Digitivity » Google

Google Homepage Christmas Doodle Sings Jingle Bells

Digitivity — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Google wishes you ~~Merry Christmas~~ Happy Holidays with an interactive Christmas Eve homepage doodle. You click on the lights, and notes play. Once you complete the “puzzle”, the Google letters animate, and you get to listen to the tunes of Jingle Bells:

Then you get sent to a Google search for “Happy Holidays”.

Google Will Index Facebook, Disqus, and Other JavaScript Comments

Digitivity — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:54:00 +0000

The Telegraph reports that Google is going to start indexing JavaScript-based comments like Facebook comments, Disqus, and IntenseDebate.

Traditionally, comments have been managed by websites themselves. They were saved on the website to which they pertain itself, and they showed up even if you had JavaScript turned off. In the past two years, Javascript-based comments have started to used on more and more sites.

The JavaScript-based alternatives have presented themselves as having the following advantages:

The website owner doesn’t have to manage the comments, and they don’t present a burden to its server.
The commenter doesn’t have to create an account to log in. Instead he can use the same account he uses to log in everywhere else.
Finally, the commenter can track all his comments across the Web.

My take: I had to see more and more sites go this route:

It makes JavaScript necessary to even view the comments on a site. Some people (me) don’t like that because it slows your browser down, and also downloads a bunch of useless stuff.
Sometimes, you can’t resize the font on these types of comments (with Ctrl+=).
You’re encouraged to use one login for all your comments across the Web, which has privacy implications.
The comment service providers can track you across the Web, which (from their perspective) is the point.

Anyway, since Google is going to start indexing these types of comments, I think they may become even more common. Via

Google Streetview to Go to Inside Your House

Digitivity — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:18:49 +0000

So Google Street View is moving indoors, allowing business to have pictures taken of their shops. But that’s not all.

A little birdie told me Google Street View is also coming to your house. Want to know what’s in the fridge? Don’t get up off the sofa, go to maps.google.com.

Can’t find the kids? Google Live View.

Don’t know where you put your car keys? Don’t worry, volunteers with too much free time will already have labeled every square foot of your abode on WikiMapia.

Google Homepage Doodle Honors Mary Blair

Digitivity — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:41:00 +0000

Posted in Images

Ever heard of Mary Blair? Neither had I until today’s Google home page doodle honoring her on her 100th birthday. Mary Blair was a pioneering artist in the early days of Disney. She did work on Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella. She explored the use of new techniques like putting multiple shades of [...] Related posts:

Google Webfonts: Free Fonts for the Web

Digitivity — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:39:00 +0000

Posted in Links

http://www.google.com/webfonts

Free fonts from Google to download or to allow your website’s visitors to download. Related posts:Google Buys Picnik, a Free Online Photo Editing Website Free Drupal SEO Download Google Adds Sex Free Safety Mode for YouTube Related posts:

Google Celebrates 13th Birthday with Homepage Doodle

Digitivity — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Posted in Images

Google celebrated its 13th birthday with a doodle on the Google homepage. Related posts:Google Homepage Doodle Honors Jorge Luis Borges Google Homepage Doodle Honors Jim Hensen, Muppets Creator Google Homepage Doodle Honors Mary Blair Related posts:

Google Cache Links Turned Off?

Digitivity — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:25:29 +0000

It used to be whenever you searched for something on Google, there’d be a link “Cache” right next to it. It would go to the Google Cache for the URL result.

But I just noticed that they’re not there anymore. I don’t know how many days (weeks?) it’s been, but it’s not there now, as far as I can tell.

Granted, Google’s always experimenting, sometimes with subsets of the population (even depending on which browser you use) and I can’t say be certain I speak for everybody, but I’m not seeing the links.

It used to be that sites that were particularly touchy about copyrights could set something in robots.txt to turn off caching, but that would only be a site or two in the SERPs, not all. But now, even for innocuous searches like “ibm“, there are no links to the Google cache.

I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere, either.

Anybody have more info? The cache links used to be mighty handy when Random Site X would be unavailable.

Google Homepage Doodle Honors Jim Hensen, Muppets Creator

Digitivity — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 14:57:00 +0000

Posted in Images

The Google homepage had an interactive doodle today honoring Jim Henson‘s 75th birthday. Henson is the creator of The Muppets. You can play with the doodle, and the “E” muppet on the end even gobbles up the “L”, but there’s no sound. Related posts:Google Homepage Doodle Honors Jorge Luis Borges Google Homepage Honors Freddie Mercury [...] Related posts:

Google Homepage Honors Albert Szent-Györgyi, the Discoverer of Vitamin C

Digitivity — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:59:09 +0000

Posted in Images

Today's Google homepage doodle features a pair of oranges, representing the man who discovered Vitamin C aka ascorbic acid. Albert Szent-Györgyi was a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel prize in 1937.
Related posts:

Death of a Company: Yahoo Fires CEO and Puts Itself on Sale

Digitivity — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Yahoo fired its CEO, Carol Bartz, and also put itself up for sale.

Sort of ironic given that it expended so much energy in fighting off a bid by Microsoft to buy the company for $44 billion.

Also don’t forget the chance Yahoo had to buy Google. Yahoo was the first big place to search for stuff on the Worldwide Web, and this is a passing of an era. Tech tears. Via