Googland

[G] Google Apps highlights – 3/12/2010
[G] Troubleshooting tips part IV: Ad controls and filtering
[G] Find us at SXSW
[G] Living La Vida LibrePlanet
[G] Recognizing Courage, Securing Online Freedom

[G] Google Apps highlights – 3/12/2010

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:30 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 3/12/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Today's update includes a handful of experimental features, a bunch from third-party developers and one that lets you build new features yourself. Enjoy!

Fast new windows in Gmail
Working with email in a single window can slow you down, so throughout Gmail there are places where you can launch what you're doing into a new window and accomplish two things at once. For example, you can search your inbox and compose a new message at the same time. While this has been part of Gmail for a while now, we've just made it better by dramatically speeding up how quickly new windows open. No more waiting for the new window "Loading..." bar to finish — now you can do what you do in Gmail faster!

Gmail Labs updates
We've made a handful of updates in Gmail Labs, our experimental testing ground where Google engineers can quickly launch new Gmail features and get feedback from users. Based on usage and user feedback, six Labs have graduated to become full-fledged Gmail features: Search Autocomplete, Go To Label, Forgotten Attachment Detector, YouTube Previews, Custom Label Colors and Vacation Dates. We also retired five Labs that weren't as popular. Finally, we introduced one new Lab: Refresh POP Accounts. If you use Gmail to retrieve messages from another email account with POP, this Lab immediately checks your other account for new mail when you click the "Refresh" link in Gmail.

Calendar Labs updates
We also have Labs in Google Calendar, and we've cooked up a few new experiments there as well. Event Flair lets you add custom icons to appointments, Gentle Reminders prevents event reminders from interrupting your flow in the browser and Automatically Declining Events blocks people from double-booking time on your calendar when you're already busy.

Apps Script Gallery
Google Apps Script is a flexible system that lets you add custom menus, buttons and functions to spreadsheets, as well as make the components of Google Apps work together in new ways. For example, you can trigger a set of automated Gmail messages and add appointments to your calendar based on changes in a spreadsheet. On Wednesday, we made Google Apps Script available to everyone — not just businesses, schools and organizations — and we launched the Apps Script Gallery to share script examples and help you get started scripting.

DocVerse joins Google
We're always looking for ways to help people transition smoothly to the cloud. With this in mind, last week we acquired DocVerse, a small team that's built a powerful set of add-ons to help teams work together more efficiently with Microsoft Office. With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications that they're familiar with. Stay tuned for more information about our plans with DocVerse.

More apps for Google Apps
Google Apps customers often decide to move even more of their technology into the cloud, but it hasn't always been easy for them to find good web-based solutions that meet their needs and to integrate those solutions with Google Apps. This Tuesday, we launched the Google Apps Marketplace to help customers find technology from trusted providers and give developers a platform where they can sell their products. When Google Apps administrators find something they like in the Marketplace, it takes just a few clicks to integrate a developer's application with Google Apps. Authentication to third-party applications can be handled automatically by Google Apps, and developers' applications can integrate with and securely share data among services like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Calendar. There are more than 50 applications available in the Marketplace today, ranging from accounting and project management apps to graphic design and customer relationship management tools.

Who's gone Google?
We're pleased to welcome another crop of new businesses and schools to Google Apps. More than 11,000 crew members at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines took flight with Google Apps, and the Sports Basement switched teams from Microsoft Exchange. National Geographic is exploring the world of real-time collaboration, and Hamilton College is learning a few new tricks with Google Apps, too.

Hope you're enjoying the latest round of new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends and family, with colleagues or with classmates. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-apps-highlights-3122010.html

[G] Troubleshooting tips part IV: Ad controls and filtering

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 04:23 PM PST

Inside AdSense: Troubleshooting tips part IV: Ad controls and filtering

We understand that when showing ads on your site, there may be a few you'd like to prevent from appearing. There are a number of ad control and filtering tools in your AdSense account, which we've listed below to help you determine which ones are right for you.

Competitive Ad Filter You can enter the specific URL of an ad into the Competitive Ad Filter to prevent ads from that site from appearing on your pages. If you'd like to block ads coming from an entire domain, enter a top-level domain such as www.example.com to block all ads that link to subdirectories below that domain.
Ad Review Center The Ad Review Center, located under the AdSense Setup tab in your account, lets you review and filter any placement targeted ads that are appearing on your pages. You can filter ads by type (text or image), or by individual ad groups and advertisers.
Category Filtering To use the category filtering feature, you first have to enable the Ad Review Center. Category filtering allows you to block ads from up to 8 categories such as dating, politics, and weight loss, from displaying on your pages. Ads in these categories will be filtered if they're in English, French, German, or Spanish, regardless of how they've been targeted to your pages.

