dude

it is still a screen...

it just looks and views like paper.

Besides...to make that one piece of paper many books a reality you'd need technology like printed ICs or paper ICs that could be folded.

It is very far away

11/4/2005 3:28:16 PM

anyway, getting away from the books vs. CD vs. MP3s vs. epaper argument....

while I still haven't switched to Google Reader from Bloglines (i won't until they allow you to view multiple messages/stories at once and mark all/folders as read), i've been following the official blog.

Yesterdays's post was interesting
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2005/11/warning-geekery-ahead.html
It is a Reader developer who has created and greasemonkey script for others to use, and explains why GM scripts sometimes are broken when they update their software (it's because the JS is optimized and compressed so functions get different, arbitrary names with each release), and how to avoid having them broken in the future. This shows that Google is NOT actively blocking GM scripts as some had suggested, and that some developers on some projects are even promoting and writing GM scripts.

The Google employee, Mihai Parparita, that wrote that particular post runs his own blog at http://persistent.info/ that i've been reading for a long time. It's always interesting to see employees from Google and others blogging about what's going on inside their companies as well as their own personal projects. like -
Google - http://persistent.info/ , Matt Cutts - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
Yahoo: Zawodny - http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/
MS: Raymond Chen - http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/default.aspx and Jensen Harris - http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx
FogCreek: Joel Splosky - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
FireFox/Mozilla: Asa Dotzler - http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/ , Ben Goodger (FF/Googler) - http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/

I've been meaning to start a thread about this, but be sure to check out Jensen Harris' blog. He's the UI Project Manager for Office 12 where they will have a radical departure from the standard office interface (i.e. there are no menus....). He's done a very good job over the last month explaining the concepts behind the new interface and how they arrived at their interface decisions.

[Edited on November 4, 2005 at 5:09 PM. Reason : .]

11/4/2005 5:06:00 PM

i watched the office12 video. yeah that's pretty cool. how long have these types of previews been out? i had no idea they were overhauling office like that

11/4/2005 7:13:57 PM

http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=25889&topic=1449


Earn a $ to refer someone to Mozilla.

11/5/2005 12:13:11 PM

Quote :

"Switch to Google Search, Get Free Hardware link: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123467,00.asp Google is going after clients of other enterprise search vendors with a new trade-in program aimed at fostering adoption of its Search Appliance, the Mountain View, California, company announced Tuesday. Organizations that rip out their existing enterprise search systems and replace them with a Search Appliance by the end of the year will receive a free Google Mini, which is a simpler and less expensive version of the Search Appliance, according to Google. The Google Search Appliance starts at $30,000 to search up to 500,000 documents, while the Google Mini costs $2995 and searches up to 100,000 documents. The Search Appliance, first introduced in 2002, is designed to index information stored in a variety of server-based data repositories, such as intranets, public Web sites, relational databases, enterprise business applications, content management software, and legacy systems. The Google Mini is designed for small and medium-size organizations that want to make searchable the information in their intranets or public Web sites. Both products are hardware boxes loaded with Google search software. ..."

[Edited on November 9, 2005 at 1:12 AM. Reason : .]

11/9/2005 1:12:37 AM

Quote :

"Pay By The Page By Paul Travis, InformationWeek Nov. 7, 2005 URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=173500451 Does free always win? Amazon, which likes to get paid for providing books, is going to find out as it launches a service next year to let customers buy online access to any page, section, or chapter of a book. That eventually will compete with Google Print, a controversial free online service that last week made available its first collection of books. The digitized books were all published before 1923 and are in the public domain, so there's no dispute over copyrights. Its another step in Google's plan to make all of the world's books freely available online. Amazon is trying to build on its "Search Inside the Book" technology to let customers buy part of a book and read it online. Book buyers also can "upgrade" their hard copies with digitized versions, Amazon says. It didn't say what a page or chapter would cost. But Amazon invited publishers, many of whom are fighting Google's plan, to join it in the new digital book-delivery service. Initially, the free books offered by Google won't be the same as the recently published tomes offered by Amazon. But once there's an overlap, we'll see if free beats paid."

