Finding that needle in a haystack

<span class="byline-author">Posted by John Fu, Toolbar team </span><br /><br />As someone who prides himself on being a reliable source of useless trivia, I tend to search for pretty obscure stuff. A lot of times, the pages I find have more text than I want to wade through. Using the Google Toolbar, though, it's pretty easy to see what I'm looking for. My search terms show up as clickable Word Find buttons in the Toolbar, so I can quickly find where they appear on the page (clicking on it repeatedly takes me to each instance). This came in handy when I needed to figure out <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=species%20jumping%20bean">what species</a> made a jumping bean hop around.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/Toolbar_wordfind-712659.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/Toolbar_wordfind-711132.JPG" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://toolbar.google.com/">Try it out yourself.</a>

Finding that needle in a haystack

Posted by John Fu, Toolbar team As someone who prides himself on being a reliable source of useless trivia, I tend to search for pretty obsc...

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Post-Katrina images of New Orleans on Google Maps

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Bret Taylor, Google Maps Product Manager</span><br /><br /><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&t=e">Satellite imagery of New Orleans</a> taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps">Google Maps</a>.<br /><br />Enter “New Orleans” in the search field at the top of the page, or drag and zoom the map to the area. A red "Katrina" button will appear at the top right of the map, next to the existing map buttons. Older images for the area are still available too - click the "Satellite" button to switch to those.<br /><br />API developers can also access this new imagery, which should aid the development of hurricane relief sites. Find more details at the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/4422d12464a914ff">Google Maps API discussion group</a>.

Post-Katrina images of New Orleans on Google Maps

Posted by Bret Taylor, Google Maps Product Manager Satellite imagery of New Orleans taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on Goo...

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Seeing what Katrina has wrought

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Bill Kilday, Google Earth team</span><br /><br />A natural disaster brings out the need for up-to-the-minute maps and images, and <a href="http://bbs.keyhole.com/entrance.php">Google Earth community</a> members have created more than 100 overlays in the last 24 hours that tell the story of Hurricane Katrina's effect. These overlays drape on top of existing satellite images, and NOAA has been <a href="http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/">posting these flyovers</a> so people can actually see the incredible devastation.<br /><br />If you don't already have Google Earth, <a href="http://kh.google.com/download/earth/index.html">download it</a> to see some of the overlays that illustrate the change from previous images to the way things are now. Click on <a href="http://earth.google.com/katrina.html">any of the overlays</a>, which will open the application.<br /><br />Here's an aerial "before" image of the Superdome area.<br /><br /><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/superdome_before-798168.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/superdome_before-793522.JPG" /></a><br /><br />When you're in Google Earth, use the slider function at the bottom of your Places on the lefthand side (shown in this screen grab) to move the image from the left (before) to the right (after). More viewing and navigating help is <a href="http://www.keyhole.com/GoogleEarthHelp/GoogleEarth.htm">here.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/GE_slider_arrow-799815.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/GE_slider_arrow-798746.JPG" /></a><br /><br />When you use the slider, much of what was light before is now dark -- with water.<br /><br /><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/superdome_after.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/superdome_after-th.jpg" /></a><br /><br />We hope you'll find all the images useful. Please note you'll need a good video graphics card to handle the graphics.<br /><br />UPDATED: Clarification on seeing the Google Earth images.

Seeing what Katrina has wrought

Posted by Bill Kilday, Google Earth team A natural disaster brings out the need for up-to-the-minute maps and images, and Google Earth commu...

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Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Greg Miller, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />I'm a Mac user. Most of my friends are Mac users. After a little coaxing, most of my family are now Mac users. So I decided to spend 20% of my time here on a small application that may help all of the Mac users in my life: a <a href="http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/index.html">Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X</a>.<br /><br />The app is small and nonintrusive, but hopefully still has all the features a Mac user would want. With it you can:<br /><br />- view messages without opening a browser<br />- open Gmail in your browser without forcing you to log in again<br />- make Gmail your default email program<br />- even more...<br /><br />Though this is the first, it won't be the last native Mac application that Google delivers. So please, Mac users, stay tuned!

Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X

Posted by Greg Miller, Software Engineer I'm a Mac user. Most of my friends are Mac users. After a little coaxing, most of my family are...

