Sunday, March 13, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Women's Work: Five Female Trailblazers in Literature You May Have Never Heard Of

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 01:45 AM PST

Inside Google Books: Women's Work: Five Female Trailblazers in Literature You May Have Never Heard Of

Posted by Archi Sarkar and Dan Hirsch, Google Books Support Team

To celebrate the centennial of International Women's Day, Google is hosting a global event addressing issues that affect women and girls all over the world. To mark the day for Google Books, we got to thinking about the role of women in the history of books. Turns out, it was huge. Though it's impossible to compile an exhaustive list, we're highlighting a few individuals who went places no woman, and sometimes no man, had ever gone before in the world of words. These woman made history with their pens, quills and ancient stone tablets.


Enheduanna (c. 2285 – 2250 BCE)


It's tempting to think of the history of literature as one long string of dead, white men that may have seen a little bit of diversifying in the last few centuries. However, scholars widely consider the very first named author in history to be a woman. In ancient Sumeria, the high priestess Enheduanna chiseled 42 devotional hymns for the Mesopotamian moon goddess Inanna and became the world's very first named author. Sometimes identified by the first line of her major work Lady of the Largest Heart, Endheduanna may not be a household name but scholarship about her abounds. For more ancient, Babylonian, mystical goodness, you may want to check out Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart by Betty De Shong Meador, or translations of her work by award-winning poet Jane Hirshfield, Women in Praise of the Sacred.


Hrotsvitha (c. 935 – 1000 CE)


(Engraving of Hrotsvitha courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


The Dark Ages are called the Dark Ages for a reason. After the flourishing of art, culture and innovation in the Classic Period, Western civilizations' cultural output virtually shriveled up for hundreds of years. However, in small pockets of Europe, some loners (often monks) were taking quills in hand and producing written work. A German nun named Hrotsvitha filled the ranks of those who toiled to keep cultural traditions alive and became what many consider to be the world's first female playwright. Though she spent most of her life in a Catholic monastery in Gandersheim, Hrotsvitha had a taste for more global scholarship and read many Roman greats: Virgil, Ovid and Horace. According to some scholars, she had a particular fondness for the Roman dramatist Terence, which may have single-handedly brought back the five-act play. Was it the Dark Ages for Black Death-afflicted? Sure. But for aspiring nuns-turned-playwrights, I think not. Some of her plays, translated in English, can be found in Larissa Bonfante's The Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim.


Lady Murasaki (973 – c. 1014 or 1025)


(Lady in waiting in Japanese Heian period, from Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)


Considered by many to be the world's first novel, The Tale of Genji is an elegant and lyrical Japanese pot-boiler, chock-full of evil spirit possessions, adulterous affairs, child abductions and a haiku slam or two. Determining the exact authorship of this classic work has plagued literary historians for decades. However, the name most commonly associated with Genji is that of Murasaki Shikibu, an imperial maid of honor during the Heian period. Supposedly, Murasaki's father once stated that he admired his daughter's intelligence but wished she hadn't been "born a woman." A thousand years later, scholars all over the world still read Genji and the Bank of Japan recently issued a 2000 Yen in Muraski's honor. Yeah, too bad she was born a woman.


Aphra Behn (1640 – 1689 CE)



One of the first women in history to make a living from writing, Aphra Behn produced some of the English Restoration's steamiest "amatory fiction," but she may have lived a life more scintillating than even her scandal-filled prose. After the death of her Dutch merchant husband, Behn became an international woman of mystery when she served as a spy for King Charles II. Living under the assumed identity "Astrea," Behn worked to seduce—and subsequently gather covert recon—Dutch intelligentsia during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Apparently spying didn't pay too well then, because after her stint in espionage, Behn landed in debtor's prison. To get herself out of jail and debt, she used material from her life experience to pen over 20 saucy and hugely popular novels, plays and short stories. One of her most read books, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, chronicled a tortured affair between a brother and sister-in-law with so much gender confusion, taboo eroticism and political intrigue that it might put The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to shame.


Selma Lagerlöf (1858 – 1940)


(Selma Lagerlöf, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)


Swedish author Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909. The Nobel Foundation lauded her "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings." Her most widely known work of fiction, Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventure of Nils), narrates the tale of a boy who entertains himself by mischievously troubling farm animals. Nils also finds himself dwarfed, bestowed with the ability to communicate with animals and riding a magic goose on a magical journey to distant lands. The Swedish people love the story so much that their 20 krona banknote depicts an image of Nils Holgersson, riding a goose over the vast plains of Scania on the one side, and Lagerlöf's portrait on the other. A majority of her popular works, including Jerusalem, Gösta Berling's Saga, have also been adapted into films.


