Google Reviews.

Webmaster Central gets a new look

2007-09-07T12:32:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't updated anything recently, but I got food poisoning from guuhh... I can barly type out the name without feeling queezy.. Needless to say I'll probably never eat at Mc Donalds ever again.

ANYWHO... back to our story.

A few days ago I posted how you could get googlebot to crawl your webpage more often.

Well just yesterday Google announce that they've updated their "Webmasters" home page and have added a few helpful tools for webmasters

Tools like:

Google Analytics which is a free tool for helping you see the traffic on your site.

This tool is really awesome it even goes as far as to tell you how many times a specific link on your page has been clicked.

Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) Which will enable you to create a custom google search page for your site.

and lastely Gadgets

hundreds of gadgets you can add to your site to make it seem like it has more content than it really does. Like all that stuff on the right hand side-->

Which makes it seem like this site has more content than it really does lol.

Source: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Webmaster Central gets a new look

Google Reader adds new search bar and other tweaks

2007-09-06T02:00:00.001-04:00

Finally no greasemonkey script needed!
After much criticism for being a SEARCH engine, Google Reader finally steps up and adds a search bar to their lovely RSS reader.

Search through all your past subscriptions post easily to find whatever it is you might need to remember. It even searchs through shared items.

Other tweaks include hiding the side pane if you don’t want to see all the subscriptions and reader now goes up to 1000 unread rather than just 100

Source: Official Google Reader Blog: "We found it!"

Google GDrive coming soon?

2007-09-04T17:10:00.001-04:00

AMAZING find over at Blogoscope by Tony Ruscoe

Here’s the skinny. Basically he’s found a service that still is ether meant for internal use only, or is unavailable to the public so far.

What is it? GDrive.

Applications that turn Gmail into a Shared Drive on your computer has been around for ages, and specuation that Google was in the works of creating a service like this is also old news.

Where is it? GDrive evidence can be found as part of Google Apps which has a number of services.

Tony has found solid proof that a GDrive service does in fact exist whether it’s in beta testing for public use or not is the question.

Visit his site for screen shots and a DETAILED run down on how he found it.

Source: Google Blogoscope

iGoogle: New Custom Google layouts

2007-09-04T15:17:00.001-04:00

Just yesterday Blogoscope announced that they’ve spotted new, Custom Google Layouts.

If you are using custom Google and don’t know/remember where to change the layout at just head over to the “tab” you want to edit and click the down arrow then select settings and you’ll see all the new layout style you can choose from.

(The old version I believe only had 3 options, single column, double or 3 columns. Now you can even select the width of the columns)

This new feature has helped my iGoogle page become a heck of a lot easier to read.

Source: Google Blogoscoped

How to: control googlebot's crawl rate

2007-09-03T15:03:00.000-04:00

Alot of Webmasters may not know this, but you can control how often your site gets search. You may want to change this rate depending on how often you update. Also there are some other factors you might want to consider.

Perquisites

Have a working website with access to the index page or ftp to the root of the host
a Google account.

First step:
Navigate over to http://google.com/webmasters/tools and log in

Second step:
Add your site to your account

Third step:
Verify your account by adding a meta tag to your index page, or uploading a .html to the root of your web host

Once you're all verified which literally takes seconds you'll have access to a few different tools

The Crawl rate link is the one we're going to go over soo

Final step:
Change the rate.

Tada! Have fun, hopefully this is useful to those out there that feel Googlebot never comes around

(actual results from using webmaster tools)

*note
Be sure you have enough bandwidth to take Google crawling your site multiple times a week. Bare in mind that Google downloads from your site and if you have large files can eat up a lot of bw

Google creates mapplet to other mapplets

2007-09-03T10:11:00.000-04:00

Google has created a mapplet to other mapplets. A mapplet is a saved map on Google maps with specific pin points to areas of choice. For example the one lets you see all the nearby gas prices

Once you add the google made mapplet then you'll be able to browse for other useful ones like these

Mapplet for browsing other user-created Mapples can be found here

Source: google-latlong.blogspot.com

Embedding Multiple Google Calendars

2007-09-01T20:23:00.000-04:00

Google Calandar lets you embed multiple calendars in your blog/website while giving you more control over the look and feel of the calendar itself for, example you can now do "week" view.

