Blogger Added Comment Form Message

Blogger now has a text box under Settings > Comments where users can enter a short message to the readers before they write any comment on the blog. The feature can be used to convey a policy or warning message to the readers and is a very useful one indeed.

On an unrelated note, I hope, after the latest release of Blogger Search, the Blogger Draft will continue to release some gadgets like Label Cloud and Archive Calendar (although there are other ways to get it done by manual coding).

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Blogger

Google Reader Graduated from Labs

Google Reader has, a few days ago, graduated from Google Labs.


But, unusual is that the Google Reader logo hasn't changed yet and still includes a conical flask in it.

Technorati Tag: Google Reader, Google Labs

Why is "Invite" still there?

Now that obtaining a Gmail account is just about "picking a name", I wonder why they still put the option to invite friends to Gmail. Maybe Google just want us to invite more users to use Gmail? But, why is "92 left" there too?


It seems like this is just something Google forgot to rid off of Gmail. As for me, I want it to be replaced with something like "Quick Tasks" (just like Quick Contacts) although nothing like To-do list has ever been in Google Labs yet. Yahoo has a To-Do list and I can't understand why Google should not do something like it to help the users get more organized.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Gmail

Lion Sleeps Tonight (Video)

I don't know much cartoons and animation. This one I came across on YouTube is really cute though. You'll love them!

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Lion Sleeps Tonight

Analog Clock

Analog Clock is a replacement for Windows Task bar clock which resides on the lower far right end of the screen.


It shows the time in a digital clock or a more elegant analog clock which will look nicer if you raise your task bar to two lines height. There is also a calendar which pops itself up when you pause your mouse over the clock area. Analog Clock can also adjust the time with a time server like in Windows.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Analog Clock, Software

ManUtd Beat Shenzhen

Manchester United has beaten Shenzhen by 6-0 on their Asia tour. All the stars--Rooney, Ronaldo and Nani, showed their ability to get more medals for ManU next season. This 6-0 win is not very significant but at least it gives good morales for the players to get started for the next season.

This match is also the first match by Nani for ManU and below is his efforts and brilliance during the match.



Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: ManUtd

Love Gmail == Try Google Docs

Google's promotion of Google Docs on Gmail home page reads:


What's the connection between them? And is it really a tip at all?

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Google Docs

New Features Added to Google Spreadsheet

Google Spreadsheet added two new features today. The first one is Fast Add where you can select multiple cells with numeric data and can see the sum at the lower right corner instantly. But, this Fast Add won't work if you select more than 1000 cells at the same time, and it won't work with other languages apart from English. But, it's rare that we do our calculations in numerics other than English, also the maximum limit of 1000 cells is also hard to exceed.



The second feature is the addition of a Quick Sort bar at the top the spreadsheet. The Quick Sort bar can be used to quickly sort the data in each column; in the past, you had to go to the Sort menu to do just this and it could cost you extra clicks and decrease your productivity if you need to sort your data by multiple columns.

Another use of it is to drag it below the rows that you want to be visible all the time (for example, the header rows). It is a faster way to freeze rows and this approach is more intuitive than the menu-driven way of freezing rows.


Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Spreadsheet

iGoogle Calendar Causes Freeze-up on Firefox

I have been experiencing some kind of "freeze-up" while opening multiple tabs in Firefox, and most of the time, I notice, they come when iGoogle auto-refreshes. I was wondering what was causing this problem and now I can see that the culprit seems to be the Google Calendar Gadget.

Below I tried refreshing iGoogle a few times and recorded the CPU loading. The first screenshot refers to refreshes without the Calendar gadget. The second one shows the loading for four refreshes with the Calendar gadget. The third one records the refreshes after removing the Calendar again.

To make sure nothing else was causing the spikes, other applications, apart from Anti-Virus and Firewall, were closed and the refreshes were done multiple times.

Fig 1. iGoogle Refresh without Calendar


Fig 2. iGoogle Refresh with Calendar


Fig 3. iGoogle Refresh with Calendar Removed

Also to make sure that the extensions were not causing the problems, I tried the test in Firefox (Safe Mode). From the patterns, we can pretty well see that without the Calendar gadget, the loading was much less than when the page was refreshed with the gadget. In the screenshot below, you can see that the first two peaks refer to refreshes with Calendar gadget on, and the last two to those without Calendar gadget on the page.