* * *


The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is an apt opportunity for us to look back and celebrate the profound influence of these often unsung female stalwarts. Without the pioneering work of Enheduanna, Hrotsvitha, Lady Muraski, Aphra Behn and Selma Lagerlöf (not to mention: Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, Emily Brönte, Charlote Brönte, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Pearl S. Buck, Frances Burney, George Eliot, Amy Tan, Eudora Welty, Gloria Steinem, Louisa May Alcott, Agatha Christie, Flannery O'Connor, Emily Dickinson, Anne Frank, Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, Harper Lee, Danielle Steel, J.K. Rowling and many others), who knows where we might be?
URL: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2011/03/womens-work-five-female-trailblazers-in.html

[G] Post-earthquake images of Japan

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 11:30 PM PST

Google LatLong: Post-earthquake images of Japan


In response to the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan, we've worked with our satellite imagery providers to get the latest available data of the areas affected most.

To view this high-resolution imagery, courtesy of our partners at GeoEye, download this KML file and explore it in Google Earth. You can also explore the imagery with Google Maps, or have a look at this Picasa album of before-and-after shots. Here's a sample:

Before and after the earthquake and tsunami. Above is Yuriage in Natori, below is Yagawahama; both are in Miyagi prefecture. High-resolution version of this photo.

We're working to provide this data directly to response organizations on the ground to aid their efforts. We hope this new updated satellite imagery is valuable for them as well as everyone else following this situation to help illustrate the extent of the damage.

You can find more information regarding the disaster and resources for those in need at our Crisis Response page in English and Japanese. You can also follow @earthoutreach on Twitter to stay up to date with our mapping and imagery efforts.

Posted by Ryan Falor, Google Crisis Response team
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/03/post-earthquake-images-of-japan.html

[G] Women get together to map Kenya

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 11:30 PM PST

Google LatLong: Women get together to map Kenya

[Cross-posted on the Google Africa Blog]

Many people enjoy using Google Maps to locate and learn about places around the world. Others, however, relish taking a more active role: improving Google Maps by adding and editing roads, parks, businesses, and more through Google Map Maker. In some cases, these citizen mappers take a day to collaboratively focus on a specific area, as more than 60 women did recently in Nairobi, Kenya. Together, they planned a "Ladies Mapping Party," with the goal of empowering and inspiring a broad array of women to give back to their communities through mapping. From advocates to non-profit leaders, students to computer scientists, environmentalists to editors, these women mapped the places they live and love, know and often visit.

The event began with a short training and demo session during which participants received an overview of Google Map Maker, followed by a competition to spur the groups on to map their communities.

Training and demo session

One of the groups was comprised of three dynamic students from Strathmore University - Betsy, Issene and Yasmin. Within 30 minutes, they had mapped most of the points of interest in their home town, Isiolo, while the broader group of women worked together on Juja, Ongata Rongai and Nyahururu.

This strategy of targeted specific regions in Africa seemed to work well for the attendees. "We decided to map Isiolo because we know the area well, and the area had very few points that were mapped compared to other areas like Nairobi," noted one of the students, who also joked that the prizes - including Google-branded bags - further encouraged them to map so comprehensively.

Issene, Betsy and Yasmin: contributors at the event

Many of the participants mentioned that they're eager to continue using Map Maker, citing it as "a new pastime." But the women took away more than just mapping knowledge, with one of the mappers noting that the group "learned from the others that doing what you love is the key to success."

Interested in mapping your part of the world?  Give Google Map Maker a try.

Posted by Jacqueline Rajuai, GIS Specialist, Google Kenya
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/03/women-get-together-to-map-kenya.html

[G] Case Study: Universal Technical Institute Increases Application Requests Eight-fold With Website Optimizer

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 10:14 PM PST

Official Google Website Optimizer Blog: Case Study: Universal Technical Institute Increases Application Requests Eight-fold With Website Optimizer

UTI revved up their conversion rate with Google Website Optimizer. By conducting rigorous testing, making design improvements to their landing pages, and increasing AdWords investment to capitalize on their higher conversion rates, UTI cut their cost-per-application request in half and increased their request volume by more than 700% in in marketing campaigns that used the new landing pages. Read more to learn how they did it!

Since 1965, Universal Technical Institute has helped automotive enthusiasts turn their passions into careers. Offering programs in Automotive, Diesel, Collision, and Motorcycle Repair, as well as courses to become a Marine or NASCAR technician, UTI has trained more than 140,000 professionals in the automotive industry. Today, UTI operates 11 campuses, and currently has more than 15,000 students that are working with their hands to learn career skills that will last a lifetime.