[Edited on November 9, 2005 at 1:19 AM. Reason : just fyi, since we were talking about this on the last page.]

11/9/2005 1:19:08 AM

Looks like google is going to put a guy to jail right in Raleigh.

.... well very indirectly.
http://tinyurl.com/9skoo
http://www.wral.com/news/5287261/detail.html

I'm sure this has been covered in the Lounge or Soap Box, but this dude reported his wife missing in early 2003 (i believe he reported her 10 days after she went missing). A year later they found his wifes body in Falls Lake.
Recently, they disclosed evidence found on his computer that he had made Google searches for terms like "falls lake depth", "neck", "break", just days before he reported her missing. Apparently they found all this on his local machine (internet cache, old temp files), without asking for the help of Google, or in any way attaching his search activity to Googles servers or their own logging. I wonder how long it will be though before a lawyer sopeonas Google/Yahoo and demands personalized search results based on login names or just on IP addresses. unless it's already happened?


On a side note, this is a quote:

Quote :

"The Google search was the latest in recently discovered evidence found in the 100 million pages of content removed from computers."

give me a damn break - i hate it when reporters take these useless data points and try to pass them off as important statistics. I'm sure this meaningless calculation is based on, something like a 60GB HDD that has 20GB of data including Windows, programs, MP3s, video, then comparitively a very small amount of actual, useful searchable data like Word docs and internet search history; then somehow calculating how many "pages" it would take to print 1MB/GB of binary data, then extrapolating the entire contents of the HDD to how many pages it would take, then passing it off as though it would take tons of people tirelessly scouring pages and pages of computer gibberish to find this "needle in the haystack". Puhlease - you could find this info within 3 minutes of confiscating his computer.

[Edited on November 11, 2005 at 7:34 AM. Reason : ,]

11/11/2005 7:33:16 AM

lol this sounds geeky but that's pretty neat they would think to look in his google search history

11/11/2005 8:08:06 AM

well seeing as this was either a detective or computer forensic guy or someone of similar status, I would be surprised if the internet/search history wasn't next on the list after searching for Word memos named "how to kill my wife in Falls Lake"

11/11/2005 8:35:05 AM

wow - https://adwords.google.com/publicationads/login

You can now buy ads through google that will be printed in certain newspapers - 2 in Chicago so far.

Also, looks like Google is going to blanket Mountain View, CA with free Wifi, like a test run for bigger markets like San Fran.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/13142353.htm

11/11/2005 11:14:39 AM

i think i or someone mentioned several months ago when Google bought Urchin, the webstatistics company.

here's the payoff - http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html
looks like a pretty sweet way to track traffic for your blog/page and to help with ad revenue, etc

11/14/2005 4:13:57 AM

Quote :

"Google Inc. is introducing software Monday designed to make its local search and mapping service easier to navigate on mobile phones, continuing the Internet search engine leader's effort to extend its reach beyond personal computers, the Associated Press is set to report, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts. # Users won't have to type in their location before getting directions to a specific location, as long as their phone has Global Positioning System, or GPS, capabilities, said Deep Nishar, a director of Google's mobile products. Most subscribers with wireless service from Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint should be able to use the software, Nishar said. The service won't work with Verizon phones, Blackberry devices or Palm devices. "

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Google_set_to_expand_mobile_phone_1106.html

11/14/2005 10:58:25 AM

ok, now all your base officially belong to Google - http://base.google.com/ is live

.... and it's still very ambiguous how to utilize it, except to post "any kind of information" on it. some reviews/thoughts -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/first-base.html
http://battellemedia.com/archives/002033.php
http://tinyurl.com/8rtk5
http://tinyurl.com/8rzaq

[Edited on November 16, 2005 at 4:37 AM. Reason : .]

