Google A Tech Jargon

Google A tech jargon Submitted By Prasham Trivedi (6044) As a partial fulfillment of the course of B.E.I.T.

2009

SHANTILAL SHAH ENGINEERING COLLEGE

CERTIFICATE This is to certify that below mentioned students Mr. Prasham H Trivedi(Roll No. 6040) of semester 8th , course B.E.I.T. , have successfully and satisfactorily completed their Seminar report on “Google- a tech Jargon” in subject Seminar report and produced this report of year 2009 and submitted to S.S.E.C., BHAVNAGAR.

DATE OF SUBMISSION: ---------------------------------------------

STAFF IN CHARGE:

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PRINCIPAL: Page 1 of 108

Contents Overview…..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Browser: Google Chrome ..................................................................................... 10 Browser extension: Gears .................................................................................... 20 Desktop Search Engine: Google Desktop ............................................................. 22 Picture Organizer Picasa ...................................................................................... 28 IM: Google talk .................................................................................................... 33 Google earth ........................................................................................................ 37 Google packs........................................................................................................ 45 Igoogle ................................................................................................................. 47 Google gadgets .................................................................................................... 50 Developers’ Mecca: Google code ......................................................................... 68 Google App Engine............................................................................................... 69 Google Maps ........................................................................................................ 72 Google notebook ................................................................................................. 78 Mobile OS and software developing platform: Android ....................................... 79 Google search ...................................................................................................... 87 Google image search............................................................................................ 92 Game on Google: image labeler ........................................................................... 93 Google for researchers: Google patent search ..................................................... 96 Code repository: Google Code search .................................................................. 96 Google’s online library: Book Search.................................................................... 98 Google for students: Google scholar .................................................................... 98 Google the real technology behind .................................................................... 100 Google File System............................................................................................. 104 From where Google earns? ................................................................................ 106 Page 2 of 108

History and overview

Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. As of December 31, 2008, the company has 20,222 full-time employees. Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations have been important tenets during the growth of Google, the latter resulting in being identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work. The unofficial company slogan is "Don't be evil", although criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship and discontinuation of services. According to Millward Brown, it is the most powerful brand in the world. Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, when they were both Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy. Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally, the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on 15 September 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on 4 September 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems. In March 1999, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex

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has since come to be known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and useful results. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing). Goto.com was an Idealab spin off created by Bill Gross, and was the first company to successfully provide a payfor-placement search service. Overture Services later sued Google over alleged infringements of Overture's pay-per-click and bidding patents by Google's AdWords service. The case was settled out of court, with Google agreeing to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license. Thus, while many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue. The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "googol", which refers to 10100, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet." A patent describing part of the Google ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on 4 September 2001. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. Financing and initial public offering The first funding for Google as a company was secured in August 1998, in the form of a US$100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist. On June 7th, 1999 a round of funding of $25 million was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. The Google IPO took place on 19 August 2004. 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of US$85 per share. Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as √2 ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google, and the remaining 5,462,917 were offered by existing stockholders. The sale of US$1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than US$23 billion. The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google. Many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited

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from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of 9 August 2004, ten days before the IPO.

The stock performance of Google after its first IPO launch has gone well, with shares hitting US$700 for the first time on 31 October 2007, due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features such as the desktop search function and its iGoogle personalized home page. The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds. Growth While the primary business interest is in the web content arena, Google has begun experimenting with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On 17 January 2006, Google announced that its purchase of a radio advertising company "dMarc", which provides an automated system that, allows companies to advertise on the radio. This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—with Google's ability to laserfocus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times. They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements. Acquisitions Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies. In 2004, Google acquired a company called Keyhole, Inc., which developed a product called Earth Viewer which was renamed in 2005 to Google Earth In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on 6 April 2006 and outlined many of the known issues of the service. In late 2006, Google bought the online video site YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock. Shortly after, on 31 October 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites. On 13 April 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for US$3.1 billion. On 2 July 2007, Google purchased GrandCentral. Google agreed to buy the company for US$50 million. On 9 July 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.

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Partnerships In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry. Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies. The company entered into a partnership with AOL of Time Warner, to enhance each other's video search services. The same year, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi toplevel domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson among others. In September 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service for its publishing partners which provides the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads, and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices." In 2006, Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corp. entered into a US$900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace. Google has developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41m black and white, 1.65m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 6 September 2008. In 2008, Google announced that it was hosting an archive of Life magazine's photographs, as part of a joint effort. Some of the images in the archive were never published in the magazine Products and services Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising 99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported US$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112 million in licensing and other revenues. Google is able to precisely track users' interests across affiliated sites using DoubleClick technology and Google Analytics. Google's advertisements carry a lower price tag when their human ad-rating team working around the world believes the ads improve the company's user experience. Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. Google Adsense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked. Page 6 of 108

Google has also been criticized by advertisers regarding its inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script is used to generate a charge on an advertisement without really having an interest in the product. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid. In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on their web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized due to antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November, 2008. Software The Google web search engine is the company's most popular service. As of August 2007, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live Search (12.9%). Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operators, although at any given time it will only return a maximum of 1,000 results for any specific search query. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps, and more. In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based e-mail service, known as Gmail (or Google Mail in some jurisdictions). Gmail features conversation view, spam-filtering technology, and the capability to use Google technology to search e-mail. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements and links from the AdWords service that are tailored to the choice of the user and/or content of the e-mail messages displayed on screen. In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos. Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Desktop, Picasa, SketchUp and Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications; contention is that the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources; the software simply makes accessing the information easier. A number of Indian state governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging. Page 7 of 108

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was setup in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa. Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google. In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone. The project, called Android, an operating system provides a standard development kit that will allow any "Android" phone to run software developed for the Android SDK, no matter the phone manufacturer. In September 2008, T-Mobile released the first phone running the Android platform, the G1. Google Translate (site) aka Google Language Tools (site) is a server-side machine translation service, which can translate 35 different languages to each other, forming 1190 language pairs. Browser extension tools (such as Firefox extensions) allow for easy access to Google Translate from the browser. The software uses corpus linguistics techniques from translated documents, (such United Nations documents, which are professionally translated) to extract translations accurate up to 88 percent. A "suggest a better translation" feature appears with the original language text in a pop-up text field, allowing users to indicate where the current translation is incorrect or else inferior to another translation. On 1 September 2008, Google pre-announced the upcoming availability of Google Chrome, an open-source web browser, which was released on 2 September 2008. Enterprise Products Google entered the Enterprise market in February, 2002 with the launch of its Google Search Appliance, targeted toward providing search technology to larger organizations. Providing search for a smaller document repository, Google launched the Mini in 2005. Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index. In 2008, Google re-branded its next version of Custom Search Business Edition as Google Site Search. In 2007, Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of US$50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Also in 2007, Google acquired Postini and continued to sell the acquired technology as Google Security Services

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Resent Developments at Google (As of 28th March 2009) Do you know why all applications and services of Google are called “Beta”? As per company’s views their development never stops and they’ve proved it true. Their most used applications are being developed rapidly, the new services are introduced frequently and the services criticized by users are dropped eventually. Let’s have a look. Google has a service called Google Labs. This Google lab is the platform behind each and every development in Google. They have recently announced that Gmail (their mail service) can be accessed offline. By help of their browser extension called ‘’Gears’’ you can set your Gmail account as it can be accessed offline in your private workstation. In Gmail they enabled multiple inboxes can be viewed on single page. As like Orkut you can also enable a background theme available. And these themes are far better than those in yahoos. In iGoogle they have put pages and gadget links as sidebar links on left side on pages. And if you click on one gadget you can see it on whole page (once again far better than its counterpart my yahoo). In Google notebook you can put all the notes as rich text format. Yes notebook clipping is not rich texted before in Google notebook as you can see the images here. But eventually Google has announced that they are dropping all the plans to develop Notebook service.

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Google’s applications 1 desktop application

Browser: Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google and based on the WebKit layout engine and application framework. In December 2008, it had a share of 1.04% of the browser market. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. The public stable release was on December 11, 2008. Chromium is the open source project behind Google Chrome. The Google-authored portion of it is released under the BSD license, with other parts being subject to a variety of different permissive open-source licenses, including the MIT License, the LGPL, the Microsoft Permissive License and a MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license. It implements the same feature set as Chrome, but has a slightly different logo.

History Announcement

The release announcement was originally scheduled for September 3, 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features of and motivations for the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blog scoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on September 1, 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books and their site and mentioned it on its official blog along with an explanation for the early release. Public release

The Chromium Test Shell on Linux

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The browser was first publicly released for Microsoft Windows (XP and later only) on September 2, 2008 in 43 languages, officially a beta version. Chrome quickly gained about 1% market share. Mac OS X and Linux versions are under development. Recently, in the Chromium project's developer wikia message was placed that a "test shell" is available to build on Linux. Some have tried this shell, which apparently lacks many features, but appears to function quite well in rendering web sites (including JavaScript). On September 2, a CNET news item drew attention to a passage in the terms of service for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant to Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser. The passage in question was inherited from the general Google terms of service. On the same day, Google responded to this criticism by stating that the language used was borrowed from other products, and removed the passage in question from the Terms of Service. Google noted that this change would "apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome." There were subsequent concern and confusion about whether and what information the program communicates back to Google. The company stated that usage metrics are only sent when users opt in by checking the option "help make Google Chrome better by automatically sending usage statistics and crash reports to Google" when the browser is installed. The first release of Google Chrome passed the Acid1 and Acid2 (not fully, a small artifact appears tests. It also passed 79 out of the 100 subtests of the Acid3, higher than both Internet Explorer 7 (14) and Firefox 3 (71), but lower than Opera (83) When compared with development builds of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, Chrome scored lower than Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 (85), Opera (100), and Safari 4 (Developer Preview) (100), but still higher than Internet Explorer (21) However, the current Dev channel build scores 100 out of 100 while still failing the link test. On January 9, 2009, CNET reports that Google plans to release versions for Mac OS X and Linux by the first half of the year. Unofficial Chromium releases 



On September 15, 2008, CodeWeavers released an unofficial bundle of a Wine derivative and Chromium Developer Build 21 for Linux and Mac OS X, which they dubbed CrossOver Chromium. SRWare Iron is a release of Chromium software that explicitly disables the collection and transmission of usage information to Google which is optional within Chrome.

