October 6th, 2008
Google launches new Spreadsheets interface
Google has just rolled out a new version of Google Spreadsheets — the last one of all three products in the Google Docs suite. I have to say, this new version works great for me — it has the familiar menus at the top, a bunch of new toys, and of course, now it works well in Chrome.
The previous version of Google Spreadsheets, for me at least, was extremely bad in Google Chrome — this version is quite speedy.
Here’s what’s new in Google Spreadsheets, from their documentation:
- Menus neatly provide access to all commands and functions.
- The updated toolbar gives shortcuts to the most commonly-used commands, including one-click access to currency, percent, and other cell formats.
- Hover over the sort bar to expose sorting tools. Drag it by the handle on the left to freeze header rows so they are visible while you scroll.
- Formulas are now accessible from the toolbar (or, as always, by typing them directly into the cell).
- In the Share menu you can invite people, see who has access, publish to the web, and find other advanced sharing features.
- Chat with people who are editing at the same time, or just see who’s there.
- Your edits are always automatically saved.
October 3rd, 2008
Google releases Chrome 0.3.154
If you are interested in living on the bleeding edge, and always using Google’s latest and greatest browser version (the “even more beta” one), you can turn on what is called the “Dev Channel”.
To use the Dev Channel, download the switcher from here. Run the application that you find here, then choose the “dev” option. Keep in mind, this is pre-beta software that has potential to be unstable.
The newest version is 0.3.154 — it contains several UI enhancements (relatively minor ones though) and fixes for some plugin issues (including flash). According to the update log, it has also “fixes a problem with importing Windows Live Search as the default search engine”.
October 1st, 2008
Google Blog Search re-launches, now it’s useful
Google relaunched their service called “Google Blog Search” today, and I have to say, it’s pretty hot. The service puts itself almost in direct competition with the popular Techmeme service — with the exception that Google does it for everything, not just Tech news.
According to Google, they have adapted some of the same technology that Google News pioneered. In other words, Google Blog Search is now Google News for blogs — smart.
Grouping [blogs] in clusters lets you see the best posts on a story or get a variety of perspectives. When you look within a cluster, you’ll find a collection of the most interesting and recent posts on the topic, along with a timeline graph that shows you how the story is gaining momentum in the blogosphere. — Official Google Blog
What do you think of this new service?
September 30th, 2008
Google to go back in time?
Warning, this post is speculative, but I think all signs point to what I am about to describe. Google may be about to launch a search tool that uses the same algorithms used way back in 2001. Why would they do this? I think it’s probably the best way for them to show how far search technology has come in 7 years.
Now why do I think they are about to do this? Google just changed their robots.txt file — the file that webmasters use to tell robots which parts of their website should or shouldn’t be indexed by search engines. The newly added entry prevents search engines from indexing the url “www.google.com/search2001/query” — currently still unavailable.
Disallow: /search2001/search?
In addition to that entry, Google also recently added an entry for “/newspapers” which leads me to believe they may be trying to index newspapers like they have been doing with books — that could be interesting too.
September 28th, 2008
New Google tool called “Moderator” released
Google’s newest tool called “Moderator“, released on their own App Engine platform, lets people ask (and vote) on questions related to any given topic. It’s easy to get started, or participate in existing “series” (which contain groups of topics) — just click on “create series” on the main page, and follow the steps.
This newly launched service was actually developed for internal purposes by Google. It was so they could tell what the majority of people wanted to ask during presentations — instead of answering every question that came in. That’s not all it can be used for though — it’s great for tapping into the wisdom of crowds to figure out answers to questions.
To test it out, I’ve created a topic called “Google’s next big thing” in which I ask you submit your ideas, or vote on others. Let’s try and figure out together what is coming up next from Google. Click here to submit your ideas, and vote on others.
September 25th, 2008
Larry Page calls white space tests “rigged”
Google, along with several other companies including Microsoft, have been hoping the FCC will make available TV white space frequencies for wireless broadband purposes. Unfortunately, there are several organizations trying to shut down those efforts.
Those that feel threatened by the prospect of this coming to fruition include TV broadcasters and wireless microphone companies — and according to Google, it’s unfortunate, but those companies have decided to “inject politics” into the testing process. Page told lawmakers today in a presentation, that these tests to determine if using white space would cause any issues, were “rigged”.
