Web Blog

How technology is changing our relationships

techyguy — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:31:53 +0000

There was a time when communicating with someone actually took time and effort. If you wanted to declare your love to someone, you had to write a letter, send a gift, or ask your special someone out. Waiting was a killer. If you gave a letter or gift, you had to wait for [...]

3 Extremely Common Mistakes in Web Design That Can Be Easily Avoided

Philip Donald — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:36:35 +0000

There are some web design mistakes that designers are prone to making, but the interesting thing is that these can be easily avoided. So, it comes as a surprise that such mistakes are being made, and it’s not just beginner designers who are making such mistakes. Even experienced designers, who have plenty of experience in [...]

10 Top Travel Deal Search Engines For Travelers

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:47:01 +0000

Travelers are becoming very savvy these days when it comes to booking flights, lodgings, car rentals and cruises. They don’t just call travel agents and have their itineraries taken care of, as was the norm even a few years ago. They use the latest travel-based search engines to dig out the best discount fares, last [...]

How To Save YouTube Videos to Your iPod or iPad

nolibs — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:09:08 +0000

There are many occasions where one might want to download videos onto an Apple mobile device. Different apps are available online to capture streaming video off sites like Hulu.com or YouTube.com, and saving and converting the files into acceptable iPod / iPad formats. You will find several while searching around Google; many of the converters [...]

How IT Outsourcing Companies Help Your Small Business Grow

guestauthor — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:16:31 +0000

Starting with a small business is not always an easy task. It requires a lot of planning, enough perseverance and the right amount of patience. There is no doubt that a business will always generate more revenue for you than any salaried job could have ever done, but this might not happen overnight. Things start [...]

Google +: To Be or Not To Be – The Ultimate Social Networking Platform

admin — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:40:32 +0000

There is a lot of talk going around about the newest social networking platform that will soon be brought to the table, and most of it is related to whether or not Google + will end up being the ultimate social networking platform. We know one thing for sure and that is that the social [...]

Fast Ways to Get People to Visit Your New Website

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:39:33 +0000

There are a couple of fast ways to get people to visit your new website. For starters, you will be very wise to ensure that the web content you provide is catchy and fresh. Only when your content is good you can be certain that people will want to visit and keep revisiting your site [...]

Requirement gathering plays an important role in Website Development

Philip Donald — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:35:51 +0000

The best website development is founded on various factors that are non-technical in nature. Correct coding and the choice of right technology play an important role in the successful development of a website, but there are other factors at play as well. Ignoring the importance of these factors is tantamount to saying goodbye to the [...]

3 Reasons Netflix Will Merge with Amazon

ThomasStone — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:43:24 +0000

Netflix’s announcement that it was splitting its mail-order DVD service and its streaming service was instantly met with derision and rage. Consumers and industry commentators both declared that it signaled the beginning of the company’s fall from the top and predicted huge losses in subscribers. But if the Qwikster split was going to be so [...]

Top 5 Ecommerce Design Tips

nolibs — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:39:29 +0000

Top 5 Ecommerce Design Tips Setting your Ecommerce store apart from the others isn’t always easy. With a sea of stores swarming around the web, how does one make there’s seem unique? Aside from providing a useful product, having good customer service, and having reasonable rates, there are few design to keep in mind going forward [...]

The Latest, Exciting Features of Google Plus

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:39:01 +0000

Look out Facebook, Google Plus (G+) has arrived. The internet has quickly become a buzz about the latest and greatest features of Google Plus. And even though it is still in its beta, start-up phase requiring an invitation for people to ‘Plus One” the new social network is quickly gaining ground. For [...]

What are keywords and why do I need them?

Dsmith — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:11:32 +0000

Keywords are the words or phrases that website owners wish their website to show up for on search engine results pages. These are generally terms which describe what the website is about. Why do I need keywords? Without optimising a website to include certain keywords, search engines are unable to decipher what the website is about. [...]

Tech Giant Throws Hat in the Payment Processing Ring With Google Wallet

Eric Stauffer — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:04:13 +0000

The credit card processing industry is full of competition looking to gain market share in one of the most lucrative sectors of the financial arena. Merchant services organizations are constantly looking for the latest gimmick or technology in order to gain more merchants as well as customers. It was only a matter of time before [...]