Development

Primary design goals were improvements in security, speed, and stability compared to existing browsers. There also were extensive changes in the user interface. Chrome was assembled from 26 different code libraries from Google and others from third parties such as Netscape. Page 11 of 108

Security

Chrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site. This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API". Google notifies the owners of listed sites who may not be aware of the presence of the harmful software. Chrome will typically allocate each tab to fit into its own process to "prevent malware from installing itself" or "using what happens in one tab to affect what happens in another", however the actual process allocation model is more complex. Following the principle of least privilege, each process is stripped of its rights and can compute, but cannot write files or read from sensitive areas (e.g. documents, desktop)—this is similar to the "Protected Mode" that is used by Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail"; for example, malicious software running in one tab is unable to sniff credit card numbers, interact with the mouse, or tell Windows to "run an executable on start-up" and it will be terminated when the tab is closed. This enforces a simple computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user and sandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user. Typically, plugins such as Adobe Flash Player are not standardized and as such, cannot be sandboxed as tabs can be. These often need to run at, or above, the security level of the browser itself. To reduce exposure to attack, plugins are run in separate processes that communicate with the renderer, itself operating at "very low privileges" in dedicated per-tab processes. Plugins will need to be modified to operate within this software architecture while following the principle of least privilege. Chrome supports the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI), but does not support the embedding of ActiveX controls. Also, Chrome does not have an extension system such as Mozilla's XPInstall architecture. Java applets support is available in Chrome as part of Java 6 update 11, which currently is the latest stable version. A private browsing feature called Incognito mode is provided that prevents the browser from storing any history information or cookies from the websites visited. This feature has been referred to as a porn mode similar to the private browsing feature available in Apple's Safari and the latest beta version of Internet Explorer 8. A denial-of-service vulnerability was found that allowed a malicious web page to crash the whole web browser. However, Google Chrome developers confirmed the flaw, and it was fixed in the 0.2.149.29 release.

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Speed

The JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark. According to Google, existing implementations were designed "for small programs, where the performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important," but web applications such as Gmail "are using the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and JavaScript." The resulting V8 JavaScript engine has features such as hidden class transitions, dynamic code generation, and precise garbage collection. Tests by Google showed that V8 was about twice as fast as Firefox 3.0 and the Safari 4 beta. Several websites performed benchmark tests using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark tool as well as Google's own set of computationally intense benchmarks, which includes ray tracing and constraint solving. They unanimously reported that Chrome performed much faster than all competitors against whom it had been tested, including Safari, Firefox 3.0, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8. While Opera had not been compared to Chrome in those comparisons, in previous tests, it had been shown to be slightly slower than Firefox 3.0, which in turn, was slower than Chrome. Another blog post by Mozilla developer Brendan Eich compared Chrome's V8 engine to his own TraceMonkey JavaScript engine which was introduced in Firefox 3.1alpha, stating that some tests were faster in one engine and some were faster in the other, with Firefox 3.1a faster overall. John Resig, Mozilla's JavaScript evangelist, further commented on the performance of different browsers on Google's own suite, finding Chrome "decimating" other browsers, but he questions whether Google's suite is representative of real programs. He stated that Firefox 3.0 performed poorly on recursion intensive benchmarks, such as those of Google, because the Mozilla team had not implemented recursion-tracing yet. Chrome also uses DNS perfecting to speed up website lookups. Stability

The Gears team was considering a multithreaded browser (noting that a problem with existing web browser implementations was that they are inherently single-threaded) and Chrome implemented this concept with a multi-process architecture, similar to Loosely Coupled Internet Explorer (LCIE) recently implemented by Internet Explorer 8. By default, a separate process is allocated to each site instance and plug-in. This prevents tasks from interfering with each other, which is good for security and stability; an attacker successfully gaining access to one application does not gain access to all, and failure in one application results in a Sad Tab screen of death, similar to the well-known Sad Mac, except only one single tab crashes instead of the whole application. This strategy exacts a fixed per-process cost up front, but results in less memory bloat overall as fragmentation is confined to each process and no longer results in further memory allocations.

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Chrome features a process management utility called the Task Manager which allows the user to "see what sites are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and abusing [their] CPU" (as well as the plug-ins which run in separate processes) and terminate them. Some users have reported a conflict with Internet Explorer, often resulting in the blue screen error on Windows. User interface

When Chrome is maximized, the title bar becomes hidden and instead, the tab bar is displayed at the top. Also, when the mouse is moved over a link, the URL of the link is displayed in a status bar at the bottom left. Otherwise, the status bar is invisible

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When Chrome is not maximized, the title bar is shown on top of the tab bar.

The main user interface includes back, forward, refresh, bookmark, go, and cancel options. The options are similar to Safari, while the location of the settings is similar to versions of Internet Explorer starting with version 7. The design of the window is based on Windows Vista. When the window is not maximized, the tab bar appears directly under the title bar. When maximized, the title bar disappears, and instead, the tab bar is shown at the very top of the window. Unlike other browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox which also have a fullscreen mode that hides the operating system's interface completely, Chrome can only be maximized like a standard Windows application. Therefore, the Windows task bar, notification area, and start menu link still take space at all times unless they have been configured to hide at all times. Chrome includes Gears, which adds features for web developers typically relating to the building of web applications (including offline support). Chrome replaces the browser home page which is displayed when a new tab is created with a New Tab Page. This shows thumbnails of the nine most visited web sites along with the sites most often searched, recent bookmarks, and recently closed tabs. Page 15 of 108

Chrome's Omnibox

The Omnibox is the URL box at the top of each tab, which combines the functionalities of both URL box and search box. It includes auto complete functionality, but only will auto complete URLs that were manually entered (rather than all links), search suggestions, top pages (previously visited), popular pages (unvisited), and text search over history. Search engines also can be captured by the browser when used via the native user interface by pressing Tab. Popup windows "are scoped to the tab they came from" and will not appear outside the tab unless the user explicitly drags them out. Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine to display web pages, on advice from the Android team. Like most browsers, Chrome was extensively tested internally before release with unit testing, "automated user interface testing of scripted user actions" and fuzz testing, as well as WebKit's layout tests (99% of which Chrome is claimed to have passed). New browser builds are automatically tested against tens of thousands of commonly accessed websites inside of the Google index within 20-30 minutes. Tabs are the primary component of Chrome's user interface and as such, have been moved to the top of the window rather than below the controls. This subtle change contrasts with many existing tabbed browsers which are based on windows and contain tabs. Tabs (including their state) can be transferred seamlessly between window containers by dragging. Each tab has its own set of controls, including the Omnibox. Chrome allows users to make local desktop shortcuts that open web applications in the browser. The browser, when opened in this way, contains none of the regular interface except for the title bar, so as not to "interrupt anything the user is trying to do." This allows web applications to run alongside local software (similar to Mozilla Prism and Fluid). By default, the status bar is hidden whenever it is not being used. However, it appears at the bottom left corner whenever a page is loading and when a hyperlink is hovered over. For web developers, Chrome features an element inspector similar to the one in Firebug. Usage tracking

Usage tracking is an option presented to the user during the software's installation. Once accepted, it is possible to disable the transmission of this information by modifying Chrome's "Under the Hood" options. Freeware programs such as UnChrome can remove the unique ID without having to change the browser. Unofficial builds, such as SRWare Iron, seek to remove these features from the browser altogether.

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Incognito window

Chrome also has an "incognito" browsing option where an internal browser opens up that lets one surf where pages do not show up in one's browser history and deletes any tracking cookies when one exits the incognito browser. Extensions

As of October 2008, Google Chrome does not support 3rd party extensions. As of version 3499, Google Chrome has rudimentary Greasemonkey support. This feature is off by default, and may be turned on by launching the application with a specific command-line argument. Google Chrome extensions: Not yet, but later. "We don't have that in the beta today, but we definitely plan an extension API," or application programming interface, Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president of product management, said at the Chrome launch event here Tuesday. "It is one of the things we will get to next." —CNet News Stable, Beta and Dev Releases

On January 08, 2009 Google introduced a new release channels system, whereby now there are three distinct release channels: Stable channel, Beta channel, and Developer preview Page 17 of 108

channel. Before this change, there were only two channels: Beta channel and Developer preview channel. All previous Dev channel users were moved to Beta channel, the reason is that now the new Dev channel builds will be less stable and polished than what Dev channel users have been getting during Google Chrome's Beta period. Now the stable channel will be updated with features and fixes once they have been thoroughly tested in the Beta channel, and the Beta channel will be updated roughly monthly with stable and complete features from the Dev channel. The Dev channel is where ideas get tested (and sometimes fail), and it can be very unstable at times. See http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/ for more information on specific releases. Reception

The Daily Telegraph's Matthew Moore summarizes the verdict of early reviewers: "Google Chrome is attractive, fast and has some impressive new features, but may not—yet— be a threat to its Microsoft rival." Microsoft reportedly "played down the threat from Chrome" and "predicted that most people will embrace Internet Explorer 8." Opera Software said that "Chrome will strengthen the Web as the biggest application platform in the world." Mozilla said that Chrome's introduction into the web browser market comes as "no real surprise", that "Chrome is not aimed at competing with Firefox", and furthermore that it should not affect Google's financing of Firefox. Chrome’s design bridges the gap between desktop and so-called “cloud computing.” At the touch of a button, Chrome lets you make a desktop, Start menu, or Quick Launch shortcut to any Web page or Web application, blurring the line between what’s online and what’s inside your PC. For example, I created a desktop shortcut for Google Maps. When you create a shortcut for a Web application, Chrome strips away all of the toolbars and tabs from the window, leaving you with something that feels much more like a desktop application than like a Web application or page. —PC World On September 9, 2008, when Chrome still had been in beta, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued a statement about their first examination of Chrome, expressing a concern over the prominent download links on Google's German web page, because "beta versions should not be employed for general use applications" and browser manufacturers should provide appropriate instructions regarding the use of pre-released software. They did, however, praise the browser's technical contribution to improving security on the web. Concern about Chrome’s optional usage collection and tracking has been noted in several publications.