He said that during these tests, wireless microphone operators decided to improperly transmit their signals on the same frequencies that were being used by white space devices. The stronger signals generated by the devices being tested naturally drowned out those of the weaker signals coming from wireless microphones.
If you have not yet signed the petition to free these airwaves, do it now. The FCC will be making a decision soon, and any little bit helps.
September 23rd, 2008
Have an idea that can change the world?
Google is starting a new contest called “Project 10 to the 100th“. It’s an open call for ideas on which users will vote in January. Google will put the best ideas in motion by contributing at least $10 million for up to five selected ideas.
Why “project 10 to the 100th”?
10 to the 100th is another way of expressing the number “googol,” a one followed by one hundred zeroes. Our company’s very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact. Project 10100 is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users’ insights and creativity. We don’t know what ideas would help the most people. This project’s premise is that maybe you do. — project FAQ
There is no monetary prize, but if your idea is selected, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you helped change the world for the better.
Ideas must be submitted by October 20th, and voting kicks off on January 27th.
September 20th, 2008
Microsoft, this is how you can deal with Google
Google has again gained a whole percentage point this month, at the expense of Microsoft (losing 0.9%). It seems that Microsoft is consistently losing ground — the ship is sinking, and it doesn’t appear they can do anything about it. So much for that $1 billion per year they are putting towards gaining market share over Google. What can they do to get on the right track?
Let me explain something to you, Microsoft. What you are doing isn’t working — it’s as simple as that. It’s easy for someone to say that you aren’t doing a good job, so that’s why I’m going to give you a solution. Take it for what it’s worth, but this suggestion will instantly start making your search division profitable — somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 to $500 million per year (without spending a dime). Not only will you start making money, but you will also hopefully start seeing your market share begin rising rather than declining.
What is the plan? It’s going to be a tough pill for you to swallow, but it has to do with letting Google serve up search results and ads on your Microsoft Live search engine. Of course, I don’t know if Google will want to help you out, but it’s worth a shot if you serious about the future.
But wasn’t doing this what caused Yahoo to fall out of the lead? Using Google’s search technology was a mistake back then, because Yahoo already had the lead. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain — Microsoft is so far away from first place that using Google, in my opinion, will do nothing but help.
After signing a multi-year exclusive deal with Google, you can spend those hundreds of millions of dollars per year that Google is giving you on extremely talented engineers and creative marketing geniuses. These folks can take their time to rebuild your search engine behind closed doors (one that can hopefully be competitive). Why not leech off Google for once?
The likelihood of Microsoft going down this road is basically zero, and it may actually be looked at by Yahoo and Ask as a textbook case of antitrust, but it sure would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
September 18th, 2008
Google gains Steam with Valve acquisition
It sounds like an announcement regarding the acquisition of Valve is imminent. Valve is the brains behind the “Source” gaming engine — a popular engine that powers games such as Half Life 2 and Portal. Valve is also the creators of Steam, a distribution service that game developers can take advantage of to distribute their games to users.
It’s unclear how much Google is paying for the company, or what exactly it’s interested in, but I would suspect it has something to do with the in-game advertising. Google has been interested in doing this for a long time now — they even acquired a company called Adscape Media in 2007 to help get their foot in the door.
It will be interesting to see what Google does with the company — what do you think?
September 16th, 2008
Google Desktop gets huge performance boost
Google Desktop is an application that resides on your computer, and does a couple of things that people might find useful. The software indexes all your files, and lets you search through them at Google-speed. In addition to that, you also get the Google Desktop sidebar which resembles the one you can find in Windows Vista.
One beef users have had with regards to Google Desktop was the performance of it. Google released a new version of their software yesterday which mainly focuses on performance — and boy did it work. The application seems a lot faster, and the memory footprint is quite a bit smaller than before.
Ionut also noticed that Google has disabled the feature that indexes your files by default, and uses the index created by Microsoft’s desktop search service.
In addition to performance enhancements, there were also a couple of new features that are worth mentioning. Support for flash gadgets (those little applications that sit on your sidebar) has been added, as well as tighter search capability for Outlook.
If you haven’t tried it before, or you stopped because it was a memory hog, give Google Desktop a try.
Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the cellular and electronics industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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