History deserves the best

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jon Steinback, Product Marketing Manager, Google Video</span><br /><br />In junior high, I learned about most of history's greatest moments through the least engaging media possible: the yellowed pages of outdated textbooks or the unfocused projections of film strips on my classroom walls. For many momentous events, words and pictures don't transmit the full sense of what has transpired. To see for one's self, through video and audio, brings an event to life. Over 70 years ago, the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/index.html">National Archives</a> was founded with the express purpose of preserving these moments in their full glory, serving America by documenting our government and our nation. This includes truly momentous events like the moon landing, as well as rare historical footage like government documentaries from the 1930s and battlefield stories from World War II.<br /><br />Today we're very pleased to tell you that we're helping the National Archives take one step closer to realizing its vision. Together, we're launching a <a href="http://video.google.com/nara.html">pilot program</a> to digitize their video content and offer it to everyone in the world for free. I think both students and teachers can agree that any of these would make for an exciting day in the classroom:<br /><br /> - <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7858136741307709517&q=39009">Allied patrols in action on Anzio beach</a><br /> - <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4397733351669298563&q=11674">Reclamation and the Arid West</a><br /> - <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4166049933953240830&q=45017">The Eagle Has Landed 1969</a><br /><br />It's so refreshing to see history conveyed with more clarity than a filmstrip can offer.

History deserves the best

Posted by Jon Steinback, Product Marketing Manager, Google Video In junior high, I learned about most of history's greatest moments thro...

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Mac Widget time

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jonathan Berger, Mac Applications team</span><br /><br />Q. Which fruit was not an iMac color: Blueberry, Lime, Strawberry, Orange, Grape?<br /><br />Q. Which phrase is not originally from Steve: "insanely great," "There's one more thing," or "Great artists steal"?<br /><br />Q. Where did the famous 1984 commercial air?<br /><br />--------------------------------------------<br /><br />A. The orange iMac was called "tangerine."<br /><br />A. Although Steve has been known to use "Good artists create. Great artists steal," that second sentence originated with Pablo Picasso.<br /><br />A. Half-credit if you named Super Bowl XVIII on January 24, 1984. The commercial also aired in Twin Falls, Idaho to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.<br /><br /><br />If you correctly answered these questions, chances are good you want to know about three <a href="http://www.google.com/macwidgets/">Mac Dashboard Widgets</a> that Google has created for OS X Tiger. The Blogger Widget enables quick and easy posting to your blog. Checking your Gmail inbox becomes a matter of pressing F12 with the Gmail Widget. And the Search History Widget allows you find that website you saw last week while searching Google. We'd also like to acknowledge the many great Google widgets people have already created, available on the <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/">Apple downloads page</a>.<br /><br />These widgets, which sprang from the brains of some engineers in their 20% time, are a small step towards bringing our software to a variety of platforms. Want to play? Check out our <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/search.py?prior=Macintosh+eveloper&query=Macintosh+developer">job listings</a> and come build more Mac stuff with us.

Mac Widget time

Posted by Jonathan Berger, Mac Applications team Q. Which fruit was not an iMac color: Blueberry, Lime, Strawberry, Orange, Grape? Q. Which ...

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Google, girls and engineering

<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/girls-774366.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/girls-771377.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" /></a><span class="byline-author">Posted by Emily Nishi, Diversity Program Manager</span><br /><div style="direction: ltr;"><br />Did you know that it's <a href="http://www.eweek.org/">National Engineers Week</a> in the U.S. -- and that February 23 is <a href="http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/girlsday.shtml">Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day</a>? The week-long celebration aims to raise public awareness of the many contributions engineers have made to our quality of life, and intrigue young students with the many wonders and possibilities in an engineer's work.<br /><br />Throughout this week, several Google offices, including New York, Kirkland and Mountain View, have been hosting a couple of hundred girls from local middle schools and high schools to come visit us for the day. The girls have the unique opportunity to shadow a Google engineer or two, go to interactive workshops, eat in our yummy cafes (the pizzas are a hit!) and get an insider's tour of the Google offices.<br /><br />We hope these girls get a real-life sense of what it's like to work here, and more important, that we've piqued their interests and ultimately help steer them toward future careers in math, science and engineering. Let's hear it for the girls!</div>

Google, girls and engineering

Posted by Emily Nishi, Diversity Program Manager Did you know that it's National Engineers Week in the U.S. -- and that February 23 is ...

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A query less ordinary

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Roger Skubowius, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />A lot of our work in the mobile space has been about delivering quick answers to everyday questions. Services like Google SMS, Personalized Home, and Local for mobile bring you movie times, phone numbers, the latest news headlines and directions from point A to point B.<br /><br />But what about those problems that are a little less everyday? What if, say, you're out somewhere and absolutely must know if that new Super Monkey Ball game for the Nintendo DS is in stores yet?<br /><br />If you search for [Super Monkey Ball DS release date] in an ordinary web browser on your PC, your first result is this complex, graphics-rich <a href="http://ds.ign.com/objects/770/770336.html">page</a>. Search that same phrase on Google with your mobile phone, though, and your top result is this lightweight, phone-friendly version of the <a href="http://www.google.com/gwt/n?q=Super+Monkey+Ball+DS+release+date&site=search&hl=en&lr=&mrestrict=xhtml&ct=res&cd=1&rd=1&u=ds.ign.com/objects/770/770336.html">same page</a>. That's because now whenever you click on a Google search result through your mobile web browser, Google automatically translates the page's layout to make it as easy as possible to read on a small screen. We also break long-winded web pages into smaller pieces and do our best to show you the portion that's relevant to your query, first.<br /><br />The whole idea is to get you the information you want as quickly as possible, so you can spend less time downloading and scrolling through long documents on a pocket-sized screen, and more time (what else?) playing Super Monkey Ball.

