Googland

---

• [G] Cocoa and Tab-Modality
• [G] Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8
• [G] Multilingual Urchin 6.602 Now Available
• [G] Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website
• [G] Template spotlight: Party RSVP form
• [G] Earth Engine, powered by Google
• [G] Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates
• [G] More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip
• [G] Daniel Pearl Act
• [G] More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip
• [G] Map Maker's Global Mapping Competition
• [G] Concerning developments Down Under

[G] Cocoa and Tab-Modality Posted: 17 Dec 2009 01:57 AM PST Official Google Mac Blog: Cocoa and Tab-Modality by Avi Drissman, Chromium Team (Note: as regular readers know, we occasionally publish extra-geeky technical posts here on the Google Mac Blog. If this isn't your thing, don't worry; our usual non-technical stuff will be back soon.) I'm part of the Chromium team working on Mac issues, and as I wrote on our blog, for Chromium we needed a way to provide modality to individual tabs of our web browser. Specifically, we needed to attach sheets to a Cocoa view rather than to just a Cocoa window. How would we accomplish this? Like always, it's half following what's possible, and half sudden inspiration. What's possible? Putting a sheet on a window. That's done several ways. For an arbitrary sheet you can use -[NSApplication beginSheet:modalForWindow:modalDelegate:didEndSelector:contextInfo:]. But nearly every class that can put up a sheet has its own -beginSheet: method. NSAlert has -beginSheetModalForWindow:modalDelegate:didEndSelector:contextInfo:. IKPictureTaker has -beginPictureTakerSheetForWindow:withDelegate:didEndSelector:contextInfo:. So we know that we need to hang our sheet on a window. That's where the inspiration comes in. I was talking with a fellow Mac team member who offhandedly mentioned invisible windows. Of course! If you have an invisible window that has a sheet attached, then for all practical purposes you have an independent sheet. Plus, if you make the invisible window the child window of the window that hosts the view that appears to run the sheet, then you can size the invisible window to cover the view and eat all the clicks, achieving the desired modality as well. That was the easy part. The first implementation was quick, but quickly uncovered issues. First, how do you hide the sheet when the view is hidden? At first I tried hiding the invisible window, but when you -orderOut: a window you kill any sheets on it. That wouldn't do. Then I remembered the good old days of the Mac Toolbox (and Cocoa before 10.3 when NSView got -setHidden:), where you'd just move windows or views off to infinity (or (-15000,-15000), whichever was closer). Exposé quickly revealed the folly of that approach. Turning the sheet's opacity to 0% worked under Leopard, but under Snow Leopard the sheet blurring effect stayed present. And if I resized the window to NSZeroSize, resizing it back to the original size wrecked the layout. Eventually I settled on a combination that worked. First I set autoresizesSubviews of the content view of the sheet to NO, and then I resized the sheet down to nothing. Then I set the opacity to 0%. Once I set the invisible window to stop eating clicks, it all worked. The second problem was all the different classes that provided methods to show a sheet. Even if you could get the sheet window from them, if you ran it using the NSApplication sheet method, it didn't work. A little (actually a lot) of NSInvocation magic helped smooth that issue over. That's basically it. The API is really simple and the implementation is, if nothing else, amusing to read. Should you go ahead and use this in your app? Probably not. This is a very specific tool for solving a very specific modality problem that we had. But if you have a similar modality problem, perhaps this is right for you. Give it a try and let us know what you think. URL: http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2009/12/cocoa-and-tab-modality.html

[G] Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8 Posted: 16 Dec 2009 07:26 PM PST Google LatLong: Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8 Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past - now we're teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth. With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We've worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You'll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view. To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we've also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results. Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco - Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car Google Earth has come a long way from when it received "oohs" and "aahs" during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we're very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same "ooh" and "aah" reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8. Cabo da Roca, Portugal - Pushing your car navigation display to the next level Our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google's automotive team - they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful - now also in your car. Herzlich willkommen, Audi! Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-audi-take-google-services-in-car.html