Fig 4. iGoogle Refresh with and without Calendar (Firefox Safe Mode)

I also did similar tests on IE7 with and without Calendar gadget, but there was no significant difference in the loading of the CPU. I didn't do any test on Safari and Opera though.

These CPU loading peaks may not be significant with higher power CPU but they do freeze up my Firefox for a while (during its reloading stage) on my laptop with an Intel Pentium M. (This has nothing to do with the amount of RAM, considering that I have 2GB of it and it is not affected during the refreshes.) That is simply annoying, especially when I'm multitasking.

I tried a first solution: I kept the gadget but closes the iGoogle home page while I'm opening multiple tabs and don't want to be annoyed. But, it didn't work; most of the time, I find myself leaving iGoogle open always through my Firefox session. So, I came up with the second and more drastic solution: I removed the Calendar gadget (which is quite useful to me) and force myself to use the calendar page to use my Google Calendar.

I hope it is not only me who's troubled by the freeze-up's in Firefox caused by Google Calendar Gadget, and I hope later versions of Firefox will handle it better (if this is at all caused by the way Firefox handles that xml).

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Firefox, Google Calendar

Things that I Wish Were on Google Notebook

Google Notebook, although not having the full functionality like the Google Docs, is great for note-taking while doing research online and during a meeting. But it has been neglected for quite a while and I'm still waiting for some features that will prove very useful to the users.

Here are some new features that I wish to see on Google Notebook soon.

1. Note Sharing - We have been able to share the whole notebook with friends quite some time ago. But, there are circumstances where I just wish to share only some notes or sections of a notebook only since the other notes/sections contain information that other people need not know.
   
   This happens mostly when I have to disseminate some information and tasks to the members while keeping the sensitive points discussed during the management meeting in my club. I could have created a new notebook and put the data I want to share with members under that notebook. But, this is not a very good solution. I want to be able to keep all the notes under the same notebook that belong to this particular club and at the same time, be able to share some notes or sections of it with some people. Otherwise, I will have more than one notebook for one club, and it can get pretty messy.



2. Titles - Yes. Every note I create manually inside a notebook doesn't have subject or title field. But, when I create a note from a web page using the Notebook plug-in, it automatically creates a title for that note and I'm able to edit it. This is very inconsistent user interface. I want the ability to add title for all notes in my notebook, regardless of how I create that note.
   
   
   
   In the screenshots above, you can see how you can edit the title of a note (clipped from a web page) and how easy it is to browse through notes in collapsed view when the notes have a title or subject associated with it.



3. To-do List - This is not very related to Notebook, and I don't expect it to be a part of Notebook. What I want is an implementation of a To-do List in Google Calendar and an integration among the To-do List, Calendar and Notebook so that we can always check the tasks by time or day (in Calendar) and by category (in Notebook).



4. Organization - Notebook is not just for note taking. It is a tool that people can use for organization of their information and their ideas. It can be used a student to take notes and gather information for a paper; it can be used by a writer to jot down rough ideas to be developed in full later; it can be used a Management Committee member to organize tasks and keep track of development and happenings inside the club. So, I hope Google would come up with a better way to organize the notes in Google Notebook. Currently, not only are the notes not organized enough but it is also not easy to skim through them as well.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google Notebook, Wishlist

Awesome Beat Boxes

These are some very good Beat Box video clips that I came across while browsing through the YouTube website. I'm sure you'll find them amusing and amazing.

As a comment from YouTube says, it's surprising they don't spit at the camera all the time!

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: YouTube, Video, Beat Box

ManU Win over FC Seoul

After a disappointing result of 2-2 draw in Japan, Manchester United finally grabbed a 4-0 win over FC Seoul, with both stars--Ronaldo and Rooney--playing up to their expected standards.

Rooney who has recently been given the Number 10 shirt will no doubt come with more surprises in the coming season; I believe Sir Alex has reasons to have done so; he gave Number 7 to Beckham and then to Ronaldo, and both of them have become ManUtd legends.

It seems from the video clip here that the FC Seoul were playing "away" at their home field.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: ManUtd

Google Acquires ImageAmerica

The Google LatLong blog announced the acquisition of ImageAmerica which provided "high resolution black and white imagery of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina".


