Filtering Google Searches By Freshness

One of the more useful Google advanced search features is the date filter, which limits results to recent pages. Results can be limited to the past day, week, month, year, etc. Google’s Matt Cutts and GoogleOperatingSystem wrote about it late last year.

You can access the search via the URL as well, by simply adding “&as_qdr=d” to the end of any query (Apple v. Apple in last day). simply change the =d to d5 for 5 days, or w5 for five weeks, or y5 for 5 years, etc. With Google indexing sites so regularly now, it would be great if they let users refine searches down to the hour as well.

One other thing I like about the feature is that once you’ve searched by date, it stays as an option next to the search bar for that session, so you don’t have to keep adding it.

Google may also be testing date searches with some users even without them voluntarily setting it. Our Israel correspondent Roi Carthy resports that it appeared in one of his searches without him using the URL string or advanced search. A quick poll to my Twitter followers asking if anyone saw it yielded mixed results. A few people said they saw it without setting advanced search, but they may have just seen it stay in the session after they set it.

If anyone sees the data box in Google search and they didn’t set the URL string or advanced search, please let us know in the comments. And try to take a screen shot that includes the entire URL string, preferably even before you’ve done a search.

Something about Google Earth 4.3

Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. The new Google Earth 4.3 promises photo-realistic buildings from cities around the world, dawn to dusk views with the Sunlight feature and swoop navigation from outer space to street-level.

You can now enjoy the photo-textured cities and towns, and thousands of user-contributed buildings around the world with greatly improve performance and realism of 3D data. The amazing as well as controversial Street View, a well-known Google Maps feature is now part of Google Earth with version 4.3 and will let you easily find, discover, and plan activities relevant to a location.

Understand more about Street Views in this video

Play with the Sunlight feature and control the sun’s location relative to the Earth. While zoomed into a given city, you can watch the sunrise and sunset! This video explores the amazing new features of Google Earth 4.3.

Things you can do with GOOGLE

Nifty Google Features

Calculate This: You can use Google Calculator to crunch numbers and figure out conversions. Try entering 12*12 and see what happens; you can also run more complex equations, like G*(6e24 kg)/(4000 miles)^2). Google Calculator handles conversions of all types, such as 3 ounces in tablespoons, 16 dollars in euros, or 19999GB to MB.

Find That Number: You can track FedEx, UPS, and U.S. Postal Service shipments just by sticking the tracking number into Google’s search field; do the same with zip and area codes, vehicle IDs, patent numbers, airplane registration numbers, and even UPC codes.

Make Me Special: Google has special search sites just for you. There’s one for Firefox users, another for Linux users, and a spot for those of you who can’t get enough of Microsoft.

Sights on Google: My buddy Leo F. sent a note asking if I wanted to create a quick Web page, or something fairly complex, with just novice skills. “Google Sites is fun to play with,” Leo said, “and even makes a useful Web page, too. Of course, it’s free.”

Ongoing Experiments: If you like poking around with Web tools, you need to explore Google Labs. For instance, Experimental Search gives you five new ways to search, each aimed at tightening and focusing on specific results.

BTW, Goog411 is a Google Labs graduate and a great service.

Alert Me! Google sends me an e-mail every time it sees a new occurrence of “steve bass PC World,” “steve bass PC Annoyances,” or keywords about my various hobbies and interests. If you haven’t tried Google Alerts, you’re missing out on a terrific service.

Hello, Google? If you’re using Firefox and find something cool on the Web, you can use Google Send to Phone to pass the info along to a U.S.-based cell phone. It’s a nifty service that’s really useful for, say, sending a map to a lost buddy. Check the FAQ for details.

Even More Fun With Google

You probably think there’s not much more to say about Google. Nope, there’s still lots.

Start by downloading the Google Cheat Sheet, a two-page PDF with lots of valuable Google shortcuts, search and query examples, and services.

Even better is 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google, a free e-book with Google trivia, games, and nonsense, enough to kill an afternoon (I did). The more I explored, the better I liked this 228-page book. For instance, I wasted time with The Image Quiz, which has you guess the Google search term for a bunch of images. I also picked up a nifty Google magic trick, learned how to find world records, read IRC chat logs people didn’t know were public, and browsed to some very funny Google parody sites, such as UnderGoos, the underwear search site, and Cthuugle, the Lovecraft search engine.

Google Annoyances

While there are a lot of things to love about Google, some strange annoyances manage to balance the situation. Here are 10 annoyances that are in need for a fix:

1. Every time you go to www.google.com/analytics/, Google Analytics asks you to enter your password, even if you are already logged in. One workaround is to bookmark https://www.google.com/analytics/home/.

2. "New features!". Google's products are updated pretty frequently, but sometimes they show this message for months, even if the features are no longer new. Some pathological examples: Google Calendar and Picasa Web Albums.

3. The inconsistent navigation bar. There's no consistency here: some of the links send you to search results, other links send you to homepages. Some of the pages open in a new tab/window, other pages open in the same tab/window. The list of links is different, depending on the current service, and the ordering is not predictable.

4. Search results with tracking code. Because Google needs to track the search results you click on in order to add them to Web History, it replaces their addresses with redirects like: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=... That means you can no longer right click on the link and copy the location. Some workarounds: disable/pause Web History, log out or use a Greasemonkey script.

5. Google Updater. An annoying and intrusive way to install Google software, without providing an alternative for people who like the classic installer.

6. Set Google as my default search and notify me of changes. Every Google software has the mission to make Google your default search option in Internet Explorer (it's already the default option in other browsers), but also to install a notifier that warns you when other software tries to change the default search engine. Usually, the option can be disabled, but Google's wording is vague.

7. Blogger comments. It's hard to create something worse than Blogger's comments: they open in a new page with a different layout, the first option is to log in with a Google account, there's no spam filtering etc.

8. Posting a message at Google Groups. It usually takes one minute for your post to appear on the site, but Google should show it instantly.

9. When you translate a web page, Google Translate shows the original text in a bubble. Google's JavaScript code interferes with other web pages' code and the result is usually terrible. Another downside is that you can't copy the text from a translated web page. One workaround would be to block the JavaScript file, but it keeps changing its address.

10. Google Video has the worst advanced search page. If you search for something and click on "advanced search", your query is lost. The page doesn't put the focus on the first input box and pressing Enter has no effect.

11. Click on a broken link for a Blogger blog and Google is glad to inform you that "the blog you were looking for was not found". Pretty bad for an error message that should've been helpful.

Did you find other Google annoyances?

Microsoft's piracy problem could grow

When it comes to software piracy, Microsoft may just be aiding the enemy.



Microsoft has been counting on gains against unlicensed software to boost revenue from the Windows unit, which accounts for a huge chunk of overall profits and sales. However, one of the company's own decisions could make its antipiracy battle more difficult.


With Windows Vista, Microsoft took an extremely tough stand on piracy. Computers that were not properly activated within a short period of time went into a virtually unusable state known as "reduced functionality mode."

In the newly released Service Pack 1, however, Microsoft is softening its stance somewhat. The reduced functionality mode is gone, and in its place, a series of warnings and visual indications that a computer is not running a genuine copy of Windows.


I would argue, though, that having an unusable copy of Windows is a far greater deterrent than having one that simply labels its user a pirate. Microsoft has maintained that the new approach will be just as effective and is more palatable to customers and partners. Color me skeptical.


But, will the changes automatically lead to an uptick in overall piracy rates? That's a more complicated question.



On its face, it would seem the answer would be a clear "yes."



However, there are a couple of other factors to keep in mind. First, Windows XP is pirated far more than Vista (at least 2 to 1, according to Microsoft). Also, Microsoft did close several notable hacks to its Vista protection scheme with SP1. So while the price for piracy is arguably lower, Microsoft has closed a few loopholes that let pirates bypass the security features altogether.



