Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Create a link to the lastest Chromium build (using PHP)
You may have heard of Chrome, but have you heard of Chromium?
Chromium is (according to the Google Operating System blog) »the open source project created for Google Chrome«.
As with, for instance, Firefox, Chromium also has nightly builds, which are less stable builds but with bleeding edge features. In Chromium these are labeled 'snapshots'.
In the Google Operating System blog post there's link to where you can download the most recent snapshop/build of the open source browser (for Windows only!). Some kind developer has left a file in the 'chromium-rel-xp' folder called 'LATEST'. All this file contains is the number of the latest build/snapshot.
We can use this number to create a direct URL to the most recent snapshop/build.
For this you use the PHP function called 'file_get_contents' and put the 'LATEST' file in it.
Here's how it looks when it's all done.
If you're curious you can look at the source code behind the 'latest Chromium' page.
Related postsTags: Browsers, chrome, Chromium, Google, Open source, PHP, Software
Google Chrome has been released into the wild
You may have heard (you probably have if you're reading this post) but Google has announced it's web browser named "Chrome". Read more about the announcement at TechCrunch.
Chrome is now available for download, as a matter of fact, I'm typing this in Chrome. It's fast. It's really fast. But I lack some features, most of which I get from extensions for my Firefox browser.
TechCrunch also a first review of the browser.
Now, I've only been using Chrome for a short amount of time, but it still needs to impress me. Just signed into Gmail expecting Chrome to say something like "Wow, I can see you're using Gmail - good choice! Since Gmail and I have the same parents check out these cool Gmail features that were built into me".
But it doesn't.
Chrome seems, after at first test, as a fast browser. But that's not gonna make it my preferred choice for browsing. I might use it for Gmail and Google Calendar, but I already have Mozilla Prism for that.
I think I'm going to have quite the struggle finding a place for Chrome in my browsing habits.
Related postsTags: Browsers, chrome, Firefox, Google, Mozilla, Software
Jaiku better come up with nothing short of a miracle
Setting up our nest in a new datacenter, after finding an issue with a server on Friday. Sorry for the inconvenience. We're working to get back online soon.
That is what Jaiku.com has to say at the moment.
So what is Jaiku? Or what was Jaiku before it went down?
Jaiku is a microblogging service - basically like Twitter but with the functionality of commenting (below a micro post) and native support for adding feeds to your stream.
But all that hasn't been working since Thursday/Friday last week (today is Wednesday!) when Jaiku.com simply said that the service was closed to a server upgrade.
Now the reason is another: »an issue with a server«
Needless to say that this is no small issue — and needless to say that Jaiku will suffer bad from this. Jaiku has soon been down a week and that's a long, long time.
Ironically, a lot of Jaiku's problem started after the service got acquired by Google. Then it was announced that it would be one of the first projects to switch go the Google App Engine.
But that doesn't appear to have made things a whole lot better.
Fact is: Google and Jaiku have to resurface with nothing short of a miracle. Jaiku just can't return to its normal service and expect forgiveness from the users. And fact is, that while Jaiku is down, people are switching to Twitter.
One wonders whether they will come back again.
Related postsTags: Google, Jaiku, Microblogging, Social web, Twitter, Web 2.0
Gmail is down
Apparently Gmail is suffering from server errors:
We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors. You won’t be able to use your account while these errors last, but don’t worry, your account data and messages are safe. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue.
Please try accessing your account again in a few minutes.
Twitter is flooding with angry Gmail users. Google sure has some explaining to do.
Related postsWordPress 2.6 to support Google Gears
You probably already know Google Gears - Google's browser plugin, that allows web applications to work in offline mode. This can be Google's own, for example Gmail or Google Docs, but developers can also use the Gears.
And that is what open source blogging sofware WordPress apparently aimes to do in the next version 2.6.
