January 18, 2005

Google Recruiting Fiber Expert

Is Google planning to build a global fiber optic network from scratch? And, if so, why?

Picasa 2 was released, Picasa is a free image software acquired by Google several months ago.

Posted by dvd software at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2004

Gmail Invites

It always comes in the wrong time. Anyone still need it? Send a blank email to levein AT gmail.com.

Posted by dvd software at 10:20 AM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2004

Google Suggest

Now, Google can suggest you what to search in real time, it's as fast as a software on your local machine, incredible! The engineer blogged how he started this project.

Posted by dvd software at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2004

Gmail Adds POP3

Gmail adds POP3 and SMTP support

With the new feature, you can read and write emails with your favorite email client, such as Outlook Express. Read the help for detailed configuration guide.

Important Note
Keep your emails on the server
The most important features of Gmail are large capacity and search function. Thinking about when you have 200MB emails on Yahoo or Hotmail, but without a powerful search, it would be horrible to locate certain email, also, it's safer to keep the emails on Gmail than your local computer.
I use "Outlook Express" as my email client, Gmail help has detailed guide for it, also has an auto configuration program, but you must modify the configuration if you want to keep your emails on the server (see the image below). I suggest you config it manually by following the online help.

I don't need pop3 so much like the beginning, after used Gmail for several months, I'm very satisfied with it, especially I lost some emails on my computer when Windows XP crashed :-).
I love the following Gmail features:
1. It's big, I don't have to delete emails.
2. It's safe.
3. It's convenient, the innovative label and star functions.
4. The powerful search.
5. Best spelling check, it's even better than Office, I think Google got the best JavaScript experts to make a online program so powerful.

Posted by dvd software at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2004

Google Reply

I submitted some feature request about Google's desktop search, they replied as following:

Thank you for the praise and for your note. Currently, you can use Google Desktop Search to search the full text of .txt, .html, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. For other file types (including .pdf and .mp3), Desktop Search usually makes at least the file name searchable.

We appreciate your feedback about indexing additional filetypes and have added your suggestions to our list of feature requests. User feedback is very important to us as we work to improve this program, so stay tuned for additions and improvements in future versions.

Regards,
The Google Team

I asked a question before as an advertiser and they didn't answer, ok, I'm just a very small advertiser, spend less than $200 per month. Anyway this somewhat gives me the idea that desktop search supporter is more important than a small advertiser :-).

Posted by dvd software at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2004

Google Desktop Search

Google finally released a beta version of their long-waited desktop search tool. I played with it for a while, it's even better than I expected, searching my hundreds of emails in Outlook Express is instantaneous. Now you can forget about the search functionality in your Windows system. Can we uninstall it? :-)

It's definitely a must-have tool, install it now.

Google desktop search reviews on searchenginewatch.com and searchenginelowdown.com.

Posted by dvd software at 06:43 PM | Comments (1)

October 13, 2004

MSN Search Preview

Microsoft has been working on their new search technology for a while, they launched the second preview last week.

DVD-software.info is ranked #1 for the competitive keyword "DVD Software", which is quite surprised.

Posted by dvd software at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2004

Google SMS Search & Print Example

Google denied the Browser speculation
"Google board member and investor John Doerr said that despite speculation, the search giant would not enter the web browser market, but he predicted others would.
Doerr later joked, however, that just because he was on the board of Google didn't necessarily mean he knew what they were doing."
From Google dampens browser speculation.

Google Print Example
Search "Lord of the Rings" (my favorite movie) and you will see a book result.

Google SMS Search
Google launched SMS service, it's basically for "business listings", "product prices" and "dictionary definitions".

Posted by dvd software at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2004

Google PR Update

Today is very unusual for webmasters - Google finally updated the PageRank(PR) after more than 100 days - which supported to updated monthly. Now you can check your website or blog to see what PR you get.

If you don't know what PR value is good or bad, here is a rough idea:
PR 3 or 4 is quite easy, you may have it already even if you aren't aware of PR before; PR 5 normally needs some work, you should find some websites to link to you; PR 6 is quite hard, you must have many good links; PR 7 is pretty hard and needs hundreds of good links, don't after it unless you are in a serious business; PR 8 needs some links from big websites - which normally you have to pay a lot.

This blog is two months old and got a PR 5, I'm very happy :-).

