If you use Google's advanced options to restrict the search results to a certain period of time, you'll find that Google shows the date when each web page has been first indexed (in many cases, this is a good approximation of the date when a web page has been created).
As previously mentioned, you can edit Google's URL to customize how fresh the search results should be. For example, if you append &as_qdr=y9 to Google's search URL, you'll restrict the results to web pages first indexed by Google in the last 9 years. Since this restriction should include all web pages from Google's index, you can use it to display the timestamp next to each search result (e.g.: a search for iPod).
Maybe in the future Google will display the date next to each search result, it will try to approximate the date when a page has been created, allow users to filter results from certain periods and sort the results by date.
Interesting Results from Google Blog Search
Even it still has problems with duplicate content and spam, Google Blog Search has an important advantage over other blog search engines: it actually finds the most important search results. This is the default option for displaying results and it's recommended to use it even if you only want to read fresh news, as you can change the time interval to "last hour" or "last 12 hours".
Google's blog search engine lacks a homepage that displays the most important posts from the blogosphere, but there's a way to find interesting posts without entering a query. For some strange reason, if you search for [label:keyword] or [view:keyword] (keyword can be anything you like), Google ignores your query and displays a list of blog posts. We can assume it's a list of blog posts relevant for any query.
Related:
How Google Blog Search ranks results
Google's blog search engine lacks a homepage that displays the most important posts from the blogosphere, but there's a way to find interesting posts without entering a query. For some strange reason, if you search for [label:keyword] or [view:keyword] (keyword can be anything you like), Google ignores your query and displays a list of blog posts. We can assume it's a list of blog posts relevant for any query.
Related:
How Google Blog Search ranks results
Finding Places of Interest in Google Maps
Google Maps has a very useful mapplet (what's a mapplet?) that shows places of interest from a list of categories. You can select the mapplet by going to the My Maps tab and clicking on Featured content > Places of interest.
Instead of searching for bars, restaurants, hospitals, shopping malls, you can select these categories in the left sidebar and see all the places that match your selection. Unlike the standard search results, the mapplet shows many more places and you can use it to see the picture: for example, to estimate the distribution of restaurants in a certain area. Google Maps lets you select more than one mapplet, so you can also activate the distance measurement tool, the Panoramio layer with beautiful photos or the popular community maps.
Instead of searching for bars, restaurants, hospitals, shopping malls, you can select these categories in the left sidebar and see all the places that match your selection. Unlike the standard search results, the mapplet shows many more places and you can use it to see the picture: for example, to estimate the distribution of restaurants in a certain area. Google Maps lets you select more than one mapplet, so you can also activate the distance measurement tool, the Panoramio layer with beautiful photos or the popular community maps.
Google Goes to Disneyland
This year, Google's employees didn't go on the traditional ski trip due to the size of the company, so they went to Disneyland for three days, from 4 to 6 February. Here's how Googlers described the trip:
"Monday through Wednesday, Googlers from the West Coast offices headed down to Anaheim for a visit to place of a 'million dreams.' Suffice it to say, it was an incredible experience. I got to go on rides I had gone on over 10 years ago - including Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and Star Tours. And, I got to ride the new rides - California Soarin', California Screamin', Buzz Lightyear, and Indiana Jones. From 8pm-1am, the park was open only to Googlers, with our very own fireworks show and no waits in the lines." (Reid)
"Tomorrow I'll be on my way (...) to LAX and then to Anaheim for Google's yearly ski-trip! Oh wait. There's no skiing in Anaheim. So what's this all about? Well it turns out that Google with its 16,805 employees is now so big that we cannot by any means rent enough rooms in Tahoe, so it was decided to give us a choice this year: Camping at the Pinnacles National Monument south of Salinas, CA (bring your own tent!) or Disneyland! Google's got the whole park just for Googlers after 8pm on Tuesday [February 5th]", writes Ulf Waschbusch.