Don’t Be Misled By Google PageRank

TimArends — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:11:35 +0000

Google will occasionally offer clues on its blog and in other places as to how it ranks sites. PageRank is one well known tool it uses, but it has been coming under increased criticism lately. Some sites have even sued Google for receiving a low PageRank!

FTC’s Google Probe

Alex Chitu — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:47:00 +0000

Google confirmed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has began a review of Google's business practices after many companies complained that Google used its dominance in the search market unfairly. "Those companies said that Google's anticompetitive practices include using other companies' content without their permission, deceptive display of search results, manipulation of search results to favor Google's products, and buying up competitive threats to its dominance," informs the Wall Street Journal. "The widely trailed investigation is the most significant in Google's 12-year history, on a par with the lengthy Department of Justice probe into Microsoft, which led to tighter regulation and from which the technology giant's image has never fully recovered," writes the Guardian.

Google says that this review is similar to the European Commission review. Last year, the European Commission notified Google that it has received complaints from three companies who claim that Google imposes unfair penalties on competing sites and uses Universal Search as an opportunity to promote its own services. Google argues that it's not a monopoly in search as "the cost of switching to a different search engine is zero". Google also says that its results are "a type of mathematically-derived opinion" and that Google was built for consumers, not websites.

"Search is much different than a utility. With you electricity provider, your telephone provider and your cable provider, there’s generally one cable coming into your home, and you have only one or two choices about which provider to pay for services. With the Internet, web services are only a click away. Google is like a GPS to the Internet – a helpful guide, but not necessary if you know where you're going," explains Google.

The cost of switching to a different search engine is certainly not zero. Google's brand is very powerful and for some people it's synonymous with search. It's also difficult to use another search engine that has a different interface, other features and doesn't know too much about you. Google is the default search engine in all important browsers, except Internet Explorer and Chrome, which doesn't have a default search engine.

Danny Sullivan says that Google's first real antitrust challenge started after announcing the intention to acquire DoubleClick, back in 2007. The likelihood of an antitrust suit made Google change its mind about the Yahoo search deal. Google barely managed to convince the FTC that it's OK to buy AdMob and the ITA acquisition has a lot of strings attached.

Google will continue to have a difficult time acquiring big companies and even startups, while the long list of investigations and lawsuits could slow Google down.

Gmail’s Brand new Inbox Styles

Alex Chitu — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:08:00 +0000

Gmail's Priority Inbox is an advanced version of the regular inbox, with customizable sections for power users. For some people, Priority Inbox looked intimidating, so that's probably the reason why Gmail tests a new version of the regular inbox that integrates Priority Inbox and three lightweight versions of the Priority Inbox.

"Try out all the new inbox styles to see what fits you best. You can always switch back if you change your mind," informs a Gmail promotional box. There are five inbox types: classic, important first, unread first, starred first and Priority Inbox. The three new inbox types could easily be obtained by customizing Priority Inbox, but it's much easier to switch between them. It's the first time when Google uses tabs in Gmail interface if you exclude Gmail's settings page.

{ Thanks, Hugh and Evan. }

A Chrome Extension for Google Music

Alex Chitu — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:13:00 +0000

While there's no official extension for Google Music and not even an app in the Chrome Web Store, you can install a really cool third-party extension called "Better Music Beta". The extension adds a button that shows information about the currently playing song, lets you pause the song, go to the next song, add a thumbs up or a thumbs down. There's also a notification that shows up every time the song changes.

My favorite feature is the Last.fm integration: if you enable it, Better Music Beta scrobbles your songs and lets you publicly show that you love a song by clicking the "heart" icon.

The downside is that you still have to open Google Music in a tab, since the music stops playing if you close the tab. Converting the extension into a "background app" would solve this problem.

Google Music requires an invitation and it's supposed to be US-only, but it works even if you're not in the US. Google only checks your location when you request an invitation and you can always use a US proxy for this one-time action. Another interesting thing is that, even though Google Music lists Flash as a requirement, the service works pretty well on an iPad.

