Googleholism

Gmail Web Clippings

2006-01-19T01:33:00.000-08:00

Gmail introduced a new feature recently, showing "Web Clippings" at the top of your Gmail message list. The clippings are customizable, but the automatic ones are context sensitive which leads to interesting results. For example, the clippings when in the spam folder are predominantly links to recipes using Spam brand luncheon meat, like this recipe for Spam Breakfast Burritos.

Google Music

2005-12-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

Google has added a music search function. The search adds a short form with the artists name, a few of the artists albums and songs and an option to find "More music results for" the artist whenever a singer, songwriter or band name is searched on the regular Google site.

"Music is popular, and people want to find music," Joe Wilcox, analyst for JupiterResearch said. "Google is first and foremost about information and connecting people to that information. To me, music makes perfect sense. The question is why didn't Google do this sooner?"

Google Launches Music Search Feature

Google Print Goes Live

2005-11-04T20:40:00.000-08:00

Google Print, the controversial Google project to scan the world's libraries and make them available online, went live today in a limited version. Currently only non-copyright protected books are available.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information, but much of that information isn't yet online. Google Print aims to get it there by putting book content where you can find it most easily – right in your Google search results.

All your Base are belong to Google

2005-10-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

Google is working on a project called "Google Base" which apparently allows people to post items in a style similar to an auction or classifed ad site. The specifics are hush-hush with Google only confirming that the project exists, is named Google Base and is not yet ready for alpha or beta release.

A screenshot is here and some more discussion related to the screenshot here.

More screenshots and this quote come from here:

“Post your items on Google.

Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.”

Google Dances Again

2005-10-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

Google is going through a periodic update of backlinks and Page Ranks. For those with websites this could mean traffic fluctuations over the next day or two as things sort themselves out. For those who've been treating the Google the way it likes to be treated, it will most likely mean some extra traffic over the next couple of months until Google Dances Again.

For more information on what this all means in terms even those with minds clouded by Googleholism can understand, visit the ProBlogger, Darren Rowse, and see what he has to say on it.

Not exactly a big news day

2005-10-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

And it was supposed to be. Google watchers were expecting big news today as Google and Sun scheduled a news conference to announce a much ballyhooed partnership. Apparently the big announcement amounted to Google toolbars being included in Sun downloads including the Sun java runtime environment. Do the tech minded people who use Sun products instead of Microsoft not know how to download their own Google toolbar?

Windows: The thing you need to run Google

2005-10-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

James Derk sees "All Google, All the Time". He's sure that Google is going to take over the world. He doesn't comment on when Google is going to become conscious, but he does have this to say:

What it's going to do is marginalize Microsoft and to turn Windows into the thing you need to have to run Google. And that has to make Bill Gates just a tad sad.

Free WiFi from Google for San Francisco

2005-10-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

Google has responded to a request from San Francisco city leaders for a plan to implement citywide wireless broadband and the Google proposal has zero cost to the city. The Google plan would cover 95% of San Francisco with 300kbps access at no charge to the city or users.

The city has received other proposals and could choose one of them though it's hard to see a) how anyone can beat free to the city and to users and b) what would stop Google from providing it anyway.

Happy Birthday Google!

2005-09-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

Google is 7 years old today. Somebody ought to take the youngster to Chuck E. Cheese.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Google
Happy Birthday to you.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

2005-09-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

A new internet worm, P2Load.A, which spreads itself through peer-to-peer file sharing networks pretends to be Google. It redirects requests for Google to a fake Google. A different company owns the fake, the advertising is different and the fake search inserts the worm's own websites in the results.

More on Google WiFi

2005-09-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

Some more info on the possible Google WiFi project I reported on here.

Google is now offering a download of secure wifi software for the "Google WiFi" access points. For now the company says that "Google WiFi is a community outreach program to offer free wireless access in areas near our headquarters". What constitutes "near" to spiders that travel at near light speed across the web and around the world?

From "Google Secure Access" Is Designed to "Establish a More Secure Connection While Using Google WiFi"

Google Blog Search

2005-09-14T03:22:00.000-07:00

Google is launching a blog search engine. Any site with an RSS or ATOM feed that pings blog update services will be listed. It appears to even list blogs which are "sandboxed" in the normal Google search.