Now Google is launching a new search feature "Google Print", we know Google likes fresh content, now it even crawls into the library :-).

To use Google Print, just do searches on Google as you normally would. Whenever a book contains content that matches your search terms, we'll show links to that book in your search results. Click on the book title and you'll go to a "content page," where you can see the page containing your search terms and other information about the book. You can also search for other topics within the book. Click on the "Buy this Book" link and you'll go straight to a bookstore selling the book online.

P.S. The comment system is broken, you can reach me by email "info AT dvd-software.info" for any questions/suggestions regarding this website or Gmail/Orkut invite.

Posted by dvd software at 01:31 AM | Comments (0)

October 05, 2004

Why Google Should Make a Browser

This is a deep analysis about Google's browser rumor from Business Week.

Microsoft owns about 94% of the browser market and is moving steadily into search. Sure, the software giant hasn't taken much advantage of the traffic delivered to its sites from buttons built into Internet Explorer. Nor has it marketed a feature that lets users simply type search queries into the browser's address box, taking them directly to an MSN search-results page. But some analysts say that once Microsoft puts it all together, Google could be sorry.

Besides, much of the grunt work required to build a browser is already done. Google could simply piggyback on Mozilla's open-source technology, then devote its resources to customizing the browser for Google's myriad services. "If Google doesn't have a browser in three years, it could be a big hole in their business," says Mahaney. It's a no-brainer.

Posted by dvd software at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2004

Google's New Challenge

60% of Google's 1900 employees now hold stock options worth at least one million dollars, according to experts in this Reuters article.

"While some workers may choose to go back to school, start a new company, or join the ranks of high-tech early retirees, analysts also note that $1 million is not what it used to be."

Not all Google employees are so lucky, Brian Reid - former executive at Google - was fired just nine days before Google IPO was announced, and he lost millions of dollars stock options.

Posted by dvd software at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2004

Orkut Invite

Have your ever heard of Orkut invite? Maybe it remind you of Gmail invite immediately, yes, Orkut is also created by Google - an online community which can be joined only by invitation from other members. All the members are connected through friends.

Orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.

We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

I think it's a very interesting place with some new ideas, although I only login several times after I joined, maybe I'm a little older for this kind of community. I can send you invite if you want to experience yourself, simply leave your email address, better with your full name, so that I don't have to use a fake name for the invite, but it's not necessary.

With Orkut, Hello.com and Gmail, an instant messenger tool like MSN Messenger is the next step of Google IMO, actually I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by dvd software at 02:55 AM | Comments (4)

September 22, 2004

Google Planning Own Browser

NY Post reported Google recently recruited half-dozen leading developers from Sun and Microsoft, which suggests Google will launch its own web browser. Google also has registered the domain name "Gbrowser.com."

Google will very probably cooperate with Mozilla, there was a bug report in Mozilla's bug tracking system (not public any more):

This is a duplicate of a private bug about working with Google. So closing this one.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 213362 ***

That would be great if Google is planning a new browser, they never failed to bring innovations so far. Some time ago there were also speculations that Google was making other software: a desktop search tool and an instant messenger after Google acquired hello.com.

Posted by dvd software at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2004

Google Look in 1999

The image above is all the hardware Google used back in 1999. Now Google has well over 10,000 servers that crawl (go out and find Web pages) and index the Web.

Posted by dvd software at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2004

PageRank Checksum Algorithm

I'm not going to talk about the magic here, just a little background. If you don't know what PageRank(PR) is, read below. You can check the PR by installing Google's toolbar, it enables you to search with Google on any websites, also includes a popup blocker, a very useful tool even if you don't care about PR.

Google's PageRank checksum algorithm was hacked several months ago. What can people do with it? According to my understanding, webmasters can use it to display the PR of a web page(view example), before the hack came out, the only way to see PR is installing Google's toolbar, but it only has Windows version, many Linux/Mac webmasters have to install Windows just for it.

Google noticed the hack and changed the algorithm recently, interestingly Google is not as lucky as before, it was hacked immediately after the change, maybe it got the attention from talented hackers. I'm sure Google has many very gifted engineers, what will they do? Let's see.

By the way, I really can't understand one thing about Google - they still haven't released it's toolbar for other systems (Linux, Mac) or other browsers (Mozilla, Firefox), it's a shame for Google IMO.