Source: googlesystem.blogspot.com

Google Earth Adds Easter Egg in 4.2 release

2007-09-01T01:40:00.000-04:00

Google Earth has added a neat little flight simulator in their latest version of Google Earth version 4.2.

You can choose from 2 different style aircrafts

How to use this Feature:

Make sure you have Google Earth 4.2. Open
the application, click on the globe and then press Ctrl+Alt+A. You should see
this dialog that lets you choose one of the two aircrafts (F16 "Viper" and SR22)
and an airport.

Here is a list of keyboard shortcuts on how to fly: here

Is this the begining of the end for Microsoft? Hardly people are blowing it way up. It's a neat little trick though.

Source: googlesystem.blogspot.com

Download Flash Videos from any site

2007-08-31T11:06:00.000-04:00

No addons, no special FireFox extension just go to http://www.keepvid.com/ and past the URL in their box his go and it'll ask where you want to save the .FLV flash video to.

Simply select the appropriate drop down and paste the URL from that site and DOWNLOAD!

FYI:
They have links below the .FLV download box for a FLV to WMV,AVI convertor. That link directs you to a pay converter. There are tons of free online converters and http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/download.htm seems to be the best one

Here is a really good 5minute tutorial which shows you how to use mediacoder and shows you how to play FLV files if you need help with that.

Keepvid.com Currently supported sites:
Google
Youtube
Break.com
iFilm
Putfile
Angry Alien
ArtistDirect
Blastro
Blennus
Blip.tv
Bofunk
Bolt
Castpost
Current TV
Dailymotion
DevilDucky
FindVideos
Free Video Blog
Grinvi
grouper
Hiphopdeal
LuluTV
Metacafe
Midis.biz
Music.com
MusicVideoCodes.info
Myspace
MySpace Video Code
Newgrounds
PcPlanets
Pixparty
REVVER
sharkle
StreetFire
That Video Site
The One Network
VideoCodes4U
VideoCodesWorld
VideoCodeZone
vidiLife
VIDNET.com
Vimeo
vSocial
Web62.com
ZippyVideos

WTF Google Moon?

2007-08-29T01:00:00.000-04:00

http://moon.google.com/

Apparently the guys over at Google made a little Google moon site (Yes I realize this is an old site) with images provided to them by NASA. This has always been an interesting subject to me. I'm still not quite sure who to believe so I turn to you bloggers out there for insight.

What's funny to me is that even if you zoom in I still don't see a flag. Yeah I know "Gio the flag is way too small to be seen from earth" Sure but why hasn't some telescope from space picked it up, at the very least to debunk all the conspiracy theorists.

What do you guys think? These guys seem pretty convinced it happened.

New Blogger Ajax Search and Polls features

2007-08-27T06:24:00.000-04:00

Yeah yeah.. back to back blogger posts..

I like turtles, and I like ajax. go ahead test that search bar up there ^

Blogger now has a new Ajax google search bar which you can add if you have upgraded your blogger template to blogger 3.0 with elements.

if you already have a 3.0 template and you don't see the new or the new poll feature it's because you haven't logged into "draft.blogger.com" which will allow you to use all the latest elements in beta.

You know you're on the draft blogger site because the banner at the top will look like this:

Source:bloggerindraft.blogspot.com

Blogger Video OH SNAP!

2007-08-27T02:48:00.000-04:00

Blogger team has fixed all the issues its been having lately with the outages and to show us they're doing still okay they've added video to the mix. looks like your standard google video player only with a new blogger icon on the right.

The videos are in fact hosted on googlevideos and not on youtube or anything like that.

Videos uploads take about 5 minutes before they're viewable after you upload them and they're kept private so no one will be able to find them on youtube or googlevideos unless of course they reupload it to those particular sites.

when posting a new blog there is a new icon which will then popup a diaglog much like the photo button does when you add a photo to a blog only this time you can add videos.