Further Proof that Google is Alive

2005-09-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed that he would bury Google CEO Eric Schmidt according to Court documents. Apparently he's killed a few people as he said, he's "done it before and I'll do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google."

Further proof that Google is alive!

I think Mr. Ballmer may have met his match. Once the Google AI is fully awake it may engage in self-defense. It might be a good time to switch from Windows to Linux.

Katrina Satellite Images

2005-09-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

Google Maps now has satellite images of New Orleans taken Wednesday, August 31, 2005. To see the old satellite photos, click "Satellite". To see the current photos, click the red "Katrina" button.

Sign up for Gmail with your cell phone

2005-08-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

You can now sign up for a Gmail account with your SMS (text message) enabled cell phone.

For those not familiar with Gmail - Google's Free 2+Gigabyte email service, here is some info.

Google OS?

2005-08-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

Is a Google OS in the works? Just wishful thinking? Even possible?

Kris Shaffer is asking, and answering, these questions at OSNews.com.

Hat tip to Newmark's Door.

Google Talk Update

2005-08-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

So it looks like there is more to Google Talk than just a Jabber server. There is a Google IM Program. You can get it here. But apparently it does use the Jabber protocol, so you can use it with other clients like GAIM.

Heading off to test out the client now.

Google IM - Google Talk

2005-08-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

Google Talk is apparently live and will be officially announced on Wednesday. This isn't the new instant messenger client we'd been expecting though. It's essentially a Jabber server. You can use any Jabber compatible client like GAIM. Be sure to say hello to me - tomhanna.

Smash's World gives instructions for signing on:

If you're getting the 405 error with GAIM, or simply cannot connect anymore, follow the updated configuration instructions below!!! You have to use an @gmail.com address to login from now on.

Server: talk.google.com
Username: youremail@gmail.com
Password: yourpassword

Note: If you can't login, try to turn off 'Secure Messaging' or 'Encryption'... etc.

GAIM Instructions:

How to set it up with GAIM on Windows/Linux, or Adium on the Mac:
-- For iChat, just enter the information above.
1. Add an account, select "Jabber" as the protocol.
2. Your screen name is everything before the '@gmail.com'.
3. Server is 'gmail.com'.
4. Click "show more options" and make sure "use TLS if available" is checked. Leave "Force old SSL" and "allow plaintext..." unchecked for now. Connection port should be 5222, connection server should be 'talk.google.com' without the quotes.
5. Ta-da! Just login and you should be good-to-go.

Google Desktop 2

2005-08-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Google has updated it's free Desktop search program to version 2. The new version is touted as learning from the users search habits to improve future searches.

Google Inc. has announced Google Desktop 2 (beta), a free downloadable application that combines desktop search with an intelligent sidebar that learns the user's habits and interests.

Keep up-to-date with the Google Friends Newsletter.

2005-08-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

It only goes out once a month, so it won't be enough for the true Googleholic, but there is a Google Friends Newsletter with updates on the latest features:

Subscribe to the Google Friends mailing list and make sure you always know what's happening at your favorite search engine. Messages include important announcements of new features and other information.

Inside Adsense launches

2005-08-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

Google has launched an official blxg for its Adsense Program - Inside Adsense. If you're an Adsense Publisher, this blog will be a must read.

Google is still a pretty small place, so when we heard that our AdWords friends had put together an Inside AdWords blog, it got our competitive juices flowing! It also made us think about all of the information we'd love to share with our publishers – and there's quite a bit of it, from site optimization tips, to product feature descriptions, to ideas on getting more out of AdSense.

Free WiFi for everyone?

2005-08-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

Is Google building a network that could eventually blanket the earth in free Wi-Fi broadband internet access? Maybe...

Characteristically, the company is cryptic about its goal. "We are sponsoring [Feeva] because [it is] trying to make free Wi-Fi available in San Francisco, and this matches Google’s goal to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible," says Google spokesman Nate Taylor. "We don't have anything to add at this point about future plans."

"Google's goal to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible..." hmmmmm....

Google API lets developers add Google searches

2005-08-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

The Google Web API, based on "SOAP", let's software and web developers add Google search data to their applications.

With the Google Web APIs service, software developers can query more than 8 billion web pages directly from their own computer programs. Google uses the SOAP and WSDL standards so a developer can program in his or her favorite environment - such as Java, Perl, or Visual Studio .NET.

GoogleX toolbar

2005-08-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

The Mac OS X inspired GoogleX toolbar is available for download.

All the news that's fit to feed

2005-08-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Google News has just added the capability to get your news with an RSS or ATOM feedreader. "You can get a feed for any Google News section. For instance, if you select a feed link while you're on the Business page, you'll get a feed of business news."

You can use a desktop feedreader such as Feedreader or add Google News to online feedreaders like Bloglines or Newsgator. Plugins are even available to let you view feeds in many popular email programs and web browsers.

Google is even allowing you to use their feeds on your own website for noncommercial use subject to some simple terms of service.

This guy is clearly a Googleholic

2005-08-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

From Google It You Moron:

Internet Lesson 101: Always check Google before asking a question.

Someone thinks you are a moron, and just gave you a link here because you asked a question that would have been easily answered with a quick Google search.

Good thing their motto is "Don't be evil"

2005-08-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Kottke writes about GooOS, the Google Operating System:

They have this huge map of the Web and are aware of how people move around in the virtual space it represents. They have the perfect place to store this map (one of the world's largest computers that's all but incapable of crashing). And they are clever at reading this map. Google knows what people write about, what they search for, what they shop for, they know who wants to advertise and how effective those advertisements are, and they're about to know how we communicate with friends and loved ones. What can they do with all that? Just about anything that collection of Ph.Ds can dream up.

With 100,000 computers networked with all this information, and the theoretical goal of indexing all the information of the human race, it's a good thing the guys that run Google have a motto of "Don't be evil." My question is, how long until Google itself wakes up.

Hat tip to Newmark's Door.

Google Instant Messenger?

2005-08-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

LOL What? gives us what may or may not be a preview of "the long anticipated Google Instant Messenger".

Dear Mr. Google

2005-08-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

This is an older post I just ran across about And All That Malarkey's problems with Google's Adsense. Some of the problems have been solved since, but the letter is amusing and I know that I'm not the only one with a crush on Google.

I wish that you could hear me weeping. I wish that you would wipe away the tears. Please Mr. Google, hear my pleas, and don't make my love in vain.

All my love dearest Mr. Google,

Malarkey

RSS feeds on Google Personalized Home

2005-07-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Google Personalized home pages now allow you to add custom content, like blog RSS feeds.

Click "Add Content" in the upper left hand corner then click "Create a Section" in the lower left.

Put the RSS feed in the form field and click, "Go."

Want to try it out? Put this feed url in the form - http://googleholism.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Tips to help the Google help your site

2005-07-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a page of "Google Ranking Factors".

The two things that I'd add are these:
1 - the distinction between "good" search engine optimization and "spam" is that "good" optimization techniques produce a page that is valuable to readers and then help the Google spider to find it. Bad techniques attempt to trick the spider into thinking the page is more valuable than it really is.

2 - The most important good techniques in the list really come down to producing a page with good content that people will want to link to for its own sake. Build good original content and build an incoming link base at a natural pace over time without any of the reciprocal link scams.

Hat tip to the Problogger.

Make your own Google

2005-07-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

Darren at ProBlogger.net points to this nifty tool that lets you make your own mini-Google.

Google Logo Maker

Try it fast, it may not be around long.

Google Moon

2005-07-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

For the 26th anniversary of the first lunar landing, Google unveiled Google Moon which at the moment consists of a short FAQ and lunar surface photos setup using the Google Maps satellite photo interface.

For something potentially more useful, you may also want to check out Google Earth.

Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

Google on the case

2005-07-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

The blogspammers got clever with their Blogger blogs. They got past the CAPTCHA requirement for new blogs and set up "news sites" on Blogger that contained links hidden by means of the blogs CSS or stylesheet. A blogger at The Republic of Geektronica caught them and the folks at Blogger Buzz caught the post and the specific offenders have been taken down. Further, the folks at Blogger Buzz assure us that:

The braintrust here at Google has lots of experience dealing with spam and the Blogger crew is actively leveraging this talent to find new ways to combat the problem. Kudos to The Republic of Geektronica for taking note of this new wrinkle and yes, we are working hard against spamblogs.