Time will tell whether Microsoft's technical changes will have an impact on the broader piracy issue. Enforcement is also key, with Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell noting that a couple of legal actions can make a big difference in any given quarter, suggesting true gains (or losses) from piracy require looking at a longer time horizon.



What is clear is that piracy rates remain a critical issue for Microsoft, which needs to continue growing its Windows revenue and profits to help fund its advertising battle against Google.



Microsoft had seemed to be making major headway against piracy, surprising analysts and itself in the September quarter by gaining 5 percentage points of growth through piracy reductions. Last quarter, though, Microsoft actually saw piracy rates head upward, reversing what had been a particularly positive trend for the company.



Microsoft now expects its gains for the year to be just a percentage point or two, though it believes it can continue to see improvements next year as well.



"Piracy is a tough battle and an area where we will need to continue investing," said Colleen Healy, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations.

Yahoo’s New Social Strategy

Yahoo officials presented yesterday during a “Web 2.0” conference their plans for the site’s major makeover. The new direction searches for new advertising opportunities, as the site is going to host applications from other online services turning Yahoo into one of the biggest social hubs on the web.

Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer, was quoted by
the Associated Press telling the crowd: "We are going to rewire the entire
experience at Yahoo to make it social in every dimension."

The plan is to allow its hundreds of millions of users to
enjoy the old services such as Web mail, instant messaging and calendar but also
include new features which contribute to the social experience, features made
popular by social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

"It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all
of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a
consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience
as well," concluded Ari Balogh.

Yahoo also attempted to break into the Internet
social scene by launching in 2005 a network called “Yahoo 360.” Unfortunately
the application was recently closed due to a rather small impact in the media.

The new strategy is expected to be completed by the end of
the year and an official launch date will be presented in the weeks to come.
The move is believed to also raise the bar for the other major players such as
Google, Microsoft, MySpace and Facebook.

Google Analytics : New Graphing Options

Sometimes trends can hide pretty well, and one of Google Analytics' jobs is to make the most actionable trends as apparent as possible so you can surface them to your colleagues and management (and get a promotion). And we realize that most management reporting is done in weekly and monthly time buckets.



With that in mind, we've made it even easier for you to use Google Analytics to create clear and effective management dashboards without having to extract data into other programs. You can use the rich Google Analytics UI and present your promotion-worthy numbers in all their vibrant glory by clearly visualizing trends in weekly or monthly units, in addition to day by day. Have fun with this feature! Watch the patterns come into focus.



Let's look at how the weekly and monthly graphing views can be used by comparing them with viewing the data by day, which used to be the only option. It's very interesting to open up one or two years worth of data to look at your site over time. (Click on the images below for larger views.)



Graph by Day







Strategic insights come from analyzing long term trends. This is the default view in Google Analytics. It hints at something interesting going on in terms of Visits on your site.






New: Graph by Week



Try this cool thing. Click on the Week link on top of the graph, it is newly available in your reports! Suddenly it is more clear what the trend in Visits is. Cooler!





New: Graph by Month

Click on Month and you are now really cooking. Months and months of data visually represented in a way that allows you to clearly show a positive trend, highlight the key points, and yes even ask for a bonus.



Of course all other visualization features in Google Analytics are even more useful now as you use these new time buckets. For instance, take a look at the compare to past visualization.






Comparison in Day view



Comparing two different time periods is a great way to get context to your current performance...



New: Comparison by Month





...but you can highlight the trends in your performance much more optimally by simply clicking on the Month link. This works great for your management reporting and moves you into that corner office. :-)

Red Hat publishes Fedora 9 preview

Red Hat has published a "preview release" of Fedora 9, the next version of its freely available Linux distribution, which will be the last public release before the final edition next month.

The final version of Fedora 9 was initially planned for next week, but the release has been put back by two weeks to May 13, according to the Fedora Project.

Among the updates to Fedora 9 are improvements to the Xen hypervisor, support for new file systems, and the inclusion of newer versions of the Firefox browser and the KDE desktop environment.

"This is the most critical release for the Fedora community to use and test and report bugs on," Red Hat's Jesse Keating said in a release announcement.

Red Hat initially released the preview as a BitTorrent download, and it is planning direct HTTP downloads for this week. Users can choose from Live images--which execute from a disc, without the need to install--or standard CD or DVD installers.

The final version is also scheduled to include the recently released Linux 2.6.25 kernel. A release candidate is also scheduled for May 1, but it is primarily for a smaller group of testers.

Among the new features are improvements to the Xen virtualization hypervisor, the addition of support for the ext4 file system and encrypted file systems, and upgrades to Firefox 3 and KDE 4.0.

In March, Red Hat released new beta versions of its enterprise and desktop Linux products, with improvements including better virtualization and clustering features, to make the operating system a more stable platform for server farms.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2 beta upgraded the core virtualization hypervisor, Xen, to Xen 3.1.2, and allowed support for up to 64 processors per system and up to 512GB of memory per server. The Numa (nonuniform memory access) interface was also improved.

Some users have criticized Red Hat for neglecting its freely available distribution while focusing on its more profitable enterprise version. In February of last year, Eric Raymond, a key figure in the open-source community, transferred his allegiance from Fedora to Ubuntu. At the time, he cited issues such as "chronic governance problems," problems with maintaining repositories, "effectively abandoning the struggle for desktop market share," and "failure to address the problem of proprietary multimedia formats."

Last week, Red Hat quashed speculation that it was planning a consumer desktop version of Linux to compete with Windows, saying it is focused on enterprise systems and would not be able to make such a product profitably.

Yahoo’s Starting Point: A Clearer Strategy

I’ve been a rather harsh critic of Yahoo’s quarterly earnings calls. In January, I called the effort by Jerry Yang and Sue Decker to justify the company’s weak performance a “droning, jargon-filled” explication of a “vision-goes-here strategy.” Two days later, a letter from Redmond arrived with an offer that Yahoo is still working hard to refuse.

Today, Yahoo’s call might not have been a model for inspiration, and there was a lot to roll your eyes at as executives praised financial results that trailed far behind those of Google on most every metric.

Still, I was impressed, especially by the section where Ms. Decker, the company’s president, outlined Yahoo’s strategy. It is still arranged around two buzzwords: being a “starting point” for Internet users and being a “must buy” for advertisers. But what Ms. Decker said that Yahoo plans to do within those strategies was much more sharply defined, and plausible.

I suspect the process of spending $13 million worth of time with investment bankers and consultants (not to mention nights dreaming of the damage that could be done by the barbarians from the north) helps sharpen the thinking.

I’m not so much reacting to any revelations, but a clarity of explanation that I would hope could help rally both employees and customers. A few tidbits:

The “Starting Point” idea, as Ms. Decker explained it, implies two breaks from Yahoo’s past. First, instead of spreading the peanut butter of its efforts across hundreds of sites, it will devote the bulk of its resources to the handful of sections that get the most traffic: the home page, search, news, e-mail and a few others.

Second, the measure of success becomes how often users visit, not how long they stay. That encourages the company’s product designers to be more liberal in linking to other sites and opening Yahoo’s interface to a variety of outside applications and partnerships. You can see some of that in Yahoo Buzz, its Digg-like news site, which often provides links to other sites on Yahoo’s home page.

“When we think of ourselves as a starting point, rather than a destination, all of us become more focused on simplifying users’ lives,” she said.

This openness, of course, is a response to the power of Google; not just search, but Google News and iGoogle, all of which are a model of starting points with little effort to link to Google properties.

Ms. Decker articulated Yahoo’s approach to weaving social features throughout its site.

