Distracting New Features

When Google launched SearchWiki two years ago, the new icons seemed distracting and I even wrote a script that removed them.


After a while, I disabled the script and I used the new interface for a week or two. SearchWiki icons no longer seemed distracting and I started to ignore them. After clicking on the new icons a few times, I realized that SearchWiki's features were quite convenient and I liked promoting results, adding short annotations or removing irrelevant results. Google added an option to disable SearchWiki 6 months after the launch, but I no longer wanted to disable it. If Google added that option on the launch day, I would've disable it and never looked back.

If the new Google interface seems distracting, try to use it for a week and you'll realize that the sidebar doesn't get in your way. Focus on the list of search results and look at the sidebar only when you want to refine the results. Before jumping to conclusions, try the interface with an open mind and you'll learn to like it.

More Flexible Gmail Search

Jiri Z. spotted an interesting feature in the Czech interface of Gmail: when searching for words with a lot of inflectional forms, Gmail shows an option to check all the morphological variants. Gmail adds to the query "morph:on" and typically shows more results.

"In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case. Conjugation is the inflection of verbs; declension is the inflection of nouns, adjectives and pronouns. The Slavic languages, including Russian, Polish, Macedonian, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Slovene among others, all make use of a high degree of inflection, typically having six or seven cases and three genders," explains Wikipedia.



Gmail is one of the Google services with a rudimentary search feature. Unlike Google Search or Google Docs, Gmail doesn't show spelling suggestions and it doesn't search for other forms of your keywords. If you search for "author", Gmail doesn't show messages that include the word "authors"; if you search for "web site", you won't find messages that only include "website".

I tried to add "morph:on" in Gmail's English interface, but it didn't work. Hopefully, Gmail will improve the search algorithms and the operator will be included by default for all languages.

{ Thanks, Jiri. }

Perbedaan Antara Checkbox dan Radio button

"Om Swastiastu"

Hi all, seminggu ini saya sibuk mempersiapkan diri untuk kompetisi futsal, sehingga membuat saya jarang melakukan blogwalking atau posting. Nah, kompetisi baru saja berakhir dan saya menyempatkan diri untuk memposting sati artikel hari ini, walaupun saya dalam kondisi kelelahan. Nah, artikel yang akan saya post hari ini adalah mengenai perbedaan antara checkbox dan radio button. Dalam pemrograman visual basic, tentunya kalian akan menemui hal-hal seperti checkbox dan radio button. Kalian harus mengetahui fungsi dari kedua kontrol tersebut.

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Rejected Google Interfaces

If thought that Google's new design looks terrible, wait until you see some prototypes shared by Jon Wiley, Senior User Experience Designer at Google.

A lot of the ideas from these prototypes didn't make the cut: the blue search button that attracted too much attention, the blue background of the search results pages, showing separate sections for universal search results.




"We made hundreds of prototypes and gathered feedback from user studies, Googlers and through experiments — including one of our largest visible experiments ever. In the end, we came up with a design that provides dynamic, relevant search tools on the left, while lightening and updating the aesthetics all around," says Jon Wiley.

Even if the new interface is more cluttered with advanced options and I'll miss the dictionary links, I still think the redesign is an improvement. Google's search results pages look more consistent, the advanced options are more relevant and I already use them more often.


If you want to use the old interface, it's still available at http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all. You can also try the Greasemonkey script "Hide Google Sidebar".

Translate Text Using Google Goggles

Google Goggles 1.1 for Android added another feature that makes visual search more useful: translating text. For now, the application detects text in the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and is able to translate the text to all the languages supported by Google Translate.

"Traveling to another country can be an amazing experience. The opportunity to immerse yourself in a different culture can give you a new perspective. However, it can be hard to fully enjoy the experience if you do not understand the local language. For example, ordering food from a menu you can not read can be an adventure," explains Google's mobile blog.

Google says that it's a good idea to point your phone at the phrase you want to translate and select the region that includes the text to improve detection.

I tested the feature by trying to translate phrases from a French magazine (Science & Vie Junior), but the results weren't great all the time. Here's one of the best results:

(screenshots taken using ShootMe on a Nexus One)

To install Google Goggles, you need a phone that runs Android 1.6+. Search for Goggles in the Android Market or open the barcode scanner and scan this QR code.