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Reverse-engineering issues with Windows

On September 11, 2008, a few days after the release of Chrome's source code, Scott Hanselman noticed some incriminating lines of comment in Chrome's code. This was further pushed into limelight by the Ars Technica article Chrome antics: did Google reverse-engineer Windows? Google later responded to this discovery, denying reverse-engineering by them and referring to previously documented, although not official, techniques. Chrome in competition

This was all about Google chrome but where chrome stands in competition? Let’s have a look.

Why should?       

Good GUI Omnibox Less tool bars and more space to page Speed Security Desktop shortcuts Good developer support

Why shouldn’t? X Crashes frequently on low memory. X No plug-in support. X Incognito window – safari’s private browsing is far better.

My verdict on chrome: I found it using chrome in broadband is better experience. But it is not recommended to those who have less RAM surfing on dial-ups and though want to open many tabs at a time. No plug-in support is not a good thing. Though it’s new and it’s from Google I think it will have a good position in browser market soon

My rating to chrome: 2.5/5

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Browser extension: Gears Gears, formerly Google Gears, is software offered by Google that "enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser." Released under the BSD license, Gears is free and open source software What does Gears Have There are several major API components to Gears:     

A Database module (powered by SQLite) that can store data locally. A WorkerPool module that provides parallel execution of JavaScript code. A LocalServer module that caches and serves application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc). A Desktop module that lets web applications interact more naturally with the desktop. Geolocation modules that lets web applications detect the geographical location of their users.

Version history

Version Date

Description

0.1

2007-05-31

Initial release as Google Gears.

0.2

2008-02-22

Announcement

-

2008-05-28

Project renamed to Gears to reflect the open source, collaborative nature of the project.

0.3

2008-06-11

Introduced ability to add desktop icons, support for Firefox 3.

0.4

2008-04-22

Geolocation API / Event handling for upload / download transfer progress, localization in 40 languages

0.5

2008-11-24

Updated SQLite, Geolocation can now get data from WiFi antennas, Improved API to manage data blobs on LocalServer Page 20 of 108

Support

There are a number of web applications that use Gears. These applications come from a variety of companies, including Google (Gmail, YouTube, Docs, Reader, Picasa for mobile, Calendar), MySpace (Mail Search), Zoho (Writer, Mail), Remember The Milk, and Buxfer. WordPress 2.6 added support for Gears, to speed up the administrative interface and reduce server hits. Gears can be enabled on sites where it is otherwise unsupported, by using a Greasemonkey user script one of the Gears engineers has created. Gears is supported on Google Chrome and IE 6+ on Windows XP and Vista, IE Mobile 4.01+ on Windows Mobile, Safari 3.1.1+ on Mac OS X 10.4+ and Firefox 1.5+ on multiple platforms. On May 29, 2008, Opera ASA announced that the new Opera Mobile 9.5 will support Gears. The technology preview release of the browser was published on February 20, 2009. It is currently available for touch-screen devices on Windows Mobile 5/6 only. Gears is not built into the browser and must be downloaded separately. Rails framework supports interfaces to Gears without needing to understand the Google Gears API.

My verdict on Gears Gears are found useful for Google addicts like me. If you are relying to get information only from Google you must install gears for this. The only one difficulty I faced is to use gears properly for opera in OpenSUSE Linux 11.0. The thumbs up to Google because still it has no strong competitor.

My rating to Gears: 4/5

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Desktop Search Engine: Google Desktop Google Desktop is desktop search software made by Google for Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows. The program allows text searches of a user's e-mails, computer files, music, photos, chats, Web pages viewed, and other "Google Gadgets."

Snapshot of Google Desktop with gadgets.

File indexing

After initially installing Google Desktop, the software completes an indexing of all the files in the computer. And after the initial indexing is completed, the software continues to index files as needed. Users can start searching for files immediately after installing the program. After performing searches, results can also be returned in an Internet browser on the Google Desktop Home Page much like the results for Google Web searches. Google Desktop can index several different types of data, including email, web browsing history from Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, office documents in the OpenDocument and Microsoft Office formats, instant messenger transcripts from AOL, Google, MSN, Skype, Page 22 of 108

Tencent QQ, and several multimedia file types. Additional file types can be indexed through the use of plug-ins. Google Desktop allows the user to control which types of data are indexed by the program. One unfortunate aspect for users with large hard drives: Google Desktop only indexes 100,000 files per drive during the initial indexing period. If you have more than 100,000 files in a particular drive, Google Desktop won't index all of them during this initial period. However, Google Desktop adds files to your index during real-time indexing when you move or open them. Sidebar

Screenshot of gadgets A prominent feature of Google Desktop is the Sidebar, which holds several common Gadgets and resides off to one side of the desktop. The Sidebar is available with the Microsoft Windows version of Google Desktop only. The Sidebar comes pre-installed with the following gadgets: 

Email - a panel which lets one view one's Gmail messages.



Scratch Pad - here one can store random notes; they are saved automatically



Photos - displays a slideshow of photos from the "My Pictures" folder (address can be changed)

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

News - shows the latest headlines from Google News, and how long ago they were written. The News panel is personalized depending on the type of news you read.



Weather - shows the current weather for a location specified by the user.



Web Clips - shows recent posts from RSS news feeds.



Google Talk - If Google Talk is installed, double clicking the window title will dock it to one's sidebar.

Like the Windows Taskbar, the Google Desktop sidebar can be set to Auto-Hide mode, where it will only appear once the user moves the mouse cursor towards the side where it resides. If not on auto-hide, by default the sidebar will always take up about 1/6 - 1/9 of one's screen (depending on the screen resolution), and other windows are forced to resize. However, the sidebar can be resized to take less space, and you can disable the "always on top" feature in the options. With the auto-hide feature on, the sidebar temporarily overlaps maximized windows. Another feature that comes with the Sidebar is alerts. When the Sidebar is minimized, new e-mail and news can be displayed on a pop-up window above the Windows Taskbar. Quick Find When searching in the sidebar, deskbar or floating deskbar, Google Desktop displays a "Quick Find" window. This window is filled with 6 (by default) of the most relevant results from one's computer. These results update as one type so that one can get to what one wants on one's computer without having to open another browser window.

Google Deskbar

Google floating deskbar Deskbars Deskbars are boxes which enable one to type in a search query directly from one's desktop. Web results will open in a browser window and selected computer results will be displayed in the "Quick Find" box (see above). A Deskbar can either be a fixed deskbar, which sits in one's Windows Taskbar, or a Floating Deskbar, which one may position anywhere one wants on one's desktop.

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Email indexing Google Desktop includes plugins that allow one to index and search through the contents of local Microsoft Outlook, IBM Lotus Notes, and Mozilla Thunderbird email databases, outside of the client applications' built-in search functions. For Lotus Notes, only local databases are indexed for searching. Google Desktop's email indexing feature is also integrated with Google's web-based email service, Gmail; it can index and search the email messages in one's Gmail account. Gadgets & plug-ins Desktop gadgets are interactive mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on the user's desktop – or docked in the Sidebar – to show new email, weather, photos, and personalized news. Google offers a gallery of pre-built gadgets for download on the official website. For developers, Google offers an SDK and an official blog for anyone who wants to write gadgets or plug-ins for Google Desktop. An automated system creates a developer hierarchy called the "Google Desktop Hall of Fame", where programmers can advance based on their gadgets' number and popularity.

Snapshot of GD SDK

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The SDK also allows third-party applications to make use of the search facilities provided by Google Desktop Search. For example, the file manager Directory Opus offers integrated Google Desktop Search support. Criticisms Security In February 2007, Yair Amit from Watchfire found a series of vulnerabilities in Google Desktop that could allow a malicious individual to achieve not only remote, persistent access to sensitive data, but in some cases full system control as well. The significant impact and the ease of exploitation forced Google to change some of Google Desktop's logic in Google Desktop version 5. Privacy Google Desktop version 3 contains certain features that raise serious security and privacy concerns. Specifically, the share across computers feature that introduces the ability to search content from desktop to desktop greatly increases the risk to users' privacy. If Google Desktop V.3 is set to allow Search across Computers, files on an indexed computer are copied to Google's servers. The potential for information stored on their computers to be accessed by others if they enable this feature of Google Desktop v. 3 on their computers should be seriously considered. The EFF advises against using this feature. Also, those who have confidential data on their work or home computers should not enable this feature. There are privacy laws and company policies that could be violated through the installation of this feature, specifically, SB 1386, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA and Sarbanes-Oxley. Other more far reaching concerns arise around the packaging and end user license agreement - specifically the level of intrusion on the local machine and the disclaimers that users implicitly agree to future changes in the license agreement without actually being able to see them immediately Resource use Although there have been known problems with the GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe process, lately the presence of smart indexing has improved the use of resources so this is less of a problem now. As a default setting, after the user installs the application, files, emails and other data will be indexed at once, in a one-time process. It occurs only when the user's computer is idle for more than 30 seconds and it will usually be complete in several hours. After the one-time indexing, the index is kept up-to-date based on user actions and preferences.

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Internationalization/Keyboard Besides the key combination advertised on the preferences page (hitting Ctrl twice) Google Desktop's Quick Search Box can be launched with a shortcut Alt Gr + g, Alt Gr, however, is the standard key to input diacriticized letters on a QWERTY keyboard, e.g. Ģ/ģ in the Latvian language. Even though it can't be disabled on the preferences page, it can be done through editing the Windows Registry. Outlook indexing There had been some issues with Microsoft Outlook indexing. Deleted email listings are not removed and require re-installing Google Desktop for any new archived mail to be listed. Several versions have been released to patch the Outlook indexing. 64-bit Incompatibility Google Desktop won't install on Microsoft Windows 64-bit systems, stating it needs a 32-bit operating system. This is easily remedied by using the command 'googledesktopsetup.exe /force', however since it isn't compatible with 64-bit, some features may not work properly.

