More Ways to Hide Google SearchWiki

In a recent interview with Cedric Dupont, product manager for Google SearchWiki, we found that Google doesn't intend to provide an option to disable SearchWiki. "While users don't have the option of turning off SearchWiki, they do have the option not to use the feature. By turning off the feature entirely, people will never get used to the new offering or see how it might be useful to them. We encourage people to try it out."

Fortunately, there are some ways to hide SearchWiki's visual clutter:

1. Sign out from your Google account. The feature is only available to authenticated users since it's a way to customize search results.

2. Use a Greasemonkey script that hides the icons added by SearchWiki.

3. To disable SearchWiki for the current session, add "&hl=all" to the URL of a search results page. Unfortunately, the change is not permanent. Example: http://www.google.com/search?q=test&hl=all.

4. If you enable any Google Experimental feature except "SearchWiki with sound", you'll no longer see Google SearchWiki. Probably the most useful experiment you can enable is "Keyboard shortcuts", which adds shortcuts to Google search. Joining an experiment changes your Google cookie, so the experiment is enabled in the current browser and only until you delete Google's cookie.


SearchWiki aficionados can enable "SearchWiki with sound" to hear a sound effect when a search result is removed. "Do you enjoy having the power to remove results from your search results pages? Now you can do so in style by having a sound effect play along with the animation whenever you remove a result. Recorded by our co-founder Sergey Brin himself, this sound effect is sure to please!"

Update: You can now disable SearchWiki from Google's preferences page.

Easy Access to Online Storage Services

Gladinet is a free Windows application that makes it easy to view and manipulate files stored in online services like Google Docs, Picasa Web Albums, Windows Live Skydrive and Amazon S3. Instead of using the web interface in a browser, Gladinet mounts a network drive and lets you access the files from remote servers in Windows Explorer.

That means you can click on a document stored in Google Docs and it will open in the word processor installed on your computer, for example in Microsoft Word. After you edit the document and save it, Gladinet will upload the new version to Google Docs. Unfortunately, the software doesn't use the latest features of the Google Docs API, so it simply deletes the old version before uploading the document.



The integration with Picasa Web is better: you can view thumbnails for your pictures, the files can be edited in Photoshop or any other photo editor and the new versions are instantly uploaded. A local file manager provides a better interface for uploading or deleting a large number of files.


Gladinet offers another feature that lets you share folders with other computers. The main goal is to access all your files from a single interface, no matter where the files are stored. And if you don't have an office suite, Gladinet adds an option to open documents from your computer in web apps like Google Docs or ThinkFree.

Note: make sure you trust the service before entering the credentials of your Google account or your Windows Live ID.


{ Thanks, Anon }

Tax and Shipping Information in Google Product Search

Google Product Search (formerly known as Froogle) added an option to restrict the results to sellers that offer free shipping. If you enter your location, the service also shows tax and shipping information for some of the products.


A recent post from the Google Base blog informed sellers that they can submit tax and shipping information. "We'll soon be displaying this information on Google Product Search to provide buyers with more accurate price information, so we strongly encourage all merchants to start submitting it."

In case you are wondering, Google Base is a low-profile service that lets you upload structured data. Google uses the data about products in Google Product Search and the real estate listings as a refinement option in Google Maps and the main search results, but I find it surprising that Google doesn't use the data in expanded snippets.

Google Maps Has a New Interface

Google Maps borrowed the navigation controls from Google Earth and made the transition to Street View smoother. Just click on the small yellow man to see the street view imagery for the current location or drag the icon to the correct location.


Google Maps shows small previews when you drag the icon so you can adjust the position. Street View opens in full-screen and the mini-window displayed at the bottom of the map can be maximized when you want to change the location.


Google Maps will probably add a new tab for the Google Earth plug-in, so this change will make the navigation consistent.


Here's a screenshot from June that shows the old interface:

More Space for YouTube Videos

YouTube's Google Video-ization continues by using more space for the player and less space for the sidebar. YouTube changed the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, generally used for high-definition TV. Since the videos aren't yet converted to a widescreen format, you'll see an annoying pillar box effect.

"The pillar box effect occurs in widescreen video displays when black bars (mattes or masking) are placed on the sides of the image. It becomes necessary when film or video that was not originally designed for widescreen is shown on a widescreen display, or a narrower widescreen image is displayed within a wider aspect ratio."


{ Thanks, Mark. }