I just downloaded the most recent trunk build and noticed a "Speed up!" link in the top right corner of my WordPress administration interface. When you click it, this screen appears:
The first time you click "Install" you're taken to gears.google.com (if you don't have installed it yet), and after that you restart your browser, klik "Speed up!" again - and now you clik "Enable Google Gears".
Select that you trust WordPress, and now you just have to wait for Google Gears to update your WordPress files:
Nice!
James from Geniosity Musings has a good post on WordPress 2.6 + Google Gears (he has apparently experienced some speed ups!). Also check Google Blog Search to see what others are saying (sorted by time).
Sadly, Google Gears doesn't support the browser I use the most (Firefox 3 trunk).
Related postsTags: Blogging, Google, google glears, Online applications, Open source, Web applications, wordpress, wordpress trunk
YouTube is number 5 in Denmark
The Danish Union of Internet Media (FDIM) has recently conducted a quite thorough survey on the Danes online behaviour in January 2008.
Number 1 is Google (surprise surprise!) with 15 millions visits(!) in January. But what's interesting, for me anyway, is that YouTube is at number 5! YouTube had b little over 1.1 million Danish visits in January, which is more that any of the online newspapers here in Denmark.
The only ones to beat YouTube (apart from Google, of course) are:
- Krak (a service which lets you look up addresses and phone numbers and view the results on a map (think white and yellow pages))
- DR.dk (the Danish Broadcoast Association, which gets a lot of visits, apart from the news service, from people viewing the online TV-guides, listening to internet radio, downloading podcasts and reading more about the various shows)
- TV2 (the largest private television channel in Denmark, which (just like DR) gets a lot of visits from people viewing other things than news and watching online television (their main product) - TV2 also offers online games)
So considering all of this, I think it's a fairly good result for YouTube. I for one use YouTube all of the time, sometimes just for listening to music. I had no idea that the service is that popular in this country, though.
My good friend Kim has the entire list [in Danish] (taken from Danish media news site MediaWatch) [also in Danish]. You can download the entire report from FDIM [it's a PDF file and yes, it's also in Danish].
Related postsTags: Danish media, Denmark, Google, Internet newspapers, News sites, Video, YouTube
New Better Gmail extension for new Gmail
As a Gmail user who uses Gmail a lot, I also use a Firefox extension entitled "Better Gmail".
But as Google has started upgrading all Gmail accounts to a new and improved Gmail a new version of the Better Gmail extension is needed.
The aptly named "Better Gmail 2" is available at the Lifehacker site.
The new Better Gmail 2 extension lacks some of the features of its predecessor — I'm missing the Airwaves skin, for instance — but it's still at version 0.1, so they'll probably resurface in later versions.
In other news: All Gmail users now have IMAP access.
Related postsTags: E-mail, Extensions, Firefox, Gmail, Google
Google in 1407
This is good fun. Take a look at what Google might have looked like in the year 1407.
My favorite has to be the the "Google Earth Flat" link :-)
So, when will we see a 1407'izer, that can take ordinary web pages and 1407'ify them?
Related postsTags: Google, History, Humour, Search
Google adds more space to Gmail — turning 3 GB
Today when I logged into Gmail, I noticed that I had some more space available than usually:
You are currently using 639 MB (21%) of your 3044 MB.
A quick look at the official Gmail blog and yes:
That said, a few of you are using Gmail so much that you're running out of space, so to make good on our promise, today we're announcing we are speeding up our counter and giving out more free storage.
Storage boosts are also on the way for Google Apps.
As Borat would put it: Very nice!
Update 1 @ 12:20
Just stumbled upon my post "5 GB of storage at Hotmail. As it now turns out, Google did not do nothing :-)
Tags: E-mail, Email, Gmail, Google, Storage
Google announces Jaiku acquisition - cut and paste?
Google itself has now officially announced that it has bought Jaiku.
Interesting thing though.. when you look at the blog entry in the blog and in the feed, you'll see a difference:
From the blog:
[...] We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products. [...]
From the feed:
[...] We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Socialite to make compelling and useful products. [...]
A minor detail, I know ;-)
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