My verdict on Google desktop. For searching your local files? Oh forget it. Because it works great when you have less files on your computer or your computer is isolated in network. But want to use the cool gadgets? So you must use Google desktop with sidebar enabled. The gadgets are downloaded freely and are of almost every type system, office, fun, web, Google almost every type. Thumbs up for sidebar and I use Google desktop for sidebar only. There are many desktop search applications but Google once again tops with probably initiating this type of applications.

My rating to Google desktop: 4/5

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Picture Organizer Picasa Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by Idealab and owned by Google since 2004 "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my house" and "pic" for pictures (personalized art). Organization and editing

Snapshot of Picasa

For organizing photos, Picasa has file importing and tracking features, as well as tags and collections for further sorting. It also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Other features include slide shows, printing and image timelines. Images can also be prepared for external use, such as for e-mailing or printing, by reducing file size and setting up page layouts. There is also integration with online photo printing services. Keywords Picasa uses picasa.ini files to keep track of keywords for each image. In addition to this, Picasa attaches IPTC keyword data to JPEG files, but not to any other file format. Keywords attached to JPEG files in Picasa can be read by other image library software like Adobe (Photoshop, Album and Bridge), digiKam and iPhoto. According to the Picasa Readme, Picasa can parse XMP data. However, it cannot search local files for existing XMP keywords.

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Searching Picasa has a search bar that is always visible when viewing the library. Searches are live in that displayed items are filtered as you type. When a word is typed into the search bar, an image will be displayed if that word is all or part of a keyword, or part of the file name. If the search word is part of a folder name, all images in that folder are also displayed (but not necessarily images in subfolders, unless the word also exists in a keyword or filename.) Picasa also supports boolean operators for searching in much the same way as Google's web search. All search terms are required by default (as with the operator "AND"), and images tagged with specified keywords can be excluded by using the hyphen (as in the boolean operator "NOT"). For example, searching for family children -friends will cause Picasa to display all images with the keywords family and children, but which do not include the keyword friends. Viewing Picasa has no separate view window. There is only an "edit view" with a viewing area. Fullscreen view is available in slideshow mode, by holding down the ctrl+alt keys while in "edit view", or by pressing the Alt Gr key. Backup In Picasa 2 and later versions, changes to pictures made in Picasa overwrite the original file, but a backup version of the original is saved in a hidden folder named "Originals" in the same folder as the original picture. In previous versions all changes to a picture (but not the picture itself) were stored in a separate file, and the original image file was left untouched. When the image was opened in Picasa the software would reapply the modifications; opening the photo with any other program displayed the original version. Face recognition On 15 August 2006, Google announced it had acquired Neven Vision whose technology can be used to search for features within photos such as people or buildings. Google applied this technology for face recognition and this functionality was launched on Picasa Web Albums on 2 September 2008. Neven Vision incorporates several patents specifically centered around face recognition from digital photo and video images. Neven Vision's technology was among the top finishers in both the FERET 1997 and FRVT 2002 independent tests comparing the world's best face recognition technologies. Page 29 of 108

Other Picasa applications Picasa Web Albums Picasa Web Albums (PWA) is a photo-sharing web application from Google, often compared to programs like Flickr. It allows users with accounts at Google to store and share 1 GB of photos for free. Users can purchase more storage space, which can be shared between Google services. Additional gigabytes Cost per year (US$)

Cost per 1GB/year (US$)

10

20

2.00

40

75

1.875

150

250

1.667

400

500

1.25

Users may upload pictures through a variety of ways; via the PWA web interface on supported browsers, Picasa 2.5.0 or later on Microsoft Windows, using the Exporter for iPhoto, the Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in, Uploader on Mac OS X, or F-Spot on Linux. In both paid and free accounts, the actual resolution of the photo is maintained (even though a smaller resolution photo may be displayed by the web interface), and the original photo can be downloaded. PWA uses an "unlisted number" approach for URLs for private photo albums. This allows a user to email a private album's URL to anyone s/he wants; the recipient can view the album without having to create a user account - this is done via an "authentication key" that's needed to be appended to the URL for the album to be shown. The Picasa help files say that private albums are not searchable by anyone except the user. On October 11, 2006, the "Test" name was removed, in favor of purely Picasa Web Albums. No ads are shown on Picasa Web Albums, in either free or paid accounts. The Terms of Service permit Google to use the uploaded photos to display on the website or via RSS feeds, and also for promoting Google services royalty-free. Picasa Web Albums was first leaked on June 6, 2006.When introduced, it came with 250 MB free space. On March 7, 2007, it was upgraded to 1 GB.

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Picasa Wordpress Widget Picasa Wordpress widget is a Wordpress plugin which allows users to publish random photos from Picasa albums on their blogs. Version history Windows There are no versions of Picasa for Windows 95 or NT. The latest version offered for Windows 98/ME is 2.0.0 (build 18.84).[12][13] The latest version offered for Windows 2000 is 2.7 (build 37.64).[12][14] Newer versions are for Windows XP and Vista only. 1.618 (build 5.35) July 2004 – free download version offered since Google's acquisition of Picasa. 2.0.0 (build 18.77) January 18, 2005 – many features including improved search functions, an automated photo collage maker, massively enhanced photo editing functions and further integration with Picasa's Hello and Google's Blogger services. 2.0.0 (Build 18.84) June 8, 2005 – bug fix release, latest release for Windows 98/ME. This version does not suffer from the "picasa2\runtime\hlpsys.dll is not a valid windows image. Check installation disk." error, which some users have experienced. 2.1.0 (build 27.60) September 19, 2005 – new features including international language support, one-click photo blogging, CD cover printing, improved RAW handling and improved support for external drives. 2.2.0 (build 28.20) January 30, 2006 – 25 additional languages are supported, new network drive support, and bug fixes for IE7 support and CD Burning. 2.5.0 (Builds 32.01) June 12, 2006 onwards – beta versions including Picasa Web Albums support – last version (build 32.97) started rollout on November 14, 2006. 2.6 (build 35.94.0) December 7, 2006 – new auto update behavior for Windows Vista support, new CD/DVD-burning engine, improved upload reliability to Picasa Web Albums, and added support for 18 new languages. 2.7 (build 36.37.0) April 24, 2007 – new RAW processing engine, new color engine for "tuning" fixes, added support for Google Photos Screensaver, and improved Blog This! Reliability. 2.7 Build 36.40 May 3, 2007 – support for more cameras, updated version number for international installs. 2.7 Build 36.60 26 June 2007 – added support for geotag, supposedly fixed problems with showing up some video files. 2.7 Build 37.23 21 August 2007 – support for more languages, fixes several bugs. 2.7 Build 37.29 13 September 2007 – Added support for RAW pictures from the Canon 40D, fixes several bugs. Page 31 of 108

2.7 Build 37.32 02 October 2007 – Fixed a case where corrupted AVI files could cause a crash. Fixed a case that would result in a "This account is not enabled for Picasa Web Albums" error. 2.7 Build 37.36 30 October 2007 – Added support for 11 additional languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Filipino, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Vietnamese. 2.7 Build 37.49 07 March 2008 - Improved performance for new Intel chips. Translation fixes for Hungarian and Chinese. Fixed a case that would result in an error when capturing images from webcams. 2.7 Build 37.64 21 August 2008 - See release notes for details. 3.0 3.0.0 Beta Build 57.19.0 2 September 2008 - Initial public beta release of Picasa 3.0 3.0.0 Beta Build 57.22.0 16 September 2008 o 3.0.0 Beta Build 57.24.0 23 September 2008 o 3.0.0 Build 57.41.0 25 October 2008 o 3.0.0 Build 57.44.0 28 October 2008 o 3.0.0 Build 57.52.0 11 November 2008 o 3.0.0 Build 57.53.0 20 November 2008 3.1 o 3.1.0 Build 70.71.0 16 December 2008 o 3.1.0 Build 70.73.0 09 January 2009 Linux As from about early June 2006, Linux versions (2.2.2820-5) became available as free downloads for most distributions of the Linux operating system. It is not a native Linux program but an adapted Windows version that uses the Wine libraries. A Release Candidate of Picasa for Linux 2.7 (Build 37.3607,0) was released on 21 November 2007.Google added Picasa for Linux 2.7 (Build 37.3615, 0) to its Linux repository on 16 April 2008. Google added Picasa for Linux 3.0 beta to its Linux repository in October 2008. Mac OS X On January 5, 2009, Google released a beta version of Picasa for Mac (Intel-based Macs only). Also, a plugin is available for iPhoto to upload to the Picasa Web Albums hosting service. There is also a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploading tools for OS X 10.4 or later.

Picasa IN COMPETITION Page 32 of 108

Let’s see where Picasa stands in competition

Why should?     

Good UI Better organization (though adobe is good option) Collage editing More options provided to edit the image. Good tuning with Flickr and Picasa on web.

Why shouldn’t? X Slow when uploading on internet

My verdict on Picasa There are many picture organizers. I was using adobe from two years and using Picasa along with adobe. I have used IrfanView for a short time as it is given by “digit” with its issues frequently. But I was amazed by Picasa. I wander that Google is probably late in this market (only IrfanView was behind it) though it has many god things in it. First collage editing is done by Google. I wander why Picasa is not favorite but adobe still is?

My Ratings to Picasa: 5/5 IM: Google talk Google Talk (GTalk) is a free Windows and web-based application for instant messaging and voice over internet protocol (VOIP), offered by Google Inc. The first beta version of the program was released on August 24, 2005. Instant messaging between the Google Talk servers and its clients uses an open protocol, XMPP, allowing users of other XMPP clients to communicate with Google Talk users. VoIP in Google Talk is based around the Jingle protocol. The technology used within the Google server network however is not publicly known. The Google Talk client is only available for Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista). Mobile clients are also available for the Blackberry, iPhone and T-Mobile G1. With the release of the Google Talk gadget, users of all platforms supported by Adobe Flash Player can also use Google Talk Many other XMPP clients are compatible with Google Talk, and support a variety of other platforms.