“We are not trying to be another social network,” she said. “Rather, by linking users’ favorite destinations and content, with their friends’ families and communities, we can deliver better relevance on a scale that no one else has achieved.”

Yahoo has been talking about variations of this strategy since the fall, and yet we still haven’t really seen any significant result.

As for Yahoo’s advertising strategy, Ms. Decker started referring to the company’s focus on “premium partners,” by which she meant newspapers and other media companies, like Forbes, with whom the company is aligning. She didn’t say as much, but this seems like a sensible way to contrast Yahoo’s advertising network with those of Google and AOL, both of which work with the broadest range of publishers, big and small.

Many traditional media companies worry that the rise of advertising networks is undercutting their prices and turning their precious advertising space into a commodity to be traded like pork bellies. There may well be an opportunity for Yahoo to define itself as the ad network that is especially friendly to mainstream media.

Of course, Yahoo is not in reality keeping the online ad world limited to the old country club set. It owns the Blue Lithium ad network, and the Right Media exchange, which is the most active pork-belly pit for cheap online ads.

But at least Yahoo can say to publishers that it feels their pain. The rise of cheap “non-guaranteed” advertising space has dragged down Yahoo’s revenue, Ms. Decker said.

I wonder if there is a bit of a conflict between these two strategies. Can Yahoo really be the most open starting point for Web users if it also wants to help bolster old-guard companies. You can already see that in the new Yahoo Buzz. Unlike Digg, where users submit stories for other people to vote on, Buzz offers its users the chance to express opinions about stories from a handpicked list of about 100 publishers.

It’s true that limiting its starting point to sites with which it has business deals will “simplify users’ lives,” although I’m not so sure that sort of simplification will win a lot of converts from Google.

But Yahoo clearly will benefit, because Ms. Decker is simplifying and clarifying her description of what she wants the company to do.

ProductCart e-commerce software now integrated with Google Website Optimizer

Mission Viejo, CA (PRWEB) April 23, 2008 -- Early Impact, publisher of the ProductCart line of shopping cart software, today released an update for its e-commerce software that makes it easy for a ProductCart-powered Web store to take advantage of Google Website Optimizer.

ProductCart now integrates with Google Website Optimizer

Knowing what combination of content works best on your e-commerce Web site's home page is information all store managers would like to have

ProductCart is a popular shopping cart program used by thousands of Internet merchants. The new features will help these merchants use Google Website Optimizer to dynamically serve different variations of content on key landing pages, such as the store's home page. Merchants will then be able to measure what works best, thus reducing the bounce rate on those pages, and improving the overall conversion rate for their Internet store.



For example, consider a ProductCart-powered store's home page:

• ProductCart contains features that make it easy to dynamically control what is shown on the home page
• However, it's not easy for merchants to know what combination of content could deliver the best results (lowest bounce rate, and highest conversions)
• Store managers can now use Website Optimizer to serve different variations of key page sections such as the top headline and main section, and find out what works best
• This is done without needing to change any settings within ProductCart, but rather simply by uploading a slightly modified version of the home page (home.asp)

For example, Google Website Optimizer is being used by Early Impact to display a different headline and main banner on the company's e-commerce software store home page (visit the page with different browsers to see different versions).



"Knowing what combination of content works best on your e-commerce Web site's home page is information all store managers would like to have," said Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of Early Impact. "Google Website Optimizer can take a lot of the guess work out of the equation, and now it's really easy for ProductCart users to take advantage of it."



The ProductCart storefront pages edited for use with Google Website Optimizer are available immediately, free of charge to ProductCart users. For details and installation instructions, visit the new ProductCart WIKI-based documentation Web site.



ProductCart is available starting at $695 per storefront.

Offline access comes to Google Docs

Since Google Gears was initially released the most prime candidate for offline access must have been Google Docs.
To have the freedom to edit documents offline, and the flexibility to access documents from anyhwere online or through a mobile device is wonderful. My Google Docs recently got the Gears upgrade enabled. Synchronising documents is quite fast, although I have not yet given the offline access a good trial, the only major lacking feature is the inability to create new documents whilst offline, though this can be easily overcome by creating a few empty documents before going offline and hottong the road. It would be nice to see my Gmail on Google Apps upgraded to the new version, surely in time. Google's rollout of new features to Apps seems to be sporadic and somewhst chaotic at times.

Microsoft Live Mesh platform takes on Google, Adobe

As with most core strategies at Microsoft, Live Mesh has a strong platform angle.



At the Web 2.0 Expo on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled Live Mesh, a cloud service for synchronizing files, folders, and Web-delivered content, such as news feeds, across multiple devices.



Along with giving people access to a test version, the company offered a tech preview that will allow developers to access the Mesh APIs to write Web applications with the data-syncing features.



People have long said Microsoft doesn't "get" the Web or is too tied to its desktop heritage. Well, part of the PC legacy is the hard drive, as in "your information."



With Ray Ozzie as chief software architect, Microsoft is tackling one of the trickiest computing problems of the day: data.

In the Live Mesh blog, Microsoft general manager Amit Mital laid out the guiding principles for developers:

• Services Are the Core of the Platform--the Live Mesh platform exposes a number of core services including some Live Services that can all be accessed using the Live Mesh API; these include Storage (online and offline), Membership, Sync, Peer-to-Peer Communication and Newsfeed.



• Same API on Clients and in the Cloud--the programming model is the same for the cloud and all connected devices, which means a Live Mesh application works exactly the same regardless of whether it's running in the cloud, in a browser, on a desktop, or on a mobile device.



• Open, Extendable Data Model--a basic data model is provided for the most common tasks needed for a Live Mesh application; developers can also customize and extend the data model in any fashion that is needed for a specific application.



• Flexible Application Model--developers can choose what application developer model best fits their needs.

Reaction among developers and tech bloggers has been generally positive, likely because Live Mesh seems to serve a real need for people with multiple devices. Developers also shed light on how the platform helps Microsoft competitively.



Josh Catone at ReadWrite Web said that Live Mesh brings offline access to Web applications, much like Adobe AIR and Google Gears (which is still in development). Catone writes:

"Web apps using the Mesh platform will be able to lean on the client software to take their Web applications offline, including all user data, and sync it up when the user gets back online at a later time.



Microsoft is taking an offline approach that is more akin to Google Gears or Mozilla Prism than Adobe AIR--the Web-to-desktop functionality of Mesh is essentially a wrapper for the actual Web app.

Ryan Stewart, a rich Internet application (RIA) evangelist at Adobe Systems, pointed out how important Live Mesh is to getting Silverlight, Microsoft's alternative to Adobe Flash, onto more devices. Live Mesh only works on Windows machines now, but Silverlight runs on the Mac OS, Linux through Moonlight, and mobile devices. Stewart writes:

"As an RIA fan boy, I'm excited to see what people build on top of Live Mesh because I think it tries to solve the right problem. We should just have access to our data. It shouldn't matter if we're in the browser, on the desktop, or on a device. That's a goal I think both Adobe and Microsoft share and I think the next couple of years are going to be great in unifying the Web and getting rid of 'Web application' versus 'browser applications.' They're just going to be applications when all is said and done."

Meanwhile, all that talk of Web OSes or Webtops seems to be coming from Microsoft, the company with presumably the most to lose as computing moves from the PC to the Web.



"Is this like a WebOS (Webdesktop, Webtop?)--yes, although everyone seems to be avoiding the term, this is a lot like all those WebOS apps you've seen. You get a virtual desktop with 5GB of storage and you can access it from anywhere. It's integrated with Windows' Remote Desktop, so it's really simple to set up," writes Stan Schroeder at Mashable.



What developers actually do with the Live Mesh platform remains to be seen. But third-party applications are key to delivering on its promise.

10 killer texting tricks

April 23, 2008 (PC World) To many people over the age of 30, text messaging can seem like one of those strange, complicated behaviors only teenagers understand. In reality, it's one more great tool in your productivity arsenal, right up there with e-mail and instant messaging.

In function, texting treads a fine line between those two communication capabilities, essentially serving as a basic form of e-mail for even the simplest of today's cell phones. Text messaging relies on a decades-old technology called SMS (Short Message Service) that's used to relay brief messages (usually no more than 160 characters, equivalent to a couple of average-length sentences).

Teens typically use texting for trivial cell-to-cell communication ("WHERE R U?", "AT THE MALL!"). But savvy travelers can leverage SMS for a whole lot more. Let your thumbs do a little walking (over your phone's keypad) and you can check flight status, update your calendar, track a package, check your bank balance and get driving directions to almost anywhere.

You don't even always need your thumbs: Some services let you send messages and retrieve information using just your voice. Best of all, most of these text-messaging marvels cost nothing to use -- though you'll want to check with your carrier to see how many messages (if any) are allowed as part of your monthly plan.

1. Remember your appointments and schedule new ones
Can't remember what time your next meeting takes place? If you're a Google Calendar user, you can find out in a flash: Just send a message with the word "next" to GVENT (dial 48368) and you'll get back the time and details of your next scheduled event. Send "day" for a full list of today's appointments and "nday" for tomorrow's.
Google Calendar also lets you add new events via SMS -- and you can use plain English to do it. For example: "Lunch with Joe at Panera Bread tomorrow at noon." Shoot a message like that to GVENT, and Google will add it to your calendar with all the appropriate details.

Finally, you can configure Google Calendar to send automatic reminders in advance of an event. For any existing entry, click Edit Event Details, then Add a Reminder. Choose SMS from the list of options, and then specify how far in advance of the event the notification should arrive.

Before you can leverage Google Calendar's SMS features, you have to configure it for use with your phone. In your Web browser, open Google Calendar and click the Settings link, then choose Mobile Setup. Follow the simple cues to enable cell phone notifications, and you're all set.

Of course, Google Calendar isn't the only game in cyberspace. Services like PingMe and Sandy can deliver notifications to your phone and process new reminders that you send from it. And Kwiry helps you remember things you're supposed to do by routing text messages created on your phone to your e-mail in-box.

2. Track packages, calories and cash
A number of Web services now offer alerting and information options via SMS to help keep you in the loop. For example, are you dying to know when your newly ordered MacBook Air will arrive? Forward your delivery-confirmation e-mail to TrackMyShipments.com, and you'll subsequently receive SMS updates on your package's status, location and delays (if any). You can also monitor your own shipments by sending its tracking number to a special e-mail address.

If you're watching your weight, Diet.com can help you count your calories. Text any major restaurant chain's name and menu item to DIET1 (dial 34381) and Diet.com will shoot you back the nutrition stats: calories, fat, carbs and protein.

Quicken Online can send you a text-message reminder when a bill is due, so you won't have to worry about racking up late fees. Other Web-based money managers like Buxfer and Mint offer even more SMS-alert options: They can notify you of low balances, unusual spending and large deposits (such as a paycheck). You can even record transactions (great for tracking expenses on the run) or request an account balance.

3. Compose text messages with your voice
Most people who hate text messaging do so for the simple reason that's such a hassle to compose messages using a cell phone keypad. You could always upgrade to a keyboard-equipped phone like the AT&T Tilt, LG Voyager or RIM BlackBerry Curve, but even those models are "all thumbs" when it comes to text input. Plus, it probably seems excessive to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone just for the sake of easier text messaging.

Instead, let your voice do the legwork -- or fingerwork. A free service called Jott will transcribe your spoken message into text and deliver it via SMS to anyone in your contact list (which you have to set up in advance on the Jott site). Just speed-dial Jott from your cell phone, say the name of the person you want to contact and then start talking. (Remember to keep it short: Text messages can't be longer than a few sentences.) This is also a much safer way to send a message while you're at the wheel. (Note, however, that some states ban or discourage using the phone while driving, or are considering laws against it.)

4. Get driving directions

If your phone lacks GPS and you need to find your way between points A and B, let SMS be your guide. Before you hit the road, head to MapQuest in your desktop browser and input your destination. Once the site generates the driving directions, click the Send to Cell option and enter your cell number. In seconds you'll receive a text message containing a link to turn-by-turn directions for your route.

If you're away from your PC, tap Google SMS for on-the-fly navigation. Create a new message with your starting point and destination, then send it to GOOGLE (dial 466453). In return, you'll receive Google Maps directions in one or more text messages (depending on the length of the route). You can also get an actual map by texting "map" and your location.

Need directions but don't want to take your hands off the wheel? Dial 800-FREE-411, 800-GOOG-411 or DIRECTIONS (dial 347-328-4667) for voice-prompted assistance. State your starting address and where you want to go; all three services will whip up directions and shoot them to your phone via SMS. Best of all, they're free. You pay only standard calling and text-message charges.

Microsoft rolls out Live Mesh preview

Microsoft has officially unveiled a preview of Live Mesh, the web services platform seen as a key plank of the company's aggressive software plus services strategy.

Chief software architect Ray Ozzie, who has been evangelising the project for some time, lifted the skirt on Microsoft’s Live Mesh last night.

The service will initially provide file sharing and folder synchronisation for Windows XP and Vista PCs to a closed beta of about 10,000 testers.

There are also plans to roll out Live Mesh to Apple Macs and other platforms, but the firm hasn't set a date for when customers can expect to see that happen.

The move is Microsoft's latest attempt to build the web platform of choice for consumers by merging more of its software within a SaaSy cloud. In recent months, Redmond has been working hard at blurring the lines by making its applications' capabilities available as services.

But the likes of Google, Salesforce, Amazon and Facebook might have something to say about Microsoft's online strategy. All those firms are equally keen to be the dominant Web 2.0 force.

Down the road, Microsoft hopes to bring more features to Live Mesh, including allowing customers to connect and synch all of their digital devices such as phones, games consoles, and music players.

Microsoft already has in its armoury Exchange and SharePoint Online, and Dynamics CRM Live – which was given the official red carpet treatment earlier this week.

Ozzie has also tackled the issue of making Microsoft Office productivity and collaboration available on the PC, mobile, and as a hosted service via Office Live in a direct challenge to the increasingly popular online office suite Google Apps.

Developers will probably be attracted to Microsoft's "open" platform offer to let them write code in a variety of flavours for Live Mesh that include anything from Atom to RSS and Javascript.

Meanwhile, consumers can expect to have at least 5GB of personal online storage and unlimited peer-to-peer data for synchronising information between devices.

Microsoft, which is still hotly pursuing Yahoo! in a hostile takeover bid, said it was also looking at a number of business models to monetise Live Mesh. These include paid subscriptions and advertising.

Business customers might also get a look in on the new service later this year, said the software giant.

Adobe, Google cite offline access to Web apps

Adobe, Google cite offline access to Web apps as trend
Companies' officials talk up, respectively, Adobe AIR and Google Gears technologies at Web 2.0 Expo

Offline access to Web applications is becoming an important trend, with Adobe and Google looking to make the most of this
new direction.


Representatives of the two companies touted offline access technologies during a presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo conference
in San Francisco on Wednesday. Adobe provides its Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) software for this space, while Google is working on its Google Gears technology.



"Really, what it's about is developer choice," said Ryan Stewart, Adobe platform evangelist. Previously, the Web was limited
to the browser, but now it is expanding, Stewart said. He cited several examples of new trends in Web technologies, including
Prism, that bring Web applications to the desktop in a similar manner to Adobe.



