healthy4u

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience, and Micheal Lopez, Web Designer You may have noticed that Google has a new favicon, the small icon you see in your browser next to the URL or in your bookmarks list. Some people have wondered why we changed our favicon -- after all, we hadn't in 8.5 years(!). The reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices. So the new favicon is one of those, but we've also developed a group of logo-based icons that all hang together as a unified set. Here's the full set: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-f4r7ujC8ZMszjECZ3oSW9OFP3Qr8o6cArjnSAnqyiRLqHGtt8jDYzHI97HoBAeTZjvAQUds5xO22O-DBxf-sGxn5c-byLc2xsF9VIcSl_Z3qhTBpGD226FSLuxMCrg8-zod-gjKR1LKE/s1600-h/favicon_family.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208917079739346658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-f4r7ujC8ZMszjECZ3oSW9OFP3Qr8o6cArjnSAnqyiRLqHGtt8jDYzHI97HoBAeTZjvAQUds5xO22O-DBxf-sGxn5c-byLc2xsF9VIcSl_Z3qhTBpGD226FSLuxMCrg8-zod-gjKR1LKE/s400/favicon_family.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> The design process we went through was rigorous and interesting, so we thought we would share more of it here. We tried in total more than 300 permutations. It was much harder than we thought at first. We wanted something distinctive and noticeable, so we aimed toward transparency or semi-transparency, so the image would have a more distinctive noticeable shape than just a block. We wanted something that embraced the colorfulness of the logo, yet wouldn't date itself. Since we don't really have a symbol that means Google, we felt it best to work with the logo and letters within it. Our design team tried literally hundreds of approaches. You can see some of our explorations here. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXnp3PaJqkPY5Z_gfxkBUtDxsQtnR5XlZNMUrim5OnWA769w3t-US3ot8N4pH4xBbQas7HGcQPEnCX2NrX_isTJ-j4aA4EWHf8mFJi6M6GrEWbee_ANBsiV6QfKfKVatnulrHnMz8ba3E/s1600-h/favicon_iterations.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208917506280602722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdXnp3PaJqkPY5Z_gfxkBUtDxsQtnR5XlZNMUrim5OnWA769w3t-US3ot8N4pH4xBbQas7HGcQPEnCX2NrX_isTJ-j4aA4EWHf8mFJi6M6GrEWbee_ANBsiV6QfKfKVatnulrHnMz8ba3E/s400/favicon_iterations.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a> By no means is the one you're seeing our favicon final; it was a first step to a more unified set of icons. However, we really value feedback from users and want to hear your ideas that we may have missed. If you have your own notions about the Google favicon, <a href="http://www.google.com/faviconideas/">please send them to us</a>. We'll do our best to work them in, and maybe your idea will be the one that people see billions of times per day.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience, and Micheal Lopez, Web Designer You may have noticed that Google has a ne...

Đọc thêm »

Opening our doors in Lenoir

Posted by Kendra Intihar, Administrative Assistant, Google Lenoir Whether you're shopping for shoes, planning a trip or watching a funny video, you probably don't think much about where that website you're on actually "lives." Though they seem just to exist in some "cloud" out there in "cyberspace," all websites are actually hosted on computers, similar to the one you have at home or work. But millions of websites processing terabytes of data every day -- all of those shopping and video queries -- require much more than a single machine, and they need to be housed somewhere. While some webmasters may run their website off of a small server in their basement, more commonly websites are run off of a stack of computers (a server rack), which lives in a warehouse-type building called a data center. Almost any company that stores or processes information either owns data centers or leases space in them, including banks, insurers, airlines and of course, technology companies. To process the millions of searches, emails, documents and more that come across our servers every day, and to keep all of our services both fast and reliable for our users, we require significant computing power, and have invested heavily in servers and data centers across the world. On May 21st, an official ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of our newest data center in <a title="Lenoir, North Carolina" href="http://www.ci.lenoir.nc.us/" id="yi9t">Lenoir, North Carolina</a>. The Lenoir facility has set a precedent for Google community involvement: hundreds of our closest friends -- the citizens of Caldwell County -- came on site for what we called a "Googley BBQ." Along with pulled pork from the locally-acclaimed <a id="hi69" title="Hannah's BBQ" href="http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=449">Hannah's</a>, attractions included Google-colored snow cones, cotton candy, a local cover band, Google demo stations, a "Meet-a-Googler" tent, and a kiddie area with face painting, stickers, crafts, and (of course) a bouncy house in Google colors. Lenoir sits in the heart of <a id="nt-b" title="Caldwell County, North Carolina" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=caldwell+county,+nc&layer=c&ie=UTF8&z=10&iwloc=addr">Caldwell County</a>, which is known for its spectacular views of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, its close-knit communities, and its hard-working citizens, and is along the famous "20 miles of furniture" on N.C. highway 321. Though many furniture industry jobs in the area have been lost in recent years, now technology companies are moving to the region, and a focus on technology education is helping to usher Caldwell into the 21st century. Several speakers at the ribbon-cutting, including the Mayor of Lenoir, David Barlow; County Commissioner Herb Greene; and the Governor of North Carolina, Mike Easley, voiced this sentiment, each hopeful that other technology companies will consider Google's presence and set up shop as well. What's not to love about an area with a beautiful landscape, a home-town feel, and such a wonderful and welcoming community? Yeah, we couldn't find anything either. Lenoir Googlers are still floating on at least cloud seven or eight about playing host at our new site. We couldn't have done it without the local firefighters, police, Chamber of Commerce and government representatives who went out of their way to make sure everyone had fun that day -- helped, of course, by the hundreds of folks who joined us in celebrating. But what's more, we are excited that we will soon be bringing this newest data center online, as another step to ensure that our services remain lightning fast and nearly 100% reliable, no matter where on the planet you may be. Here's a photo album from the day: <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fgoogpics1%2Falbumid%2F5208215491613664289%3Fkind%3Dphoto%26alt%3Drss" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" height="267" width="400"></embed>

Opening our doors in Lenoir

Posted by Kendra Intihar, Administrative Assistant, Google Lenoir Whether you're shopping for shoes, planning a trip or watching a funny...

Đọc thêm »

Get your transit schedules and directions with Google Maps for mobile

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager What with everyone thinking about ways to save on gas and avoid driving, one obvious tactic is to take public transportation. With that (and the environment) in mind, we continue to work with public transportation agencies to get bus and train schedules, and integrate this information into Google Maps. We just launched transit directions in<a href="http://www.google.com/gmm" target="_blank"> Google Maps for mobile</a> so that you can get transit directions while you're out and about in more than 50 cities worldwide. Right now transit directions are available on the latest Google Maps for mobile release on BlackBerry and many Java-based phones. We'll be adding support for other phones shortly. To see how it works, <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-bus-and-train-directions-on-go-with.html" target="_blank">read more</a> on the Google Mobile Blog, and watch this demo: <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAUunR91VzI&hl=en"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZAUunR91VzI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object>

Get your transit schedules and directions with Google Maps for mobile

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager What with everyone thinking about ways to save on gas and avoid driving, one obvious tacti...

Đọc thêm »

Explore Walt Disney World® Resort in 3D

Posted by Jay Rasulo, Chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Last May, Eric Schmidt and I met to talk about The Walt Disney Company’s focus on technology. We started to explore innovative ways we could work together to bring one of the world’s most magical destinations to Google Earth’s millions of users… and how our guests could be a mouse-click away from visiting the place where dreams come true. The result is <a title="Walt Disney World® Resort in 3D" href="http://www.disneyworld.com/3dParks" id="w.0s">Walt Disney World® Resort in 3D</a>, an interactive, virtual Walt Disney World completely recreated on Google Earth. This revolutionary project features 3D models of our four Orlando theme parks and more than 20 of Disney’s Resort hotels. Incredible in scope -- containing over 1,500 3D models -- Walt Disney World Resort in 3D is the most detailed 3D rendering undertaken on Google Earth to date. From the summit of Space Mountain® to the watery confines of the Pirates of the Caribbean®, we invite you to explore the Walt Disney World Resort in Google Earth. It’s the next best thing to being there. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0caA7p_y5TaBKDu9uXqnwDNwZ3ftx_CDsZg5fNPNVODtgrEYhC7nZif3-M_SkRBiDpwcWi9IEUcNq1FnXsqeOMoan3frV_Ldp01-EL3WHYjCTbMIdtn2Fc6fC4jge1S6HW-UdXDIiI8d/s1600-h/disney-blog-1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208384882953951122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0caA7p_y5TaBKDu9uXqnwDNwZ3ftx_CDsZg5fNPNVODtgrEYhC7nZif3-M_SkRBiDpwcWi9IEUcNq1FnXsqeOMoan3frV_Ldp01-EL3WHYjCTbMIdtn2Fc6fC4jge1S6HW-UdXDIiI8d/s400/disney-blog-1.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>

Explore Walt Disney World® Resort in 3D

Posted by Jay Rasulo, Chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Last May, Eric Schmidt and I met to talk about The Walt Disney Company’s focus...

Đọc thêm »

Does your password pass the test?