11/16/2005 4:37:11 AM

major upgrade to Froogle - http://froogle.google.com/
It's now integrated with Local (Maps)

when you do a normal Froogle search there is now a link at the top of the page to get local results, or you can do a search in the form of "hard drives near raleigh, nc" or "cars in 27607" and it will go straight to local results.

also another mapping feature - if you use AdWords you can target your ads based on location using Maps
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2005/11/use-google-maps-to-target-your.html


also here's a useful 3rd party tool - http://blog.hanfordlemoore.com/multilinemapper.php
it allows you to type or paste multi-line addresses to be mapped in Google or Yahoo because if you paste a multi line address into the simple text-box in Google, everything past the 1st line is lost

[Edited on November 23, 2005 at 6:31 AM. Reason : .]

11/23/2005 6:17:58 AM

Apparently, Google is testing a click-to-call service for advertisers:

http://digg.com/technology/Google_-_Click_To_Call_(NEW_Google_Service)

http://www.googlerumors.com/2005/11/23/click-to-call-ads-being-tests

http://www.google.com/help/faq_clicktocall.html

[Edited on November 23, 2005 at 6:05 PM. Reason : /]

11/23/2005 6:05:08 PM

they've updated the Video interface with some tabs and more content on the front page http://video.google.com/
and also apparently they're talking to CBS about making more TV content available on Video - http://tinyurl.com/9dwjs

.... I've been in Germany since June and unfortunately I get a nice "Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country." when I try to watch videos, so I still haven't experience Video in all its goodness

11/24/2005 3:53:44 AM

Google opening "Google Space", some kind of internet cafe or something in Heathrow airport.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/ecommerce/0,39020372,39237536,00.htm

not too exciting, i think, but the official Google Space page - http://www.google.co.uk/googlespace/ - shows that at least someone at Google has at least some inkling of the idea of tying Google Services that use Google Account under a (dare I say it) portal page! Get on it, i say....

11/24/2005 3:54:39 PM

some more Google Maps stuff -

Google is introducing a mash-up of their own - Google Transit http://www.google.com/transit
It's a service that uses City's public transport look up tables to map routes via public transport. It's only live for Portland, OR right now, but they're asking for other city's cooperation.
Just using the examples they provide, it seems to work really well. Living in Munich Germany right now, I only take public transport, and this city's internet schedule look up is hard to use and not flexible (and certainly doesn't show real time maps), so something like this would be excellent.


Also, i've been meaning to mention this, but there could be a 10 page tread already if we had continued to track Maps mash-ups. But here are several blogs and wikis with hundreds of mash-ups among them:
Google Maps Mania blog - http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/
Cool Google Maps blog - http://coolgooglemaps.blogspot.com/
And a Maps wiki - http://mapki.com/index.php?title=Map_Projects - there is a list of projects there, and info on creating and developing mash-ups.


And here's a Maps module for Gallery2 that I just ran across yesterday - http://codex.gallery2.org/index.php/Gallery2:Modules:Map
It looks pretty nice, i'm gonna install it on one of my Gallery2 galleries and see how it works

12/8/2005 4:55:58 AM

I'm actually scared of google. This is becoming way too cool (and scary)

12/8/2005 6:01:01 AM

The WebClips feature of Gmail that's been popping up since last spring appears to be live for everyone now.
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=18219

So far i'm duly unimpressed. I don't see much of a point of getting occasional random headlines when I can see the entire articles in a blog reader, and know what i'm getting instead of random selections.


Also, MS "Local Live" is ummmmm, live now. http://local.live.com/
It's the next generation of MS Virtual Earth, their answer to Google Maps/Local. The maps themselves look identical to MS Streets and Trips and it's all AJAXed up with all the features, layer overlays etc. But not good enough to pull me away from Google

12/9/2005 3:55:51 AM

^ an addition to the WebClips - perhaps one feature that would make it at least mildly amusing to keep around.
When you go to your SPAM folder, all the webclips link to recipes involving Spam, and when you go to your Trash folder, the webclips turns into recycling and trash tips.