Google Search Integrates With iGoogle

Google Search tests a new feature that lets you add an iGoogle gadget corresponding to a search result. For now, the link "add to iGoogle" is displayed for a small number of sites (BBC, New York Times, National Geographic, TVGuide.com, NPR, Flixster, Epicurious) and it's not clear if publishers can enable it.


After clicking on the link "add to iGoogle" displayed next to a BBC result, Google added BBC's official gadget to my iGoogle page. Unfortunately, Google also set a cookie value so that every time I go to google.com, it redirects me to iGoogle. Clicking on "classic home" at the top of the page solves this problem.

Google's New Interface: Colorful and More Powerful

After more than 6 months of testing, Google's new interface is finally available to everyone. The new UI is gradually rolled out today and the changes are noticeable.

Google's logo has vibrant colors, the search box is bigger and it now includes the search button, the links from the homepage are no longer underlined.


Google's search results pages include a persistent sidebar that suggests specialized search engines, advanced filters and related searches. By default, Google only shows suggestions that are relevant to your query, but you can click on "more" to see other ways to refine the results.


"Today's metamorphosis responds to the increasing richness of the web and the increasing power of search — revealing search tools on the left and updating the visual look and feel throughout. The top section of the new left-hand panel builds on Universal Search by suggesting the most relevant genres of results for your query and letting you seamlessly switch to these different types of results. Our expandable Search Options panel launched last spring brought many rich slice-and-dice tools to search. The new left-hand navigation showcases these tools and enables you to get a different view of your results. In addition to the left-hand side changes, we've updated our look and feel in terms of our color palette and our logo. These changes are slight, keeping our page minimalist and whimsical, but make our overall look more modern," explains Marissa Mayer.

Some of the features aren't completely new: when Google launched Universal Search in 2007, an important new feature was that Google suggested relevant specialized search engines. The suggestion bar has been removed after a couple of months and now it's back as a vertical panel.


Ask.com pioneered the persistent left sidebar in 2007, and now both Bing and Yahoo Search use it. Google adopted a similar layout to make search interfaces more consistent. "I don't like jazz, because you never know what's going to happen next," said Google's Marissa Mayer. "I've been calling this problem 'user interface jazz.' This result looks this way, and that result looks that way [something much different], and it really does slow you down."

When you navigate from web search to Google Books search, from image search to Google News, the interface will be consistent and you may not even realize that you're using a different search engine.


Sometimes, Google's sidebar will also include a list of suggestions that are difficult to define. Google calls them "something different" and used to show this label: "not entirely unlike". They're actually similar queries generated using Google Squared:

10 Things to Try in Google Chrome 5 Beta

If you're using the stable version of Google Chrome, the latest beta release (Google Chrome 5.0.375.29 for Windows, Mac and Linux) will be a pleasant surprise. Here are 10 things you should try after installing Chrome 5 beta:

1. Google Chrome remembers zoom settings for each domain. Go to http://www.nytimes.com, zoom using Ctrl+ or Ctrl-, close the tab and reopen it.

2. Remove individual items from the history. Go to the History tab (Ctrl+H), click on "Edit items", select the pages you want to remove and click on "Remove selected pages".

3. The new bookmark manager is an HTML page that opens in a new tab. It looks better than the previous manager and it has the advantage that extensions will be able to add new features.


4. Google Chrome can synchronize themes and preferences, in addition to bookmarks.


5. Google Chrome includes Adobe's Flash plug-in, so you no longer have to install it or worry about keeping it up to date. Open a site that uses Flash, right-click on a Flash object and select "About Adobe Flash". You should see the message "You have version 10,1,53,22 installed".

6. Disable individual plug-ins. Go to chrome://plugins/ and disable the plug-ins you don't need. You can disable Google Gears, Adobe Flash, Google Update or any other plug-in installed on your computer.

7. Extensions in incognito mode. Chrome disables all extensions in incognito mode, but you can manually enable some of them from the Extensions page.

8. Native geolocation. The previous Chrome versions used the Google Gears implementation, but Google Chrome now supports HTML5 geolocation, so that more web applications can easily find your location. Go to Google Maps, click on the small circle above the Street View logo and you'll see an infobar: "maps.google.com wants to track your location".

"If you allow Google Chrome to share your location with a site, the browser will send local network information to Google Location Services to get an estimate of your location. The browser can then share your location with the requesting site. The local network information used by Google Location Services to estimate your location includes information about visible WiFi access points, including their signal strength; information about your local router; your computer's IP address," explains Google.