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Features Interoperability Google has announced that a major goal of the Google Talk service is interoperability. Google Talk uses XMPP to provide real-time extensible messaging and presence events, including offline messaging and voice mailing. On January 17, 2006, Google enabled server-toserver communications, federating itself with any Jabber server that supports the dialback protocol. Product integration On February 7, 2006, Gmail received chat functionality, using Ajax for server–browser communication, and was integrated with Google Talk. Users can send instant messages to other Gmail users. As it works within a browser, Google Talk does not need to be downloaded to send instant messages to Gmail users. Conversation logs are automatically saved to a Chats area in the user's Gmail account. This allows users to search their chat logs and have them centrally stored in their Gmail accounts. It does not, however, appear possible to download chat logs that are not attached to an e-mail conversation. Since November 8, 2006, Google has also integrated Google Talk with Orkut. This enables Google Talk users to interact with registered Orkut users, by sending and receiving 'scraps' within Orkut. It is also possible to display the song currently playing on the computer. This music data is collected, if the user agrees to this, and displayed on the Google Music Trends page. Also, as of November 11, 2008, it is possible to voice and video chat between Gmail users and Google Talk users - on some systems, not all major OSs are supported. The Gmail user requires a plugin download and installation, but is otherwise seamlessly integrated into the Gmail interface. As of February 2009, the plugin is only available for Windows (XP and Vista) and Mac OS X (only on Intel-based Macs) Encryption The connection between the Google Talk client and the Google Talk server is encrypted, except when using Gmail's chat over HTTP, a federated network that doesn't support encryption, or when using a proxy like IMLogic. End-to-end messages are unencrypted. Google plans to add support for chat and call encryption in a future release. Some XMPP clients natively support encryption with Google Talk's servers. It is possible to have end-to-end encryption over the GTalk network using OTR (off-the-record) encryption. Page 34 of 108

Voicemail and file-sharing On July 28, 2006, Google added voicemail and file sending capabilities to the Google Talk client. Voicemail messages can be 10 minutes long, and they're delivered to the contact's mailbox as an attached MP3 file (11 kHz mono 24kbit/s). Recipients who use Gmail are offered better integration. Gmail recognizes that it is a voicemail message, and users can choose to stream the file using the integrated MP3-playing applet, or to download the MP3 file. Online Calling (VOIP) Google Inc. has also incorporated a VOIP calling feature (through gtalk2voip.com, gTalkPhone and Splinter.net etc.) which allows Google Talk users to call other Google Talk users while they're online. There is also a video chat feature. There are many rumors going around that this is to directly compete with Skype and will sooner or later allow outside calling Offline messaging On October 31, 2006, Google introduced offline messaging to Google Talk. This allows users to send messages to their contacts, even if they are not signed in. They will receive the messages when they next go online even if the user who has sent it is offline. Mobile device compatibility On June 30, 2006, Nokia released new software for their Nokia 770 Internet Tablet that included Google Talk as one of the compatible VoIP clients, due to the XMPP-based software. Another Google Talk-compatible device is Sony's mylo, released on September 15, 2006. A Google Talk client is also available for BlackBerry devices from the Blackberry site. However, given that Google Talk provides XMPP protocol, most mobile phones for which a suitable XMPP client exists could also offer Google Talk service, at least theoretically (depending on the handset, the user may encounter security warnings due to unsigned J2ME midlets or limits put in place by the mobile service provider). Mobile clients specially designed for Google Talk exist as well. Most phones support the IMPS protocol, and there are hybrid XMPP/IMPS networks (through Jabber transports, or specially designed hybrid servers), which can also contact Google Talk users. The Google Talk service itself is unusable from IMPS (that means, you cannot log with your Gmail account, but you can talk with your Gmail friends with your IMPS account from your mobile phone). Complaints During Google Talk's ongoing beta period, users have voiced concerns about the service. There has been some discussion on the Google Talk Help group concerning the fact that certain personal information is made publicly available without any method to control it. This allows anyone who has a Google Talk member on their buddy list to see when the user is and is not Page 35 of 108

active on their computer, for example, by observing the user's idle status as provided by the Google Talk client. Certain third-party software products have been developed to provide more control over the information made available. gAlwaysIdle, for example, allows users to be 'always idle' or 'never idle', thus preventing personal presence information from being fed to the Google Talk service. Alternative client software, such as Pidgin, Adium, and Trillian also permit more privacy controls than the official Google Talk client. As of October 5, 2008, the official client allows blocking a user (thus also suspending status notifications to that user) but nothing more granular is apparent. Labs edition Google has released a new version of Google Talk called Google Talk, Labs edition. It still currently lacks many features of Google Talk's 'stable' releases. The features it lacks include File Sharing and Voice Chat. It features rounded alerts for new email. It can have multiple tabs with group chat, private chat and the regular screen open at once. It is available for free download here: http://www.google.com/talk/labsedition/. Flash Player will be required to install, and upon first launch, a new flash-plugin will need to be downloaded. This edition is not meant for general use, hence why it is a labs edition.

Google Talk in COMPETITION Why should?  Light weight IM  You can preview your unread mails through a pop up window. (not in yahoo)  Can integrate with online applications. Why shouldn’t? X Limited file sharing. X Less privacy controls

My verdict on Google Talk Use only if you are chat addict and don’t want to open your mailbox for a long time. Though Google made the initiative to embed IM with their online application. I haven’t used GTalk for a long time. I use to chat with my friend while I am checking with my friends. But many Orkut fans can attract to use it because Gtalk is not embedded to it.

My Rating to Google Talk: 3/5 Page 36 of 108

Google earth Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographic information program that was originally called Earth Viewer, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe. It is available under three different licenses: Google Earth, a free version with limited functionality; Google Earth Plus (discontinued), which included additional features; and Google Earth Pro ($400 per year), which is intended for commercial use. The product, re-released as Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computers running Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, Linux (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD. Google Earth is also available as a browser plugin (released on June 2, 2008) for Firefox, Safari 3, IE6 and IE7. It was also made available on the iPhone OS on October 27, 2008, as a free download from the App Store. In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web based mapping software. The release of Google Earth in June 2005 to the public caused a more than tenfold increase in media coverage on virtual globes between 2005 and 2006 Google Earth displays satellite images of varying resolution of the Earth's surface, allowing users to visually see things like cities and houses looking perpendicularly down or at an oblique angle, with perspective (see also bird's eye view). The degree of resolution available is based somewhat on the points of interest and popularity, but most land (except for some islands) is covered in at least 15 meters of resolution. Melbourne, Victoria, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Cambridge, Cambridgeshire include examples of the highest resolution, at 15 cm (6 inches). Google Earth allows users to search for addresses for some countries, enter coordinates, or simply use the mouse to browse to a location. For large parts of the surface of the Earth only 2D images are available, from almost vertical photography. Viewing this from an oblique angle, there is perspective in the sense that objects which are horizontally far away are seen smaller, but of course it is like viewing a large photograph, not quite like a 3D view. For other parts of the surface of the Earth 3D images of terrain and buildings are available. Google Earth uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). This means one can view the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions, instead of 2D like other areas. Since November 2006, the 3D views of many mountains, including Mount Everest, have been improved by the use of supplementary DEM data to fill the gaps in SRTM coverage.

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Many people using the applications are adding their own data and making them available through various sources, such as the BBS or blogs mentioned in the link section below. Google Earth is able to show all kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service client. Google Earth supports managing three-dimensional Geospatial data through Keyhole Markup Language (KML). Google Earth has the capability to show 3D buildings and structures (such as bridges), which consist of users' submissions using SketchUp, a 3D modeling program. In prior versions of Google Earth (before Version 4), 3D buildings were limited to a few cities, and had poorer rendering with no textures. Many buildings and structures from around the world now have detailed 3D structures; including (but not limited to) those in the United States, Canada, Ireland, India, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Pakistan and the cities, Amsterdam and Alexandria. In August 2007, Hamburg became the first city entirely shown in 3D, including textures such as façades. The Irish town of Westport was added to Google Earth in 3D on January 16, 2008. The 'Westport3D' model was created by 3D imaging firm AM3TD using longdistance laser scanning technology and digital photography and is the first such model of an Irish town to be created. As it was developed initially to aid Local Government in carrying out their town planning functions it includes the highest resolution photo-realistic textures to be found anywhere in Google Earth. Three-dimensional renderings are available for certain buildings and structures around the world via Google's 3D Warehouse and other websites. Recently, Google added a feature that allows users to monitor traffic speeds at loops located every 200 yards in real-time. In version 4.3 released on April 15, 2008, Google Street View was fully integrated into the program allowing the program to provide an on the street level view in many locations. On January 17, 2009, the entirety of Google Earth's ocean floor imagery was updated to new images by SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, and GEBCO. The new images have caused smaller islands, such as some atolls in the Maldives, to be rendered invisible despite their shores being completely outlined.

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Flight simulator

Downtown Toronto, as seen from a F16 Fighting Falcon during a simulated flight.

Since Google Earth v4.2, a flight simulator has been included as a hidden feature. Depending on the system, it can be accessed by pressing Control+Alt+A, Control+A, or Command+Option+A. After this feature has been activated at least once it appears under the tools menu. Since v4.3 the option is no longer hidden by default. Currently the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Cirrus SR-22 are the only aircraft that can be used, in addition to a few airports t is also possible to control the simulator with a mouse or joystick, although not all models are currently supported. The Google Earth flight simulator features the ability to fly to any supported locations of the world. The pilot can choose any location to start a flight or attempt to land a flight in the world. Fly time is not much accelerated, as it takes the F-16 at highest speed at least 60 minutes to fly from coast-to-coast in the US. Aircraft can land on any level surface in the world (including the ocean) as long as the aircraft is below 250 MPH when touching ground. Featured planes  F-16 Fighting Falcon - A much higher speed and maximum altitude than the Cirrus SR-22, it has the ability to fly at speeds of almost 1,100 MPH near ground level. 