A query less ordinary

Posted by Roger Skubowius, Software Engineer A lot of our work in the mobile space has been about delivering quick answers to everyday quest...

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Google.org's new director

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales & Operations</span><br /><br />We are <a href="http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/brilliant.html">excited to announce</a> the appointment of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Brilliant">Larry Brilliant</a> as executive director of <a href="http://www.google.org">Google.org</a>. Google is extremely fortunate to have found in Dr. Brilliant the combination of experience in building and scaling successful programs and ventures in the fields of medicine, philanthropy and technology. His passion for making an impact by tackling some of the most difficult international health issues facing humanity is exactly what we hope he will bring to bear as he helps shape Google’s philanthropic mission and strategic goals.

Google.org's new director

Posted by Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales & Operations We are excited to announce the appointment of Larry Brilliant as execu...

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About Desktop for enterprise

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team</span><br /><br />You may have read about <a href="http://desktop.google.com">Google Desktop 3</a>. There are some misconceptions about how it works, particularly for enterprise users. To learn more, <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2006/02/search-across-enterprise-desktop.html">read this post</a> from our friends on the Enterprise team.

About Desktop for enterprise

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team You may have read about Google Desktop 3 . There are some misconceptions about how it works, partic...

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One for the books

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jen Grant, Product Marketing Manager, Google Book Search</span><br /><br /><blockquote>"At this time, the hogs of the region ran wild, as they do now in portions of the border states. Some of them were savage, and all, after the manner of swine, were difficult to manage...All the ordinary resources were exhausted in the attempts to get them on board. There was but one alternative, and this Abraham adopted. He actually carried them on board, one by one. His long arms and great strength enabled him to grasp them as in a vise, and to transfer them rapidly one by one from the shore to boat."</blockquote>It's the early 1800s, and the "Abraham" in question is Abraham Lincoln, whose superior hog-handling skills are described at length in J.B. McClure's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=LCCN01018732&amp;amp;amp;amp;id=y8VFx2ZnEkkC&num=10&dq=%22abraham+lincoln%22+date:1755-1922&lpg=PA3&pg=PA23&printsec=4" style="font-style: italic;">Anecdotes of Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln's Stories</a>, one of the many public domain books you can browse using Google Book Search.<br /><br />Why are we paging through presidential history? Today is Presidents Day -- or, to be more accurate, Washington's Birthday. What we now call Presidents Day was first celebrated on February 22, 1796, commemorating George Washington's birth in 1732. But according the calendar that was in use when Washington was born, his birthday was on the 11th, not the 22nd. When he was a young man of 20, Great Britain and her colonies <a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=LCCN04032329&id=0diTliHJn6gC&num=10&pg=PR32&lpg=PR32&dq=%22julian+calendar%22+date:1755-1922">adopted</a> the modern <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_Calendar">Gregorian calendar</a>, skipping 11 days and making January, not March, the first month of the year.<br /><br />That's right – over the course of Washington's life, the times quite literally changed. And to make things even more complicated, in 1968 Congress passed a law making the third Monday in February a holiday commemorating <a href="http://www.opm.gov/fedhol/2006.asp">Washington's Birthday</a>, regardless of the date. Since then, historically minded sorts have suggested it be called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_day">"Presidents Day"</a> to account for Lincoln's February 12 birthday too; today many people associate the third Monday in February with both Washington and Lincoln.<br /><br />What hasn't changed, of course, is our fascination with the presidency. So on this Presidents Day we dug up a few gems from the "West Wing" of the Google Books Library Project. Enjoy.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=LCCN08028430&id=HS8w0qdTUkAC&num=10&dq=%22george+washington%22+date:1755-1922&lpg=PA1908&pg=PT15&printsec=3">The Washington Yearbook</a></span> (Compiled by William Rice,1908)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=0g71yhiK6Sk_RoqeU_&id=-QkLsa7eMnoC&num=10&dq=%22thomas+jefferson%22+date:1755-1922&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26num%3D10%26q%3D%2522thomas%2Bjefferson%2522%2Bdate:1755-1922&lpg=PR3&pg=PR3&printsec=4">The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</a></span> (Edited by H.A. Washington, 1859)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=LCCN99002686&id=iWvI2vAqDocC&num=10&dq=%22Theodore+Roosevelt%22+date:1755-1922&pg=PP9&printsec=2&lpg=PP9">The Rough Riders</a></span> (Theodore Roosevelt, 1899)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=0dim45ErSSC-cmIR0J&id=9H_IwGZNKDIC&num=10&dq=%22Andrew+Jackson%22+date:1755-1922&lpg=PP9&pg=PR1&printsec=2">Biography of Andrew Jackson</a></span> (Phlio A. Goodwin, Esq., 1832)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=LCCN04002481&id=k2c2XroonwoC&num=10&dq=%22james+monroe%22+date:1755-1922&lpg=PR5&pg=PA1&printsec=4">The Writings of James Monroe</a></span> (Edited by Stanislaus Murray Hamilton, 1898)<br /><br /><i>Update: Due to copyright regulations in your jurisdiction, if you live outside of the U.S. you may not be able to see the <a href="http://books.google.com/googlebooks/screenshots.html#bookpage">Full Book View</a> for some of the titles above.</i>

One for the books

Posted by Jen Grant, Product Marketing Manager, Google Book Search "At this time, the hogs of the region ran wild, as they do now in po...

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