Ma.gnolia: Deryck Hodge's Bookmarks Tagged With "google"

Strange square on Gmail - Google Blogoscoped Forum

deryck — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:39:01 PDT

Been wondering about this. And now we know. Hide your frameborders Gmail! :-) I've Greasemonnkey'ed it to make it go away for now. It's like a scratch on my glasses that I cannot ignore.

Google's Cutts: Good directions drive traffic to your website - USATODAY.com

deryck — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:19:37 PDT

Nice USA Today article with Google's Matt Cutts on some simple guidelines for improving your visibility in search results. Everyone expects SEO magic bullets, but it really is amazing how much the simple things can get you better placement. I think, too, that many people have unrealistic expectations. Just do a good site, write yourself about the site, and get people interested in what you are doing, and the rest will follow.

doctype - Google Code

deryck — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:11:14 PDT

Google Doctype is, in Mark Pilgrim's own words, "an encyclopedia for web developers by web developers." Looks very cool. There are several parts to this. The first is using the wiki component of Google code hosting to document the Web (document from the developer's perspective). It's like Wikipedia just for web development. The second part is a library of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML reference code, largely a set of tests. It does include "goog" which looks to be a JavaScript library akin to YUI or mootools. Also, I was struck by Mark Pilgrim calling himself a "technical writer" in the Doctype video I just watched. There's a lot to use and understand here, and I'm only just beginning to read through all this. (Via Simon Willison.)

Google Friend Connect

deryck — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:35:40 PDT

I only looked at this briefly, but it looks to me like a lightweight way to implement open social on a site without having to be a full social gadget container. Or maybe better said it's one simple way into being a social gadget container site. I could very easily be misunderstanding this, since I only looked quickly at the pages. Will return to it later.... and comment more here when I do.

Social Graph API - Google Code

deryck — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:24:57 PDT

I have just gotten around to playing with this social query service from Google. It's pretty nice, I have to say. Basically, you query for a list of relationships against a certain URL, or group of URLs, and you get back the data in JSON. You can either parse the data directly in a callback function in JavaScript, or parse the structure in some server-side program. I'm quite sure I'll end up making use of this very soon.

Google App Engine - Google Code

deryck — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:30:51 PDT

Now that I've had a day or two to digest this, I think this plays a part in Google's Open Social efforts. One of the coolest features of App Engine is the Google account integration, which gets lost a little as people outline all the Big Table and other such features around scalability. So how do I see this playing in the larger Open Social picture? One of the hardest things about Facebook apps is trying to scale them, and Google has effectively taken this off the table. Of course, you could deploy a Facebook app from App Engine, but the integration points -- i.e. Google account integration -- fit better for Google-based social apps. And I do love that it does WSGI and smells a little like Django.

Google I/O

deryck — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:11:19 PDT

Saving this for later... I may try to attend. Looks interesting, and of course, Google-driven web development is something I have a bit of interest in. ;-)

Google Code Blog: YouTube APIs for developers and for... iguana enthusiasts

deryck — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:15 PDT

YouTube APIs get an update with lots of new features including video upload and customization options for the YouTube player. I've only glanced at the announcement, but the functionality is something my group at WPNI will certainly make use of in the next few weeks.

Gmail: AIM Integration

deryck — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:28:01 PST

Gmail now allows logins to AIM via GTalk. I don't use the web version of GTalk much, but it's nice to know if I'm on the road somewhere I can get this all in one experience.

Slashdot | Google Pages to be Replaced by JotSpot

deryck — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:41:04 PST

I always thought Google Pages was one of the weaker offerings from Google. It really serves no purpose, IMHO, since most non-tech people use a blog engine for simple publishing. This talk of what might be possible with Jot Spot -- intranets, etc. -- sounds more interesting and useful. Be interesting to see what comes of it.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: The anatomy of a search result

deryck — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 06:45:20 PST

So how does Google determine what goes in the preview snippet from a site? Well, now you know! Matt Cutts does an 8 minute video explaining Google's snippets for search results.