[G] Multilingual Urchin 6.602 Now Available Posted: 16 Dec 2009 06:26 PM PST Google Analytics Blog: Multilingual Urchin 6.602 Now Available Join us in welcoming Urchin 6.602 to the world, the long-awaited multilingual upgrade to our "run-it-yourself" web analytics package. This release adds support for all 11 of our supported languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch, Japanese, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), and Korean. Read the complete Changelist for all the details, or visit our Download page to get the goods. Urchin 6.602 also includes a bunch of significant new features, including: Enhanced LDAP integration (more protocols supported) 1-Click Installer -- no need for an "outboard" database anymore GeoDB user adjustments -- don't need the full GeoDB? Run fast & light with Urchin 6.602 Updated compression utility -- allows data archives greater than 2GB Option to select which profiles (and their overview data) to display on users' default "home" screen (aka, roll-up report) Bing.com support (hooray!) ...and lots of bug fixes and documentation updates Urchin 6.600, released in June 2009, was a major upgrade, so you may want to revisit that blog post for more info. Urchin 6.602 is available now as a full-featured 30-day demo from our download servers and licenses can be purchased from any of our Authorized Consultants for US$2995. Check it out! Urchin 6.6's built-in Keyword Generator Tool makes managing your campaigns a lot easier. Posted by Scott Crosby, Urchin Software Manager URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/12/multilingual-urchin-6602-now-available.html

[G] Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website Posted: 16 Dec 2009 06:26 PM PST Official Google Blog: Browser Size: a tool to see how others view your website In a newspaper, the most important story is featured on the front page. If it's a really important piece, then it's placed "above the fold," which means you can find it on the top half of the first page — the bottom half is folded behind and isn't readily seen when you first look at the newspaper. The same concept applies to browsers as well. There's no clear line for "above the fold" on a browser — there are many different sizes of monitors, browsers are not always full screen and other things like toolbars can take up space. Consider a "Donate" button on a non-profit site. If it's far down the page, you may not see it when you first view the page. You can of course scroll downwards, but many people don't scroll and will miss it entirely. For example, on the download page for Google Earth, the install rate increased by 10% when we moved the "Download" button 100 pixels upward. We can attribute that increase to users who wanted to try out Google Earth, but didn't see the button before. To help you understand how everyone sees your website, we created a tool called Browser Size in our 20% time. Browser Size is based on a sample of data from visitors to google.com. Special code collects data on the height and width of the browser for a sample of users. For a given point in the browser, the tool will tell you what percentage of users can see it. For example, if an important button is in the 80% region it means that 20% of users have to scroll in order to see it. If you're a web designer, you can use Browser Size to redesign your page to minimize scrolling and make sure that the important parts of the page are always prominent to your audience. We hope people will use this tool to make their websites better, in turn making the web better for everyone. If you're interested in learning more about Browser Size, check out our post on the Google Code Blog. Posted by Bruno Bowden, Senior Software Engineer URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/browser-size-tool-to-see-how-others.html

[G] Template spotlight: Party RSVP form Posted: 16 Dec 2009 05:27 PM PST Official Google Docs Blog: Template spotlight: Party RSVP form The Google Docs team is celebrating the holidays, and over the next week, we'll be highlighting some of our favorite holiday templates. If you're planning a holiday party this holiday season, this Party RSVP form template makes it easy to gather the info you need without having to email back and forth with each person you've invited. As with all forms in Google Docs, your guests' RSVPs are automatically recorded in a spreadsheet connected to your form. If you want to use a different theme for your RSVP form, you can start from this template, and if you're planning a company party, try this template out. Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/12/template-spotlight-party-rsvp-form.html

