Google's Location-Based Social Annotations

You've probably noticed that Google annotates search results with social data, especially from Google+ and Google +1. You'll sometimes see that a page was mentioned in a Blogger post or a Twitter message by one of your Google+ friends. For other results, Google lists the Google+ friends that +1'd the pages.


If a page has a lot of +1's, Google occasionally shows the number of +1's bellow the snippet. To make the annotation more relevant, Google now shows the number of +1's from your location. For example, "763 people in New York, NY, USA +1'd" Google's Webmaster Tools page.


I'm not sure that it's useful to know the number of +1's for the top results of a navigational query, but this could be useful when you're trying to find a popular restaurant or an Android game.

{ Thanks, Nick. }

YouTube's Google+ Player

Google+ added a small YouTube icon that's always displayed next to the scrollbar. When you mouse over the icon, you'll see a search box that asks you "what would you like to play?". Type your query and Google+ opens a pop-up window with 20 search results. It's actually a playlist and videos start playing automatically.


You can +1 a video you like or share it with your circles. When you share a video, Google also adds a link to a playlist with related videos.

The nice thing is that you can minimize the pop-up window and still be able to pause a video or go to the next video directly from Google+. This is especially useful for music.



"It's no secret that YouTube is filled with tons of great content (from inspiring speeches to music videos to honey badgers). We wanted to bring YouTube directly into Google+ — as well as make it easier to watch and share your favorites — so we're launching a YouTube 'slider' in the stream," mentions Google's Vic Gundotra.

What about a Google Music player?

{ Thanks, Thomas, Benjamin and Herin. }

Chrome Extension for Google+ Notifications

If you miss Google+ notifications when you're not visiting a Google page, you can now install a Chrome extension and always get the latest updates.

"Whenever you have a new notification (for example, when someone adds you to a circle or shares a post with you), the extension button will turn red and show you how many updates are waiting for you. Once you click the button, a window will drop down showing you all of your most recent notifications. You can act on notifications right from the extension, whether you're replying to a comment or adding someone back to your circles. That way you can stay up-to-speed with your circles on Google+ no matter where you are on the web," informs Google.


There's also a +1 button for Chrome that lets you +1 a page and share it with your circles.

{ Thanks, Venkat. }

Google's Barrel Roll Easter Egg

If you use Google to search for [do a barrel roll] in Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you'll notice that the search results page actually does that. It's a brilliant Easter Egg that will surprise a lot of Google users.

According to Wikipedia, "a barrel roll is an aerial maneuver in which an airplane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path, approximately maintaining its original direction."

There are at least four other Google search Easter Eggs: ASCII art, anagram, recursion and tilt.

{ Thanks, Herin. Spotted by Jason Cross. }

YouTube Tests a New Interface

YouTube experiments with a new interface that uses a gray background, muted colors, redesigned buttons and new icons for the like/dislike buttons. Most of the features are available in the Cosmic Panda experiment, but the changes are less drastic.




To try the new interface, change the value of the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie for youtube.com to Eg7GsyKWzk8. For example, in Google Chrome, go to YouTube's homepage, open the JavaScript console (Ctrl+Shift+J or Menu > Tools > JavaScript Console), paste the following code:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=Eg7GsyKWzk8";

Then press Enter, close the console and reload YouTube's homepage.

You can also use extensions like Edit this cookie (Chrome) or Cookies Manager (Firefox). Opera has a powerful cookie manager, so you don't need an extension to edit a cookie.

To go back to the old interface, open your browser's cookie manager, search for youtube.com and delete the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie.

{ Thanks, Maurice. }

Sites in Google Docs?

Aaron, a reader of this blog, noticed that one of his sites created using Google Sites is now listed in Google Docs. "I have an item with a Google Sites icon showing up in my Google Docs home list. Clicking on the link only marks the check box. It's currently not linkable," says Aaron.

The Google Sites icon can already be found in the Google Docs code (here's the URL), but that's not new. It looks like Google Docs will be a central repository for all the files uploaded to Google or created using Google's services, just like Google+ will be Google's sharing platform.


{ Thanks, Aaron. }

Gmail's New Look, Now Available

After almost two weeks since the last post about the new Gmail interface, you can now try it. Open Gmail and you should see a message at the bottom of the page that invites you to "switch to the new look".

Gmail's new look is based on the "Preview" theme, but it's much more than a theme. There are a lot of changes: Contacts and Tasks are now included in a drop-down menu below the Gmail logo, buttons like Archive or Label are only displayed when you select at least one message, there's a new settings menu that lets you change the display density, gadgets and the chat box are now resizable, there's a new interface for conversations, advanced search options are now displayed when you click the arrow in the search box and you can try HD themes.

For now, you can switch to the old interface from the settings menu, but Google says that this option will be removed soon.

{ via Gmail's blog }

More About Google Drive

Google Drive is just a new name for Google Docs, so you shouldn't expect a new service. What you can expect is a new software that synchronizes your files with Google Docs and more free storage.

Felipe Zorzo found an evidence (English translation) that Google Drive is also the name of a downloadable software. The clue is a new menu item titled "Download Google Drive" that's disabled by default. To enable it, Felipe opened Google Docs, then loaded Chrome's Developer Tools, switched to the Scripts tab and searched for cookieFetchElement. He clicked on the row number (365) to set a breakpoint, reloaded Google Docs, went back to the Developer Tools and pasted the following code in the console:

config.ed = true; config.ddu = '.';

After going back to the Scripts tab, he clicked the "pause" button (F8) and switched to the Google Docs tab.



At the moment, you can't download the Google Drive software, but it will be interesting to see if it's better than Dropbox.