"The creativity for development pretty much went to the browser," because it was cross-platform and easy to develop for, Stewart
said. The browser helped foster development of exciting applications.



"Adobe AIR wants to bring some of that to the desktop," said Stewart. The company wants to take the best of the Web and offer
more functionality beyond browser limitations, he said.



AIR users can take advantage of resources on their local machine; also, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) applications
can be built inside AIR, Stewart said. AIR applications feature an installer supported across multiple operating systems.
AIR provides real desktop applications that use Web technologies, and it features Flash integration and local file access.



"You really have full control over the file system," Stewart said.


Google's Dion Almaer hailed Google Gears, a beta-phase project intended to enable more powerful Web applications. Among other
capabilities, Gears allows Web applications to interact naturally with the desktop.



Gears, Almaer said, is an open source update mechanism for the Web. Possible additions to Gears include a location API, providing
the ability to know where a user of a browser is; an audio API; and a notification API, which would provide alerts for users.



Google Gears features a local server cache for application resources, the SQLite database for data storage, and the ability
to make Web applications more responsive through the WorkerPool capability. Resource-intensive operations are performed asynchronously
via JavaScript-based WorkerPool.



Almaer cited a user site, Buxfer, which is a Web 2.0 startup that handles personal finances for students sharing resources.
Some users do not want to store their banking information in Buxfer servers; with Gears they can store it locally, said Almaer.



"They're using the database not in an offline [capacity] but just as a place to store this data," he said.


Gears was described as a bleeding-edge implementation of HTML 5, the specification for which features capabilities to help
Web application authors and improved interoperability for user agents, according to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web page
on HTML 5.

MSN Live Search Releases New Features

MSN Live Search has added some new features to its Live Search. Besides the fact that most of the search results by Live Search end up pretty much as what the user is looking for, still Microsoft wanted to refine the user search experience.

According to the Live Search Team Blog, the MSN Live Search has a fresh new look and has also focused on website suggestion features. It now looks for more relevant results by delving deep into the search results. The update to the Live Search will now enable the Live Search Crawlers to burrow deep into the search results to dig out and suggest relevant sub-pages in accordance to the search query. This feature is quite similar to 'Google Sitelinks' where search results included a set of links below them to pages within the website. This feature that has now been incorporated in Live Search Results analyze the search results and find suitable shortcuts enabling the users to find what they are looking for without investing a lot of time.

The new features, also incorporated in Live Search Products give the users an option to refine their searches based on user opinions, brands, category and price range. These options are visible on the left side of the Live Search Products home page. Users now also have the flexibility of comparing prices, user ratings and can also view the reviews of selected products.

It seems like these updates have come in the wake of many updates and features that have been released by both Google and Yahoo!. Hopefully, these new updates will put Live Search back in the competition. Honestly, MSN Live Search has been lagging behind these two for quite some time now.

Google's Android Closer To Reality?

The launch of the iPhone (shortly followed by the iPod Touch) seemed to fuel developer's desires to create mobile-specific web applications despite the device's ability to access the entire internet (without the WAP/WML limitations of most mobile devices). Many mobile web users find the wireless application protocol (WAP) too restrictive and slow, greatly limiting what WAP browsers can access on the internet. On the other hand, all mobile devices (even the iPhone) have small screens and excessive scrolling can be annoying (not to mention EDGE speeds until a 3G version is released). Even still, both the iPhone and iPod touch have spurred movement in the mobile web.



Now, with Google's Android platform even closer to reality, developers could find themselves with a new, open source mobile platform to develop apps for (both native and web-based), if the Open Handset Alliance becomes as revolutionary as many are expecting. The news today is that T-Mobile USA is already preparing for the release of an Android handset to hit stores before the end of this year.



Recently, Joe Sims, VP and general manager of T-Mobile's broadband and new business division, stated that not only has he already seen prototypes of the "impressive" Android-based phone, but that T-Mobile "will have more than one product…(The move to an open platform) will be innovation across the board, not just one device."



As far as manufacturers, the T-Mobile prototype spoken of could be from Motorola, Samsung, HTC or LG, as these are the four handset manufacturers that have joined up with Google. Sprint and Verizon are the other major U.S. carriers who are members of the alliance but neither has yet to announce plans for the release of Android devices. This could work out to T-Mobile advantage, as the Deutsche Telekom-owned company has long lagged behind other services in terms of added features (mobile television, high-speed internet, etc.).



Personally, I see the development of the Android platform as a 'step forward' (even if it's not the perfect solution), because the days of carrier restrictions and outrageous prices for upgraded features should end. Who wants to keep paying by the MB for access to a carrier when free wi-fi is available? And who want to pay $5+ to their phone company for each game they download when their are open source developers around the world itching to create fun games and useful apps for people worldwide… for FREE. All they need is the ability, the platform, and some incentive. That is what Google is trying to accomplish, especially considering that they have $10 million up for grabs for developers.



Though what will come of the impending release of Android and compatible handsets is still unknown, it should defintely help garner some change in the mobile market and help further develop a universal mobile web. My only concerns deal with how the change will affect contract terms, the prices of handsets, and monthly rates for the carriers involved.

Everything Google

Cool features Google offers to take advantage



Google Earth

"Explore, Search and Discover" reads the homepage for Google Earth. Now the power to search satellite images, maps, foreign lands and any 3D terrain, building, or structure imaginable is just one click away. Going on a vacation? Type in the location and see a street view of the area surrounding your hotel. The images on Google Earth, say of a neighborhood or public building are 1-3 years old via satellite imaging, and some search listings are limited in international countries. The images displayed in Google Earth are not "real time" images. However, the newest version of Google Earth has a time of day option where one can scroll to see the location at any time of day, noon to midnight. The new version also offers a flight simulator feature. Currently Google Earth is available in the free version, Plus version and Pro version. It is also supported in 13 languages, and working towards being accessible in more languages. Google Earth also has searchable astronomical images available.



Google Desktop

The new download from Google makes organizing and searching your computer even easier. Now searching your desktop is as quick as searching the Internet, and the application also allows users to organize their desktop with useful gadgets like personalized searches, e-mail previews, weather, news updates and a handy sidebar that keeps all the gadgets organized. Very similar to Mac's dashboard application, Google Desktop also features smart indexing that organizes web browsing history, and multiple file types.



Google Talk

Google Talk is free. It hosts instant messaging, PC to PC voice calls, gmail notifications and fast file transfers. There is no download needed to use Google Talk and it is accessible on any computer. It can be added to iGoogle, a web-page, and is automatically accessible through any gmail account. Google Talk also allows media previews of videos, URL's and slideshows from multiple media-based sites.



Google Books and My Library

Google Books offers readers access to thousands of titles, and virtually all genres imaginable. This feature allows readers to scroll through and read limited previews of all books, or as much as the copyright holder of each title has released to be seen, by making the books available through PDFs. The Google Book search works by simply typing in a keyword, the title, or author, and a preview of the book covers search results appears. By clicking on a book cover, another page opens that has images of the book front and back, reviews, author info, popular pages, subjects in the book, and links to Amazon.com to buy the book if a reader wishes to have access to the entire book. Users can also create their own personalized library where they can rate, label, review, and organize their own library of favorite book previews.



Google Groups

Now anyone can create a discussion group on any topic fast and hassle free. Google Groups users can discuss topics through e-mail, webpages, and customized discussion boards. Google Group members can share files, and easily share access to a wide variety of info. The newest version of Google Groups is now available with new and improved features: collaborative webpage creation, customization, file sharing and personalized member profiles to learn more about other users in shared groups.



