NerdGrind - How-to Computer Help - Tutorials - Tech and Gadget News » Google

Google Tries to Convert Internet Explorer Users to Become Chrome Users

Nerd Grind — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:35:18 +0000

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer you may have noticed the message above when you visited the Google homepage. Google is doing everything they can to entice IE users to become Google Chrome converts.

Whoever controls the browser controls a large portion of both the desktop, and the Internet. Maybe Microsoft should consider making their browser lighter and faster.

Jon Skeet Not Allowed to Accept Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award

Nerd Grind — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:13:11 +0000

Jon Skeet has received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award since 2003 for his work and contributions to the C# programming language. Skeet joined Google about a year ago, and recently asked his Google bosses if he could renew his award, which is only given out to around 1,500 developers worldwide, and his Google bosses said no. Skeet wrote on his blog:

It’s with some sadness that I have to announce that as of the start of October, I’m no longer a Microsoft MVP.
As renewal time came round again, I asked my employer whether it was okay for me to renew, and was advised not to do so. As a result, while I enjoyed being awarded as an MVP, I’ve asked not to be considered for renewal this year.
This doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on that side of software development, of course. I’m still going to be an active member of the C# community. I’m still writing the second edition of C# in Depth. I’m still going to post on Stack Overflow. I’m still going to blog here about whatever interesting and wacky topics crop up.
I just won’t be doing so as an MVP.
Thanks to all the friends I’ve made in the MVP community and Microsoft over the last 6 years, and I wish you all the best.
Keep in touch.
Published Thu, Oct 1 2009 6:21 by skeet

Skeet works on Google Sync, and during his 20% other projects time, his bosses are okay with him continuing his C# work, but he just can’t accept the MVP award for it.

Since Skeet works on Google Sync, I have to wonder if that project is written, at least in part, in the C# programming language.

Google Acquisitions and Investments Map

Nerd Grind — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:32:01 +0000

Above is a map of the acquisitions and investments Google has made since 2001. Some of the companies you may have never heard of before, or since. (Note: Both images in this article can be clicked to enlarge)

One company of note on the list is AOL. In 2005, as AOL was on a steady free fall of subscriber losses for their Internet access services, Google invested $1 billion. AOL has had one investment after another to stay alive, and is currently owned by Time Warner. The AOL investment appears to have been a total loss.

On March 12, 2009 Tim Armstrong, who quit as Google Senior Vice President, was named Chairman and CEO of AOL, LLC. On May 28, 2009, Time Warner decided to cease operations with AOL, and to spin it off as an independent company once Google’s shares cease at the end of the fiscal year.

AOL took Google’s money, and ran with it as it has with so many other investments over the years to stay alive. Google now has nothing to show for their $1 billion investment. At the time, it seems, the AOL investment may have just been an anti-Microsoft move, and not a smart business move. Google has learned from this bad experience, at least we think so.

As for Microsoft, they’ve invested in Apple, before the big iPod boom, and Facebook, just as their growth exploded.

Google Back on the Road to High Stock Values

Nerd Grind — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:50:19 +0000

Over the past year Google has weathered a recession, and the loss of former sales boss Tim Armstrong, who is now the CEO of AOL.

In case you trade stock here’s a special note. Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko, initiated coverage of Google (goog) with a SELL rating on November 21, 2008 when the stock was trading at $260, just days before the stock’s 52-week low. Since then, shares have more than doubled. Fetyko did upgrade the stock to "neutral" when it reached $328 and a "buy" when the stock price reached $342.

If the DoubleClick Ad Exchange boosts profits as Google hopes, the stock could reach new highs over the next 2 years.

Google Turns 11 Years Old

Nerd Grind — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:32:05 +0000

Google is now eleven years old on Sunday September 27.

Google’s official birthday isn’t exactly clear. Some say the company was born on September 15th 1997, the day the Google.com domain was registered. The Google incorporation paperwork was filed on September 4th, but Google has been known to celebrate on both September 7th and September 27th.

To explain the inconsistency, the company’s FAQ once said:

“Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake.”

In recent years, Google has taken to changing its logo on September 27th, which more or less means Google has settled on a fixed date.

We’re looking forward to many more years of Google.

Happy birthday Google. Oh, and don’t worry about getting bigger, it comes with aging.