If you still see filtered ads are appearing on your site after you've used these features, please take note of the following:

Ad filters should become effective within 30 minutes, but in rare cases might take up to 48 hours to be effective. Review the information in our Help Center for more information.
If you use both AdSense for content and AdSense for search, and wish to filter an ad from appearing in both products, make sure that you've entered the correct URL in question in both filters.
If you display ads from more than one AdSense account on one page, you need to filter the URL(s) in both accounts.

That brings us to the end of our troubleshooting series for AdSense for content. Stay tuned next week for tips on troubleshooting issues with AdSense for search.

Posted by Ulrike Jung - Inside AdSense Team

URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/03/troubleshooting-tips-part-iv-ad.html

[G] Find us at SXSW

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:23 PM PST

Google LatLong: Find us at SXSW

Along with many other Googlers, the Geo team is descending upon Austin for South by Southwest! You can find us in a few different places:

At the Google booth, we'll be doing demos of Google Maps, as well as plenty of other Google products.
In the Google Teaching Theater, you can meet engineers who built biking directions and hear all about how it was created (see the schedule here).
On Saturday, we'll be hopping on our bikes to take part in Bike Hugger's Mobile Social. Along the way we'll be handing out some fun bike-related schwag, dishing more about how we built biking directions, and getting feedback directly from the cyclists.

For those who aren't able to make it to SXSW, remember to check out our contest to win a new custom bike: simply tweet with the hashtag #bikewithgoogle -- maybe share your favorite trail or a new route you want to try taking to the office -- and you'll be entered to win!

You can read more about all of the Google happenings on our SXSW website, and follow @googlesxsw on Twitter for last-minute updates and news from Austin. We can't wait to hit the ground running (or biking), and we look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Kate Hurowitz, Lat Long Blog Team

URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/03/find-us-at-sxsw.html

[G] Living La Vida LibrePlanet

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 11:43 AM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Living La Vida LibrePlanet

The LibrePlanet Conference will be held next week, March 19th-21st, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Google Open Source Programs Office's Leslie Hawthorn will be participating in the lively discussions about software that the user can share, modify and distribute. On Sunday, Leslie will be talking about Free Software Mentoring at 11 AM as part of the Women's Caucus which is dedicated to increasing the participation of women in free software. Leslie participated in the last Women's Caucus and we're excited to see the community continue the great work that was started there. Also at the Women's Caucus, you can check out Google Summer of Code™ alumna Selena Decklemann's speaker training workshop, along with her lightning talk on skillful soldering.

Come by and learn about practical steps in free software advocacy!

By Ellen Ko, Open Source Team

URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/03/living-la-vida-libreplanet.html

[G] Recognizing Courage, Securing Online Freedom

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:34 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Recognizing Courage, Securing Online Freedom

Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog

More than ever, governments around the world are threatening online free expression. Forty countries have taken measures to limit this freedom, up from only a handful a few years ago. YouTube services are or have been blocked in 25 of those nations.

On Thursday night in Paris, we took an important step to highlight this crucial issue by sponsoring the first Netizen Prize (or more elegantly, Le Prix du "net-citoyen") awarded by the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. And on Friday, March 12, we'll be helping highlight the fight for Internet freedom by marking the group's World Day Against Cyber Censorship on YouTube.

Fittingly, Reporters Without Borders chose to give the first Netizen Prize to the Iranian creators of the website Change for Equality, first established in 2006 to fight for changes in laws in Tehran that discriminate against women. That site has since become a well-known source of information on women's rights in Iran, documenting arrests of women activists and becoming a rallying point for opponents of the regime.

Over the past year those leaders in Tehran have distinguished themselves — and earned the opprobrium of people all over the world — for their brutal crackdown on the rights of its critics to question their rule. Last year's killing of unarmed Neda Agha-Soltan during post-election protests in Tehran, seen around the world on amateur video, has become a symbol of the regime's ferocity — and the power of the Internet to reveal what governments do not want the world to see.

At the award ceremony in our Paris office, Google's Senior Vice President David Drummond said that we are at a critical point in the future of the Internet: "All of us have a choice. We can allow repressive policies to take flight and spread across the globe, or we can work together against such challenges and uphold the fundamental human right to free expression."

David went on to praise the role of NGOs like Reporters Without Borders, the Obama Administration's commitment to the promotion of Internet freedom and the efforts of all groups that have joined the Global Network Initiative. Under the initiative, major U.S. Internet companies, human rights group, socially responsive investors and academic institutions agreed to guidelines promoting free expression and protecting the privacy of their users around the world. "In the spirit of the undiplomatic American come to European shores," he said, "let me make a plea for European governments, companies and groups to rise to the occasion. Any effort that is limited to the United States is bound to fall far short of its global potential."

Robert Boorstin, Google Director of Public Policy, recently watched, "Tianenmen: 20 Years"