Google Scholar

Although Google Scholar may not be as exhaustive as other scholarly databases, especially those with emphasis in specific subject areas, it offers users "a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature" spanning a wide variety of disciplines. Google lists the sources for GS: "peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations." GS provides links to the full text of much of the searchable scholarly literature. Where the free full text cannot be provided, GS



Google Video

Like Youtube, Google Video allows users to upload and share video content. What makes Google Video special is its search engine, which incorporates results from Google Video itself, youtube, and other third-party websites. According to Google, The Google Video index is "the most comprehensive on the web," making it the most powerful video searching tool currently available.



Google Docs

Free to Google users-Google Docs is a basic and easy to use online word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation application. Google Docs gives users the ability to create new documents or upload existing documents, users can store and share documents online with ease. The most innovative and useful feature in Google docs is real time collaboration. Users can invite people to collaborate on a document, which allows multiple users to edit a single document at the same time. A chat-window keeps track of revisions made and displays which user made specific changes. Google Docs are stored securely online where they are far removed from the risk of computer crashes and accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. Frequent auto-saving mitigates data loss in the event of a browser crashing or disruptions in Internet connections. Docs requiring more advanced features can be exported in popular formats like .doc, .xls, .pdf, and .rtf and used popular document production programs.



Gmail

Back in the invite-only days of Google's e-mail service, having a Gmail account was a status symbol of sorts around the web. Since then, the fervor has died down, but users remain faithful. Using Ajax and JavaScript, Gmail implements a user-friendly interface that was one of the first to boast the feature of archiving. Archiving means that instead of users deleting their mail permanently, "read mail" is saved-a feature that can come in handy in the clutch.



GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)

Think directory assistance done right-and free. GOOG-411 uses speech-recognition technology to allow users to search and connect to businesses in the U.S. and Canada. GOOG-411 also allows users to have the telephone number and address of a given business text-messaged to any text-accepting cellular phone. The best feature of GOOG-411 is that it is free of charge.



Google Reader

Google Reader utilizes Atom and RSS feeds to aggregate a personalized news feed. Google Reader serves as an "inbox for your news," bringing in stories and posts from the user's choice websites and blogs into a slick interface that makes staying up to date simple. Google Reader is also available on mobile phones that support XHTML or WAP 2.0 and the Wii web browser.



Google Finance

Google Finance features Business News headlines as well as in-depth stock information. Adobe Flash powers the stock charts and feature real-time quotes during trading hours.



iGoogle

Similar to Netvibes and My Yahoo! iGoogle is a personalized start page that offers users a variety of helpful ways to begin their web-browsing experience. iGoogle works in a three-column layout with web-based widgets that focus on a variety of different topics. Some of the most popular widgets include "Google Reader," "Quotes of the Day," and "Youtube: Top Rated."



Google Page Creator

Like the name suggests, Google Page Editor will allow users easily compose, edit, and publish web pages. Frequent auto-saving fast publishing, and a user-friendly interface could make this yet another popular ingredient in the Google mix.



Google Mars

The same concept as Google Earth, this Google feature still in development is the result of a collaboration with NASA researchers at ASU and according to Google, provide "some of the most detailed scientific maps of Mars ever made."



Google Ride Finder

Based in Google Maps, Google Ride Finder offers real time tracking of participating taxi and limousine services using GPS technology. So far, Ride Finder only gives users up-to-the-minute locations of vehicles in the following cities: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

MS Works vs Open Office vs Google Docs

With Microsoft releasing a new version of Works that is advertisement supported, many people will be wondering which is better - MS Works, Open Office, or Google Docs. This is a comparison between the three.

Microsoft Works

MS Works is a home productivity suite that is smaller, less expensive, and has fewer features than Microsoft Office. MS Works has a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database. It also has some other small features, but these are the main ones most people will be using. Works comes free with most prebuilt computers, and now Microsoft has inserted advertisements into Works to allow smaller PC makers to preinstall it and make it available to you for free.

Works doesn’t have many features, and it can’t create standard DOC and XLS documents. Instead it uses the WPS and WKS file formats. This means you will only be able to edit Works documents in Works.

Open Office

Open Office is an office application suite that is available on multiple operating systems. It supports Microsoft Office’s DOC format, so you can create and edit files that will be supported in both Open Office and Microsoft Word. It also supports many other formats. The thing that makes Open Office a competitor to Microsoft Office is that it is completely free and available under the LGPL license. Open Office is available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, and in part for Mac OS X.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free web based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Several people can edit one document at the same time. You can create spreadsheets, presentations, and word documents through a user friendly web interface, and then save it to your computer, email it, or save it to Google’s servers. You can save as DOC or XLS, as well as other formats.

The only problem with Google Docs is that there are file size limitations for all documents you create.

The Winner

1. Open Office



2. Google Docs


3. Microsoft Works

Open Office has the most features, it’s free, it supports standard file formats, and it’s available for many operating systems.

Google Docs is free, supports standard file formats, and has some unique features.

Microsoft Works is ad supported or free only when it comes with a new computer, doesn’t support saving as standard formats, and doesn’t have many features.

While Microsoft Office is better than all of these applications, these are the free alternatives that people might look into if they can’t afford paying $300 for an application. This is a completely unbiased comparison. Comment on your experiences with these programs below!

Google Docs Offline Access For Apps Users

Wondering when Google is FINALLY going to bless your Google Apps account with offline access to your Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations? Like most Google Apps for Your Domain users, I have been waiting (not so patiently) for the ability to download my documents to Google Gears to work offline in airplanes, subterranean offices, or other internet-challenged locations.

Unfortunately for Google Apps users, the rollout of offline access will occur after the rollout to regular non-Apps users:

We’ve sometimes delayed the launch of features like group chat and colored labels to Google Apps domains because we want to ensure that all the features we bring to the Google Apps suite are useful and stable before providing them to our business, education and organizational users.

However, as an administrator it is possible to opt-in to new services and features within Google Apps by configuring your domain settings like this:

1. Log in to the control panel at https://www.google.com/a/your_domain.com. Be sure to replace ‘your_domain.com’ with your actual domain name.


2. Click Domain settings.



3. Under the General tab, and in the New services and features section, check the box next to Turn on new features.


4. Click Save changes.

It may take up to 24 hours for the features to be added to your domain, but it beats waiting for the rest of the Apps world to catch up.

A few of the offline features and benefits are explained in this video from the Google Apps team:

Spanning Sync to add Address Book synchronization (updated)

If you’re like me you probably have a Gmail account. Some people use Gmail as their full-time email, others just for large attachments or times when your ISP’s email is fubar. Either way, there’s no denying the convenience of a good webmail account and I find Gmail to be the best of the lot.

As a Mac user I’m totally wrapped up in Address Book and iCal. The latter mostly because it’s invaluable to sync and subscribe to multiple calendars – iCal’s practically a requirement for any modern family, especially one that uses iPhones.

There are times, however, when it’s necessary to share calendars with people who aren’t Mac users and that’s where Google apps come in. They’re super-convenient, free and, well, they work with that other platform too. But who wants to maintain a Google Calendar and iCal? Not me.

Spanning Sync provides an easy way to sync iCal with your Google Calendars and vice versa.

With Spanning Sync, your iCal calendars are kept in sync with Google Calendar, which means you can use the best features of both to manage your schedule.

Today comes news that version 2 will add contact syncing from Address Book to Google contacts. A demo screencast is posted on the Spanning Sync blog. The best news comes at the very end of the screencast – Spanning Sync 2 will be a free upgrade. No word on when the 2.0 update will be available though.

Spanning Sync is free for 15 days, after which you can sign up for either a US$25 one-year subscription or a US$65 one-time purchase.

Update: Charlie Wood from Spanning Sync told me to expect to see a public beta of Spanning Sync v2.0 “soon.” He didn’t want to commit to anything, thinks it’s reasonable to expect it within the next couple of weeks.