Google Chrome Frame Works Around Stubborn Microsoft

Nerd Grind — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:10:25 +0000

On Tuesday Google introduced Google Chrome Frame that is an open source plug-in that bring HTML5, and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer.

With Google Chrome Frame, developers can now take advantage of the latest open web technologies, even in Internet Explorer. From a faster Javascript engine, to support for current web technologies like HTML5’s offline capabilities and

To start using Google Chrome Frame, all developers need to do is to add a single tag:

When Google Chrome Frame detects this tag it switches automatically to using Google Chrome’s speedy WebKit-based rendering engine. It’s that easy. For users, installing Google Chrome Frame will allow them to seamlessly enjoy modern web apps at blazing speeds, through the familiar interface of the version of IE that they are currently using.

For Wordpress users there is a plug-in that helps with Google Chrome Frame integration, which really isn’t necessary since it’s easy to simply add the tag above.

Herein lies the problem. Web site visitors are redirected from the web site homepage to a plug-in download page. Most people won’t have a clue what Google Chrome Frame is, so they’ll be unlikely to download and install something they know nothing about.

Even though the Google Chrome web browser is faster than Internet Explorer, most people continue to use the slower Internet Explorer because they are familiar with it. For most people easier is better.

If Google really wants to get people to adopt new technologies to improve the Internet, they’ll need to convince companies like Microsoft to move ahead at the speed of technology. Since Microsoft is so reluctant to do anything "open source" Google is having a tough time, so they are appealing to developers (documentation here), and Internet surfers to pressure Microsoft, or work around Microsoft by trying to get a grass roots ground swell of support from developers and Internet surfers.

Microsoft is also introducing their own header tags for developers to add to their websites to be able to continue to have Internet Explorer 8 render their web sites in Internet Explorer 7 mode.

We want to see push technology that makes web site development easier for developers, so their web sites will render properly in any web browser using web hooks in their web site.

It seems unlikely that a web site owner will risk alienating their readers by redirecting them to a plug-in install page that they must install to view the web site. While we think Google Chrome Frame is a great idea, how it is integrated into an Internet surfer’s life will decide if this project succeeds or fails.

Google Launches DoubleClick Ad Exchange Network

Nerd Grind — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:45:34 +0000

Google has just launched their DoubleClick Ad Exchange which brings together all types of display ad buyers and sellers, as well as AdWords, and delivers those ads to AdSense publisher web sites.

Through the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange big-time and small-time advertisers can now buy targeted display ads on thousands of DoubleClick ad-serving websites, which could boost Google’s revenue, and hurt Yahoo in the display adverting market.

Traditionally, publishers and advertisers using Google’s AdSense and AdWords products would have to manually plan their display ad campaigns. Now, publishers can tap into Google’s ecosystem for ads where prices are set in a real-time auction and advertisers can access a large pool of inventory within one platform.

Google says the benefits for publishers include the real-time allocation, letting them allocate ad space to the advertiser that pays the most at a given time; access to more advertisers; greater control over advertisers and ad formats, a sleeker UI, and payment system managed completely by Google.

The new API also allows advertisers and advertising networks to integrate their own functionality and systems into the Ad Exchange, while giving them access to far more clients and web sites than before.

Google bought display ad provider DoubleClick in 2007 for $3.1 billion in cash, after winning a bidding war with Microsoft. This new Ad Exchange is sure to allow Google to dominate the display ad marketplace, pushing Yahoo into the number 2 spot for some time to come.

Google Patents Search Box With Two Buttons

Nerd Grind — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:30:52 +0000

Back in 2004 Google submitted a single illustration of their Google.com homepage, of which the main component is a search box with two submit buttons below it, and a few text links.

On September 1, 2009 Google received their search page patent from the United States Patent Office. Technically Google has patented their homepage as a web "graphical user interface," for which they now have a patent to exclusively use that design. Google also submitted an application for the design of their search results in 2004, and that patent was issued in 2006. It would seem Google intended to license out the use of their patent to other search engines, namely Yahoo, but just ahead of the patent license approval some search engines have change their design to steer clear of the infringing on Google’s patent.

There is a long history behind the story of Google’s design patent filings. It all begins with Overture.