Currently, a visit to the ImageAmerica homepage just says "Google has acquired" it. Also according to the blog, it can take some time before the effects from this acquisition will be seen in Google Maps and Earth.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Maps, Earth, ImageAmerica

About iPhone Videos

These are some good videos about the high-rated iPhone. One of them is about the good points of iPhone, but so far, the bad things dominate over the selling points of Apple's iPhone.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: iPhone

Google Docs Word Count

Google Documents has implemented a Word Count feature along with the experimental feature "Find and Replace". The two features can be accessed from the File menu after the document is opened.



The Word Count dialog also shows the readability statistics much like in Microsoft Office Word. The Find and Replace is still in Alpha phase, so it may have some glitches sometime.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google Docs

Custom Player for YouTube

YouTube has a new custom player page for creating video players of your choice. To add videos to the custom player, the videos need to be in a playlist first. So, this means the custom player is designed for multiple video embedding and it can be expected that the single video player will not get this update any time soon.

Many writers online are also saying that the new custom player is intended for Enterprise video players.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: YouTube

Weird Random Account Switching in Google

While I was reading posts in Google Reader today, my account was switched to someone else's account. The account name on the upper right corner changed and I could see all his or her subscriptions in my Google Reader. I closed the Reader and open it again. Nice! I could read another person's subscriptions. I tried iGoogle and it was also changed.



I didn't know what the problem was initially. It could be either because I updated my Firefox or there was a mix up in Google cookie. But, it's very unlikely that Firefox update might cause this problem. So, I cleared all cookies, history and cache in Firefox, and finally everything was back to normal.



I think this could be a Google cookie problem. But, it's pretty weird (and alarming!) that I could access other people's accounts due to this problem. If that's really a cookie problem, it should only be that I could not access my account and be asked to log in again. That could be a really alarming and scary issue if one can repeat that kind of cookie "mix-up" and be able to access to any Google account!!!

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Security

Firefox 2.0.0.5 Update

Firefox got an update to version 2.0.0.5. This update fixes some critical security issues, one of which caused some fire on the net during the last week.


If you have not updated it yet, you should get the update soon.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Firefox

PayPal Phishing from Gmail

These days I have been receiving many PayPal phishing emails from Gmail and Yahoo. When I checked with friends, they are also receiving such emails in their "inbox". Yes, these phishing emails end up in the Inbox since they are mailed by Gmail.

Although I have reported phishing to Google every time I receive those PalPay messages, they still end up in my Inbox, which is a bit annoying.

This is the first phishing attempt from Gmail (at least for me) after Google made a move a few months ago to suspend the gmail accounts involved in spamming and phishing.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Gmail, Phishing

Google Cookies to Auto-Expire Sooner

Google announced on the Official Google Blog that the Google cookies will start to expire in two years since last access to Google, instead of expiring in year 2038.

This means if you do not access Google.com from now on, the cookie that Google placed on your hard disk will auto-expire in July 2009 which is two years from now.

Google announced that it is in response to the bigger privacy concerns from users and organizations. This move is welcome, but on second thought, it doesn't really make any difference: the chance of someone not accessing Google for two years in a row is almost zero (unless he stops using computers or passes away!) and Google also knows that. So, whether their cookie expires in two years' time or in year 2038, the Google cookie will always reside on your computer as long as you happen to search the web with Google. (Also, don't forget there are things like Personalized Search and Google Web History, which keep track of your online movement and give you better search results. Google Desktop, in addition, may also send your usage data back to Google if you enable Advanced Features (I have no idea what they are) and Google Toolbar also does the same if you enable PageRank and Safe Browsing.)

To me, this is just a move by Google to improve its image with regard to online privacy, without actually losing anything. This way, Google will have something to soothe the privacy organizations or to contend with when questioned.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Google, Privacy

Why Internet Explorer Can't Compete with Firefox

With Internet Explorer 7 for Vista and XP, Microsoft entered the tabbed-browser war which is mainly dominated by Firefox. Microsoft gave the users some tabbed browsing capabilities, a phishing filter and a cleaner look (which indeed confused old users).

