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Add Reminder in Google Calendar
2007-05-03 11:48:00
Google Cale ndar has been a bit quite since it was launched in April last year and had only a few minor updates such as the searching public events, moon phase and Google doodle calendar. It seems that Google has added one more subtle yet useful feature to called as 'Add Reminder'. A reminder in Google Calendar could be a pop-up if you are opening Google Calendar in your browser, SMS to your mobile phone or a email notification. Before, you could only have one reminder for each event and is typically inadequate for forgetful people like me. Now, you could add in more reminders to every event:I have been longed for this feature yet would also like to see other improvement concerning the usefulness of Google Calendar. The top-wanted item would be full integration with Gmail. I have to admit Yahoo Mail is doing a good job in integrate the two and that Google might have already come up with a even innovative design.Update: It seems that Google has taken this new feature down and it dis...
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News Summary
2007-03-20 09:02:00
I was in Thailand during the past 8 days and didn't have time to blog about Google. Let's catch up by summarizing the hundred something RSS feeds I missed:Google China released two beta products: Rebang and DaohangRebang and Daohang means Hot List and Web Navigation in Chinese respectively. Rebang is the Chinese version of Google Zeitgeist but creates more dynamic content and puts search trends into various groups. Daohang is a directory where users can find top sites in one single page.Google Talk Gadget releasedGoogle Talk Gadget allows users to chat within their personalized homepage and even your own homepage. There are two new features that the talk client does not support: Video and photo preview within chat window. (i.e. the gadget automatically identifies links to YouTube videos and images in Picasa Web Album and displays a snapshot in the chat window)Google acquired both Adscape and GapminderAdscape is an in-game advertising company based in San Francisco California that...
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Personalized Homepage gets dressed
2007-03-20 08:33:00
Some people like plain interfaces (just like the classic Google homepage) but there are also people who loves fancy, cool-looking and stylish stuff. Google now caters both group by adding themes to its personalized homepage. There are all together 7 choices: 'Classic', 'Beach', 'Bus Stop' , 'City Scape', 'Sweet Dreams', 'Tea House' and 'Seasonal Scape'. Every theme are basically templates that have a header image and is customized into specific color schemes. Some themes can even change dynamically to match your time of day, including local sunrise and sunset times. I think this is just the first step of coloring the personalized homepage as Google should predefined templates can only satisfy a small group of users. If the templates can be modified in a control panel like customizing themes in Blogger and Groups, it would allow more variations (that means users might get to change the Google logo to their beloved static colors!). A good step forward!This is a beach th...
More About: Personal , Home , Page , Dress , Homepage

Google Desktop 5 Review
2007-03-09 10:25:00
Google launched a new version of its Desktop Search program named Google Desktop . Google Desktop was created to make searching on computers as easy as searching the web with Google. It provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed, and many more. As a Windows XP users, Desktop can accurately locate documents in my PC as it indexes not only the title but also the inner text. Back to Desktop 5, what's so special about it? Actually, not too surprising. Here are the new stuff in Desktop 5:Improved look-n-feel of the sidebar and some of the gadgetsThe new feeling is more Vista-like, for instance, the option buttons in the sidebar or the transparent background in the sidebar. Another update is the 'Add Gadgets' page. When scrolling over individual gadgets, it displays basic information about the gadget at the bottom of the page where previously users will have to visit visit a new web page. But compared with Mac dashboard ...
More About: Google , Review , View

Google CSE gets better branding
2007-03-07 04:44:00
Google Custom Search allows users to create their own search engine by manually including certain sites of similar topics to either 'get emphasized' or 'monopolize' the results. The idea is great, but since it is new, Google focused more on its core features (e.g. adding statistics, allow individual search engines to be ad-free) than its look-n-feel. But now the basic frame work is almost done, Google starts to furbish the product. The first improvement they made (which happened in Feb) is that they turned the long and annoying sentence that previously said "Google search results customized by [XYZ site] using Google Co-op" in the result pages is being replaced by a small CSE logo. They now allow more changes to the search box. According to the new branding guidelines, you can either display Google CSE logo next to your search box, or you may choose a watermark that will be displayed inside your search box (default for all old search engines). Obviously the new look-n-feel makes...
More About: Google , Branding , Brand , Gets , Better