12/9/2005 7:00:17 AM

damnit joe i was just about to post that.....ahaha spam recipies are hilarious

12/9/2005 11:17:36 AM

Google Personalized Homepage is now on the widget bandwagon, although they don't call them widgets - i think they're just "homepage modules". You can use a new API to create a module that can be installed on your personalized Google home page. So far looks like pretty standard-fare stuff - clocks, weather, simple games. Of course it's all embedded into the page, so it's not on a dashboard or desktop or sidebar, and even though they're probably more limited than the Desktop Widgets stuff, they must be much better on your memory.

http://www.google.com/ig/directory
http://www.google.com/apis/homepage/

12/14/2005 9:07:46 AM

couple new Gmail additions.
- under Settings > General > Vacation Responder you can now set a "vacation response", much like you do in Outlook, for an autoreply from your email when you can't read your email.

- i first noticed this a few days ago and have used it several times since then - if gmail sees an address or tracking number in your message it will show links in the right column to "map address" or "track package". This is useful when people send you addresses so you don't hve to copy/paste into Maps, and since i've recently made several orders for Christmas the auto-tracking number lookup has been nice.

And they're getting more into the FireFox game with more Google authored extensions
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/safebrowsing/

12/15/2005 4:46:56 AM

didn't see this one coming - http://google.com/musicsearch
Use that page, or just enter the name or an artist, song or album in the regular search, and you'll be directed to the Music front page.

you can get lists of albumns, lists of songs per albums, ratings, links to lyrics and where to download on iTunes or Rhapsody and links to buy from Buy.com, CD Universe, artistdirect.com, Amazon.

short write up here
http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2005/12/15/google-adds-music-search/

12/15/2005 8:31:25 AM

cool, they finally added group support to Gmail today too. Look under Contacts.

12/15/2005 3:29:43 PM

^^
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_hi_te/google_music;_ylt=AqrPZWjnQtsvJpZNiN.pmIOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

12/15/2005 4:20:55 PM

cool -

.... and if you wouldn't mind, just to keep the page readable? http://tinyurl.com/dg862

12/15/2005 4:31:17 PM

NO GODDAMNIT

http://operawatch.blogspot.com/2005/12/rumor-google-to-buy-opera-according-to.html

12/15/2005 9:38:58 PM

That would make me switch to Opera alright.

12/15/2005 9:40:50 PM

Never noticed this before. If you do a search for a celebrity followed by the word "age" or "dob" google shows you their Date of Birth.

It also works for birthplace too. Anyone know of any other keywords you can use?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=carmen+electra+dob

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=mike+ditka+birthplace

[Edited on December 18, 2005 at 4:37 PM. Reason : Natalie Portman + phone number doesn't work. ]

12/18/2005 4:33:05 PM

^it will answer quite a few fact based questions, such as,
http://www.google.com/search?q=population+world
http://www.google.com/search?q=capital+pakistan
http://www.google.com/search?q=president+sri+lanka
http://www.google.com/search?q=atomic+mass+lead
http://www.google.com/search?q=when+did+WWII+end
http://www.google.com/search?q=invented+television

http://www.google.com/help/features.html#qna

Quote :

"Q&A Want to know the population of Japan? What currency is used in Algeria? The birthplace of Bono? Hit us with a fact-based question or query (like "population of Japan") by typing it into the Google search box. We'll search the web and display the answer at the top of your search results page. We also link to our source for this information so that you can learn even more."

[Edited on December 18, 2005 at 5:03 PM. Reason : .]