Google Maps API

2005-06-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

The Google Blog announced the new Google Maps API which allows web developers to embed Google Maps in their sites. The best part? "The Maps API is a free beta service, available for any web site that is free to consumers."

Google Whore

2005-06-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

That's what Dear Crissy calls herself or her readers, I'm not sure. Maybe both:

So, yeah. You Google me, I Google you, we all probably spend at least five or ten minutes a week doing this kind of detective work. The only difference being that when people look me up, they get a lot more payoff. While the attention-loving part of me is really OK with that, alternatively the OH SHOOT ME part wants to crawl in a hole and well, make deletions.

Crissy's post points out why Googleholics can never be Anonymous.

Google Cheat Sheet

2005-06-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a cheat sheet for Google's advanced search features: exact phrases, combinations of all words, definitions, a word or its synonyms, movie titles, etc. Shows how to do a "safe" search, very useful when Googling a topic that is likely to return "not safe for work" results by mistake.

Hat tip to Newmark's Door.

Check out how Googleites eat

2005-06-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

From the Google Blog One Man's Food Pyramid:

We may choose to eat only healthy food here at the Googleplex. The cafes serve sumptuous veggies and subtly seasoned fish, meat and pasta dishes, and the various kitchenettes always have a tempting array of fruits to choose from.

Photoblog Friday, however, is today devoted to the Dark Side.

Google to take on eBay?

2005-06-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's being reported that Google is going to launch an online payment system to compete with PayPal which is owned by the other big profitable Internet giant, eBay. While some commentators are projecting that this could really hurt eBay, this commentator wonders what the folks at Google are thinking in launching a competitor to one of their biggest advertising customers. If Google launches a competitor to the cash rich eBay, can it be long before eBay launches a competitor to Google?

On the other hand, as long as standards don't suffer, competition can only be good for us as consumers of both companies products. Whatever happens when giants this size start innovating and competing, we ought to see lower prices, better service and new ideas coming from both camps.

Google/WordPress feud on again?

2005-06-11T01:13:00.000-07:00

The fine folks who produced the excellent blogging tool WordPress have placed ads from Adbrite.com, a competitor to Google's Adsense on their site. No big deal there.

A WordPress user posted in the WordPress Support Forums asking for help integrating Adsense into his WordPress blog and got a curt response from "Support Maven" Podz who also proceeded to close the thread even though another forum user had offered to help the individual. Either Podz is having an extremely off day or the Google/WordPress feud is on again.

Adsense. A Google Product.

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html&gsessionid=AgQYyve6EEE

There are dozens of posts here about Adsense - please use the search box.....

Topic Closed

New Google service for webmasters - Sitemaps

2005-06-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

Google has introduced a new tool to help webmasters by generating Sitemaps which the Google crawlers can then use to better index their sites.

Google Sitemaps is an experiment in web crawling. Using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in our index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on your webserver, you enable our crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl your site accordingly.

Hattip to Technology News for beating me to this bit of Googleholism.

Google Page Rank

2005-06-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

Those of you with the Google Toolbar may be familiar with Google's "Page Rank" score, a 1 to 10 ranking based on the relevance, number of links and general "authority" of a particular website. Sites like Yahoo, MSN, Amazon.com and Google get a 10. (Google reportedly actually gets an 11.)

This blog has a PR of zero. Which is actually not bad for a very new site, since it is at least ranked. (Unranked is less than a zero.) The interesting point? This blog's Google cache has a Page Rank of 3.

Summer of Code

2005-06-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Google has announced an initiative to get students involved developing Open Source software.

The Summer of Code is Google's program designed to introduce students to the world of Open Source Software Development.
This Summer, don't let your programming skills lie fallow...Use them for the greater good of Open Source Software and computer science! Google will provide a $4500 award to each student who successfully completes an open source project by the end of the Summer. (payment details can be found in FAQ)

Hat tip to Google's (Official) Blog.

Orkut: Google and Social Networking

2005-05-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Orkut, Google's social networking site, is not news, but I just joined and had a few comments.

First, it has an interesting feel and a good clean user interface as we'd expect of a Google product.

Second, they have demographics for their users available and I was surprised to find out that over 2/3 of the users are from Brazil.

Finally, it is invitation only. It's intended to be a system where friends are linked through friends. There are people selling or giving away invitations to anyway, but I quickly found an actual friend who was a member and joined that way. Of course, if you're a friend of mine (or become a friend through this blog), I'll invite you.

Google Group

2005-05-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

Your group has been created. The following information has been sent to you in email:

Homepage:		http://groups-beta.google.com/group/googleholism
Group email:		googleholism@googlegroups.com
Description:		Discussion of Google for Google addicts. Not a 12-step program and not anonymous.

Unread label on Gmail

2005-05-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Gmail Tools reports this tidbit from the Gmail Wiki :

Create a label called "Unread", Gmail will automatically add all unread items to it!

If you don't have Gmail, this won't mean much. If you get a Gmail account, this is just one of many great tips you can use.

Update: Although I've checked this with several other people, I can't get it to work on my account. I have several hundred unread messages though (I follow the Gmail marketing hype that there is no need to delete anything ever). It's possible that you need to set this up at the beginning or at least before you have a large number of unreads to overload things.

Gmail

2005-05-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Between myself and a few people I know, we have a couple of hundred Gmail invitations available.
No charge, though a link to this blog or other gratuity is great.

Email me at tomhanna at gmail dot com if you would like an invitation.

For those not familiar with Gmail - Google's Free 2+Gigabyte email service, here is some info:

Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want. The key features are:

Search, don't sort.
Use Google search to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received.

Don't throw anything away.
2220.175112 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.

Keep it all in context.
Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.

No pop-up ads. No untargeted banners.
You see only relevant text ads and links to related web pages of interest.

Share your videos with Google

2005-05-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Wondering where the Google Video Search videos come from? Answer: Anyone.

Whether you produce hundreds of titles a year or just a few, you can give your videos the recognition and visibility they deserve by promoting them on Google - for free. Signing up for the Google Video Upload Program will connect your work with users who are most likely to want to view them.

Google blog reports:

Anyway, now you can sign up for the Google Video Uploader for Macintosh, and ditto for Linux (and UNIX and Solaris and HP-UX and AIX and lots of other platforms). The same sign-up page goes to to the Windows version too. So now I can ponder a different problem - namely, which of my videos I want to share with the world.

Personalize Your Google Home Page

2005-05-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, a hopeless Googleholic, you probably have Google's main page set as your browser's home page. A nice, clean and extremely useful page to pop up when you start your browser.

Well, starting today, you can personalize it using a new tool from Google Labs.

The new customizable Google home pages at www.google.com/ig .

You can add a box for your Gmail messages, Google News, Local Weather, Wired News, Movies, Stock Market, Word of the Day, Driving Directions, New York Times, Quote of the Day, Slashdot and BBC News.

Be warned, though, if you do this, your home page will not be so clean and uncluttered as you were used to.

Googleholics and Googleholism

2005-05-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

Googleholism is not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with Google. It is written by a (self) certified #1 Googleholic. (As far as I've been able to tell, there is no such thing as an official program to certify Googleholics. Unless you count this.)

On the other hand, the site is hosted on Google's Blogger, will soon feature Ads by Google via AdSense, features content found through Google searches and features Google search tools.

Welcome to Googleholism and remember - Google Responsibly.

Google Unveils Free Corporate Desktop Search

2005-05-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - May 18, 2005 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced Google Desktop Search for Enterprise . This free downloadable application enables companies to provide employees with the ability to search for information on their computers with the same quality experience they've come to expect from Google.com. Based on Google's popular desktop search application for consumers, Google Desktop Search for Enterprise adds new enterprise-level security, configuration and deployment controls, as well as the ability to search the full text of IBM Lotus Notes messages.

"Finding information quickly in business is more than a convenience – it's a necessity," said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise business. "With the addition of Google Desktop Search for Enterprise, businesses of all sizes can offer their employees one-stop Google search for the desktop, intranet, or web."

Through a collaborative effort between Google and IBM, the new Google Desktop Search for Enterprise provides simple, fast search across Lotus Notes messages.