[G] Earth Engine, powered by Google Posted: 16 Dec 2009 04:24 PM PST Google LatLong: Earth Engine, powered by Google (Cross-posted from the Official Google.org Blog) I'm here in Copenhagen this week, at the COP15 International Climate Change Conference. Whether you're attending in-person, or reading news headlines from home, you can't miss the fact that addressing climate change requires the world to solve a mind-boggling mix of science, policy and political issues. These are formidable challenges, but new technologies can help provide solutions for these complex problems. For example, one of the most promising areas of compromise has been an accord to compensate countries for preserving forests and other natural landscapes that play a crucial role in reducing emissions. Implementation of the agreement, known as Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, will require the ability to accurately track deforestation at a regional and global level. Despite the widespread availability of global satellite imagery through products like Google Earth and Google Maps, it hasn't been easy for tropical nations to understand the state of their ecosystem, and to quantitatively monitor changes in forest coverage or other key indicators. That's why I'm proud to announce a new computational platform for global-scale analysis of satellite imagery: Earth Engine, powered by Google. At an event today hosted by Avoided Deforestation Partners, global leaders from the President of Guyana to the Prime Minister of Norway expressed their support for REDD. Earlier today, the U.S, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain pledged $3.5 billion over the next three years to protect rainforests. At the event, I demonstrated a prototype forest monitoring application built on top of Earth Engine that we developed together with the Carnegie Institution for Science, IMAZON and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Traditional forest monitoring is complex and expensive, requiring access to large amounts of satellite data, lots of hard drives to hold the data, lots of computers to process the data, and lots of time while you wait for various computations to finish. Our prototype demonstrates how Earth Engine makes all of this easier, by moving everything into the cloud. Google supplies data, storage, and computing muscle. As a result, you can visualize forest change in fractions of a second over the web, instead of the minutes or hours that traditional offline systems require for such analysis. The prototype applications running on Earth Engine aren't yet available to the public, but you can see screen shots in our earlier blog post. We want to ensure this technology is widely available when it's ready, so today I formally announced Google.org's commitment to provide our Earth Engine free to tropical countries to support their forest monitoring programs. I believe that this is just the first of many Earth Engine applications that will help enable scientists, policymakers, and the general public to better monitor and understand the Earth's ecosystems. Posted by Brian McClendon, VP Engineering URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/12/earth-engine-powered-by-google.html

[G] Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates Posted: 16 Dec 2009 04:24 PM PST Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates Earlier this year we simplified the process for monetizing your blog by adding a "Monetize" tab in the Blogger app. We started with AdSense, which allows you to add contextual advertising to your pages; more recently we added AdSense for Feeds to help you generate revenue from the distribution of your blog via RSS and Atom. Today we launched a third option: direct integration with Amazon Associates to search Amazon's product catalog and add links to products that earn you commissions when your readers buy products you recommend. With this feature, you can search Amazon directly from the Blogger editor and add pictures and links to Amazon products right into your posts. Your readers will earn you commissions whenever they buy the products you recommend, and if you don't already have an Amazon Associates account, you can sign up for one for free without leaving Blogger. If you've ever written a blog post about a book, recommended a gadget, or reviewed a toy you bought for your kids, you've likely gone through the process of drafting the post, opening up a separate window to go to find a site that sells the product, then going back to Blogger to paste the link to the product into the post editor. Starting today, you can search the Amazon product catalog without leaving the Blogger interface and insert links to the products you find into your posts. Not only is the process of linking to products more efficient, but Amazon makes it easy for you to earn money whenever your readers actually buy the products you write about. This is known as an "affiliate program", and it's designed to let you recommend products you like to your audience — if they buy the product, you'll earn a commission on that purchase. (For more on affiliate programs in general, here is a good overview at ProBlogger from this summer, and Darren's "11 Lessons Learned" post about Amazon Associates is a good review of how to get the most out of the program.) To get started, click on the Monetize tab for your blog and click "Amazon Associates". Walk through the setup wizard, and add the Product Finder once you're done. Now for the fun part: when you are writing a post on Blogger, you'll see an Amazon gadget to the right of your post editor (the "Product Finder"). You can search the Amazon product catalog from within Blogger — type in the name of the product you are writing about, and insert a link to the product, an image of the product, or an iframe containing the image, price details and a "buy it now" button. Every link that's created contains your unique Associates ID, ensuring that Amazon will credit you for any purchases that result from readers clicking the link on your blog. If you're an existing Amazon Associate, completing this setup simply makes the Product Finder available on Blogger for you — you continue to earn the same referral rate from Amazon. New Associates receive the same referral rate from Amazon that they would have received if they signed up directly. If you're not interested in earning a referral, you can still install the Product Finder: from the "Amazon Associates" page under the Monetize tab, click "I'll do this later — show me more Amazon options" and then click "Add the Product Finder" button. A quick note about trust: affiliate programs work well when readers trust you. You should avoid promoting products simply because of the referral fee you might earn — readers may lose some of that trust if they sense your posts exist solely to make you money. You may also want to disclose to your readers that you will earn a commission on their purchase — some readers even prefer knowing that you benefit from their business. There's more information about this integration at Amazon.com, and the Amazon Associates blog has some more details. This integration is the result of months of collaboration between the engineers at both companies, and we're very excited to share the results of this collaboration with you. Happy blogging! URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/12/blogger-integrates-with-amazon.html