The Goal: Improve Conversion Rates Through Website Optimization
UTI has been an AdWords advertiser since 2004. After years of fine-tuning their search campaigns, and successful investments in Display, Mobile, and YouTube, UTI was looking for their next big avenue of growth. After doing some research - they realized the opportunity was right in front of them, on their own site! With the help of Website Optimizer, UTI tested different calls-to-action, images, videos, buttons, and button placements. After many different landing page combinations, they ultimately settled on a winner.

The Results: A Great-looking Landing Page and a 300% Increase in Conversion Rate
UTI's new landing page was a dramatic departure from their previous landing page. Most notable is their use of "gradual engagement" - asking for user's information in several steps rather than showing an intimidating 15-field sign-up form.

Original landing page (click to see full size)

New landing page (click to see full size)

"Prospective Students responded extremely well to our new landing pages," said Loring Kohrt, Online Marketing Manager for UTI, "not only did we triple our conversion rate, we reduced our exit rate and saw a boost in site engagement metrics across the board."

More Good News: The Effect on Advertising
The jump in conversion volume was substantial and immediate, but UTI didn't stop there. Realizing that their increased conversion rates had dramatically lowered their cost-per-lead, UTI decided that they had room to bid much more aggressively on Google's Search and Display Networks. By doing so, they increased their average position, and brought in eight times the conversions at about half the CPA!


Improving conversion rate amplified all other marketing activities

Reflecting on his experience, Mr. Kohrt said "We are tremendously happy with the results of our redesign. We were able to dramatically improve the profitability of our advertising, increase our enrollments, and deliver a better experience to potential students."

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team
URL: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2011/03/case-study-universal-technical.html

[G] Assembling resources following the earthquake in Japan

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 08:58 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Assembling resources following the earthquake in Japan

(Cross-posted from the Google.org Blog)

I was the in the middle of writing code when the Google Japan office, on the 26th floor of Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, started shaking slowly. The rocking gradually increased, and I looked out the window to see the surrounding buildings all swaying ominously. Although alerts from the building urged us to evacuate via the emergency stairs, I couldn't help but stay and search for information about the earthquake's epicenter and scale. Amidst a series of aftershocks rocking our office, a small group of us in Tokyo and several other Google offices started gathering information about the earthquake to create the Crisis Response information page.

As someone who experienced the Kobe earthquake 16 years ago when I was at university, I cannot forget the immediate desire for information. There was no way to find out where my family and friends were, if transportation would be available to get us home, and most importantly, whether we would be able to find shelter.

This experience helped me remember that during a crisis, information about shelters can become increasingly muddled. Together with our Google Crisis Response team, we decided to organize existing public information from local governments about the concerned areas. Because of the very high volume of web traffic yesterday, this proved difficult to access. Collaborating with the Google Maps engineering team in Tokyo, we rapidly put together a page of information on Google Maps for our Crisis Response page.

And thanks to our colleagues in California and around the globe, within one hour of the earthquake we launched Google Person Finder, a tool to help locate missing people, in Japanese, Chinese and English. We published sites in Japanese and English with maps, news updates, videos and resources. We also posted tsunami alerts on the Google homepage for appropriate domains to make sure as many people as possible saw the warning. And in addition to these tools we've made available, we are donating $250,000 to organizations in Japan who are working on relief and recovery efforts.

Our hearts go out to those who have been affected by the tragedy, and we thank the citizens, first responders and organizations working hard to keep everyone safe.

Posted by Ken Miura on behalf of Google Japan and international Crisis Response teams
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/assembling-resources-following.html

[G] This week in search 3/11/11

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 08:58 AM PST

Official Google Blog: This week in search 3/11/11

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "This week in search" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

When searching, sometimes you have a pretty good idea of what you want to see and what you don't. With features like Google Instant and Instant Previews, you're able to quickly scan results to find exactly what you're looking for. This week's changes continue to make Google more interactive so you can get to your desired search result even faster—whether you're on the go, looking for videos or weeding out unhelpful search results.

Instant Previews for Videos
When it comes to videos, people want to spend less time searching and more time watching. That's why we added an enhancement to Instant Previews—the ability to preview videos. Click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any video search result in universal or video mode. For some videos, you'll now be able to play through a set of four short segments from the video to see if it's what you're looking for (video providers have to opt to make the previews available, so you won't find it for every video yet).