12/18/2005 4:43:17 PM

that's part of the Google Q&A thing, where you can search for dates of birth, locations, populations, president names, etc and they'll try to answer it straight up. They call it "one box" answers, and it fits in the same category as a lot of other specialized searches where they try to give you direct answers instead of just links. Others like tracking numbers, flight status ("aa 1152"), addresses, flight scheduling ("rdu to lax, dec 26"), stocks ("GOOG"), etc

For the Q&A, sometimes it helps to put the search in the form of a question, i.e. "what is xxx dob" if your normal searches aren't giving you answers

for example, searching for "einstein's death" doesn't give you anything
http://www.google.com/search?q=einstein%27s+death
put that in the form of a question, though, and you get your answer - "when was einstein's death"
http://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+einstein%27s+death
alternatively, just "einstein die" will give you the answer too, so it's kind of hit and miss

others
http://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+china
http://www.google.com/search?q=gdp+of+usa

12/18/2005 4:47:17 PM

Well yeah, I knew that. I guess I just didn't really see this as being part of the same category, but now that I think about it, I guess it is the same thing.

[Edited on December 18, 2005 at 4:48 PM. Reason : I was thinking too narrowly with just the celeb thing...]

12/18/2005 4:47:17 PM

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/47883.html

Mobile-friendly version of G-Mail.

I already found this out before seeing this. This weekend while I was working in G-Mail from my Blackberry I noticed that they have optimized it for mobile devices. It is very nice.

12/19/2005 9:16:04 AM

so at some point recently they released a "Libjingle" API for Google Talk - http://code.google.com/apis/talk/index.html

this will allow other Jabber clients (like Audium, GAIM, Trillian) to integrate the voice and talk features of Google talk - http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-is-libjingle.html
nice

12/20/2005 7:54:35 AM

so i'm sure most have heard of the Google-AOL deal by now. Google is paying $1B for a 5% stake in AOL. At the moment that probably doesn't mean much except for more AOL sponsored ads on Google search pages. ALso at some point AIM and Google Talk will be fully compatible. I would imagine that Google will also have much better access to content owned by AOL and Time Warner, so that could help push, for example, more streaming TV content on Google Video
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/twaol_expanded.html

Also, the 2005 Zeitgeist came out - http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2005.html
Nothing too exciting. Some of the charts are kind of cool.

But more interesting, you now have a "personal zeitgiest" of sorts, available under "Search Trends" in "My Search History". As you should know, if you stay signed into Gmail all the time, all your searches are stored and tracked in your Search History. Now you can look back over the year and see your popular search terms, frequency per month, day, etc. Pretty cool.
.... i was going to take a screenshot of mine, but my Search History isn't loading.... It's interesting to look through your search frequency. e.g. in August i was around 400 searches for the month, then in Sept I dropped to about 140. I thought that was weird but I remembered I spent 2 weeks in Italy with no internet. Then it jumped back up and hit an all time high of 450 last month! woohoo

12/21/2005 6:13:38 PM

my search history says my top search is zantac

i don't remember ever searching for zantac, thx

12/21/2005 6:26:37 PM

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15098&hed=Google+Sued+for+%245B

Quote :

"Rates Technology, a little-known patent-holding company with a history of filing suits against large technology companies, said it will seek $5 billion in damages from Google based on unpaid royalties from a patent infringement lawsuit RTI filed against Google in New York."

Everyone wants a free lunch.

12/30/2005 10:02:52 PM

google going to start selling and renting TV and video on Google Video - http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/video_marketplace.html

And "Google Pack" - a downloadable bundle of freeware (and some subscriptionware) of common applications that will keep themselves updated.
http://pack.google.com/
http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pack.html

commentary
http://battellemedia.com/archives/002204.php
http://google.weblogsinc.com/2006/01/06/official-google-video-marketplace-and-google-pack/

1/6/2006 11:56:31 PM

the Google Videostore is now live, accessible through the normal Video page - http://thalions.com/blogs/alisha/index.php

the showings are kind of weak now, but i guess they'll add a lot more. But you can buy, watch, rent and download.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting a little tired of Google's tunnel vision in that basically all content is best found by search. They do offer the drop down to find TV shows, but it's very simplistic, and will not scale as they get more content. For some items, a hierarcical directory is just the way to go, as iTunes does it.