Also, since they sell Spanning Sync on a subscription basis, all upgrades – both major and minor – are always free for paid subscribers. This hasn’t gotten much attention but is worth noting. I hate being surprised by upgrade charges.

Virtualization Goes Mobile

The technology could finally lead to one phone that does everything well. It's still early, but Motorola, Cisco, and Intel want in

Peter Richards, who runs software startup VirtualLogix, carries three phones. He uses a Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve 8300 for e-mail, a Motorola (MOT) Razr for calls, and an Apple (AAPL) iPhone for mobile Web browsing. He'd rather get that combination of features from a single phone.

Sunnyvale (Calif.)'s VirtualLogix wants to help build that phone using a kind of software known as virtualization, which increases the efficiency of computers. One of last year's most successful initial share sales came from VMware (VMW), a company that uses virtualization technology to help companies make better use of their servers, the computers that run Web sites and corporate networks. Orders for VMware's products surged 88% in 2007, to $1.33 billion. VirtualLogix and a handful of other companies, including Trango Virtual Processors, Green Hills Software, Open Kernel Labs, and Wind River Systems (WIND), are hoping to replicate that success by applying virtualization to cell phones.

Handset makers could use virtualization to more easily replicate the features found in one another's devices and confront the threat posed by Apple, which introduced the iPhone in 2007. Virtualization could also help cell-phone makers offer more features at a lower price. "Ultimately, the [handset] winner is going to be determined by their ability to manage security, costs, and time [to market]," says Steve Subar, CEO of Open Kernel. VirtualLogix got a push forward in its effort by a funding infusion from Motorola, unveiled on Apr. 21.

The Modular Mobile Phone

Here's how mobile virtualization works. Currently, programmers have to rewrite every application—be it a game, social networking service, or other feature—for each of the various operating systems, including Symbian, Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile, or Google's (GOOG) Android. The tinkering can take months. But virtualization software would enable a mobile-phone maker to add features regardless of the operating system. So Motorola could grab a Web-browsing application written for one system, an e-mail application for another, and calling features designed for a third OS, and elegantly integrate them onto one phone. That could significantly speed up the phone-design process. "It's certainly a difference of months," says Bill Weinberg, an industry analyst at consulting firm LinuxPundit.com.

Virtualization also helps a phone run with fewer chips. Today, mobile phones typically require a combination of a baseband processor, which enables the phone to communicate; an applications processor, responsible for running applications like e-mail; and a multimedia chip, which handles graphics, audio, and video. But a virtualized phone can accomplish all of the above with just one or two processors instead of three. "In terms of the ability to consolidate hardware, there are parallels to servers," says Matt Volckmann, a senior analyst at consultant Venture Development. Open Kernel Labs estimates that handset makers would save $5 to $10 per phone.

Virtualization could also help carriers respond to security challenges that are expected to ensue as networks are thrown open to competing devices and applications.

Google developers play in the sandbox

Google has released new sandbox tools for its iGoogle web service, allowing developers to create larger and more complex iGoogle Gadget apps.

A sandbox is an isolated environment in which developers can test and preview code without running it live.

Among the features in the new sandbox will be better support for Google's OpenSocial APIs and new view modes.

Developers will use the sandbox to piece together the Gadgets from a mixture of XML and JavaScript code.

A new 'Canvas' view lets developers run applications in much larger windows on the user's iGoogle page, allowing a gadget to run in a full window rather than a pre-determined box on the page.

The new tools will also allow developers to add Gadgets to a new navigation box which will appear on the left-hand side of the screen.

"Developers are an important part of Google's innovation ecosystem and we are always striving to provide tools to help them innovate in new directions that will ultimately make the web richer for all users," Google said in a statement.

"By building more powerful and interactive Gadgets for iGoogle, developers will have an opportunity to share their Gadgets with tens of millions of iGoogle users."

Google released iGoogle in April 2007 as a remake of the traditional launch pages. Users customise the pages with the Gadget applets that add various features.

The service is accompanied by the OpenSocial API, which allows other sites and services to create their own Gadgets for use with iGoogle.

Google Summer of Code 2008

The various Google Summer of Code slots have been awarded to the participating projects. As most of you will know, the Summer of Code is all about enticing programmers to contribute to open source projects. Students submit their ideas to mentor organisations (these mentors are approved by Google first), and after selecting the ideas the mentors like the most, the programmers work to complete their task. If they succeed, Google will grant them a stipend. Google selected 174 mentor organisations for this year's Summer of Code. Read on for a selection of interesting applications that have been approved.

* DragonFlyBSD: LiveCD with a DragonFly-specific X desktop, integrated into nrelease build, by Lousia Luciani. "In this project I will integrate more functionality into the nrelease build system. The build will generate a persistent liveCD with Dragonfly specific features. It will be customized for recovery, demonstration and testing and include a good default installation of packages."

* Enlightenment: Improvement of Enlightenment 0.17 file manager, by Fedor Gusev. "As Enlightenment is standing to be a desktop shell, it has to have a nice file manager. Since E developers understand that, they already have started the work. But there is still a lot to do - a fifth of Enlightenment TODO is related to the file manager. It is necessary to finish it."

* Enlightenment: Enlightenment win32 port, by Dzmitry Mazouka. "Currently, the Enlightenment project is ported to a large number of platforms, but support of win32 is still not completed. This hinders Enlightenment from being used by a large amount of Windows users. The aim of the porting project is to make Ewl and Etk Enlightenment toolkits work on win32 platform."

* ES operating system: A Pure Component Kernel Design and Development, by Santosh G. Vattam. "I wish to take up the design and development of the pure component kernel for ES Operating System as a project for the Google Summer of Code initiative for the year 2008. The aims of the project are as follows: Improving the quality of the existing kernel code and bring it to production level; providing x64 support to the OS along with x86 support, using the Newlib which already has 64-bit support; adding a new virtual memory management system for x64."

* Haiku: Application for Implementing paging (swap file) support, by Zhao Shuai. "Implement a module that writes dirty pages back to its backing store. Support more than 1 swap files. Do necessary changes in other modules to interact with the new features."

* The X.Org Foundation: GUI tool for assisted editing of the XKB configuration database, by Symeon Xenitellis. "One of the missing free and open-source applications is a GUI tool that helps create keyboard layouts. Currently, a user has to edit the layout file by hand using a text editor, which is both cumbersome and error-prone. The GUI tool will be able to create a new or import existing keyboard layouts and export a formatted new version. The user will be presented with a keyboard and auxiliary windows covering Unicode blocks, and will be able to drag and drop characters on individual keys."

This is just a selection of projects that I personally find noteworthy. The list is endless, however, so there's bound to be something in there that tickles your fancy.

Google #1 in Top Brands of 2008

Just a couple of days after Google announced its 1st quarter earnings, Millward Brown released the BrandZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands list. The search giant ended up on top of that list. See below for the rest of the top 10.


1. Google
2. GE
3. Microsoft
4. Coca-Cola
5. China Mobile
6. IBM
7. Apple
8. McDonalds
9. Nokia
10. Marlboro

Google’s earnings grew by 31% in 1st Q of 2008 despite dim forecasts, surprising Wall Street and gaining back some of its lost share prices.

According to the Millward Brown, Google tops the rankings for the second consecutive year. Google tops the list again with a brand value of $86.1 billion followed by GE at $71.4 billion and Microsoft at $70.8 billion. Surprisingly, China Mobile is the only non-global company that made it to the top 10.

Hmm.. with all the google features (blogger, gmail, gtalk, adsense among others) no wonder it became a daily household word in the net. Words like googling, googles, googled might even be found in the dictionary. Heheheh!