SR-22 - Although slower and with a lower maximum altitude, the SR-22 is much easier to handle and is preferred for beginners. On April 15, 2008 with version 4.3, Google fully integrated its Street View into Google

Earth.

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Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007 for Google Maps, only five cities were included. It has since expanded to more than 40 U.S. cities, and includes the suburbs of many, and in some cases, other nearby cities. A recent update has now implemented Street View in most of the major cities of Australia and New Zealand as well as parts of Japan, Spain, France, and Italy. Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated by using the mouse to click on photograph icons displayed on the screen in your direction of travel. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles. Google Ocean Introduced in version 5.0 (February 2009), the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D bathymetry beneath the waves. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers. Technical Specifications Detailed release notes/history/changelog are made available by Google. Coordinate System and Projection The internal coordinate system of Google Earth is geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude) on the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS84) datum. Google Earth shows the earth as it looks from an elevated platform such as an airplane or orbiting satellite. The projection used to achieve this effect is called the General Perspective. This is similar to the Orthographic projection, except that the point of perspective is a finite (near earth) distance rather than an infinite (deep space) distance.[21] Baseline resolutions U.S.: 15 m (some states are completely in 1 m or better) Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City: 1 m or better

U.K.,

Andorra,

Luxembourg,

Czech Republic 0.2 m (Prague 0.1 m) Slovakia, Hungary: 2.5 m (medium resolution) Global: Generally 15 m (some areas, such as Antarctica, are in extremely low resolution), but this depends on the quality of the satellite/aerial photograph uploaded. Page 40 of 108

Typical high resolutions U.S.: 1 m, 0.6 m, 0.3 m, 0.15 m (extremely rare; e.g. Cambridge and Google Campus, or Glendale) Europe: 0.3 m, 0.15 m (e.g. Berlin, Zürich, Hamburg), 0.1 m Prague Altitude resolution: Surface: varies by country Seabed: Not applicable (a colorscale approximating sea floor depth is "printed" on the spherical surface). Age: Images dates vary. The image data can be seen from squares made when DigitalGlobe Coverage is enabled. The date next to the copyright information is not the correct image date. Zooming in or out could change the date of the pictures. Most of the international urban image dates are from 2004 and have not been updated. However, most US images are kept current. Google announces imagery updates on their LatLong Blog in form of a quiz, with hints of the updated locations. The answers are posted some days later in the same blog. Google Earth is unlikely to operate on older hardware configurations. The most recent downloads available document these minimum configurations: Pentium 3, 500 MHz 128 MB RAM 12.7 MB free disk space (400 MB for Linux) Network speed: 128 kbit/s 16MB 3D-capable graphics card Resolution of 1024x768, 16-bit High Color Windows XP or Windows 2000, Windows Vista(not Windows Me compatible), Linux and Mac OS X The most likely mode of failure is insufficient video RAM: the software is designed to warn the user if their graphics card is not able to support Earth (this often occurs due to insufficient Video RAM or buggy graphics card drivers). The next most likely mode of failure is Internet access speed. Except for the very patient, broadband Internet (Cable, DSL, T1, etc.) is required.

Resolution and accuracy

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The Isles of Sicily, showing the very low resolution of some islands. The islands (green area) are about 10 km across. 49°56′10.81″N 6°19′22.88″W

The west side of Gibraltar, tilted view showing the sea rising up the Rock of Gibraltar - claimed altitude of the sea just off the beach at Elliot’s Memorial, 252 m. This is now fixed. 36°6′59.6″N 5°21′5.2″W

Controversy/Criticism The software has been criticized by a number of special interest groups, including national officials, as being an invasion of privacy and even posing a threat to national security. The typical argument is that the software provides information about military or other critical installations that could be used by terrorists. The following is a selection of such concerns: Former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam has expressed concern over the availability of high-resolution pictures of sensitive locations in India. Google subsequently agreed to censor such sites The Indian Space Research Organization has said Google Earth poses a security threat to India, and seeks dialogue with Google officials. The South Korean government has expressed concern that the software offers images of the presidential palace and various military installations that could possibly be used by their hostile neighbor North Korea. In 2006, one user spotted a large topographical replica in a remote region of China. The model is a small-scale (1/500) version of the Karakoram Mountain Range, currently under the control of China but claimed by India. When later confirmed as a replica of this region, spectators began entertaining military implications. Most land areas are covered in satellite imagery with a resolution of at least about 15 m per pixel. This base imagery is 30m multispectral Landsat which is pansharppened Page 42 of 108

with the 15m [panchromatic] Landsat imagery. However, Google is actively replacing this base imagery with 2.5m SPOTImage imagery and several higher resolution datasets mentioned below. Some population centers are also covered by aircraft imagery (orthophotography) with several pixels per meter. Oceans are covered at a much lower resolution, as are a number of islands; notably, the Isles of Scilly off southwest England, are at a resolution of about 500 m or less. These pictures are provided by Terrametrics. Google has resolved many inaccuracies in the vector mapping since the original public release of the software, without requiring an update to the program itself. An example of this was the absence from Google Earth's map boundaries of the Nunavut territory in Canada, a territory that had been created on April 1, 1999; this mistake was corrected by one of the data updates in early 2006. Recent updates have also increased the coverage of detailed aerial photography, particularly in certain areas of western and central Europe. The images are not all taken at the same time, but are generally current to within three years. Image sets are sometimes not correctly stitched together. Updates to the photographic database can occasionally be noticed when drastic changes take place in the appearance of the landscape, for example Google Earth's incomplete updates of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, or when place marks appear to shift unexpectedly across the Earth's surface. Though the place marks have not in fact moved, the imagery is composed and stitched differently. Such an update to London's photography in early 2006 created shifts of 1520 meters in many areas, noticeable because the resolution is so high. Place name and road detail vary greatly from place to place. They are most accurate in North America and Europe, but regular mapping updates are improving coverage elsewhere. Errors sometimes occur due to the technology used to measure the height of terrain; for example, tall buildings in Adelaide cause one part of the city to be rendered as a small mountain, when it is in fact flat. The height of the Eiffel Tower creates a similar effect in the rendering of Paris. Also, prior to the release of version 5.0 in February 2009, elevations below sea level were presented as sea level, for example: Salton City, California; Death Valley; and the Dead Sea were all listed as 0 m when Salton City is −38 m; Death Valley is −86 m; and the Dead Sea is −420 m. Where no 3 arc second digital elevation data was available, the three dimensional images covering some areas of high relief are not at all accurate, but most mountain areas are now well mapped. The underlying digital elevation model has been placed 3 arc seconds too far north and up to 3 arc seconds too far west. This means that some steep mountain ridges incorrectly appear to have shadows extending over onto their south facing sides. Some high Page 43 of 108

resolution images have also been misplaced; an example is the image covering Annapurna, which is misplaced by about 12 arc seconds. Elevation data was recently updated to 10-meter (1/3-arc-second) resolution for much of the United States from the previous 30-meter (1-arcsecond) resolution. The "Measure" function shows that the length of equator is about 40,030.24 km, giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,075.02 km Earth; for the meridional circumference, it shows a length of about 39,963.13 km, also giving an error of −0.112% compared with the actual value of 40,007.86 km. On December 16, 2007, most of Antarctica was updated to a 15 m resolution using imagery from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Australia; (1m resolution images of some parts of Antarctica were added in June 2007); however, the Arctic polar ice cap is completely absent from the current version of Google Earth, as are waves in the oceans. The geographic North Pole is found hovering over the Arctic Ocean and the tiling system produces artifacts near the poles as the tiles become 'infinitely' small and rounding errors accumulate. Cloud cover and shadows can make it difficult or impossible to see details in some land areas, including the shadow side of mountains.

Google Earth In competition Google earth has no competitors but ISRO announced to develop its own Mapping application called “Bhuvan” or “Bhu-sampada”. It’s still in development phase. So no verdict now. But as both dial-up and broadband user I recommend to use Google earth to use only on broadband.

My Rating on Google earth: 3/5

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Google packs Google Pack is a software package that allows users to discover, install, and maintain a number of application programs. It was announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, on January 6. Google Pack is currently only available for Windows XP and Vista. Users can choose which of the following software applications to install. If the application is already installed, Google Updater checks to see if the user has the latest version and upgrades it, if necessary. The software applications available vary based on which language and locale is selected, and operating system. The U.S. Windows XP version of Google Pack offers all of the current applications listed below.

Google-branded Google Desktop Picasa, a photograph organizer and editor Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer Google Photos Screensaver, which displays pictures from the user's computers Google Earth, an electronic globe Google Talk, an instant messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) application Google Video Player, a multi-media player, now withdrawn Google Chrome, a free web browser developed by Google

Third-party Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar Spyware Doctor Starter Edition Norton Security Scan Adobe Reader 8, a document viewer RealPlayer, a multi-media player GalleryPlayer Skype, a VoIP application On March 27, 2007, Google added two new applications to the Google Pack: Spyware Doctor Starter Edition and Norton Security Scan. These programs are free and do not require subscription, unlike Norton AntiVirus. However, Norton Security Scan does not offer continuous protection against viruses. Norton Security Scan scans the computer and identifies if there are

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existing viruses, worms, spyware, unwanted adware or Trojans residing on it. The program's functionality is similar to Microsoft's Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. Google says that they have no monetary agreement with the makers of the above software, and that they offer the applications for the ease of Google's customers, and do not receive payment, although Miguel Helft in his New York Times blog reported that an unidentified source stated that Google may pay Sun for each copy of StarOffice. As of November 2008, StarOffice is no longer part of Google Pack. Google has included the VoIP application Skype in the pack, even though it is a competitor of Google's own Google Talk. Some industry observers claimed that the release was little more than a collection of software "that Google's wrapped a rubber band around". Google Pack comes with Google Updater as a package management system to assist in downloading, installing, removing and automatically updating the Pack's applications. Updater can be uninstalled without removing the applications. Google Updater may not reflect the most recent versions of all Google Pack programs. For example, as of January 2008, StarOffice 8 Update 9 was not provided through Google Updater, which displays no indication that previous versions are out of date. Sun Microsystems released Update 9, which includes six security related fixes, on December 10, 2007.