Chrome 14 Blocks Insecure JavaScript

Alex Chitu — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:32:00 +0000

Chrome 14, only available in the Dev and Canary channels right now, adds a security feature that could affect a lot of sites. If you're visiting an SSL site that loads some scripts using unencrypted connections, Chrome will refuse to load the scripts.

When a website is secured via HTTPS, the web site designer must also ensure that all of the scripts used by the page will be delivered in the same secure manner as the main page itself. The same requirements also apply to the plugins and external CSS stylesheets used by the page, as these have the same considerations as javascript. When this is not the case (sometimes called a 'mixed script' situation), visitors to the site run the risk that attackers can interfere with the website and change the script so as to serve their own purposes.

Traditionally, browsers have run the mixed script, genuine or not, and notified you after-the-fact by a broken lock icon, a dialog box, or a red https:// in the location bar (in the case of Google Chrome). The problem with this approach is that by the time the script has run, it is already too late, because the script has had access to all of the data on the page. Google Chrome now protects you by refusing up-front to run any script on a secure page unless it is also being delivered over HTTPS.

You can bypass this feature by clicking "Load anyway" in the infobar displayed at the top of the page, but Chrome doesn't remember your preference. Unfortunately, you can't whitelist a domain or a subdomain, so you'll have to click "Load anyway" and wait until the page is reloaded. There's a command-line flag that lets you disable this feature: --allow-running-insecure-content, but Google says that it should only be used by "users and admins who have internal applications without immediate fixes for these errors".

Chrome has recently added many other security features, including a function for generating strong random numbers, a way to force HTTPS for any domain you want, an initial implementation of Content Security Policy that helps protect against Cross Site Scripting and a more secure Gmail that uses HTTPS for all connections, even when you type "gmail.com" in the address bar.

Google’s Gay Rainbow

Alex Chitu — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 22:57:00 +0000

It's not the first June when Google changes the search results interface when you search for [gay] and other related terms. While in 2009 and 2010 Google added a colorful bar below the search box, this year there's a rainbow next to the search box.

June is the "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month" and there are many pride parades all over the world. Last year, Google's blog included an article about gay parades and the Google employees who participated.

"Google supports its LGBT employees in many ways: raising its voice in matters of policy, taking a moment to remember the plight of transgender people around the world and going the extra mile to ensure that its employees are treated fairly."

{ Thanks, multilind. }

Print Preview in Google Chrome 13

Alex Chitu — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:53:00 +0000

If you regularly print Web pages, Chrome wasn't the best browser for you because it lacked print preview. Chrome 13, now available in beta, addresses this issue and finally allows users to preview documents before printing them.

Chrome's implementation is special because it uses the built-in PDF plugin to convert the page you want to print into a PDF file. There's no special "print preview" option: when you click "print", Chrome opens a new tab that shows some of the options from the native print dialog and a preview pane.

Chrome generates a PDF file every time you click "print" and when you change printing settings and you can save the file by selecting "Print to PDF" from the "Destination" drop-down. Unfortunately, Chrome's PDF files are huge (the file generated for Google's homepage has almost 1 MB). Google managed to reduce the performance penalty of generating PDF files and now print preview is pretty fast, on par with Internet Explorer 9.

To open the native printing dialog, click "Advanced". You'll be able to change printer settings, add a new printer or print selected text. If you disable the built-in PDF plugin, Chrome will show an error message instead of the preview and you'll only be able to print a page using the native dialog. That's an important flaw that needs to be addressed before releasing the stable version.

Chrome's tabbed printing page doesn't integrate with Google Cloud Print yet, but this feature will be available in the future. Google plans to add many other missing features: ability to adjust headers, footers and margins, shrink/expand to fit page, integration with Google Docs, a search box for printers, location-aware printer selection, syncing print preview settings to the native dialog.

For now, print preview only works in Chrome 13 for Windows and Mac. If you don't want to wait until the first stable release that supports print preview, you can install Chrome 13 Beta. Another option is to install Chrome 14 Canary and run it side by side with the stable release.

My Maps Becomes My Places

Alex Chitu — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:31:00 +0000

Google Maps updated the "My Maps" section, which now includes the places you've starred and rated. Mapplets are no longer available and custom maps aren't popular enough to have their own section, so "My Maps" became "My Places", a list of locations you've visited, bookmarked, rated or saved to a custom map.