Check out the player below:

Check out the player Above:

Embedding Google Streets Maps

2007-08-22T02:43:00.000-04:00

Google just launched a new feature that allows you to Embed a Google maps address to you blog or web page. Unfortunately though the feature is not availible for google streets
Fortunately there is a site that will allow you to embed you street maps to any page and it's http://streetviewr.com/embed/ .

Simply past the link that google provides to you.....

...into their site and you'll get the code that will allow you to do this:

Whoops.. little too close!

**Note
If this Embed page gives you code that looks like this:

<>< width="425" height="350" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="">svc/gsv_view_private.php?cbll=37.320658,-121.876423&....">< /iframe >

As it did me, make sure to change "svc/gsv_view_private.php?" to "embed/gsv_public.php?" and all shall be well again.

Youtube helps put faces to pesky text based news

2007-08-21T17:48:00.000-04:00

News stories online getting bland and boring lately? Are you tired of just plaino reading stuff online? Well Youtube is helping you be illiterate by actually having videos with their news posting on news.google.com. IMAGINE THAT! TV SMIVY..

No but seriously this is pretty cool, and I'm surprise it took someone this long to do this.

For our initial launch, we have included several top news sources such as CBS, Reuters, and a number of local Hearst TV stations. Over the next few months, we'll continue to add new sources as fast as we can. Right now we're just offering this addition in the U.S., the UK, and Ireland; we hope to make it available in other languages and editions soon. -googlenewsblog

So basically the have some pretty heavy hitters which they'll be linking to their news articles with more on the way.

Gmail to replace all College Email

2007-08-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

Gmail seems to be the webmail of choice for college students and colleges are starting to look towards Gmail to replace exisiting mail applications. According to Arstechnica.com 5 colleges have already started the conversion and many over seas have begun as well and Email is just the beginning.

"We found that 25% of the students were already forwarding their e-mails to Gmail, which was more reliable, offered more storage, and had better accessibility than what existed,"

Source: Arstechnica.com

Youtube .. Desktop?

2007-08-17T11:30:00.000-04:00

Yes, you heard correctly youtubedesktop.com is a new website where you can browse all your favorite youtube video in an Ajax environment for simpler more efficient browsing. It sports a few new features that are currently not found in youtube yet.

Themes

You can change through 1 of 3 different themes currently available. I'm sure more should be on the way

Zooming

From

(Click to enlarge)
to

(Click to enlarge)

There are a few different zoom features. One of them allows you to change the size of the video icons on the current page you're viewing. Allowing you to see ~~up to 33 videos~~ potentially an unlimited amout of videos and descriptions on that page or as little as 3 with very large icons. The other zoom of course is while the video is playing you can move the video around as you can in any Ajax environment but you can all grab the bottom right corner and expand the video to take up the full page if you so desire.

Play list

(Click to enlarge)

YTD saves the last 20 videos you plays in a tab at the top which reads (you guessed it) "Last 20 played". Also clicking on a video while you're currently viewing a video will add that video to the play list and will begin playing after that video is complete.

Saving Videos!

Finally and what I believe to be the best feature of the entire site is the feature that allows you to save the videos directly from the web page to your PC in 3GP,MP4,MOV,WMV,AVI,ZIP,FLV, or even EXE. The conversion process is done on the fly and you can even see the progress of the conversion on the bottom bar by highlighting the video

I'm back, and changing things up

2006-11-11T06:06:00.000-05:00

A lot has change since my last post. Rather then just have the blog specifically for GMail from now on I'm going to try to cover everything google has to offer. From it's services on youtube and To googlepages to spreadsheets and myspace. So look out for more updates later on and more tutorials and hacks.

The biggest update so far is Gmail is now available via your mobile phone which makes it easier for guys like myself that have Verizon's Motorola Q and are having trouble connecting to pop with it. It's an application that you download once and then you can receive emails real time, just like at home.