My Verdict to Google pack Google really prove that they are making their motto “don’t be evil” true here by including Skype because Skype is one of the leaders in VoIP softwares and are definitely ahead of Gtalk. Apart from this all the softwares here are really useful ones for beginners. Though some are propriety but many are freebies. And for this it deserves hats off.

My Rating to Google Packs: 5/5

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From Desktop to Web Igoogle iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage and Google IG), a service of Google, is a customizable AJAX-based start page or personal web portal much like Netvibes, Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, MySurfPad and Windows Live Personalized Experience. It was originally launched in May 2005. Its features include the capability to add web feeds and Google Gadgets (similar to those available on Google Desktop). It was renamed and expanded on April 30, 2007, and is currently available in many localized versions of Globe, in 42 languages, and in over 70 country domain names, as of October 17, 2007.

Gadgets IGoogle gadgets interact with the user and utilize the Google Gadgets API. Some gadgets developed for Google Desktop can also be used within iGoogle. The Google Gadgets API is public and allows anyone to develop a gadget for any need. Google also allows all users to create a special gadget that does not require the use of the Gadgets API. The gadgets are designed to be shared with friends and family. The special gadgets must be created using an online wizard and must be of one of the following types: "Framed Photo" - displays a series of photos, "GoogleGram" - creation of special daily messages, "Daily Me" - displays user's current mood and feelings, "Free Form" - allows the user to input text and an image of their choice, "YouTube Channel" - displays videos from a YouTube channel, "Personal List" - allows the user to create a list of items, "Countdown" - countdown timer "1Club.FM Free Internet Radio Player" - allows users to play over 80 free internet radio channels

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Themes

My own IGoogle home page with "007" Theme. and gadgets like google tip of the day, Nat Geo pictures, News, Quotes and Gmail.

With iGoogle, users can select unique themes for their Google homepages. Some of the themes are animated depending on weather conditions, the time in your area (you provide your location when selecting a theme), and so on. There are also Easter eggs for the themes— for example, in the "Sweet Dreams" theme; a Pi sign made of stars appears at 3:14 a.m. In the "Beach" theme, the Loch Ness Monster appears at 3:14 a.m. These last for only one minute. Other features include skies that lighten or darken throughout the day and the ability to include colorchanging lady bugs, butterflies, or bubbles that float across the screen. There are many other Easter eggs, which can be found here or by following the instructions here:

Artist themes Starting in April 2008, Google began offering a choice of themes by professional artists. Page 48 of 108

Experimental iGoogle On July 8, 2008, Google announced the beginning of a testing period for a new version of iGoogle which alters some features, including replacing the tabs with left navigation, adding chat functionality, and a canvas-view gadget for RSS. Users were selected for this test and notified when they logged in by a link to a brief description and further links to forums. On the forums, it was explained that there was no opt-out, as a Control for the test. Further, there was no information on how long the test would continue. Unfortunately, many were unhappy with the new version and the inability to opt-out. On October 16, 2008, Google announced the release of this new version of iGoogle and retired its older format. The release did not initially include the persistent chat widget. It does include the left navigation in place of tabs as well as a change to widget controls, however. The stated purpose is to prepare for OpenSocial, with the new canvas view stated as playing an important role in that. But this idea was dropped because it was not widely accepted by users.

Igoogle in Competition Why should?    

Good artist themes. Good gadgets. All Google services except YouTube and Orkut are easy to access even in dial-ups. Themes are changing according to local times. (My 007 theme’s screenshot was taken at an evening.)  Enabling tabs.

Why shouldn’t? X Google’s new approach of sidebar. X Lacks the technology of yahoo’s glue search.

My Verdict on Igoogle. It is great easy to customize and use. I’ve find only one problem. I can’t move a gadget from one tab to other page. More it doesn’t have the Glue search technology used by yahoo (though yahoo not using it fully). But glue search is not part of yahoo’s iGoogle counterpart my yahoo. Google is far better than any other personalized page services.

My Rating to iGoogle: 4.5/5

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Google gadgets This word is not new to you because you have read it twice here first in Google desktops section and then in iGoogle section. You may wonder what the gadget is. Here is the closer look to gadgets. These are very small applications that integrate with the Google homepage, Google Desktop, or any page on the Web to enhance the user experience. Google Gadgets come in two variants: universal gadgets and desktop gadgets. The variants serve different purposes. While universal gadgets can be used on Web pages, desktop gadgets can be used within Google Desktop. These make integration with various other Google applications much easier, and can be customized to react to user defined actions. Google Gadgets are interactive mini applications available in the Sidebar. These applications are created by both Google as well as independent developers, and can be related to anything and everything! From a globe, to a clock, to Google calendar, to games, and so many other applications that the uses are only limited by the developer’s imagination. Gadgets also need not be restricted to being rectangular in shape or of a size that will fit within the boundaries of the sidebar. In fact, gadgets can be “undocked from the sidebar and allowed to ‘float’ on your desktop.” There is a huge directory of gadgets that can be added to GD.

Here is the way to add gadgets

To add a Gadget, click on the “Add+” button which appears when the mouse hovers over the Sidebar.

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Here is the result after clicking + button

Gadgets as the developers view Before a month I’ve read a blog post of a gadget developer whom I follow. In this blog the author described Google gadgets as the launch pad for the developers who intend to develop in JavaScript. The Google gadgets are easy to develop. Both online and offline. Easy to test and deploy on not only Google products but also in your personal pages. Though I have only limited experience in developing gadgets online but I’ve now my hands-on to Google’s GD SDK for desktop. I no wonder the gadgets made here can be deployed on your page as Google’s universal gadgets with some reasonable efforts.

Want to develop a gadget? Take a look here Google’s own guideline to develop a gadget. Here are a few rules of thumb for creating a good gadget. We've learned these from watching many gadgets come through the pipeline and seeing what kind of adoption they gain from users:

Rule 1: Use a standard height. Gadgets have a uniform width but a variable height. Sometimes gadget creators with a lot of content make liberal use of the unlimited vertical real-estate to create a gadget that is much taller than it is wide. These gadgets don't perform well with users because they often create a feeling of inconsistency with the rest of the page. They also limit the amount of abovethe-fold screen real-estate that the user can reserve for other things.

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Some users are so tidy that they line up their gadgets of the same vertical height in a row. These users will never adopt a gadget of non-standard height. See detailed section on style for exact pixel suggestions.

If you have a lot of content you want to fit into a gadget, the best thing is to limit the vertical real estate and break the gadget into tabs.

This gadget uses the tabs library.

Rule 2: Be engaging. Distinguish yourself from feeds. A feed is a great way to syndicate content, but the downside of feeds is that they're uniform and unidirectional. Gadgets provide more flexibility and so they make it easier for you to make your content stand out. When creating a gadget, it's important to try to present content in a unique and interesting way. For example, if you are creating a gadget that announces the winners of the Emmy awards, you could create a quiz or a poll for the user leading up the awards, and then, after the awards are announced, notify the user about whether he or she was correct. Gadget users love participating with their content rather than simply digesting it.

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Developed by People.com, In-style and EW.com. Note : This is a mock-up and does not necessarily reflect the outcome of the 2006 Emmy Awards

Rule 3: Keep your content fresh. Update it at least once a day. Some of the best-performing feeds and gadgets on the homepage have titles that end in "of the day": "Word of the day," "Quote of the day," and "Beer of the day," for example. All of these perform well and have lots of users. If you keep your content fresh, users will be much more likely to keep your gadget on their page. Gadgets that update in real-time (i.e. every time a user refreshes their page) are becoming more and more popular.

This gadget from tarot.com gives a daily update of horoscope.

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Rule 4: Be fun. Style counts. It has become really clear to us that users care about fun. Our best performing feeds when we launched iGoogle were "Word of the day" and "Quote of the day." More recently, the feeds "How-to of the day" and "Oddly enough" were so popular that we placed them on the default homepage for new users. Our best-performing gadget right now is the "Date & Time" gadget, which renders a little JavaScript clock that the user can customize into different colors. People love the colors. They also love the attractiveness of the gadget. Style counts.

Rule 5: Be a good citizen. When you create a gadget, you're entering into a contract with the user. While you're free to do anything with your own gadget, it's generally a good idea to keep the user experience consistent. Don't replace the gadget with a different gadget, suddenly start showing a banner ad, or "trick" the user into clicking through to your site. The content within the gadget is directly associated with your brand and you'll want that branding experience to be positively reinforced. Page 54 of 108

Remember that you are a part of the user's whole page and your gadget is going to sit next to other gadgets and feeds. When adding a large logo or a background color to your gadget, think not just about the gadget itself but about how the gadget will look in the context of the entire page. (See below for tips on gadget UI Design and Style.)

Rule 6: Avoid asking for personal information. Many users will delete gadgets that ask for personal information, especially if the gadget is unfamiliar to them. However, in the rare cases where you must do it, here are a few points to consider: 1. Make the gadget work with or without personal information being entered in by the user. 2. Make it clear what the benefits are when personal information is provided. 3. Build trust in your users by branding your gadget to make it look more reputable and by clearly indicating the company and possibly what the intentions are.

Rule 7: Conserve real-estate. Vertical space on the homepage is limited, and your gadget must share it with a number of other gadgets. Nobody likes it when a single gadget hogs unnecessary space on the homepage. Conserve whitespace wherever possible by decreasing font sizes, paddings, and margins. If the height of your gadget changes due to dynamic content, use our dynamic height library to resize your gadget appropriately. Creating gadgets that require login They’re tricky to build, but if you manage to do it, don’t assume the user has an account. Make sure the gadget shows interesting content even when the user isn’t logged in. Displaying a simple login form to the user is hardly interesting and most users won’t go through the trouble of setting up an account just to see the gadget in action. Instead, add some content and functionality to the gadget to entice logged-out users to keep your gadget. Also, be sure to provide a link that redirects users to create an account if they don’t have one. A good example to look at is the Google Calendar gadget. A basic calendar is displayed even when the user isn’t logged in. It also provides a link that allows users to setup a calendar account.