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Instant gratification - your way

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Peiling Yao, Google Mobile Team</span><br /><br />In the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory</span>, do you remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veruca_Salt">Veruca Salt</a>, the girl who kept screaming, "I want it NOW, daddy!" Well, that's pretty much how I feel about <a href="http://mobile.google.com/web_search.html">searching the web on my mobile phone</a>. It takes longer for pages to load, and it's not easy entering text in the first place - so I want the answer NOW, Google!<br /><br />For all you Verucas out there, we engineers have been working on <a href="http://mobile.google.com/web_search.html#advanced_xhtml">three new Google search features for mobile phones</a>. Starting today, if you type [movies] or [weather] and a location, or enter a stock ticker symbol, we'll show, predictably enough, movie showtimes, weather forecasts, or live stock quotes above the Google web search results that display on your phone.<br /><br />Talk about instant gratification - and the best part? No golden tickets required.

Instant gratification - your way

Posted by Peiling Yao, Google Mobile Team In the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory , do you remember Veruca Salt , the girl who ke...

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Powered by Google

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shaluinn Fullove for the "Powered" Team</span><br /><br />This past weekend 10 Googlers competed at <a href="http://www.hoodtocoast.com/htc/default.asp">Hood to Coast</a> - the largest relay race in the world - where more than 1,000 teams start at the top of <a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mthood/">Mt. Hood</a> (11,249 feet) and race 200 miles to the coast of Oregon. This was our rookie year, and our team, "Powered by Google," included Nathan Stoll, Bismarck Lepe, David King, Katie Hotchkiss, Sean Knapp, Michaela Prescott, Natalie Criou, Dan Brown, Tyrona Heath, and me.<br /><br />Armed with a flashlight and decked out in a reflective vest, Nathan started us off at 7:45 Friday night with a 6-mile run down the face of the mountain. The runners on deck hopped on Van #1 to cheer him on and meet him at the next exchange. The runners who weren't on call until the second stage headed to the nearest Best Western Pony Soldier Inn for some spaghetti and shut-eye.<br /><br />At the sixth leg exchange Sean passed the baton to Michaela and the race continued through the midnight hour while our starters headed back to the Pony Soldier for a 60-minute power nap. After refueling on Red Bull, coffee, power gels, and turkey sandwiches from a nearby gas station mini-mart, we caught up with Van #2 as the sun rose over Portland. From there, through the dusty back roads and increasing temperatures, we continued passing the baton in 4-8 mile intervals.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/PbyG_handoff-726486.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/PbyG_handoff-725240.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><br /><br />It all went smoothly until we met an 18-minute logistical error at exchange 24 (read: we lost Van #2) and then had a flat tire at exchange 29. But we rebounded with solid performances in the final legs, making up much lost ground. Finally, cloaked in a Google jersey, our anchor leg, Sean, crossed the finish line in 22 hours, 19 minutes, and 17 seconds.<br /><br />In the time it took us to reach the coast, we had each run an average of 20 miles at 6:48/mile. We captured a third place finish in the "corporate mixed" division, and a top 50 finish overall, out of 1,063 teams. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/PbyG_team-723100.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/PbyG_team-720589.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a><br /><br />Not bad for a bunch of first-timers. Just wait until next year: we won't be rookies anymore.

Powered by Google

Posted by Shaluinn Fullove for the "Powered" Team This past weekend 10 Googlers competed at Hood to Coast - the largest relay rac...

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Small is beautiful

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Alan Strohm, Google Mobile team</span><br /><br />Back in June, we introduced <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/">Google Sitemaps</a>, a beta program that lets webmasters inform Google quickly about new or updated web pages, and boost Google index coverage of their web pages.<br /><br />The thing is, working on the <a href="http://mobile.google.com/">Google Mobile</a> team, you learn that desktop computers and mobile phones aren't created equal. (For one, your desktop won't fit in your front pocket.) At first, the Google Sitemaps program didn't support web pages designed to fit the smaller screens of mobile phones.<br /><br />We've fixed that. Starting today, webmasters of sites of all sizes can submit their mobile website URLs to <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/mobile.html">Google Mobile Sitemaps</a>, an extension of the Google Sitemaps program. And just as cool, mobile phone users can search through these, and other mobile-friendly websites, using <a href="http://mobile.google.com/mobile_search.html">Google Search for the Mobile Web</a>. Here's to the little guy (or device, rather)!

Small is beautiful

Posted by Alan Strohm, Google Mobile team Back in June, we introduced Google Sitemaps , a beta program that lets webmasters inform Google qu...

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