"Items are organized by date with your most recent activity at the top, and filters make it easy to sort and view only your maps, starred locations or rated places. My Places also simplifies your ability to manage the locations that make up your personalized maps experience. Using the drop-down arrow next to each location in your list, you can easily delete any of your saved maps, stars or Google Places ratings. These personalization changes will automatically be synchronized across all other Google properties including Google Places, Google Maps, and Google Maps for mobile," informs Google.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that the list of Google Latitude check-ins is added to My Places and that the combined list becomes an optional tab on your Google Profile.

Chrome Shifts Into a Brand new Gear

Alex Chitu — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 23:03:00 +0000

Chrome 12 is now available in the stable channel and all the Chrome users can try the new features.

1. App search in the address bar.

2. Clear Flash cookies (or Local Shared Objects) using the "Clear browsing data" dialog, instead of visiting a webpage.

3. Chrome Sync no longer uses a modal dialog and it's now properly integrated with the tabbed settings page.

4. Safe Browsing borrowed a feature from Internet Explorer 8: checking downloaded files for malware. Right now, this feature only works for Windows executables and shows a small message in the download bar.

5. No more Gears in Google Chrome. You'll no longer be able to use any app that relies on Gears to provide features like offline storage or web workers. The only Google service that still used Gears was Gmail.

6. Hardware accelerated 3D CSS (or 3D transforms). Chrome's blog suggests to try "Shaun the Sheep", an experiment that uses WebM video and 3D CSS to create an immersive app.

7. Chrome for Mac asks for confirmation when using Cmd+Q to quit the application. "When you press Cmd+Q, it brings up the floaty panel telling you to hold the key combo. When you do, it quits after 1.5 seconds." That sounds annoying.

8. Print and Save buttons in the PDF viewer.

9. A better interface for adding start pages.

Creative Commons Videos on YouTube

Alex Chitu — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:20:00 +0000

YouTube added a new feature that lets you change the standard video licensing and switch to the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows other people to reuse your videos. "Others may copy, distribute and create derivative works from your video — but only if they give you credit."

The new feature is used in YouTube's video editor, which lets you search for Creative Commons videos and use them to create a new video. YouTube says that there are already more than 10,000 videos from organizations like C-SPAN and Al Jazeera, but that's just the beginning.

YouTube will certainly become the largest library of Creative Commons videos, but it's strange to see that it took so long to add a license that encourages creativity. The first Google service that integrated with Creative Commons was Google Web Search (2005) and it was followed by Picasa Web Albums (2008) and Google Image Search (2009).

If you want to find Creative Commons videos on YouTube, click "Filter & Explore" after performing a search and select "Creative Commons". You could also add ", creativecommons" to your query and search for [paris, creativecommons].

YouTube Reactions

Alex Chitu — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:40:00 +0000

YouTube tests a new feature that allows users to express their reactions without posting silly comments. They can just click one of the six buttons (LOL, OMG, EPIC, CUTE, WTF, FAIL) and instantly tag the video.

YouTube already highlights tags that use Internet slag words ("#LOL", "#FAIL", "#CUTE") from the comments and places links to a list of comment search results.

Blogger has a similar feature, but blog authors can edit the list of reactions. "With Reactions, readers can easily respond with one click, increasing feedback on posts."

{ Thanks, Ron. }

Google +1 Button for Websites

Alex Chitu — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:30:00 +0000

When Google launched the +1 button for search results back in March, many people wondered why the button couldn't be added to any site. Now you can add the button to your site using a simple JavaScript code, just like the buttons for Twitter and Facebook.

"+1 is as simple on the rest of the web as it is on Google search. With a single click you can recommend that raincoat, news article or favorite sci-fi movie to friends, contacts and the rest of the world. The next time your connections search, they could see your +1's directly in their search results, helping them find your recommendations when they're most useful," explains Google.

The button can be customized: you can hide the number of +1's, choose a different button size or explicitly load the button. "By placing the tag at the bottom of the document, just before the body close tag, you may improve the loading speed of the page," suggests Google.

Right now, very few websites include Google's +1 button, so installing a browser extension could be a better option. Unfortunately, Google hasn't released yet a +1 extension.