{ Thanks, Rodrigo. }

A Better Way to Share Posts in Google Reader

Brian Shih, a former Google Reader Product Manager, says that the latest Reader update is "a disaster". One of the reasons could be that most of the initial members of the Reader team left Google and the new team doesn't understand the goal of the product.

"It's as if whoever made the update did so without ever actually using the product to, you know, read something. Reader is a product built to consume information, quickly. We designed it to be very good at that one thing. G+ is an experience built around browsing (similar to Facebook) and socializing. Taking the UI paradigm for G+ and mashing it onto Reader without any apparent regard for the underlying function is awful and it shows," says Brian.

One of Brian's complaints is that it's a lot more difficult to share a post in the new interface. Instead of clicking "Share" or using a keyboard shortcut, you now have to click "+1", then click "Share on Google+", select your audience and then click the "Share" button. There's also a privacy downside: +1's are public, even if you only want to share a post with one or two people.

Fortunately, there's a way to share a post without first clicking +1, but it's not obvious. Just use the "share" box from Google's navigation bar.


{ via François }

Download Ebook Tutorial Javascript

"Om Swastiastu"

IT Programmer kembali menawarkan ebook yang berisi panduan lengkap untuk para pemula yang ingin belajar pemrograman. Ebook kali ini adalah tutorial javascript. Dalam ebook ini akan diajarkan bagaimana memulai javascript dari awal sampai tingkat menengah. Sangat berguna bagi kalian yang sama sekali belum pernah mempelajari javascript.

Ebook ini terdiri dari 63 halaman dan terdapat banyak sekali contoh-contoh program dengan javascript. Sehingga akan sangat membantu kalian mengerti pemrograman javascript.

Semoga apa yang IT Programmer berikan dapat bermanfaat bagi kawan-kawan sekalian. Silahkan download ebooknya pada link dibawah ini.

[Mediafire - Tutorial Javascript]

"Om Santhi, Santhi, Santhi, Om"

Read Your Shared Items in Google Reader

The latest Google Reader update removed all the social features, including the section that allowed you to read the items you've shared. Fortunately, the shared items page is still available at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/username (replace username with your Gmail username) and you can subscribe to this page in Google Reader, but only if the page was public. Click "subscribe" and paste the URL of the shared items page. If you don't have a Gmail account, load the shared items feed in Reader, right-click "Your shared items" and copy the URL.


You can now use Google Reader's search box to find a post you've shared. Click the "All items" drop-down next to the search box, scroll down to the end of the list (or just press "End") and you'll find the shared items feed.

To unsubscribe from this feed, you need to go to the settings page, click "Subscriptions", type "shared items" in the search box and click the "unsubscribe button".

Google Reader's New Interface

The new Google Reader interface is finally here and it also brings some functional changes: all the social features are removed and replaced by a Google +1 button. It's important to note that clicking the +1 button only adds the page to your Google Profile and you need to click the "share on Google+" box to share the page with your friends.

This means that the "share" and "like" buttons have been removed, you can no longer follow other Google Reader users and you can no longer read their shared items inside Google Reader. Folders and tags can no longer be public, the blogroll widget and the associated public page will stop being updated, while discussions are a thing of the past.



"When you find interesting items on Reader, you can choose to share them on Google+ publicly, or with a certain circles or friends. You can also add a comment in the sharebox to your shared items. Your comment will show up along with the item you've recommended in the streams of those you've shared with. Adding a note when sharing an item is a great way to let people know why you find a particular item interesting, relevant, or funny. To share an item with a note, just click the +1 button from underneath the item. You'll then be given the option to include any comments you might have in the Google+ share box. Your +1 will be public, but your notes in the share box will be only show up for circles and friends you've selected," explains Google.

What happened to all the posts you've shared or liked until today? You can export them from Reader's settings page, along with the items from people you follow, your discussions, your followers and the list of people you follow. Google offers two exporting options: JSON Activity Stream and a custom Google Reader JSON format, but they're not very useful without a software that parses them.

Unfortunately, all the items +1'd from Google Reader are treated like any other pages and there's no way to read the posts shared by your friends in Google Reader. In fact, there's no way to create a Google+ circle for the people you've followed in Google Reader. The new interface doesn't even offer keyboard shortcuts for sharing posts: Shift+s, Shift+d and "l" no longer work. The integration with Google+ is just an afterthought, instead of a proper replacement for Reader's sharing feature.

Update: Mihai Parparita, who worked on the Google Reader team, puts the changes into perspective and says that "Reader is on its fourth social model", after using Google Talk contacts, allowing you to manage your friends from the Reader interface and integrating with Google Buzz.

Yet Another Google Search Experiment

Google tests a new search interface that brings back the icons for specialized search engines, but displays them in a horizontal list, below the search box. The icons are redundant right now, but they might replace the list from the sidebar, just like in the experimental interface for tablets.

Google Tests a New Navigation Bar

As previously anticipated, Google tests a new navigation bar that could replace the black bar. Guao.kh has some screenshots of the experimental interface and there are three important changes: the black bar has been removed, the list of Google services is now a drop-down next to the Google logo, while the tools menu, the notification button and the sharing box are displayed next to the search box.




The new interface is cleaner, but hiding the list of Google services will make it more difficult to use. A lot of users won't be able to switch from Google Search to Gmail, from Google Docs to Google Reader if the navigation links are no longer displayed without performing an action.

{ Thanks, Tom. }

Update for Offline Google Docs

Offline Google Docs has an updated interface that looks more like the regular version of Google Docs. At launch, Google used a completely different interface. Google Spreadsheets and the Google Docs word processor still use the old interface in the offline mode.


A better idea would be to use the same interface for the regular Google Docs and the offline mode, but gray out the features that aren't available in the offline mode. This way, the transition between the two interfaces would be almost seamless.

{ Thanks, Filipe. }