Overture Inc. was a paid search company that pioneered the paid bid-for-placement technology. In July 2001, the US patent office issued Overture a patent for the technology. Patent 6,269,361; also known as the 361 patent, essentially covered all AdWords like business models. Google needed access to the 361 patent in order to use AdWords, but it never managed to negotiate a licensing agreement with Overture. Consequently, in April 2002 Overture sued Google over patent infringement.

In July 2003 Yahoo acquired Overture in a mostly stock deal valued at $1.63 billion. This was an expensive deal as Yahoo’s stock was not flying very high at the time. Also, Overture did not have anything valuable apart from the 361 patent. Yahoo and Microsoft counted for the bulk of Overture’s revenue, and were it not for the 361 patent, Microsoft would have certainly walked away. The deal was very bad news for Google as Yahoo was now in a position to get just about anything they wanted from Google at the bargaining table. Yahoo is still dancing with Microsoft, since Yahoo announced they will now be using the Bing search engine technology for Yahoo search, but will deliver it in a slightly different way.

Google and Yahoo settled the 361 patent dispute in August 2004, which also happens to be when Google submitted their design patent applications that were approved in 2006, and September 1, 2009. Google disclosed the patent dispute settlement with Yahoo in a SEC filing just before its initial public offering (IPO). The relevant excerpt from Google’s SEC filing states:

Overture will dismiss its patent lawsuit against us and has granted us a fully-paid, perpetual license to the patent that was the subject of the lawsuit and several related patent applications held by Overture. The parties also mutually released any claims against each other concerning the warrant dispute. In connection with the settlement of these two disputes, we issued to Yahoo 2,700,000 shares of Class A common stock.

At the time of the patent settlement disclosure, 2.7 million shares of Google represented roughly 1 percent of the company.

It seems that just as Google was tidying up loose ends in their legal and commercial dominance of the search industry, they had plans to put their competitors in the uncomfortable position of having to answer to Google for design patent infringement. Knowing the incredible brain power that exists at Google, they are likely to have been working on all sorts of other ways to insure they will become an all powerful company, that might seem "evil" to some who Google chooses not to do business with.

At one point it seemed only a matter of time before Google owned Yahoo, but now it seems that Microsoft will own Yahoo, since Google will have enough control over the search industry to attract the scrutiny of antitrust regulators.

Google Lively is Dead

Nerd Grind — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:58:36 +0000

Google Lively is dead. Let me refresh your memories. Google Lively was the browser-based virtual world, sort of like Second Life, that Google launched back in July. It turns out that Google will be pulling the plug after December 31, 2008.

There was huge amounts of hype during the month of July as speculation that this might be the future of the internet. The platform was supposed to allow people to visit other websites through a virtual world, a sort of Sims meets the internet, but it ended up being a huge flop. It didn’t even work with Google’s own Chrome browser.

It looks like the company is downsizing and prioritizing like the rest of the world because of the economy and also simply because Lively was DOA. According to the company:

"… we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."

Google Rolls Out Themes for Gmail

Nerd Grind — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:55:32 +0000

Google has once again impressed Gmail fans by rolling out themes allowing users to "pimp their email." This isn’t anything drastically new, users have been able to accomplish this "unofficially" through the use of Greasemonkey scripts, but it wasn’t until recently that Gmail allowed for this customization natively.

Gmail users will be able to customize and give their inboxes a little facelift by going to Settings -> Themes. Google launched 30 themes including a retro notepad theme, a nature theme that changes scenery over time and a weather theme that changes according to your local weather.

Google, as usual, will be rolling out the update in ’phases,’ so if you don’t have the ’Themes’ tab yet, you definitely will by the end of the day. Until then, enjoy the screenshot!

NerdGrind - How-to Computer Help - Tutorials - Tech and Gadget News » Google

Google Tries to Convert Internet Explorer Users to Become Chrome Users

Related posts:

Jon Skeet Not Allowed to Accept Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award

Related posts:

Google Acquisitions and Investments Map

Related posts:

Google Back on the Road to High Stock Values

Related posts:

Google Turns 11 Years Old

Related posts:

Google Chrome Frame Works Around Stubborn Microsoft

Related posts:

Google Launches DoubleClick Ad Exchange Network

Related posts:

Google Patents Search Box With Two Buttons

Related posts:

Google Lively is Dead

Related posts:

Google Rolls Out Themes for Gmail

Related posts: