Google, meet Bing. Google must have been impressed by Bing’s image-rich search page, as indicated by today’s imitation. Many of their users are not.

Google recently rolled out a feature of it’s primary product, Google.com, that allows users to display a picture as the background.

Freeze frame!
The Official Google Blog, June 2, 2010

The art of a homepage
The Official Google Blog, June 9, 2010

I like the dominating whitespace of Google.com. It has a utilitarian simplicity. However, I also love seeing my favorite lighthouse every time I actually navigate to the Google site to do a search.

Google.com background image

Tomorrow the default background will go back to the white we all know and many love.

What do you think of this new feature? Will you use one of your own pictures or one of the many gorgeous images available in Google’s gallery? Let me know in the comments.

design · google · photography

Very cool! I can’t wait to get my own account!

ajax · communication · email · google · html · im · tool · wave · web

Ever have people ask you simple questions which could have easily been answered by a simple Google query? Does it bother you?

It doesn’t bother me. I’m a social creature and think sometimes we ask questions of others not to learn the answer but to appear interested.

If, however, you are annoyed by the luddites in your life, send them a link to Let Me Google That For You. Simply enter the search terms in the text box and click the “Google Search” button. A Google query URL will be generated and ready for you to copy and paste in an email, online forum, or blog comment.

Their tagline says it all:

This is for all those people that find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves.

Try it.

“the rhetoric” brentdanley
where is saco, maine
evolution v. creationism
firefox quick search

Pretty neat, eh?

google · help · resource

SearchWiki: make search your own
The Official Google Blog, November 20, 2008

Today we’re launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users.

Google recently updated Search, it’s bread and butter application, with a set of features collectively named SearchWiki. SearchWiki allows registered users to customize their search results by rearranging them, adding notes and adding pages they would like to show up in their results in subsequent searches. How cool is that?!

(more…)

google · search · searchwiki · wiki

I was looking for JavaScript chart libraries yesterday for a project I’m considering and discovered Google Charts. The API, as you’d expect, is fantastic. As is the documentation. I whipped up this little map showing where I’ve been in the United States. The longer the darker (states not visited are white).

Next I’m going to develop a chart that will be generated from a MySQL database to show the history of gas prices per gallon that I’ve paid. It should be fun.

Where I’ve been

The URL for the map above, in case you’re interested:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
chs=440x220&
chco=ffffff,a6d9fd,107bc6,083e64&
chtm=usa&
cht=t&
chld=ALAKAZARCACOCTFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLA
MEMAMNMSMOMTNENVNHNMNYNCNDOHOKORPA
RISCSDTNTXUTVTWAWY&
chd=t:0,100,72,0,72,90,0,90,0,0,30,6,0,0,100,0,0,
45,72,0,21,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,12,0,
0,0,0,0,6,24,0,12,0&
chf=bg,s,ffffff

chart · google · map · travel · web

Google has announced it will no longer let Mozilla fight the browser war against Microsoft on its own.  Tuesday it will release its own internet web browser, named Chrome.

Yippee!  Google, unlike Microsoft, rarely does anything that sucks.  And, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, competition is good for users.  It’ll be interesting to see how tightly Google’s current products are integrated into the new browser.  I’m already using Gmail, Docs, Calendar and Maps on a daily basis. Oh yeah, and Search.

Microsoft Faces New Browser Foe in Google
By STEVE LOHR, New York Times, September 1, 2008

A fresh take on the browser
Google Blog, September 1, 2008

browser · chrome · firefox · google · microsoft