[G] More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip Posted: 16 Dec 2009 02:41 PM PST Google News Blog: More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip Posted by Jack Hebert, Software Engineer [cross-posted from the Official Google Blog] Three months ago, we launched Google Fast Flip, a service that seeks to make reading articles online as fast and simple as flipping through a magazine or newspaper. It's still early in this experiment, which is why Fast Flip remains in Google Labs. But so far our initial thesis has held up: If you make it easier to read news online, people will read more of it. Users have told us they like being able to browse content so quickly, and we've been pleased with the amount of time they have spent reading articles in Fast Flip. We've also received good feedback from the three dozen publishers who joined us for the launch, as well as a lot of interest from others. Today, we're excited to be adding articles from another two dozen publishers representing more than 50 newspapers, magazines, web outlets, news wires and TV and radio broadcasters. Some of the new sources include Tribune Co. newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, McClatchy Company newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO and U.S. News & World Report. Now you can use Fast Flip to engage with content from even more of your favorite news outlets in an innovative way, and continue to explore topics covered by a diverse group of sources. And, through the mobile version, you can flip through all these new articles on your Android-powered device or iPhone. While we're encouraged by the positive feedback about Fast Flip, it's just one of many experiments you'll see us try in partnership with news publishers. Our goal is to work with the industry to help it continue to innovate and build bigger audiences, better engage those audiences and generate more revenue. We're looking forward to innovating and iterating with all these new partners in Fast Flip. And if you have more suggestions for ways we can improve Fast Flip, please let us know. URL: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-great-new-sources-to-discover-in.html

[G] Daniel Pearl Act Posted: 16 Dec 2009 02:41 PM PST Google Public Policy Blog: Daniel Pearl Act Posted by Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel People make their voices heard through news articles, blogs, social networking sites, tweets, emails, and other media each and every day. For some, the act of publishing news and opinion is a dangerous and sometimes deadly one that requires heroism and a deep desire to seek the facts and share their views with others. In 2009 alone, Reporters without Borders estimates that more than 70 journalists have been killed -- and 170 journalists and almost 100 cyberdissidents have been imprisoned. Today, the House of Representatives has before it the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act -- named after the courageous Wall Street Journal reporter who was abducted and murdered by terrorists in 2002. The Act requires the State Department to include information about freedom of the press in its annual human rights reports, which would result in raising the profile of robust and independent journalism around the world and the importance of a free media in our foreign policy. As a company that believes deeply in free expression, we feel it's important to join the chorus of support for the bill. We congratulate Representatives Adam Schiff and Mike Pence who sponsored this bill in honor of the memory of reporters like Mr. Pearl. Governments, companies, and individuals can and must do more to protect basic human rights as Internet access spreads and carries with it the potential for greater freedom for people around the world. We at Google are determined to continue to do our part and make new, significant contributions to promote free expression in 2010. URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/12/daniel-pearl-act.html