"Get Gmail on your mobile phone
It's new and it's fast. To try it for yourself, point your phone to gmail.com/app

Download it once, and start accessing Gmail on your phone with just a click or two. You'll also like it because:

It has the same Gmail interface you know and love
Your account stays synchronized whether you access it from your computer or the phone
You can easily view attachments such as photos, documents and .pdf files
Learn more about Gmail for mobile devices."

Unlimated space.

2005-05-12T11:49:00.000-04:00

Google announced that it is going to be giving virtually unlimated space as it comes available so you'll litterally NEVER have to delete an email because your space will continually keep growing!

They've also added 12 more languages which include; Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, simplified and traditional Chinese. And UK English.

Just to add icing to the cake they finally added formating to emails like Fonts, bullets and highlighting in over 60 different colors

New(er) features!

2005-03-04T12:20:00.000-05:00

New features! :

wahoo, Just when you thought it couldn't get any better.
Gmail drops a bomb

An easier way to send up to 10MB of photos
Gmail now works with Picasa, Google's free photo organizer. Use Picasa to easily find, edit and preview your photos. Log in to Gmail directly from Picasa and send the photos from your Gmail account. Picasa even automatically resizes your photos so they're easier to receive and open. Your friends without such large email accounts will thank you. Learn more

Not just any old computer. Actually, yes, any old computer!
Basic HTML view lets you access your Gmail messages from almost any computer running almost any web browser, even old ones (not just IE5.5+, Mozilla, and Safari). Especially great for traveling, since you never know what kind of browser that internet café in Siberia is going to have. Learn more

We hit 1k+ :D

2005-02-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

Wee we hit 1k. If you want to help out with the traffic feel free to give us a plug with the new button I made today celebrating our return :P Thanks!

"
<a href="http://betagmail.blogspot.com"> <img src="http://img156.exs.cx/img156/8292/gblog5px.gif"> </a> "

Should look like this:)

Thanks again :D

Hey, I'm back.. :),and lots has changed....

2005-02-06T10:28:00.000-05:00

First off sorry I haven't been posting in the last 3 months, I've been really busy with work and school and what have you I'm going to try to update this thing atleast twice a week now so check back sporadically. Yeah alot has changed with gmail since I last left you all.

About a week ago they changed where the invites are. They're also giving some people 50 invite in one gmail account. I can testify to that because i just got my 50 invites 2 days ago in one of my boxes. If any of you still need an invite (which i'm sure no one does but it's worth a shot ;) comment with your email.

Another new feature with gmail is POP/SMTP services which I'm extremely glad to see they're not going to make us pay for! Free is always better.. I should be posting a F.A.Q on that soon because a lot of people still have no idea how to get it to work. For the mean time again.. IF you have any questions regarding the matter feel free to comment and I'll be glad to help you out.

As far as gmail software goes, Everything is pretty much obsolete
since we can do pop/smtp now :P but if you know of any software that still has any use with gmail let me know. Well it's been nice talking to you all. Happy chatting!

Have fun everyone

2004-09-16T16:18:00.000-04:00

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-9eb9fc84bd-422f489439
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-5a1b1a7a14-42c8e8239c
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-8f5eb9bba9-6e0fe715ef
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-3fab7c69c8-3c5e410fef
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-26701af5ec-763c9a1828
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b6d62b4880-b525d1b81d-c71d47d7a3

more invites

2004-08-29T09:09:00.000-04:00

next 4 people to post there emails/name/last name in the comments of this post gets an invite

Free gmail invites Canceled

2004-08-24T14:35:00.000-04:00

"Yeap I'm giving 2 free gmail invites to the 10th and the 24th person to comment on this post. good luck!

(remember to leave your name and email on the 10th and 24th)"

I come back from work to find people trying to repost and all this bs. So this invite shit has been canceled till i can figure out a more secure way and fair way of handing these invites out..

UPDATE

The 8th person to post in the shout box gets invites remeber leave your name/lastname/email good luck again sorry about the cheats the first time guys

Got my invite ;D

2004-08-23T21:53:00.000-04:00

yay, finally got another invite after 3 months haha :]. In other news I'll be updating the poll tonight and giving you the results to the last one so look out for that. Hopefully this is googles last attempt to hype up gmail before release. later all.