"One of the things I can most prominently remember about my childhood is Disney cartoons. There was a stage when Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Goofy meant more in life than probably computers mean today. I visited Disneyland at Anaheim near Los Angeles. Many thanks to Google for the company trip. (...) Disneyland is a childhood dream come true. One less thing left to do in life." (Nirnimesh, a Googler from Hyderabad, India)
"Absolutely amazing time. The organization of the trip was second-to-none... pretty much what you'd expect from Google. I couldn't even imagine what a logistical nightmare organizing something like this must have been. They flew about 5,000 people down from three different airports in the bay area, to three different airports in Los Angeles area. Shuttles were organized to take us from those three airports to about 10 different hotels where the Googlers were staying. At the airports, for most of us who only had carry-on luggage, we were handed our boarding passes after showing ID and went straight to security (after waiting on a Google line for a quite some time but what would you expect?!). When we arrived at the airport (going down and coming back), there wasn't a single moment where the Googlers weren't informed where we were supposed to go to catch our shuttle. (...) There's definitely a reason why Google's the number one employer to work for. This was the most fun I've had since I moved out here." (Billy)
More photos of Google's trip to Disneyland: Arturo, Ana, Rosalie, Cynthia, Michael, Tessa, Gregory.
iGoogle's Settings Page
Google's personalized homepage (a.k.a. iGoogle) has a settings page where you can change the language, your location and some things related to tabs (name, theme, layout). You still can't reorder the tabs or make some special changes that aren't available in the main interface.
The settings page would probably be more useful if it had support for batch operations like deleting multiple gadgets or moving all the gadgets that contain "Google" in the title to a new tab.
The settings page would probably be more useful if it had support for batch operations like deleting multiple gadgets or moving all the gadgets that contain "Google" in the title to a new tab.
Local Sections in Google News
There's a new type of section you can add to Google News: the local section. Type your location (or any other location) and Google will show you the most relevant news related to your location. Until now, you could create a custom section that showed the most important news that contained your terms, but the new location does a better job at identifying locations.
"While we're not the first news site to aggregate local news, we're doing it a bit differently -- we're able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We're not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located," mentions Google News Blog.
You can create as many local sections as you want by clicking on "Edit this personalized page" and selecting "Add a local section". It would be nice if Google News adds the layout options from iGoogle and makes it easier to rearrange the sections and add new content. Google could also display a lot of interesting content about a location (popular videos, photos, blog posts, events, community maps) in a special iGoogle tab.
"While we're not the first news site to aggregate local news, we're doing it a bit differently -- we're able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We're not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located," mentions Google News Blog.
You can create as many local sections as you want by clicking on "Edit this personalized page" and selecting "Add a local section". It would be nice if Google News adds the layout options from iGoogle and makes it easier to rearrange the sections and add new content. Google could also display a lot of interesting content about a location (popular videos, photos, blog posts, events, community maps) in a special iGoogle tab.
Add Data to Google Spreadsheets Using Forms
Google Spreadsheets has a new feature that lets you create a form to accept data. When you go to the Share tab, there's a new option to "invite people to fill out a form". The form is very simple and can be customized by changing the order of entries, their labels and the type of answers. It's also a nice way to get feedback people who wouldn't normally collaborate on a spreadsheet.
You can create forms from spreadsheets or using this URL. To keep track of your forms, add this gadget to iGoogle.
I created a form that lets you add your favorite Google service (the form has a public page that I embedded below) and here's the entire spreadsheet with all the answers.
Update. Here are the results of your votes:
A More Powerful Google Navigation Bar
iGoogleBar is a Firefox extension that enhances Google's navigation bar by showing the number of unread Gmail messages (only from the inbox) and the number of unread posts in Google Reader. The extension also adds icons that open Google gadgets for each service so you can preview your Gmail inbox from Google Calendar or open a recent document from Google Notebook.
For example, in the screenshot below, I visit Google Docs, but I can see that there is a single new post in Google Reader, only two unread messages in my inbox and I can easily open a bookmark from Google Notebook.