------------------
What is PR (Page Rank)? (from search engine FAQ)
PR, or Page Rank, is a number assigned by Google which represents to relative importance of a web page.

The PR for a web page can vary between 0 and 10. PR is assigned to individual web pages, not to websites.

PR is calculated using a complex secret formula which seems to be under constant change. In general, the more web pages that link to your web page, the higher the PR of your page will be.

Posted by dvd software at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2004

Gmail Invite Bug

Just now I tried to send a Gmail invite, after clicked the "Send Invite" button, got an error message: "You don't have Gmail invites left", but the control panel shows I have four. The second time gave me another error message: "Server error, please try again later". The third time, Google got it right and told me: "You have 1 invitation left". I hope the person who received the invite doesn't mind if he got three.

P.S. I'm accustomed to using the word "invite" as noun since Gmail came out :-).

Posted by dvd software at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2004

Gmail Notifier for Trillian

Although Google doesn't like third-party Gmail tools, new notifier still comes out, You've Got Gmail is a Gmail notifier plugin for Trillian Pro.

By the way, I still have a few Gmail invites, leave your email address if you need one.

Posted by dvd software at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)

Why Google So Successful

...Google's biggest asset is just the general way they run the company and solve problems. So far no one can compete with them there.

• You can't be bought (well, not like other search engines at least). You can't buy your way into natural rankings. As long as natural rankings can be bought, the search engine cannot be relevant. So from that regard they are going to be more relevant.


• They solve problems programatically, so they scale better (Yahoo for example has a staff of people that manually look at and filter sites from the index. Not practical if you ask me.) Google instead tries to actually understand the page algorithmically for spam filtering. Of course neither method is 100%, but Google's method scales better because computers are cheaper than staff.


• Google innovates, while other companies try to mimic what Google does. PageRank was revolutionary when it came out, Google answers, the Google API, Google News, Google Catalogs, Google Local, Orkut, etc.


• The things Google doesn't invent, they do better... Froogle, Google groups, Image search, Gmail, translation, etc.


• Things they acquire, seem to be the best of breed.. Blogger, Picasa, etc.


• Google as a company encourages free thinking and innovation from their employees (all employees spend one full day per week working on whatever personal project they feel like)...

By Shawn, very good points!

Posted by dvd software at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2004

Gmail Invites

I have a lot of Gmail invites, just leave your email address (better with first/last name) if you need one.

Posted by dvd software at 05:25 PM | Comments (1)

August 30, 2004

Google Search

Added Google search function to this website, it enables you to search this website easily and fast, such as DVD FAQ and articles.

Google's search technology is still very amazing to me even I have been using it for 3.5 years. I don't understand how they can make it so fast, how it organizes the huge information, it almost cached the whole Internet.

When you look for some information with Google, don't ignore the newsgroup search if you can't find it with normal search, it's very useful especially when you have technical questions.

Posted by dvd software at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

Free Gmail Invites

I have been busy with giving out Gmail invites on some forums, it just keeps coming:-) and coming:-(.

I really don't want to bother posting again, just list here, if you need Gmail, leave your email address.

Posted by dvd software at 01:21 AM | Comments (14)

August 29, 2004

Gmail Cracks Down on Third-Party Notifiers

From slashdot.org
Recently, Google's gmail service has attempted to change login protocols to block third-party gmail notifiers that alert you to new email. Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process. Personally, I find Google's gmail notifier annoying since it sits in my taskbar and doesn't have popup notification, unlike many other worthy Firefox or Mozilla plugins that feature gmail notification. Shouldn't I be free to use whatever third party software to check my email? Will we be seeing controls on browsers that can view gmail next?"

I wanted to write a Gmail notifier tool which would support multi-account and caught "mailto:" click on web pages, but I want to wait for a while to see if Google will release a Gmail API, now Google told us it didn't like any third party tools.

Recently Google also gave out lots of Gmail invites, I received more than 20 in the past week, is it a sign Google will open Gmail to the public soon?

Posted by dvd software at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2004

Gmail Notifier

After several unofficial, screen-scraping Gmail utilities, Google now released the official Gmail Notifier (Beta) for Windows. It will sit in the Windows tray, alerting you of new emails in your account (if you are lucky enough to have one already). Additionally, the Gmail Notifier can connect 'mailto:'-links in web pages to Gmail.

Posted by dvd software at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)