Anyway, lots of commentary already on the videostore - i haven't used it because it's not allowed outside the US.
http://www.buygoogle.com/2006/01/its-not-just-video-its-new-market.html
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-01-10-n82.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/new-year-for-google-video.html
http://googlevideo.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-videos-new-year.html
http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/10/google-video-store-updated/
http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/09/download-google-videos-with-safari/
http://google.weblogsinc.com/2006/01/09/google-video-marketplace-its-up/

1/10/2006 7:45:03 AM

this isn't really new, but i just noticed the feature where you can remove a result from your search results page when you are signed in.

1/10/2006 8:28:46 AM

Speaking of which, I've seen firefox plugins to automatically remove answers.com, about.com, and experts-exchange results from a search.

1/10/2006 8:59:39 AM

Google Earth for Mac - http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

and someone else who is completely underwhelmed by the Videostore
http://tinyurl.com/7mwwm
and verbalized much better what I was trying to say about the interface:

Quote :

"Additionally, Google has made little effort at building a usable interface. Google Video is just a search engine, which doesn’t work well as a store. I know Google practically created the church of white space and clean interfaces, but rich content needs something better. I can’t find what I need, view large amounts of content at once, compare options and purchase in bulk for later viewing."

1/11/2006 4:42:51 AM

there is now a "put on site" link on all Google Video pages that gives you some HTML to embed a Google Video into another site. This is an excellent addition I think. That will make it so much easier to offer video content on your website, if you let Google take care of the compression, storage, and bandwidth. (I think YouTube has offered this, but i haven't used that very much)

1/11/2006 7:12:53 AM

damn, it's about time (not that you could tell a difference anyway) but Google News is out of beta after 3.5 years - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/and-now-news.html
new features include Recommended and Popular section headings for news articles. I know one of the reasons they left it in beta was that a lot of news providers claimed it was illegal for Google News to rip off their content and display it aggregated with all other news, even though Google only displays the headline and maybe short snippet before referring to the original site. We'll see if they try to monetize it now.... but that would probably cause lots of outcry from news providers.

.... now as Gmail approaches it's 2nd birthday maybe they'll consider bring it out of Beta.

1/23/2006 4:23:33 PM

Quote :

"automatically remove answers.com, about.com, and experts-exchange results from a search."

i actually get pretty good info when i get experts-exchange in my search results. could definitely do without about.com though

1/23/2006 5:12:57 PM

2 more zoom levels were added for satellite images for major cities. 6-inch resolution - very nice
e.g. http://tinyurl.com/bmabl
http://tinyurl.com/9fc52
http://tinyurl.com/c3tq5

in other mapping news be sure to check out "Birds Eye View" ariel pictures in MS "local live" - http://local.live.com/
It looks nice, but i'm having a hell of a time actually finding anything that I want to see

1/24/2006 8:20:27 AM

g-damn, what's happening to this company.....

their stock drops something like $60 in a matter of hours after missing their expected earnings/share by about $0.25, even with almost $2B revenue. Apparently they somehow "forgot" to mention to, oh, the whole world, that they would be taxed at 42% this quarter, instead of 32% which they have for the past 3. This difference in tax rate more than made up for the earning miss, and would have put them over earnings by 2 cents.

Then after reading this, I have even more questions about their Quality Control department - http://adwordsapi.blogspot.com/2006/02/yesterdays-release-has-been-rolled.html
That's fucking embarassing - having to roll back a release of a major webapp that generates billions of $ for them a year, and which thousands of people base their businesses on.

Now it looks like CBS is pulling out of Google Video in favor of selling shows on their own. I'm thinking it went something like this: a CBS executive was sitting at home perusing the Google Video store, probably having a hard time finding his own shows and being confused with the interface and frustrated by it's sparsness and un-store-y-ness qualities. Then he sees his 7 year old daughter downloading all of season 1 of Spongebob Square Pants on iTunes with ease and is blown away at the content and presentation, and is now embarassed to have his company's name on Google's travesty of a Video Store.
http://tinyurl.com/95n5t

2/2/2006 5:31:52 PM

meh every company has bad weeks

2/2/2006 5:44:38 PM