Unfortunately, the new navigation bar is displayed after the page loads, it works only in Google's communication apps and it doesn't include the More dropdown. Another big drawback is that the extension is actually a Chickenfoot script that comes with its rendering engine, which is terribly slow. In fact, the extension's XPI file has 1 MB, almost the same as Google Toolbar for Firefox.
{ via Googlified }
For example, in the screenshot below, I visit Google Docs, but I can see that there is a single new post in Google Reader, only two unread messages in my inbox and I can easily open a bookmark from Google Notebook.
Unfortunately, the new navigation bar is displayed after the page loads, it works only in Google's communication apps and it doesn't include the More dropdown. Another big drawback is that the extension is actually a Chickenfoot script that comes with its rendering engine, which is terribly slow. In fact, the extension's XPI file has 1 MB, almost the same as Google Toolbar for Firefox.
{ via Googlified }
Google Offers Security Services for Mail Servers
Google acquired last year Postini, a company that offered hosted services for email servers. "Postini invented the software as a service approach to providing communications security and compliance, and holds two fundamental patents in the space, with more patents pending." Google integrated a small part of the offering in Google Apps Premier Edition: policy management, spam/virus filtering and 90-days message recovery.
Now Google offers the rest of the Postini services under the Google Apps umbrella, but without tying them with Google Apps Premier Edition and Gmail. Google Apps Security Services work with the most important email servers (Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Domino, Postfix, Sendmail, Macintosh OS X Server, Novell Groupwise) and offer three levels of protection, priced differently:
* message filtering: anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing, and malware protection for inbound messages - $3/user/year
* message security: inbound and outbound mail filtering, email encryption, content policy management - $12/user/year
* message discovery: the same as above plus one-year message archiving, audit reports - $25/user/year
For educational institutions and non-profit organizations, the prices are much smaller: $1, $4 and $8.33/user/year. For all the services, Google provides 99.999% service level assurance.
Here's how the service works: you change the MX records to point your mail traffic to Google's data centers and all the bad traffic will be stopped before reaching your mail server. Google processes email in RAM and doesn't write the valid messages to disk.
Google says that Postini already has 40,000 customers and 14 million users and these affordable prices should increase the user base. Unfortunately, the association between these security services and Google Apps might confuse the potential clients and make them think that the services are only available for Gmail.
In fact, Gmail already includes anti-spam, basic anti-virus, anti-phishing and the corporate version of Google Apps includes content policy management and basic message archiving at no additional cost. Maybe Google will use the data obtained from Postini's services to enhance Gmail's security features.
Now Google offers the rest of the Postini services under the Google Apps umbrella, but without tying them with Google Apps Premier Edition and Gmail. Google Apps Security Services work with the most important email servers (Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Domino, Postfix, Sendmail, Macintosh OS X Server, Novell Groupwise) and offer three levels of protection, priced differently:
* message filtering: anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing, and malware protection for inbound messages - $3/user/year
* message security: inbound and outbound mail filtering, email encryption, content policy management - $12/user/year
* message discovery: the same as above plus one-year message archiving, audit reports - $25/user/year
For educational institutions and non-profit organizations, the prices are much smaller: $1, $4 and $8.33/user/year. For all the services, Google provides 99.999% service level assurance.
Here's how the service works: you change the MX records to point your mail traffic to Google's data centers and all the bad traffic will be stopped before reaching your mail server. Google processes email in RAM and doesn't write the valid messages to disk.
Google provides multiple layers of protection against viruses. The service leverages its visibility to emerging threats by monitoring attacks against our customer base and - in real-time - blocks IP addresses that are issuing virus attacks. In addition, Google utilities multiple anti-virus protections including zero-hour heuristics, coupled with multiple commercial anti-virus engines to detect existing and emerging threats.
As with our virus protection, Google leverages visibility into billions of daily message connections to monitor spam attacks and blocks the most obvious spam. Our heuristic engine then filters the incoming mail traffic and captures any suspicious messages. This is all performed in real-time (processed in RAM memory in our data centers) without delays to your email delivery. With these capabilities, Google combines an extremely effective capture rate with an exceptionally low false positive rate.