But, Microsoft failed to realize that the reason why Firefox is very popular is not simply the phishing filter and tabbed browsing but is the extensibility of the browsers with Add-ons. There is somehow a way to download and install Add-ons for IE but the way it is done is terribly horrible. There is no variety and there is most importantly no consistent way to install the Add-ons.

Linked here is an article on why those Add-ons for IE really suck. It's a pretty good article and Microsoft should learn from it to improve the IE7 experience. For a quick view, below is the top ten reasons that the article points out why IE Add-ons suck:

1. Little variety
   
2. Poor classification
   
3. No standard installation method
   
4. The Add-Ons are hosted on third party sites
   
5. Some Add-Ons cannot be uninstalled
   
6. Some Add-Ons have no utility whatsoever
   
7. You have to pay for the good Add-Ons
   
8. Some Add-Ons don't work
   
9. Some Add-ons are not Add-Ons but standalone applications
   
10. Some of the Add-Ons are a SECURITY RISK!!
    

On an unrelated note, the reason, I believe, why IE counts a large percentage on browsers statistics is that it comes pre-installed on Windows and the people who use public computers with only Internet Explorer have no choice but to use it even though it sucks a lot.

Until then...

Justin

PS: I wonder what Microsoft heard from the users when they said "we heard you" (from the screen shot above).

Technorati Tag: Internet Explorer

Duck Hunt - Nintendo Nostalgia

I loved playing Nintendo back in my childhood. This flash game, the Duck Hunt, was one of my favorites. For those who are nostalgic of old days, you can play it here.

You can also add it to your iGoogle too.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Duck Hunt

Windows Registry Backup

There are many Windows tweaks and fixes which involves editing the registry. More often than not, they warn or remind you to backup your registry before making any changes to it while they only give instruction on how to edit or create new registry entry (entries) to get a desired effect in Windows.

This post deals with a quick and easy way to back up the registry in Windows and assumes that you will use Windows Registry Editor which can be run by going to Start > Run and typing regedit and then clicking OK.



When you are in Windows Registry Editor, you can back up the registry in two ways: Full and Selective. To back up all your registry which can be quite large, select the My Computer on the left pane as shown in the image. Then select File > Export.... You will be prompted to save the registry back up file in .reg format. Type a name to save your file and click Save. Your whole registry information will be saved to that file and if you ever need to restore back you registry, double-clicking on that file will be all you need to do.


To back up just a key in the registry, you will need to navigate to that key in the left pane and select it. For example, to back up the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Installer, go to that key and select it as shown in the picture. Then go to File > Export... just as you did for the first method. Type a file name and save it. This will back up only the selective key that you wish to back up and is the typical method to do the backup before doing changes to your registry.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Microsoft,Windows, Registry

Funny George W. Bush

Watch out. George W. Bush is not just a president. He can be a clown too. :D

Until then...

Justin

Related: Another Fun Video

Technorati Tag: George Bush, Fun

Open Multiple Gtalk Instances

This is a pretty old trick now. But, some people still don't know how to open multiple instances of Google Talk client so that they can log in with different account.

To be able to open more than one window of Gtalk, you just simply need to edit its shortcut in Start Menu. Navigate to Start > All Programs > Google Talk and right-click on the Google Talk shortcut.


There, as shown in the screen shot, change the /startmenu to /nomutex and click OK. Now, whenever you click on that shortcut, a new instance or window of Google Talk will appear. But, once it opens, it will try to log in with the account you are currently logged in, so you need to log off and log in again.

You can also use /nomutex from Run command and from Command Prompt as well.

Until then...

Jusitn

Technorati Tag: gtalk

Redirect Feed URL to FeedBurner in Blogger

Blogger now has the option to redirect the post feeds link to the FeedBurner link. So, from now on, subscribers will no longer be confused about which feeds they should subscribe to which is the case when they see multiple feeds links on a site.


This is the second update after Google acquired FeedBurner, the first one being making the FeedBurner PRO features freely available.

The next update could be integration of stats from FeedBurner to Google Analytics to provide more information about the visitors to your site.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: FeedBurner, Blogger

Blogger Poll Tool

Blogger Draft also graduated the Poll tool which has been in testing phase for a few weeks. The Poll has grown out of beta earlier than the Video Upload tool which is still under Blogger Draft.


