Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Google Labs Keyboard Shortcuts
All I get when I try Google Labs Keyboard Shortcuts is the response:
“The requested URL was no”
I might be missing something here. Anyway, you can navigate normal Google without your mouse as well, since it’s HTML*.
E.g. in Windows & Internet Explorer, you can use:
- Tab to go to the next link
- Return to open a link
- Shift+Return to open a link in a new window
- Alt+F4 to close a newly opened window
- Alt+Left-Arrow to navigate back
- Page-Down to scroll down
- Ctrl+Tab to focus the URL input field
- Alt+Tab to switch between different browser windows
- Ctrl+F to find something within the page
- Ctrl+Home to jump to start of page
I wonder if Google’s planning to replace all those shortcuts I’m used to with their own, and I also wonder why they’d want to do that? I have to give the service a try next time to see for myself (once it’s working again).
*HTML is intended to define a page structure. The browser is supposed to handle the rest. Client-side hacks fail in too many circumstances. If Google wants to optimize their keyboard-friendliness, they should use CSS and put the navigation on the end of SERPs; just in the source, not in the layout, that is. (If you press “Tab” in Internet Explorer on this page, you will notice I take full control of the movement – the content is focussed first, right after the main logo heading, because I use absolute positioning for the navigation. Content should always be more important than the navigation.)
Google Your Birthday
Did you ever try to find out what else happened on the day you were born? Enter your birthdate at Google, like in the format “May 26th 1977”, and check the results.
(Use -died +i to get more personal, happy stories).
This one’s for me:
“The story has been told many times how I went to see the very first showing of Star Wars at 11:00 am on May 26th, 1977 in New York City. Just 300 kids and me. I have been a film and science-fiction fan all my life, but nothing prepared me for what I saw and the profound and immediate effect it had on me. I went back to see it three more times the next day, knowing that this would be the largest grossing movie of all time. By the third screening is when I suddenly heard the music which was very catchy and further, that John Williams had written musical themes which were very memorable. I did something I never did before which was to buy the soundtrack album, fully expecting to hear, along with the music, the sounds of space ships and laser swords and R2, etc, etc. I was disappointed that I could not relive the visual film experience as an audio experience.
Then it hit me – my concept – like a bolt of lightning – “You’ve seen the movie, now go dance to it!!!” I was a successful record producer at the time (Gloria Gaynor, Carol Douglas) so it was easy to call a record company, pitch my concept, get the money and record “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk” in three weeks.
My single went to number one in the world and was certified platinum (2 million units) and my album outsold the original soundtrack (1.5 million to 1.1 million units).”
– Dave Phillips, Star Wars Disco Inferno
AdSenses
AdSenses.com covers all things AdSense (the little advertisement boxes to the right side of my blog posts). One resource listed reads:
“If my results are typical, it helps enormously if you very build simple, uncluttered pages so that the ads catch the visitor’s eye more than anything else. (...)
Where possible, use skyscraper ads, high on the page. They catch visitors’ attention more than horizontal banner ads.”
– How to Boost your AdSense revenue
They are also quoting GoogleGuy who says:
”...sites that provide solid content, especially niche sites that don’t want to hunt down their own advertisers, should really benefit ... there’s a whole universe of people who ... mostly produce informational sites, and the chance to recoup their costs without much effort is nice.”
– How to Boost your AdSense revenue
For more questions on Google AdSense, check the inofficial AdSense FAQ.
Google Virus
This came in via Email today in response to Google Paranoia, and I say thanks for the feedback:
“And German Abakus SEO Blog is spreading the rumour that Google is sending
out a virus via their newsletter, but all I can see is a reference to
Yahoo! Group “Google Friends”.”
It is MOST disappointing – yet quite typical of “journalistic blogging” –
that you FAILED to show that the rumour IS NO RUMOUR AT ALL, but is in
fact TRUE AND CORRECT – especially since you are, um – how to phrase it?,
“a Google blog.”
It’s interesting that you mention WebmasterWorld in your entry... Have you
ever been there? Have you seen, on their homepage, the only
“WebmasterWorld Highlighted Post" for August 29th – three days BEFORE your
entry – entitled “Virus Bites Google PR Department"? Have you read that
thread?
Actually, I know you haven’t read the thread... If you had done SOME
research - either by reading the cited WMW thread or by, gee, searching
with Google! – you would know it’s not a rumour and would understand what
the Yahoo Groups reference is...
“I am not working for Google, nor am I in any way associated with them
(well, I’m a Google Answers researcher[...]”
Could it be, since you’re a Google employee, that’s why you call facts
“rumours?”
– Gary
This is what the forum post Gary’s referring to states:
According to several outlets Google yesterday spread a virus attached to a release. A followup from Google indicated that members of the media release list were the recipients of the payload. The followup letter apologized for the mistake.
“...a message was inadvertently transmitted to members of the Google media e-mail list that contained a virus-infected attachment.”
The emails apparently sent via YahooGroups do look as though the headers authenticate. No attempt to contact Google to confirm has been attempted - Google rarely comments on security matters.
– Brett_Tabke, Google [Public Relations Department] Bitten by Worm (WebmasterWorld Google Forum)
Amazon/ Google Visual Search
Anacubis presents a Beta Demo of their visual search engine that combines the Google Web API and the Amazon API. I tried their search by entering “Foucault’s Pendulum”. The result is quite interesting.
By the way, I also combined the Amazon and Google APIs at Authorama.com. E.g. you can search for Pendulum and to the left you find the Google result for Authorama.com pages containing that word, and to the right will be the Amazon results.
More information in the tutorial Combining Google and Amazon Web Services.
>> More posts
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