Google says that Postini already has 40,000 customers and 14 million users and these affordable prices should increase the user base. Unfortunately, the association between these security services and Google Apps might confuse the potential clients and make them think that the services are only available for Gmail.
In fact, Gmail already includes anti-spam, basic anti-virus, anti-phishing and the corporate version of Google Apps includes content policy management and basic message archiving at no additional cost. Maybe Google will use the data obtained from Postini's services to enhance Gmail's security features.
Could Google Save Yahoo from Microsoft?
Microsoft is taking over Yahoo! by Gnal.
Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution.
Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution.
Even if it's hard to believe that Yahoo will accept it, there's a simple way to make Yahoo more profitable: drop its search advertising service and use Google AdWords. Google has a better technology for ranking ads, a bigger inventory and higher click-through rates. If Google accepts to offer Yahoo most of the earnings, it's likely that Yahoo's profits will make investors happy again.
According to Wall Street Journal, "Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, say people familiar with the matter. (...) Google could play a role in attempts by others to outbid Microsoft, or by Yahoo to remain independent. Google could potentially offer money, or guaranteed revenue in return for a Yahoo advertising outsourcing pact, under that scenario."
There are rumors that Yahoo already negotiates with Google the outsourcing of its search ads in Europe. This could be a good news for Google, who also provides ads for Ask.com.
In a harsh post from the official Google blog, David Drummond is worried that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo could jeopardize Internet's openness: "Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets. (...) Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services?"
It's not clear if Google is truly worried by this potential acquisition, since a Microsoft+Yahoo company would be very far from Google's dominant position in search and search ads*, while Yahoo's absorption would take a lot of time. Microsoft has already admitted that it can't compete with Google online by trying to acquire Yahoo and it chose a very bad moment in Yahoo's history to force the acquisition.
* According to Microsoft, Google gets 75% of worldwide revenues in search ads and has 65% search market share in the US and 85% in Europe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Labels
Web Search
Gmail
Google Docs
Mobile
YouTube
Google Maps
Google Chrome
User interface
Tips
iGoogle
Social
Google Reader
Traffic Making Devices
cpp programming
Ads
Image Search
Google Calendar
tips dan trik
Google Video
Google Translate
web programming
Picasa Web Albums
Blogger
Google News
Google Earth
Yahoo
Android
Google Talk
Google Plus
Greasemonkey
Security
software download
info
Firefox extensions
Google Toolbar
Software
OneBox
Google Apps
Google Suggest
SEO Traffic tips
Book Search
API
Acquisitions
InOut
Visualization
Web Design Method for Getting Ultimate Traffic
Webmasters
Google Desktop
How to Blogging
Music
Nostalgia
orkut
Google Chrome OS
Google Contacts
Google Notebook
SQL programming
Google Local
Make Money
Windows Live
GDrive
Google Gears
April Fools Day
Google Analytics
Google Co-op
visual basic
Knowledge
java programming
Google Checkout
Google Instant
Google Bookmarks
Google Phone
Google Trends
Web History
mp3 download
Easter Egg
Google Profiles
Blog Search
Google Buzz
Google Services
Site Map for Ur Site
game download
games trick
Google Pack
Spam
cerita hidup
Picasa
Product's Marketing
Universal Search
FeedBurner
Google Groups
Month in review
Twitter Traffic
AJAX Search
Google Dictionary
Google Sites
Google Update
Page Creator
Game
Google Finance
Google Goggles
Google Music
file download
Annoyances
Froogle
Google Base
Google Latitude
Google Voice
Google Wave
Google Health
Google Scholar
PlusBox
SearchMash
teknologi unik
video download
windows
Facebook Traffic
Social Media Marketing
Yahoo Pipes
Google Play
Google Promos
Google TV
SketchUp
WEB Domain
WWW World Wide Service
chord
Improve Adsence Earning
jurnalistik
sistem operasi
AdWords Traffic
App Designing
Tips and Tricks
WEB Hosting
linux
How to Get Hosting
Linux Kernel
WEB Errors
Writing Content
award
business communication
ubuntu
unik