities and synchronization of various settings such as bookmarks, themes, extensions and browser preferences—just to name a few. Finally, there are now more than 6,000 extensions in our gallery to enhance your browsing experience.

Behind the scenes, we continue to extend the security features that help you browse the web more safely. This includes Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology—which serves as a warning system if you’re about to visit a site suspected of phishing or hosting malware; Chrome’s auto-updatemechanism—which helps ensure that the browser is always up-to-date with the latest security updates; and the browser’s “sandbox”—an added layer of protection which prevents malicious code on an exploited website from infecting your computer.

The old Chrome: our very first beta!

Chrome now: Our brand new release today

Today, we’re releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and more streamlined. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance. We’ve also been working on simplifying the “chrome” of Chrome. As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes.

Sliding back into Doc Brown’s DeLorean and setting the dial ahead by a few months, we have more in store for Chrome. As always, we’re hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration. With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly.

If you haven’t tried Chrome recently, we invite you to download our new stable version today atgoogle.com/chrome. For those of you who have been using Chrome, thanks for a great second year! We hope that Chrome has made your life on the web even better, and look forward to the next year.

Life on the web, in the browser.
(Illustration: Jack Hudson, click image to expand)

Posted by Brian Rakowski, Product Manager

some books about Google:

Google Reader Full Feed Expands Truncated Feeds with a Keystroke [Downloads]

2010-04-23T20:35:00.002-04:00

Google Chrome: Lots of sites (including, unfortunately, us) have truncated RSS feeds, only allowing you to see a portion of their articles in your newsreader. If you prefer to read the full articles, this extension expands them in full inside Google Reader. More »

Earth Day turns 40: An animated tribute (Y! Green)

2010-04-23T13:41:00.001-04:00

(Y! Green): "Y! Green - 2010 marks the 40th celebration of Earth Day, a holiday that helped spark America's modern environmental movement when it was founded on April 22, 1970, by then-Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. Â Did you know that there are actually two Earth Days?"

IE Tab Classic Embeds Internet Explorer Into a Chrome Tab [Downloads]

2010-04-21T20:37:00.002-04:00

Windows only: Google Chrome extension IE Tab Classic loads up the Internet Explorer rendering engine into a tab, so you can access those IE-only web sites without leaving the comfort of the blazing fast Chrome browser. More »

Continent-Scale Weather Systems Made of Glass

2010-04-18T09:10:00.003-04:00

[Image: Photo by Arni Saeberg/Bloomberg].

One of many things interesting to me about the ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland is the fact that it has generated a new weather system made of glass: its own 'maelstrom of microscopic volcanic glass shards' that liquify and go molten inside passing airplane engines, causing failure.

If you had told me, though, that a new science fiction novel had just come out featuring a planet on which vast turbulent structures of glass fly through the global atmosphere, posing a dire threat to machinery and drifting across whole continents in a kind of low-intensity storm of aerosolized crystal, I would, naively, never have assumed that such a thing might also be possible here on earth. The speculative climatology of alien worlds.

[Image: Photo by AP Photo/Brynjar Gaudi].

But, perhaps, if airplane engines are built to fly through air—i.e. not through glass, dust, rocks, or geology—today's airplanes should be temporarily retrofitted with tunneling equipment under each wing, jury-rigged Herrenknecht machines to drill a new infrastructure of hovering tunnels through the glass-thundering skies of northern Europe.

Did You Know?

2010-04-17T19:38:00.001-04:00

Did You Know?

Bottled water might be packaged to look clean and natural, but it is not necessarily better for the environment. The amount of energy it takes to make, fill, ship and dispose of every 4- to 16-ounce bottle of water far outweighs its hydrating benefits.

Eco-friendly Tip: Use a Reusable Tote

2010-04-14T19:39:00.001-04:00

Eco-friendly Tip: Use a Reusable Tote

Every year, every man, woman and child in the country uses approximately 360 plastic bags. That's about 100 billion bags per year! Reduce plastic bag waste and carry your groceries in a reusable tote.