Google Plans Service to Store Users' Data - WSJ.com

deryck — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:40:18 PST

Having been involved with a couple early testing groups at Google and at Facebook (and knowing some of the history thereof), when I see something like this, I always assume someone leaked info and the article is likely not entirely accurate. :-) I'm sure there's some truth to it, but whether storage will be a new service or just part of existing services remains to be seen. Nice article, though, on where Google might fit within existing storage offerings.

YouTube - Campfire One: Introducing OpenSocial

deryck — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:49:13 PST

Rob Curley and I were supposed to be at this, representing the Washington Post, but it just didn't work out. Oddly enough, we were working hard on a Facebook app that was just about the be released. Nice to see I can catch up on some of what I missed by not being there. Gotta love YouTube!

GmailGreasemonkey10API - gmail-greasemonkey - Google Code

deryck — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:02:13 PST

Gmail now has a Greasemonkey api for accessing elements of the page. There is also a system to fire callback functions on certain Gmail specific events -- when the current view changes, like selecting an email from the Inbox. Looks promising. I most certainly will play with this and see if I can include something on it in my book. Been working on the Gmail chapter this week even. Nice timing!

Newsweek - Google Goes Globe Trotting

deryck — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:49:13 PST

To train a new generation of leaders, the search giant sends young brainiacs on a worldwide mission.

Google Calendar JavaScript GData API

deryck — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:47:43 PDT

Google has released a JavaScript api for Google Calendar, which boils down to a JavaScript interface to GData. Think Google Maps API for Calendar, except that we're reading and writing the Calendar data via JavaScript rather than displaying calendars on a web page.

Official Google Reader Blog: "We found it!"

deryck — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:47:43 PDT

Finally! Search for Google Reader. This is why I committed to Reader when it first came out -- the hope that it would allow me to search my feeds one day. Yay! And it seems to work pretty well.

YouTube - Innovation at Google

deryck — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:23:29 PDT

Presentation by Google CIO Douglas Merrill on Innovation at Google. Found this via Howard Owens and it looks very interesting. Just don't have the time to sit and watch now, so saving for later.

Talk like a Googler: parts of a url

deryck — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:52:56 PDT

Matt Cutts explains how Google refers to the parts of a URL. I didn't know Google dropped fragments to normalize on URLs, though somehow I think subconsciouly I knew this.

Google Calendar Adds Calendar Browsing Complicates Searching

deryck — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:39:11 PDT

While I agree that it's a pain to hit enter and search public calendars by default, at least you *can* search your calendars with Google Calendar. Not all their products do this, which is weird for a search company. I wish Google Reader offered a way to search just my feeds for something I had read. Maybe one day...

Google PageRank: What Do We Know About It?

deryck — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 08:43:58 PDT

Nice, exhaustive study of Page Rank. It seems accurate, just based on my own understanding of Page Rank. I do think the thing to keep in mind about Page Rank and Google's search algorithms more generally is that Google is constantly making little incremental changes. It's a moving target, but this article is a great resource.

Google Gears (BETA)

deryck — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:44:12 PDT

Google enters the offline web app space with Gears. You can try it with Google Reader for now, which makes a lot of sense to me. I'd love to catch up on my backlog of feed reading from an airplane.

Google Code Hosting Seach Results -- label:Google

deryck — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:37:48 PDT

Query Google hosting to find every thing Google had released as open source through their code hosting site. There are more projects here than are listed from the Google Code Projects page.

google-code-prettify - Google Code

deryck — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:31:22 PDT

Add a JavaScript link and a CSS link and you can have pretty printed code. There are lots of little bits of code like this Google has released. Useful indeed. I think I'll add this to my blog.

How Google Works

deryck — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:42:33 PST

This was covered well when it first appeared, but I can never find it when I want. Saving it for later consumption, and just because it's an interesting read.

Stevey's Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile

deryck — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:32:24 PDT

Terrific write up of Google's "agile" development practices. It's long, but read it and you'll get my use of quotes in the above sentence.