9. Manual translation. Now you can disable the auto-translation feature and still be able to use the built-in translator. Even if you disable the Google Translate integration from Settings/Under the hood, you can still right-click on a page and select "Translate to English".

10. Reorder extension buttons. You can change the order of the buttons installed by Google Chrome extensions using drag & drop and even hide some of the buttons.


Bonus enterprise feature. Google Chrome now supports Integrated Windows Authentication. If you have access to an intranet site that uses Microsoft IIS and requires NTLM authentication, open it in Chrome 5. This is one of the most requested Chrome features, after the support for Core Animation NPAPI, extensions and a bookmark manager.

For those who are wondering, Google Chrome 5.0.375.29 is the latest beta and the latest dev release for Windows, Mac and Linux. This page shows the most recent two releases for all Chrome flavors.

Google Editions Book Store to Be Launched Soon

Wall Street Journal reports that Google will launch a digital book store in late June or July.

"Google says its new service — called Google Editions — will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book-search service. It will also allow book retailers — even independent shops — to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue."

According to Google, the service will sell "online access to million of books. This means you can read an entire book from any Internet-connected computer, simply by logging in to your Book Search account, and it will remain on your electronic bookshelf, so you can come back and access it whenever you want in the future."


For now, Google Editions will only allow users to read in-print books, since Google can't yet distribute out-of-print books. Google's hosted electronic book store will have the following tagline: "buy anywhere, read anywhere," but I think Google should change it to: "buy anywhere, read anywhere you have Internet access".

Google Mail Rebranded as Gmail in the UK

Gmail's blog informs that the UK version of Gmail will no longer be called Google Mail and users will have the option change their email addresses from name@googlemail.com to name@gmail.com.


"If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you'll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you're also free to stick with @googlemail.com. And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address."

Gmail has changed its name in the UK 5 years ago. "We have been involved in a dispute regarding the Gmail trademark in the UK. Another company has claimed rights to the Gmail name. We have tried to resolve this dispute through negotiations, but our efforts have failed," explains a page from 2005.

Financial Times reported last year that "Google paid £226,324 for the intellectual property rights for Gmail to a small UK-based financial research firm, Independent International Investment Research. In October 2005, Google was forced to rename its free webmail service Google Mail in the UK after IIIR claimed first dibs on G-mail for its subscription email newsletter to traders and private investors."

The change was only cosmetic: even if Gmail users in the UK got @googlemail.com addresses, they received all the messages sent to the corresponding @gmail.com address.

After a similar dispute, Gmail has been rebranded as Google Mail in Germany. "The German version of Gmail was first named Gmail Deutschland. Unfortunately for Google, the German company Giersch Ventures had already trademarked G-mail in 2001. The company later filed a lawsuit against Google for trademark infringement. On 4 July 2005 Google announced that Gmail Deutschland would be rebranded Google Mail. From that point forward, visitors originating from a German IP address were forwarded to googlemail.com where they could obtain an email address containing the new domain."

{ Thanks, Daryl. }

Download Breath of Fire 4 for PC

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Kemarin saya sempat iseng mencari game iso untuk PS 1 Emulator, kemudian saya menemukan Breath of Fire 5 for PC. Nah, setelah saya download dan saya jalankan dengan PS 1 Emulator, ada yang aneh, file tersebut tidak berjalan di PS 1 Emulator. Kemudian iseng lagi saya coba untuk menjalankan file Breath of Fire 4.iso tersebut di Daemon Tools, eh ternyata bisa! Ternyata file tersebut merupakan file installer dari Breath of Fire 4. Game RPG PS 1. Bagi yang suka main game RPG atau ingin bernostalgia dengan Breath of Fire 4, silahkan deh download file ini, kemudian jalankan pada Daemon Tools atau Alcohol120% milik teman-teman. Setelah itu, pilih install, langkahnya sama dengan menginstall file lainnya, cukup tekan next, next, next dan next.

Setelah selesai, buka file iso tersebut, kemudian cari folder Crack nya. Copy Paste file Crack tersebut ke tempat dimana kalian menginstall file tersebut. Tapi ada kabar yang saya dengar kalau file ini tidak bisa dijalankan di Windows Vista atau Windows 7. Coba saja kalian gunakan compatibility mode nya. Semoga berguna.

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What Are Your Favorite Android Apps?

Even if tech blogs keep track of the number of apps in the Android Market, it's important to know that Android users can install applications from other sources. If Google decides that an application like Music Junk should be removed from the Market, you can install it from SlideME or from any other website.