Watch the video on how to crate a poll at this official Google post.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Blogger

New Blogger Search

Blogger Draft released a new search tool which uses Google Ajax Search and provide an almost instant search functionality to Blogger. The way it shows the result is unobtrusive and the results follows the CSS rules of the blog itself.


Now with this Search, it will be taking less time to see if a blog has topics of your interest and then decide to keep on reading it.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Blogger,Search

Gtalk Music Status Not Working?

Some time ago, a friend of mine asked me why his Gtalk and MSN/Live music status no longer worked. I myself have encountered such a problem.

This happens with most users who play music using Windows Media Player. The problem is caused because Microsoft designed the Windows Media Player to disable all external plug-ins once the Player crashes, assuming that the crashes are caused by those plug-ins (which is not always the case).


To get back the Gtalk and MSN/Live music status, you will need to re-enable these two plug-ins in Windows Media Player. Right-click on the title bar if you hide the classic menu bar (which is the default) and choose Tools > Options. In the Option window, go to Plug-in tab and choose Background on the left pane. Check the Google Talk Music Plugin (and Windows Live Messenger Music Plugin if you want). Click OK to leave the dialog window.


Play your music and try your Google Talk music status again. The music status will be back as normal.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Windows Media Player, Gtalk

Google to Acquire Postini

Google is going to acquire an on-demand communication security company Postini for $625 million in cash. Postini is specialized in message and IM security, archiving encryption which archives all messages of the corporation on their servers and encrypts them so that they are secure and can be recovered back, and corporate policy enforcement where administrators can filter or block messages that contain certain keywords and can check for violation. Google intends to improve its Corporate App offering by this acquisition.

Until then...

Justin

{Official Google Blog Post}

Technorati Tag: Google, Postini

Cool Pics: Transformers

Everything around us are now transforming! Cool pictures. Enjoy them.

Album Link

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Transformers, Pics

SocialStream - a Prototype for Orkut 2?

Google has been doing very badly in social networking; its Orkut is not even as popular as Friendster and I have almost never heard it being talked about among my friends. In fact, Orkut is filled with people mostly from India. But, Google's weakness is not just in creating a social networking site, but it seems that Google fails to create an environment for interaction of its users; Google Video and Picasa Web have very bad commenting design. More than that, Google's different services use different profiles even though they are the same person; I have Google Account with some personal information, but when it comes to Google Groups, Blogger and Orkut, I have separate profiles where I can enter extra personal info in one of them or another.


People's interactions, which can include, but is not limited to, conservations between each other that may contain what they do each day (like Facebook's Wall and Firendster's Blog), are essential for Google if they were to organize the world's information and to set an ultimate goal to answer such questions as "What should I do tomorrow?"

Now, Google seems to be seriously considering their social networking problems. They are now funding a project named SocialStream which aims to revolutionize the social networking realm. It strives to achieve consistency and centralize management and organization of one's personal information across all or most of the social networking sites. The tasks of the project as published on the official web site are:

Initial Task: Rethink and reinvent online social networking

Refined Focus: Discover the user needs related to social networking and explore how a unified social network service can enhance their experience.

Prototype Goal: Create a system for users to seamlessly share, view, and respond to many types of social content across multiple networks.

Google's Gmail revolutionized the web mail concept when Yahoo's Mail and other web mail services before Gmail failed to provide the users the real experience of email. Now, Friendster and Facebook are already successful in social networking, but neither of them has yet achieved a satisfactory level or experience of the social networking and people are yet to achieve the real benefits of having such social networking profiles online; Friendster has too much junk and Facebook is too unorganized with its too many features. Now, is it time for Google to revolutionize this online area just as they did a few years ago?

Until then...

Justin

{Source}

Technorati Tag: Google, Orkut, SocialStream, Social Networking

Carlos Tevez Coming to the Theatre of Dream

Carlos Tevez from West Ham United will be joining the champions next week to make Man Utd a very-hard-to-defeat team in the coming season in English Premier League.

Below is a good compilation video that will convince you why he is a good signing to the Manchester United. You don't have to watch the whole video to see why Fergie ever attempted to get him into his squad.

With Rooney, Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson, Owen, Scholes and Giggs, Man Utd will be achieving more medals next season! Salute to Fergie who has made himself the most successful manager ever.

Until then...

Justin

Technorati Tag: Carlos Tevez, Man Utd