Google Earth For Earth Day

A time to sit back and think about our wonderful planet, and some of us will be out picking up some trash, or just enjoying nature. For those of you stuck inside due to weather, work, or other reasons - perhaps you might want to spend the day exploring our wonderful planet through the power of Google Earth. Here are a few links of stories from Google Earth Blog (GEB) describing environmental related content available for viewing in Google Earth:

• Basic Tips on Using Google Earth
  

• Environment Layers - Greenpeace,
  ARKive (endangered species), Unicef (water and sanitation), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)
  

• Rising Sea Levels - Animations showing what would happen if ice melting caused seas to rise too high - e.g. New York City.
  

• EPA Air Quality Report - US Environmental Protection Agency's air quality report for Google Earth - called AirNOW
  

• International Polar Year - Collection of content for Google Earth about the Earth's poles, and science projects ongoing to study the arctic environment. Part of the International Polar Year project.
  

• Sea Ice Melting - Dramatic animation of data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center showing ice extents from 1979 through March of 2008 on both poles. See other GE data from NSIDC.
  

• Google Earth Outreach Showcase - See environmental and science content for Google Earth.
  

• Amazon Indians Using Google Earth - Primitive indians learn to use GPS and Google Earth to help protect their rainforest - true story!
  

• Upper Green Valley - Issues of gas drilling impacting the environment in one location
  

• Neighborhood Fights Logging With Google Earth - Neighbors in Santa Cruz, California successfully stop a logging plan by using Google Earth. Read the full story.
  

• Blue Marble Add-On - This file lets you view a prettier image of the Earth from NASA for Google Earth. It shows the view of the Earth from space, with or without clouds, based on the current month. The clouds are closer to real time - updated every 15 minutes. The picture of the Earth and clouds disappear automatically as you get closer so you can see GE's built in satellite imagery without interference.
  
  

eGrabber Announces New Features To ResumeGrabber Pro

April 22, 2008 ( PowerHomeBiz ) - San Jose, CA -- eGrabber Inc., a leading Silicon Valley-based provider of sales lead and resume data capture and processing solutions, today announced new features to its resume import tool – ResumeGrabber Pro. Recruiting professionals can now leverage the enhanced capabilities of the new ResumeGrabber to screen and transfer resumes from the search results displayed on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, AltaVista and AlltheWeb.


In addition to supporting search engines, ResumeGrabber can also import resumes from Job Boards, Outlook Email (attachments) and PC Folders. It auto-extracts name, address, email and phone number of candidates and enters it, along with the resume, into databases. The ResumeGrabber grid, in-built, allows recruiters to screen and shortlist resumes based on keywords. The product completely eliminates the pain of having to manually screen every resume and copy-paste contact information from each selected resume into your database.

Some of the other exciting features in the new release include:

Additional data fields to enable capture of comprehensive information on candidates Automatic calculation of the geographic distance between the recruiter's location and the candidate's Direct transfer of resumes into Big Biller, a leading online ATS "The new ResumeGrabber Pro will be a shot in the arm for recruiters. The recent enhancements to the product will benefit its users immensely since recruiters can now import resumes from all major search engines", said Chandra Bodapati, CEO, eGrabber. "The array of new features incorporated in the product will not only improve recruiting productivity, but also create exciting user experiences"

The new ResumeGrabber Pro is available for immediate release and is priced at a annual subscription fee of only $495. To get more information on ResumeGrabber product, please visit http://www.egrabber.com/resumegrabberpro/

To upgrade to the new version, existing users of ResumeGrabber Pro can contact our sales specialists at 408-705-1106 or email to document.write("" + salesid + "") sales@egrabber.com

Information on all other eGrabber products including ResumeGrabber Professional, can be found at http://www.egrabber.com/

About Us: eGrabber is the leading provider of data-capture-automation engines. Over half a million businesses use eGrabber engines for processing leads, resumes and other customer data. eGrabber's data-capture engines enable fast, accurate and simple out of the box automation, thanks to patented domain-aware and work flow-aware technology. They help automate costly and inefficient business processes related to integrating and merging customer data across the web, email and multiple applications.

Yahoo BrowserPlus Shapes Up as Answer to Google Gears

BrowserPlus could be Yahoo's answer to Google's Gears, which offers offline access for users traveling or plagued by poor Internet connections.

While the financial experts wait on tenterhooks to learn how the Yahoo-Microsoft bid will shake out and how the Internet company will fare in its quarterly earnings announcement April 22, Yahoo's programmers continue to crank out new software.

BrowserPlus is the latest tool to slip into beta from the company's secretive Brickhouse incubator unit, according to Googler Dion Almaer's Ajaxian.

Very few details are known, but Skylar Woodward, an engineer at Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator unit in San Francisco, wrote on his blog that BrowserPlus is a software distribution framework that allows developers of desktop or smart phones to port the browser programming environment, such as DHTML or JavaScript, to any component, such as VOIP (Voice over IP), image manipulation or data caching.

Is BrowserPlus Yahoo's answer to Google Gears? It certainly seems that way.

In the FAQ, Yahoo says, "BrowserPlus makes it easy to install and use Web plug-ins for a richer experience on the Internet."

Meanwhile, Google defines Gears as "an open-source project that enables more powerful Web applications, by adding new features to your Web browser." Programmers and end users have come to rely on Gears to make Google applications work offline.

In definition, BrowserPlus and Gear seem a lot alike, but Almaer is cheering Yahoo on in a way similar to what Googlers did when Yahoo joined OpenSocial in launching that group's foundation.

"I consider Yahoo a proponent of the Open Web, and would love to see us work together in a way that pushes the browser platform forward from the point of view of Web developers (as compared to browser vendors)," Almaer wrote.

Woodward's development team was unavailable to discuss the nascent tool on April 21, but eWEEK expects a briefing next week. But, like they say about new viral technologies released on the Web: Assume chaos.

The developments come as Yahoo prepares to announce first-quarter earnings April 22 after the market closes amid an increasingly hostile-looking acquisition offer from Microsoft.

Analysts expect consensus estimates of $1.33 billion in revenues and earnings per share of 9 cents, as well as some commentary regarding Microsoft's $31-per-share offer for Yahoo, an offer currently worth about $43 billion based on Yahoo's April 21 share price of $29.99.

Google shows coders new home page abilities

Google on Monday invited programmers into a new sandbox that will let them test out significantly expanded possibilities for Web gadgets, small applications that can be hosted on the company's iGoogle personalized home page.

The sandbox, available at Google's iGoogle developer page, lets developers get started with a number of new features that eventually will make their way to the regular iGoogle home page, said lead product manager Jessica Ewing.

Among those new features are a left-hand region of the Web browser that lets users navigate quickly through a list of gadgets, a "canvas view" that can give gadgets more screen real estate, and the ability to take advantage of some social features for gadgets that employ OpenSocial standards. OpenSocial is an API, or application programming interface, that lets a gadget run on Web sites, such as MySpace.com, Ning, Salesforce.com, and Friendster, that support OpenSocial.

For example, with the features, somebody using a Pac Man game gadget could both expand the game to full-screen size and, when not playing, use OpenSocial's notification abilities to hear when a friend beat the high score, Ewing said.

"It makes the home page environment a lot more interesting and engaging," Ewing said.

Google has Yahoo on the defensive, but Yahoo has a bigger lead with its My Yahoo portal site than Google does with iGoogle. Other home page sites include NetVibes and PageFlakes, which was just acquired by LiveUniverse.

Ewing wouldn't say when the new abilities would be available to regular iGoogle users. "There are no firm dates yet. We're hoping soon," she said.

More details are available on the Google Code Blog and an explanatory YouTube video.

Google's news arrived the day before the Web 2.0 Expo begins. The timing was coincidental, but no doubt Web 2.0 programmers will be interested.