Google goes Bing!

June 10, 2010 | Comment

When Bing launched the most striking think about it was its look with backdrops made of some stunning pictures. Google suddenly seemed very plain in comparison.

Now Google has struck back even allowing you to use your own pictures as the backdrop and the results can be similarly stunning – providing you have the picture to use. To add you own picture click the “Curious about today’s homepage? Add your own background image now” and select your own picture from your hard drive or Picasa. Couldn’t be simpler than that.

The picture left is of the Cape Otway Lighthouse on … Read the rest

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

April 16, 2010 | Comment

Google has release a number of interesting and useful updates over the last few days and removed (or planned to) remove a big one.

Firstly the good stuff. Gmail now allows you to drag and drop files to be attached – a real time saver. You simply drag the file over the attachment area and drop – job done. It works well on both Windows and Mac with Chrome. The second change in Gmail is the ability to add a calendar invitation into an email. Again a great improvement.

The other major changes have come in Google Docs where a … Read the rest

Google Street View Star

March 15, 2010 | 1 comment

Last May I wrote about working from home and seeing the Google Street View car pass my house. Now, some ten months later, the results are in and the pictures have been uploaded and there I am at our window, standing like some shadowy Norman Bates.

You can quite clearly see that I am holding a cup of tea but it also looks like I have positioned it to protect my genitals! Maybe I misunderstood those articles about Google taking your privacy and thought they meant privates!… Read the rest

A Better Perspective

December 17, 2009 | Comment

I consider myself to be a power Googler. Not only can I bang in keywords but I can also use boolean operators and search operators, such as filetype: & site:. However, I discovered yesterday that this all counts for nothing if you don’t know what it is that you are searching for.

One of my clients is going through a website refresh and was looking to put some screenshots on the home page but they wanted them to appear to be disappearing into the distance, rather like that shown in the picture to the left.

No problem I thought. I … Read the rest

So Now What?

October 14, 2009 | Comment

So I received my invitation to Google Wave today and for a full thirty seconds there was much excitement as if I’d had an invite to the party of the year. So I logged in and then the realisation hit me that I have no one to connect to on the service and not the first idea of how to use it.

I watched the introductory video of some mad Australian in a lab coat explaining what each area of the screen does and then decided that Wave is a lonely experience right now.

So I put out a message … Read the rest