Vehicle Idling = Public Urination, says Canadian PSA (Check Out the Video) [Updated]

2010-04-13T14:38:00.001-04:00

Image: Youtube

Disturbing but Memorable
If you want people to notice your public service announcement, you could do worse than showing grown men and women peeing in public (on sidewalks, inside stores, etc). This is exactly what an environmental group from Canada did in an ad that they produced for their anti-idling campaign. Check out t...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Brazil Man Jailed for Murder of Nun And Activist Dorothy Stang

2010-04-13T14:36:00.002-04:00

photo via flickr

Vitalmiro Bastos Moura, a Brazilian rancher, has been convicted of contracting for the murder of US nun Dorothy Stang in 2005 and was sentenced to 30 years in jail. Moura, also known as Bida, ordered the killing of Sister Dorothy after she blocked ranchers from taking over land in the Amazon granted to them by the government. Sister Dorothy was a long-time activist working to stop deforestation and exploitation of native peoples. She was 73 at her death....Read the full story on TreeHugger

FDA Finally Looking At Endocrine Disruptor Triclosan

2010-04-12T14:40:00.002-04:00

Products containing Triclosan

Four years ago, John wrote There's A Frog Disruptor In My Soap, noting that 'Triclosan, widely used in soaps and toothpastes for its ability to kill bacteria, has been found to hasten the transformation of tadpoles into adult frogs.' A year ago we wrote about a petition to the Food and Drug Administration to get rid of the stuff, because it probably does more harm than good.

Finally, it ap...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Funky Bunky Is Garden Shed on.....Something

2010-04-12T14:39:00.002-04:00

Brad Moon, The Geek Dad at Wired, discovers the FunkyBunky, noting that 'one of these colourful and playfully deranged buildings would be pretty fun as a workspace.'

Bunky or Bunkie is a Canadian term for a sleeping cabin for guests or kids, accessory to a summer cottage.
...Read the full story on TreeHugger

So Long Suburbia: Construction in US Cities Shifting Back to Urban Core

2010-04-11T14:43:00.005-04:00

Image by Ian Duke, via Wikipedia Commons.

The boundless growth of suburban sprawl in the US, long blamed for everything from climate change to social segregation, may finally be slowing down. According to a new study by the EPA, new construction in the urban cores and older suburbs of American cities is beginning to catch up with the pace of home construction in the suburbs. Is this the beginni...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Blue Stork Finds True Love in Spite of Curious Color

2010-04-11T14:43:00.004-04:00

Image: © Andreas Koeckeritz / Pixelio

Spring always portends the return of storks to the large nests which top chimneys and towers across the German landscape. But this year in Biegen, about an hour east of Berlin, residents were astonished when one stork returned with bright blue feathers! The stork's colorful plumes have incited many theories and a great deal of concern. In particular, would the blue bird be accepted by a mate?

Now, only days after the blue stork's first appearance in Biegen, residents and spectators are greatly ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Species of Invasive Fish Walk on Land, Climb Trees

2010-04-11T14:41:00.002-04:00

This is a Snakehead fish, but you can just call him 'Fishzilla.'

Australia has long battled with all sorts of harmful, invasive species--and wildlife authorities are concerned that they may soon be facing a new threat from what may be one of meanest-looking of unwelcome guests. The culprit is a particularly troublesome creature called the Snakehead fish, which is able to breath air, allowing it to travel on land to find prey or migrate. Also known by the perhaps more fitting moniker 'Fishzilla,' the invasive fish ha...Read the full story on TreeHugger

JavaRa Updates and Removes Old and Redundant Java Versions [Downloads]

2010-04-10T02:51:00.002-04:00

Windows only: Tiny utility JavaRa cleans up older or redundant versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that might be littering up your PC, and optionally updates to the latest version. It's a simple tool that just works. More »

WCS Names 10 of World's 'Rarest of the Rare' Species

2010-04-09T14:49:00.001-04:00

The Cuban crocodile is among the world's most endangered species. Photo credit: Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society.