[G] More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip Posted: 16 Dec 2009 02:41 PM PST Official Google Blog: More great news sources to discover in Fast Flip Three months ago, we launched Google Fast Flip, a service that seeks to make reading articles online as fast and simple as flipping through a magazine or newspaper. It's still early in this experiment, which is why Fast Flip remains in Google Labs. But so far our initial thesis has held up: If you make it easier to read news online, people will read more of it. Users have told us they like being able to browse content so quickly, and we've been pleased with the amount of time they have spent reading articles in Fast Flip. We've also received good feedback from the three dozen publishers who joined us for the launch, as well as a lot of interest from others. Today, we're excited to be adding articles from another two dozen publishers representing more than 50 newspapers, magazines, web outlets, news wires and TV and radio broadcasters. Some of the new sources include Tribune Co. newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, McClatchy Company newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO and U.S. News & World Report. Now you can use Fast Flip to engage with content from even more of your favorite news outlets in an innovative way, and continue to explore topics covered by a diverse group of sources. And, through the mobile version, you can flip through all these new articles on your Android-powered device or iPhone. While we're encouraged by the positive feedback about Fast Flip, it's just one of many experiments you'll see us try in partnership with news publishers. Our goal is to work with the industry to help it continue to innovate and build bigger audiences, better engage those audiences and generate more revenue. We're looking forward to innovating and iterating with all these new partners in Fast Flip. And if you have more suggestions for ways we can improve Fast Flip, please let us know. Posted by Jack Hebert, Software Engineer URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-great-new-sources-to-discover-in.html

[G] Map Maker's Global Mapping Competition Posted: 16 Dec 2009 12:40 PM PST Google LatLong: Map Maker's Global Mapping Competition Let the mapping begin! Google's first Global Mapping Competition runs from December 15 - January 31, 2010. During this period, the mapper who adds the most universities, schools, hospitals, and medical clinics with high quality into Google Map Maker will win a $50,000 UNICEF donation to benefit the country of their choice for work empowering young people through technology. Google Map Maker is available in more than 170 countries and allows users to become "citizen cartographers" by adding and editing map features. To foster participation from coutnries around the world, we have versions of the site in several languages: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Romanian, and Vietnamese. "We are delighted that Google is supporting UNICEF's efforts to help build a world fit for children. We know that mapping is a proven method to enhance community development. Google Map Maker is a powerful tool to create better situational awareness for both young people and communities at large. It will enable organizations like ours to better deliver services, respond to crises and adapt to change," said Gerrit Beger, leader of UNICEF's innovation drive focusing on youth. For your mapping additions to get published on Google Map Maker and eventually make it into Google Maps, other users will have to moderate (approve or deny) your changes. You will, in turn, moderate others' changes, which is why it's often helpful to map with a partner or in a small team. Moderation quantity and quality are also an important criteria for judging competition entries so don't forget to moderate as much as you map. This global competition comes on the heels of the Latin America mapping competition that ended yesterday. More than 50 teams from all over the world registered for the Latin America mapping competition, and we've seen more than 500% mapping activity increases for several Latin American countries during the competition period. We're very excited about this participation level and are looking forward to announcing the competition winners on January 8, 2010. The Global Mapping Competition, kicking off this week, was first announced the Global Mapping Competition at an event organized jointly by the United Nations and Google at Google's office in New York. During that event, 80 United Nations delegates from more than 20 UN agencies, including UNICEF, met with various Google product teams to explore how Google's wide array of products and services can further the UN mission and help foster innovation and new thinking. We invite mappers everywhere to register for the competition and map for a good cause over the holidays and into 2010. Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/12/map-makers-global-mapping-competition.html

[G] Concerning developments Down Under Posted: 16 Dec 2009 11:49 AM PST Google Public Policy Blog: Concerning developments Down Under Posted by Bob Boorstin, Public Policy Director Every day, around the world, an increasing number of governments are restricting access to information online. Google faces these challenges in countries as varied as Germany, Turkey, and the People's Republic of China. And now we find ourselves facing a new threat in Australia, where the government has proposed forcing Internet Service Providers - the companies that connect users to the Internet - to filter controversial content. While no one disagrees that illegal content - such as child pornography - must be filtered, the proposed measure in Australia threatens to go too far and could end up stifling debate on important public issues. The power of the Internet is its free flow of information. So when a government takes the unusual, and potentially dangerous, step of considering filtering legal content, we should all take notice and freely express our concerns. Visit Google's Australia blog to read more about the proposed measure. URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/12/concerning-developments-down-under.html

You are subscribed to email updates from Googland To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610