Google makes its personalized homepage more user-friendly
2007-03-04 14:22:00
Google Personal ized Home page allows users to place interesting gadgets into their homepage such like RSS Reader, Bookmarks, Stock Quotes, etc. The good thing is that users get the choice of what to be included in their homepage but the bad thing is that users will have to spend time choosing what to include. Google sees the problem so they decided to make things easier. Now you just have to enter tab names and Google will do the rest. Google uses its 'understanding' on the tab names you provide to suggest a few gadgets which saves time selecting from the gadget directory. Google also allows commenting and provides related gadgets suggestions for individual gadgets. By simplifying the set-up process and providing more interaction among users, Google hopes to attract more users to use its personalized homepage service and above all, start your browser with Google.
More About: Google , Page , Friend

Google Spell Checker
2007-02-26 16:01:00
People make mistakes when they are typing their search queries. Googl e tries to correct them by their own spell checker which is based on 'occurrences of all words on the Internet'. This automated process of identifying typos means that there are chances that Google would wrongly flags correctly spelled words and tries to suggest a irrelevant alternative. In the screenshot, for instance, 'chile's population' (which is correctly spelled) is being flagged as a typo and Google tries to suggest 'china's population' as an alternative. Obviously in this case, where China being the most populated country in the world would definitely have a higher occurrence in all the words on the Internet (searching for 'China' in Google return approximately 639,000,000 while 'Chile' only returns 211,000,000). To improve the situation, Google users can: give feedback on ridiculous suggestions using the 'Dissatisfied? Help us improve' link at the bottom of the search result page....
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Google PlusBox
2007-02-26 07:36:00
Google aims at giving users the most relevant content in search result pages. Larry Page, co-founder of Google, stated that a"perfect search engine," is defined as something that, "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.". Long ago, Google displays OneBox above search results which are information Google identifies as most relevant to specialized information like weather and stock quotes. In the past few months, they extend this idea to something bloggers name it 'Plus Box' or 'ManyBox' which basically is similar information provided in OneBox displayed in an expandable box after individual search results. Currently, PlusBox works for stock quotes, in-site search, maps and directions, related blog posts about corporates, etc. Lately, they experimented videos on PlusBox which means users can play videos hosted in popular videos sharing sites (e.g. YouTube and Google Video) on the search result page. Here is how users benefit:Some users might be ...
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Google Apps Premium is Live
2007-02-22 07:13:00
There have been rumors going on for a while that Googl e is launching a premium service for its current Google Apps . Google now provides free trial to the premium service for all existing users until 30th April. Here are some highlights of the premium edition:The price for the premium version is $50 per user account per year10 GB of of email storage with no advertisements alongside emailsAccess to API for integration with your existing infrastructure24/7 assistance, including phone supportYou can view the full comparison here. There are many companies which offer similar products, can Google stand out? Yes ... Google Apps premium got these advantages ...Gmail's innovative ideas to improve web based email has received many awards with an extensive 10GB of storage without ads definitely sounds attractive to big corporation.Most email service plans only offers purely email but Google also offers IM. Employees in corporations to can get instant responds using chat rather than ema...
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Sign up for your Google gift
2007-02-18 17:37:00
Anything with that six characters printed on them will drive Googl e fans crazy (Google tee, Google mug, Google calendars, Google stickers, etc.). But the problem is, not everyone is so lucky to have them delivered to their homes. However, don't get disappointed because there are rare chances where Google allows users to sign up for them. First-come-first-serve. Recently in the Official AdSense Chinese Support Forum there was a sticky thread where the top ten repliers will get souvenirs delivered to their specified address. No one knows what those gifts are, maybe a pack of IT'S IT Google ice cream. Google provides free lunch to its employees, now, it is generous to its lovers as well. Want one? Start keeping an eye on the official Google support forums ;)
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Help Improve Google's Translation
2007-02-18 16:56:00
Google fancy algorithms more than human editing and that's why all most everything, from search results to advertisement delivery system, are all automated. But when it comes to languages, Google might need some help from humans to make it sound more natural. One of the ten things Google found to be true, is The need for information crosses all borders. According to Google,"Google's mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world. ... That is why they also offer a translation feature to make content available to users regardless of their native tongue and for those who prefer not to search in English. To accelerate the addition of new languages, Google currently offers volunteers the opportunity to help in the translation through an automated tool."The voluntary opportunity mentioned in the quote is on an invitational basis and Google manually approves every single application. In most cases, especially for popular la...
More About: Google , Help , Improve , Trans , Rove

Happy New Year
2007-02-18 03:58:00
This year is the year of pig. My wish about Google is to hope that Google Greater China can hire more programming talents to localize its products and gain more market share. Google is currently experiencing difficulties in hiring Chinese to improve their search quality.
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Google Video New Layout
2007-02-16 09:30:00
Google Video is testing a new layout which is very similar to YouTube where users see all the video options (description, ratings, related videos, etc.) in one screen without having to click here and there. This is a sensible act as it makes no sense to have the a 'wide screen' to display videos that are mostly in square size. And adding more details in one page means users saves time for loading the new content because they are preloaded. Another improvement is that scrolling through related video uses AJAX which means we don't have to scroll down for more videos like in YouTube. You will also see some snapshots of at certain time in the video which allows users to skip to sections that interest them. However, users will have to scroll down to view some of the details which means they will have to leave the video. Adding to that, some videos have loads of comments and all of them are displayed in one l-o-n-g page.Related: Google Video and YouTube integration
More About: Google , Layout , Googl

Gmail Theater Presents
2007-02-15 20:50:00
The Gmail Team might be feeling to excited about the fact that anyone can sign up for Gmail without invitations or mobile phones so they made a series of puppet show to demonstrate visually the four different reasons 'Why use Gmail?' (Only spam-free, search and chat are listed on Gmail's homepage, how about mobile access?)
More About: Mail , Presents , Theater , Heat

Valentines Gift from Google
2007-02-15 20:23:00
It was a surprise for me to receive a few Google items this Vale nti ne s Day delivered right to my home in Hong Kong. Maybe they are awarding me for blogging about them ;)Google Calendar 2007 (offline version) with searching tips and cute doodles.Google traveling mugAnyone is free to share these images under these terms.
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AdWords tests CPC site-targeting ads
2007-02-14 09:15:00
AdWord s is inviting advertisers who are interested in cost-per-click (CPC) site-targeting ads to join the testing scheme. Currently, advertisers can only bid for site-targeting ads on cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM) basis which means they pay when ever their ads are shown. Switching to CPC bidding, Google says it can:Increased flexibility. Select the content network sites you want your ads to appear on and choose the bidding option that fits your needs. If clicks are your goal, try CPC bidding so you pay only when you get the result you want.Full control. Create new CPC site-targeted campaigns, or switch your existing campaigns between CPC and CPM at any time. As always, you retain full control over your budgets and bids.The test is only available for advertisers located in US at the moment. This is a great advance over the current AdWords advertising system as any advertisers would like their ads being seen and brings traffic to their site while CPC ensures they pay for traffic....
More About: Site , Adwords , Target

Happy Valentine's Day
2007-02-14 08:58:00
Yummy! The choco-coated strawberry looks great (note that the 'O' is stained). Bet you will find them in Google Checkout? ;) Here are the previous doodles on valentine's day.
More About: Valentine , Happy , Valenti , Vale , Lent

Gmaill officially abolishes invitations
2007-02-14 07:24:00
According to Google's Chinese Official Blog, Gmail opens up for everyone around the world today. It says:April's Fool 2004, Gmail starts its beta testing on invitation basis. Over the past two years, from one single invitation till today with over 10 millions of users covering 42 languages globally.It sounds that we are watching Gmail grow from a child and today it graduates (yet it is still in beta). Sign up for Gmail on its homepage! The Google guys had done a great job in bringing a revolution over free webmails. From giving over 2 gigabytes of storage, AJAX interface, chat with browser, etc. I am hoping to have another surprise on Gmail's four-year-old birthday.P.S. The previously mentioned Help Center page is back. And Gmail Fetcher is confirmed to be a feature for all.
More About: Mail , Vita , Invitation

Why is Google Maps special?
2007-02-12 11:06:00
Among the five lucky products listed on Googl e 's homepage, Google Maps is one of them. But how can maps change the world? Here I try to analysis it and list out the 5 potentials of Google Maps:Google puts much efforts on mobiling services and Google Maps is one of the leading product which goes wireless. With Google Maps, you can locate any nearby shops you like according to the business listings and receive promotions and special offers via coupons provided by the shop. With GPS locating, Google will know exactly where you are and provide sponsored listings of shops nearby.Google knows the way to everywhere. Google can show you the most direct way between two or more locations which is ideal for first-time visitors in a foreign place. In between the directions, it can tell you what you'll pass by. Google will tell you when a nearby cinema will be showing the blockbuster your friend mentioned in Google Talk or whether your most-visited cosmetic shop is providing discount for masks...
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AJAX API Wizards
2007-02-08 14:47:00
Google released two wizards to help webmasters or bloggers who know nothing about programming to implement AJAX Search API into their sites or blogs. You can add in News search or Book search by simply entering the keywords, site URL and paste the code into your site. It looks like this:
More About: Ajax , Wizard , Wizards

Google Docs wish list
2007-02-08 07:41:00
Google announced that Google Docs is now in 12 more languages and Google Toolbar 3 for Firefox (which allows users to open documents in their desktop using Google Docs) is out of beta. I see Google's efforts to localize its service, but to gain more market share, Google has to work hard on improving the overall user experience. Here are some suggestions for Google Docs:Offline editor. This is essential for users who does not connect to the Internet all the time and if they have problems with their connections, users will still be able to retrieve their documents. Once the user connects to the Internet again the offline editor will synchronize with the online copy and allow other collaborating users see changes.More advanced features. Google Docs provides basic word processing and spreadsheet tools, advance features such as graphing and charting is not supported which limits the possible uses of it. Rather than Google developing all the features for its users, it would be a great id...
More About: Google , List , Wish , Googl

Don't fight for Gmail invitations anymore
2007-02-07 13:51:00
After almost three years of closed-door beta testing, Gmail opened up its service to everyone today. The age where people are desperate to get a Gmail invitation by tattooing a Google logo on their body (according to the Gmail Help Center if you still remember) is gone and everyone who have access to Internet can sign up via http://mail.google.com/mail/signup and get access to the 2.8 GB of free storage. The thing that concerns me most about this, is the fact that spammers will have much easier access to Gmail and good username combinations will run short soon as it is much easy for people to sign up for multiple accounts.Note: Not all users are seeing the sign up page (including users in Hong Kong) but this news is confirmed in the Gmail Help Center. Also, some have reported that experimenting Gmail Fetcher feature is available to everyone as well.Photo credit: Google Operating SystemUpdate: Google has changed the FAQ page in the Help Center to the old version which says that you c...
More About: Mail , Fight , Vita , Invitation

Know more about links to you
2007-02-06 03:29:00
Google updated its webmaster tool which now shows external and internal links for a particular page. Before, webmaster will have to use the 'link:' attribute in Google search to check backlinks (in Google's language, it is called external links). You get much more up-to-date and detailed linkage from this tool and I have to admit I like it very much. If you got a large site and got loads of links in and out, you can export the data to Excel. As mentioned in the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: ... the overall fraction of links we show is much, much larger than the link: command currently offers.So you might get excited (like me) who saw the astonishing amount of links to your site. Another small update is the 'My sites' drop down menu in the top right corner of the page which allows much easier navigation between sites you own. If you own a site but haven't tried this out yet, I strongly recommend you give it try.
More About: Links , Link , About , Know , More

Google to launch its own PowerPoint
2007-02-04 17:22:00
Ionut from Google Operating System accidentally discovered that Google is about to launch its Power Point named Google Presently. Presently (just like Writely) should be included in Google Docs which now provides basic spreadsheet and word processing. This would be another advancement for Google's ambitious to put everything online. Google emphasis on collaborating and allows multiple users edit the same document at the same time seeing instant changes. It wouldn't be a surprise if they have it in Presently as well. Now that Google put most of the Office applications online, the next step would be to develop an offline editor which will automatically synchronize with the online version. Once this is done, Window and probably Mac users will have an alternative (a much better one) to Office. Go, Google, Go!
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AdSense invites publishers to display brand advertising ads
2007-02-04 10:05:00
Google's advertising program AdSense has invited publishers by email to join the so called custom placement packs program which is to enable advertisers to find and target publishers under a certain topic easily. In the email, it says:After a recent review of your site, we would like to include [your doamin] in our custom placement packs program. Custom placement packs are selections of individually-reviewed sites designed for our largest brand advertisers.We would like to feature your site more frequently in these advertiser packages, but to do so, we need you to place more image and text-enabled medium rectangle ad units (300×250) on your site. Visit https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats to see a sample of the medium rectangle unit. The medium rectangle is the most demanded size among our brand advertisers that utilize these packages for both text and image ads. These advertisers want to ensure they reach visitors on high quality sites like yours, and are willing to bid more ...
More About: Adsense , Advertising , Publishers , Play

Google account login page adds personalized services promotion link
2007-02-02 06:37:00
I have notice a yellow box appears above some Google Account login pages (e.g. Gmail and Personal ized Homepage) which promotes Google's personalized services (e.g. personalized search). This feature is not new at all, it is just that Google didn't publicize them. Google provides suggestions for users via the Interesting Item gadget that users can add in their Personalized Homepage which suggests web search, pages, gadgets and videos to users according to their history. I guess Google is trying to evaluate their artificial intelligence (AI) and to see how much they 'understand' about users from the data they have. The ultimate goal would be suggesting advertiser links to users. As Google collects huge amount of information from users via their daily search history (but not Gmail and AdWords at the moment), the ads will be highly targeted and to advertisers, this means a higher conversion rate. What do you think?
More About: Services , Promotion , Service

Google Video and YouTube integration
2007-01-25 16:44:00
This morning, YouTube was under maintenance and many functions were disabled. Now we know why. Since Google acquired YouTube in November 2007, there has been no sign of integration between the two companies. However, Google finally release its plans to how it is going to make full use of the Internet's most popular video sharing site. Here is how:All YouTube videos will be included in the Google Video index (in other words it is searchable in Google Video ). This migration of index includes all description and ratings (maybe tags). Yet Google hasn't mention anything about ranking the videos. Will YouTube videos come first or only the impression and rating counts?Google has made a hint in its Press Release by mentioning the testing of video ads with AdSense publishers that YouTube will soon display video ads by Google (most likely similar to Google Video where ads are inserted either at the very back of the video or in the middle like TV commercials (which is of course very annoying...
More About: Youtube , Integration

Remember to Ping Google
2007-01-14 14:29:00
Many know that Googl e crawls Blogger blogs more often (as Blogger is hosted in Google's server, same for pages created by Google Page Creator) but not many know that Google provides a Ping ing Service which allows bloggers to inform Google Blog Search of blog updates. These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your blogs. In addition, Google Blog Search will add submitted blogs to the list of blogs it needs to crawl and index. Here are a few commonly asked questions: How often should I ping Google Blog Search?You should ping as often as your blog changes.I use Google Sitemaps to notify Google of changes to my site. Should I still use the Google Blog Search pinging service?If you're currently using Google Sitemaps within Google, you should continue to do so. Google Sitemaps, a tool within Google webmaster tools, can provide you with valuable information about your site's visibility in our web s...

Google Rescues Canadian Child from Abuse
2007-01-09 15:58:00
Google now got a new, even more astonishing story to add to its testimonial page. This time, Google helped rescue a child from an allegedly sexually abusive situation. According to BBC News, the child typed in 'kids helpline' (the official name of a children's organization in Canada) into Google Search and an anonymous e-mail plea for help was then sent to Australia and later forwarded to Canada. Canadian police tracked the location of the computer with its IP address and rescued the child. Google's search engine has been praised by many of its high relevance and this once again was proved by real life scenarios. If you also have a story about Google, you can submit it here.
More About: Google , Abuse , Child , Dian

Happy New Year
2007-01-02 16:19:00
2006 has been a great year for Google, will 2007 be even flourishing?P.S. Google seems to be not so prepare for the new year, see the copyright statement at the bottom of every search result page. It's still 2006.
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