The world's smallest marine cetacean, the national bird of Grenada, and an island-dwelling fox share a distinction no species would seek out: They are among the rarest animals of them all, according to a new list released this week by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)....Read the full story on TreeHugger

GE Unveils New LED Bulb - 17 Year Life Span and $50 Price Tag

2010-04-09T14:48:00.001-04:00

Image via TechEye

For awhile there, GE was hoping to keep up incandescent light bulbs by releasing a high efficiency incandescent bulb. But they quietly dropped that dead end about two years later. Now, they've made a new announcement that they're bringing out an LED bulb that'll replace incandescents, giving you 17 years worth of light from a $50 bulb. So far, LED bulbs are much more expensive, and they haven't ma...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Crazy Bus Stops From Around the World

2010-04-09T14:47:00.001-04:00

Anything that encourages public transit is welcome, and these bus stops rounded up on Toxel certainly look inviting. There is something about fruit-shaped stations in Japan; they come in a wide variety of flavours; ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Rare Dwarf Lemur Rediscovered in Madagascar

2010-04-09T14:46:00.001-04:00

Image credit: Mitchell Irwin

The tiny Sibree's Ddwarf lemur was first discovered in 1896 but was not studied throughout the 20th century. When the lemur's only known habitat was destroyed, researchers assumed that the species was extinct. However, a new population has been discovered, giving scientists an opportunity to learn more about this elusive species....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Habitable Polyhedron: Garden Office by Manual Villa

2010-04-09T14:45:00.002-04:00

Photos copyright Manuel Villa or Sergio Gomez, used with permission

One would expect bigger things from an architect aptly named Manuel Villa, but one certainly cannot complain that he does lovely garden offices like this Habitable Polyhedron. Arch Daily tells us that it is designed as 'area where the young parents and their newborn child would enjoy a independent space from day to day house a...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Century Gothic Saves More Ink Than Ecofont

2010-04-08T14:52:00.002-04:00

Two years ago Jaymi wrote about ecofont, the typeface that Takes The Swiss Cheese Approach to Saving Printer Ink.

It worked, but it didn't exactly set the type design world's hearts aflutter, being a little rounder and nicer looking than arial (anything is nicer than arial) but not exciting to look at and a bit grey at larger font sizes due to the little holes. It also a very small subset of the population that thinks enough about type design that they would actually pay for it.
Read the full story on TreeHugger

St. Louis Votes In New Tax to Pay for Better Transit, Ignores Tea Party

2010-04-08T14:51:00.002-04:00

Photo via Rust Wire

Last week, I mentioned that the majority of Washington DC voters were willing to pay higher taxes to keep public transit running. In another vote of confidence for quality mass transit, St. Louis voters have overwhelmingly approved a measure that will raise the sales tax 'to stabilize and eventually expand' its transportation network, according to Grist...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Omar Rayyan’s MicroVisions

2010-04-08T12:58:00.001-04:00

Say hello to Omar Rayyan’s MicroVision, “Hopalong Galahad.”

Omar‘s work has a lightness and humor that makes it impossible not to smile when you see it. It’s easy to see how charming and witty it is — and it's easy to forget all the backbreaking hard work that goes into honing that kind of grace in paint. Just the way it should be.

Warmer Temps Mean UK Flowers Emerging Earlier Than At Any Time in Past 250 Years

2010-04-07T15:01:00.004-04:00

photo: Stav via flickr.

It's the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, so it's time to (again) look at how much earlier trees are budding and flowers emerging... BBC News reports that new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B show that plants in the UK are flowering earlier than at any time in the past 250 years. In particular, the trend is most notable in the past quarter century....Read the full story on TreeHugger

New Study: When the Birds, Bats, and Lizards Are Gone, the Forests and Grasslands Suffer

2010-04-07T15:00:00.001-04:00

Photo: Wikipedia, GFDL

'Birds, bats and lizards act as one big vacuum cleaner up in the treetops.'
Apparently, the middle of the food pyramid (insect-eating birds, bats and lizards) is even more important for trees and plants than we thought. So far, the theory was that the effects of insect-eaters on plants would be weak, because 'animals like birds not only feed on herbivores - which is good for the plants- but may also benefit them by feeding spiders and predatory insects.' According to a new study, it turns out not to be the case; ...Read the full story on TreeHugger