Example searches: [roy halladay], [bi-winning], [heat vs. lakers]

Instant Previews for Mobile
When you're searching on your mobile device you want to find what you're looking for fast. Similar to the desktop version, Instant Previews for mobile displays search results in the form of webpage snapshots, so you can visually compare results without having to go back and forth between websites and search results. To use Instant Previews, go to www.google.com on your Android (2.2+) or iOS (4.0+) device and tap on the magnifying glass next to any search result. You can quickly scroll across previews by swiping with your finger and when you find one you like, tap on the preview to go straight to the page. Try searching for [honeycomb] or [how to poach an egg] on your phone and preview the results to find what's most interesting and useful to you.

Scroll across Instant Previews of search results on your mobile phone

Hide sites to further personalize your search results
Have you ever clicked on a result and come right back to Google to look for another one? Sometimes, this happens when the first result just isn't quite right, but other times, it could be because the entire site seemed offensive or of generally low quality. Yesterday, we announced a new option for times like these, so you can further personalize your search results and block sites that you don't find useful. When you click a result and then return to Google, you'll find a new link to "Block all example.com results." If you click the link and confirm it, the domain won't appear in your future search results.


The next time you do a search that would normally return results from a site you've blocked, you'll see a message telling you that results have been hidden from view. You can also manage your list of blocked sites from a separate page, which is accessible via your Search Settings, when you block a site, and when you see a blocked results reminder.

This week's changes are designed to give you more control over the information you find on Google, so you can quickly decide what's most useful to you and get to the result you need. Information has been exploding on the web for years now, whether it's real-time, video or blog posts, but one thing has stayed the same—your time. That's our inspiration for coming to work every day: to look for new ways to help you pinpoint exactly the information you need in seconds.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-week-in-search-31111.html

[G] Geek Time with Junio C Hamano

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 06:23 AM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Geek Time with Junio C Hamano



Junio C Hamano is a software engineer in the Google Open Source Programs Office who works on the open source project Git. Git is an increasingly popular distributed version control system that is used by many open source projects including Android, Chrome OS, and the Linux kernel. Jun is the maintainer and one of the primary authors of Git, with 4426 commits!

Jeremy Allison, co-creator of Samba and fellow Open Source Programs Office team member, recently sat down with Jun for some quality Geek Time. Samba uses Git, so there was plenty to talk about! Here are some highlights:

• Jun and Jeremy discuss how Jun began working on open source after the maintainer of GNU's source control system RCS, Paul Eggert, began mentoring him. (0:56)

• Jun explains why he prefers working within the open source software development model. (2:50)

• Jeremy asks Jun how he became interested and involved with Git. (3:27)

• When Jun first started working on Git, he had to balance his time between working on an open source project with a day job. Jun reveals his secret for making this balance work, and also how he eventually integrated Git into his day job. (7:00)

• Jun and Jeremy discuss the growing popularity of Git in comparison to older version control systems, and Jun gives an overview of some of Git's features that set it apart. (9:28)

• Jeremy shares his one criticism of Git, which is that it's hard to use. Jun responds and offers some suggestions for those who are new to Git. (12:48)

• Jun reveals some longer-term goals for Git as well as some new developments for future releases. (17:44)

• Jeremy asks Jun how he ended up at Google and they talk about Git's growing role within Google. (19:24)

• Jun gives advice to developers who are new to open source and want to get involved. (21:50)

By Ellen Ko, Open Source Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/03/geek-time-with-junio-c-hamano.html

[G] Googlers are Everywhere

Posted: 12 Mar 2011 06:23 AM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Googlers are Everywhere

This is a very busy week for Googlers talking about open source at conferences. In addition to having lots of Google employees headed to Atlanta for PyCon USA 2011, members of Google's Open Source Programs Office will also be heading out to Chicago, IL and Dallas, TX for DrupalCon and SIGCSE, respectively.

Cat Allman will be at SIGCSE, where she will talk to attendees about open source in Google's computer science education initiatives. On Friday March 11th, from 1:45 - 3:00 PM, Cat will present information about Google Summer of Code alongside Google colleagues who will also talk about App Inventor for Android, Computer Science 4 High School (CS4HS), and Computational Thinking. Directly after the talk, there will be a chance to meet with Cat and members of Google's education team from 3:45 - 5:00 PM, followed by a reception from 5:00 - 6:00 PM.

Carol Smith will be at DrupalCon to talk at a panel discussion titled, "Paying for the Plumbing" today at 4:30 PM. During this talk, Carol will discuss how participation in a program like Google Summer of Code can provide financial support for open source projects.

If you're at PyCon, DrupalCon, or SIGCSE this week, make sure to look out for us and say hello!

By Ellen Ko, Open Source Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/03/googlers-are-everywhere.html
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