There are many reasons why the number of Android apps is still small: Android Market is not available for all Android phones, paid apps are only available in a few countries, there's no official web interface and Google has rarely promoted Android Market. That's why I decided to share some of my favorite Android apps. I've only tested them using Google Nexus One, but they should work on other Android phones.

1. Quick Settings replaces a lot of widgets: it's the quickest way to turn off WiFi, to change brightness settings, to turn off auto rotation or turn on bluetooth.

2. NetCounter is a simple application that monitors network traffic for 3G and WiFi. It's useful if you don't have a mobile data plan or your traffic is limited.

3. AppBrain is a useful service that lets you find other great Android applications. It shows recommendations, applications that are suddenly popular and it also have a web interface.

4. Cubed is a music player with an innovative user interface. It's better looking than the stock music player and it's fun to use.


5. Spare Parts is an application from Android's SDK which shows a lot of interesting stats about your phone's battery and a summary of application usage. If you're wondering how much time your Android phone spent with screen on or you want to monitor the network traffic of an application, use Spare Parts.

6. Astro is one of the best Android file managers and it comes with a lot of nifty perks, including an image viewer and an archive viewer.

7. AK Notepad is a simple application for writing notes. You can add a note to your home screen, add a reminder or export it to a text file.

8. StopWatch provides a stop watch timer, a countdown timer and has a very simple user interface.

9. Ethereal Dialpad lets you "create flowing music with an expressive touch synthesizer". It's relaxing and you never get bored using it.

10. Seesmic is my favorite free Twitter client for Android. It has support for multiple accounts, background notifications and it has a great composing dialog.

11. Google Translate combines translation with a text-to-speech service. If you use voice input, you don't even have to type the text you want to translate.

12. Nexus One Torch - probably the best flashlight application for a rooted Nexus One.

What are your favorite Android applications?

Update: Matt Cutts also shared his favorite Android apps.

Perbandingan Dua Bilangan Dengan Visual Basic 2008

"Om Swastiastu"

Tutorial pemrograman visual basic 2008 kali ini adalah mengenai perbandingan dari dua buah bilangan yang kita masukkan. Jika kita menginputkan dua bilangan, misalkan 34 dan 56, maka akan keluar hasilnya berupa bilangan kedua lebih besar dari bilangan pertama. Nah, jika kedua bilangan sama, maka hasilnya adalah bilangan pertama sama dengan bilangan kedua. Sebagai awal dari pembuatan program ini, pertama buatlah desainnya seperti gambar dibawah ini.

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Google Shows Brand Suggestions

Google started to show related brands for generic shopping-related queries. The suggestions are similar to the ones from Google Product Search and they're used to refine the results.

For example, if you search for [mp3 players], Google shows brands like Sony, Creative Zen, SanDisk. If you click on [Sony], Google will show the search results for [Sony mp3 players]. For some reason, the most popular brand of MP3 players is not included.


"Sometimes when searching for product information on Google, you may not know some of the brand names relevant to your particular search. So, we wanted to make it easier for you to find the brands other people consider useful for popular product searches. Determined algorithmically, these highlighted brand names may help you find what you're looking for faster, and make your research and shopping experience all the more enjoyable," explains Google.



The results aren't always great, especially for complex queries:

Google Buys BumpTop, 3D Desktop

Google bought BumpTop, an interesting software that replaces your computer's desktop with an intuitive 3D environment where you can quickly organize your files.

BumpTop is a fresh, innovative 3D desktop user interface that lets you stay organized and share your files and photos from your desktop naturally and easily. BumpTop has the look and feel of a real desktop, so it's natural and intuitive. But unlike a real desk where stacks can become unruly, BumpTop lets you pile files intelligently -- by project, by file type or any way you choose.

People organize their real-world desks in any number of different ways, to suit their own style. Research shows that everyone stacks and piles their documents, and almost a third of people indicate stacking and piling is their preferred way of organizing their desks. However, people have had to conform to the rigid, conventional desktop organization which is grid and folder based. BumpTop allows users to create a digital desktop that is intuitive and easy to use, just like their physical one but with the power and intelligence of the underlying computer to increase productivity in a fun and playful way.

You can still download BumpTop for Windows and Mac until the end of the week. The application doesn't use a lot of resources and it completely replaces your desktop. Even if it doesn't support multi-touch or Linux, BumpTop seems like the perfect addition to Android.


{ via CNet }