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How are gadgets discovered, ranked and promoted? Gadgets are available for webpage owners to add to their own WebPages or for users to add to their Google homepage or to Google Desktop. Webpage owners can find gadgets in our directory of Gadgets For Your Page, Google users can find gadgets to add to Google in our directory of Gadgets for iGoogle or in our directory of Gadgets for Google Desktop, and anyone can discover new gadgets they like on pages across the web. Gadget directories: http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open http://www.google.com/ig/directory http://desktop.google.com/plugins/

Since the gadget ranking in our directories depends largely on the number of users for your gadget, and since the number of webpage owners who use your gadget directly influences the number of people who see your gadget, it's in your best interest to make your gadget as useful and interesting as possible so that lots of people will use it. Here are some things you can do to improve the adoption of your gadget: 

Create an attractive thumbnail. When you submit your gadget, you will submit a thumbnail to be shown in the directory. This is the user's first impression of the module. Note: If you don't submit a thumbnail or a screenshot along with your gadget, your gadget is automatically demoted. These images are important.



Use a descriptive title. It's best to use a short title that effectively communicates what the gadget does – for example, "Baseball scores," "World Cup," "Horoscopes," "Todo list," "Bible verse of the day."



Submit your gadget to be included in our third-party directories. Google Modules is one example of such a directory.



Promote your gadget on your own site. We provide an easy-to-use Add to Google button that will subscribe users to your gadget. You can use the button we provide or design your own. Encouraging your active users to subscribe to your content is a good way to keep them coming back to your site. Here's what the button looks like: http://www.google.com/webmasters/add.html

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After guidelines here are the specifications Width and different sized screens Screens can vary a lot in width, from 800x600 to 1400x1050 and up. Therefore it's important that your gadget scale from (at least) 250px to 500px. You can test various widths using Firefox, with the Web Developer extension (http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/, Resize menu). 

UI gadgets like input boxes and tables should not be fixed width. They should be width=100% so that they look good in different resolutions and window sizes.



Centering elements often looks better on higher resolutions so there isn't excessive whitespace on the right.



Using tables safely keeps things all on one line while allowing elements to resize when the browser resizes.

Images Images are slow to load but may convey more information than text. Consider carefully whether they are really needed. 

Images may convey more information than text and reduce screen space.



Set the width and height attributes of an image ahead of time so the gadget does not "pop" when an image is done loading.



An "icon" on the left of a welcome mode of a gadget points out to the user that they must enter information into the gadget.

Look and Feel Fonts 

If you're designing your gadget for iGoogle, use Arial font and a font size to match the iGoogle page.



#008000 for green links to things like news sources, unimportant/deemphasized links, default link colors for anything else.

#7777cc

for

Other Page 57 of 108



On Google, links go places and buttons do things.



Use a standard amount of white space between buttons and input boxes.



Avoid intrusive ads and use the gadget title URL link to your page instead.

Presenting Information Many times there’s more information than there is space within a gadget that you want to display. There are typically two different UI models to achieve this. The first is to simply open up a new window that takes the user to a different page. The second is to dynamically generate and display the information within the gadget itself. Both have their pros and cons. What is the right answer? Surprisingly, the answer is both. We’ve observed that both UI models actually perform fairly well. For example, the Wikipedia gadget is very highly ranked in the content directory. It’s a basic search gadget where users enter in any search query, click ‘Search’, and a new window opens up with the results. On the other hand, Google is also a toprated gadget. Instead of popping up a new window, it displays all the information directly within the gadget. Try experimenting with both and you’ll soon figure out which model makes the most sense for your gadgets.

Setting and Editing Preferences If your gadget requires preferences, use a "Welcome mode" and include sample values for them. Using an icon on the left side really helps.

This "welcome mode" gives the user a friendly way to set up the gadget for the first time.

Customizable user preferences (other than the first-time setup) should be put into the blue edit mode, not on the gadget itself. Also, consider having options to hide or show certain information in the gadget so user can see exactly what they want and minimize screen space. Page 58 of 108

Understanding the gadget There are many types of gadgets in Google’s gadget directory. All gadgets are freely downloadable and can be studied by extracting themselves and opening their .js files. Here I’ve explained the steps how to start studying the gadget? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Download the gadget you want to study. Select the gadget file having .gg extension Open it with WinZip or WinRar (recommended). Extract it to specific folder. Open the main.js files and other required files to study it.

Let’s check out some gadgets.

The gadgets The MS office quickstart gadget This gadget starts ms office by just one click this gadget is developed by @edit team. This gadget uses shortcut logic by the line var prg= new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application"); and then using prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue(controlname)); to use the shortcut. var prg= new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");//this line is to use shortcuts function view_onOpen() { //Here they defined the controls options.putDefaultValue('word_ut', ''); options.putDefaultValue('excel_ut', ''); options.putDefaultValue('access_ut', ''); options.putDefaultValue('power_ut', ''); options.putDefaultValue('outlook_ut', ''); }

function szinez(n) { switch(n) { case 1: excel.opacity=255; ido=setTimeOut("valtas(1)",250); break; case 2: word.opacity=255; ido=setTimeOut("valtas(2)",250); break; case 3: access.opacity=255; Page 59 of 108

ido=setTimeOut("valtas(3)",250); break; case 4: powerpoint.opacity=255; ido=setTimeOut("valtas(4)",250); break; case 5: outlook.opacity=255; ido=setTimeOut("valtas(5)",250); break; } } function valtas(n) { switch(n) { case 1: if (excel.opacity<75){ excel.opacity=255; } else{ excel.opacity-=50; } break; case 2: if (word.opacity<75){ word.opacity=255; } else{ word.opacity-=50; } break; case 3: if (access.opacity<75){ access.opacity=255; } else{ access.opacity-=50; } break; case 4: if (powerpoint.opacity<75){ powerpoint.opacity=255; } else{ powerpoint.opacity-=50; } break; case 5: if (outlook.opacity<75){ outlook.opacity=255; Page 60 of 108

} else{ outlook.opacity-=50; } break; } } function allit() { clearTimeOut(ido); excel.opacity=200; word.opacity=200; powerpoint.opacity=200; access.opacity=200; outlook.opacity=200; } function indit_excel() { if (options.getValue('excel_ut').length!=''){ prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue('excel_ut')); } else { alert("Configure Excel path. Right click on the icon!"); } } function set_excel() { var ut = framework.BrowseForFile('Exe files(*.exe)|*.exe|All Files(*.*)|*.*'); if (ut.length!=0){ options.putValue('excel_ut',ut); } } function set_word() { var ut = framework.BrowseForFile('Exe files(*.exe)|*.exe|All Files(*.*)|*.*'); if (ut.length!=0){ options.putValue('word_ut',ut); } } function set_access() { var ut = framework.BrowseForFile('Exe files(*.exe)|*.exe|All Files(*.*)|*.*'); if (ut.length!=0){ options.putValue('access_ut',ut); } } function set_power() { var ut = framework.BrowseForFile('Exe files(*.exe)|*.exe|All Files(*.*)|*.*'); if (ut.length!=0){ options.putValue('power_ut',ut); Page 61 of 108

} } function set_outlook() { var ut = framework.BrowseForFile('Exe files(*.exe)|*.exe|All Files(*.*)|*.*'); if (ut.length!=0){ options.putValue('outlook_ut',ut); } } function indit_word() { if (options.getValue('word_ut').length!=''){ prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue('word_ut')); } else { alert("Configure Word path. Right click on the icon!"); } } function indit_access() { if (options.getValue('access_ut').length!=''){ prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue('access_ut')); } else { alert("Configure Access path. Right click on the icon!"); } } function indit_power() { if (options.getValue('power_ut').length!=''){ prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue('power_ut')); } else { alert("Configure PowerPoint path. Right click on the icon!"); } } function indit_outlook() { if (options.getValue('outlook_ut').length!=''){ prg.ShellExecute(options.getValue('outlook_ut'));//this line is to call shortcuts } else { alert("Configure Outlook path. Right click on the icon!"); } }

Page 62 of 108

The internet database application This type of gadgets are connected with internet requires login or access to database in their servers. This gadget is dictionary gadget. It returns the word’s meaning from edictionary.com. It uses the XMLhttprequest class to access the internet and the database on server. The key method is .open ("GET", URL, true); here GET is the get method of http, URL is the URL site and true is for allowing access to database or not. Here is the code. var DURL = "http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/"; // this is the URL to be accessed var TURL = "http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/"; var logoRequest_ = null; var RENDEREDHTML = "

FAILED

"; function view_onOpen() { //onShowDictionary(); } function OnKeyDown() { if(event.keyCode == 13) { OnClickDictionary(); } } function onShowDetails() { var htmlDetailsView = new DetailsView(); htmlDetailsView.html_content = true; htmlDetailsView.setContent( "", undefined, RENDEREDHTML, false, 0); pluginHelper.showDetailsView(htmlDetailsView, "Results for : " + txtWord.value, gddDetailsViewFlagToolbarOpen, onDetailsViewFeedback); } function onDetailsViewFeedback(detailsViewFlags) { if (detailsViewFlags == gddDetailsViewFlagNone) { // User closed the details view } else if (detailsViewFlags == gddDetailsViewFlagToolbarOpen) { // User clicked on the title of the details view Page 63 of 108

} } function onLogoData() { if (logoRequest_.readyState != 4) return; if (logoRequest_.status != 200) { RENDEREDHTML = "

FAILED

"; logoRequest_ = null; return; } try { RENDEREDHTML = logoRequest_.responseText.toLowerCase(); var PosEnd = -1; var Found = false; var Pos = RENDEREDHTML.indexOf("http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif"); if(Pos != -1) { RENDEREDHTML = RENDEREDHTML.substr(Pos); Pos = RENDEREDHTML.indexOf("1."); if(Pos != -1) { RENDEREDHTML = RENDEREDHTML.substr(Pos); Pos = RENDEREDHTML.indexOf("

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