Posted by HongHai Shen, Engineer This post is the latest in an ongoing <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/security" id="tkbs" title="series">series</a> about online safety. - Ed. One of the things I work on is password security. And because I'm someone who pays close attention to passwords and how people use them, I sometimes hear interesting stories. For example, a couple of my colleagues are so careful about the security of their passwords that they generate a random eight-character string, memorize it, and then use it as their password for two to three months. After that time elapses, they start the process over again and generate a new random password. Do we all need to be that careful about our passwords? Probably not. But passwords are one of the web's most important security tools. Whether it's for your Google account, your banking center, or your favorite store, choosing a good password and keeping it safe can go a long way toward protecting your information online. So how do you choose a good password, and then keep it safe? A few of these tips can help: <ul><li>Avoid common elements when choosing your password. Specifically, you should avoid using words or phases from the dictionary, especially things that are easy to guess, like "password," "let me in," or the name of the site you're logging into. You should also avoid using keyboard patterns, such as "asdf1234" or "aqswdefr," or personal information, such as birthdays, addresses, or phone numbers.</li></ul><ul><li>Make your password as unique as possible. Once you've settled on a good base for your password, you should go a step further and add in numbers and non-alphanumerical characters, mix in upper-case letters, or use similar-looking substitutions for parts of the password, such as "$" for "s," "1" for "l," and "0" for "o."</li></ul><ul><li>Create different passwords for different sites. Doing so will help ensure that if one password is compromised, the others will remain secure. You may not be able to have a unique password for every place you visit on the web (for some of us, that would be a lot of passwords to manage), but alternating between a set of different passwords across the web and making sure all accounts that contain highly sensitive information (like email accounts or online banking accounts) have unique passwords is a good place to start.</li></ul><ul><li>Don't share your passwords with anyone. Not family, not friends, not anyone. This may seem a little strict, but the reality is the more people you share your password with, the greater your chances of having that password compromised will be. Also, if you need to write your passwords down, keep them away from your computer, and never send them in emails. And if you suspect someone might have discovered one of your passwords, change it immediately. </li></ul><ul><li>Be careful how you share your information online. Some online services -- such as social networking sites and gadgets that scrape information from other products -- may ask you for a password or an API key. If you choose to use these kinds of services, take a few minutes to learn more about what they do to keep your sensitive information secure. And just like sharing passwords with other people, you should be aware that sharing this information increases the chances that it could be compromised.</li></ul>Another thing that can help keep your password secure is choosing a good security question and answer on the sites that offer that option. You've probably seen this before: When you're creating an account on many sites, you will be asked to choose a question to verify your identity if you forget your password. Some sites will let you write in your own question; in these cases, you should make sure the Q&A you create isn't something that's easy to guess or something that your family and friends would know. Other sites will present you with a list of preset questions to choose from, such as "What is your mother's maiden name?" These kinds of questions are less secure, as they're easier for other people to guess the answer. In these cases, you should find a way to make your answer unique -- whether it's using the tips above, or by adding in other information -- so that even if someone guesses the answer, they won't know how to enter it properly. <a href="http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=29409">Read more</a> about choosing a good password and security question.

Does your password pass the test?

Posted by HongHai Shen, Engineer This post is the latest in an ongoing series about online safety. - Ed. One of the things I work on is pas...

Đọc thêm »

More on Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP)

Posted by Prashanth Koppula, Product Manager Web publishers often ask us how they can maximize their visibility on the web. Much of this has to do with search engine optimization -- making sure a publisher's content shows up on all the search engines. However, there are some cases in which publishers need to communicate more information to search engines -- like the fact that they don't want certain content to appear in search results. And for that they use something called the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/controlling-how-search-engines-access.html" id="x360" title="Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP)">Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP)</a>, which lets publishers control how search engines access their site: whether it's controlling the visibility of their content across their site (via robots.txt) or down to a much more granular level for individual pages (via META tags). Since it was introduced in the early '90s, REP has become the de facto standard by which web publishers specify which parts of their site they want public and which parts they want to keep private. Today, millions of publishers use REP as an easy and efficient way to communicate with search engines. Its strength lies in its flexibility to evolve in parallel with the web, its universal implementation across major search engines and all major robots, and in the way it works for any publisher, no matter how large or small. While REP is observed by virtually all search engines, we've never come together to detail how we each interpret different tags. Over the last couple of years, we have worked with Microsoft and Yahoo! to bring forward standards such as <a id="px.36" href="http://www.sitemaps.org/" target="_blank">Sitemaps</a> and offer additional tools for webmasters. Since the original announcement, we have, and will continue to, deliver further improvements based on what we are hearing from the community. Today, in that same spirit of making the lives of webmasters simpler, we're releasing detailed documentation about how we implement REP. This will provide a common implementation for webmasters and make it easier for any publisher to know how their REP directives will be handled by three major search providers -- making REP more intuitive and friendly to even more publishers on the web. To see the major REP features currently implemented by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, please see our <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improving-on-robots-exclusion-protocol.html">detailed post</a> on the Webmaster Central blog.

More on Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP)

Posted by Prashanth Koppula, Product Manager Web publishers often ask us how they can maximize their visibility on the web. Much of this has...

Đọc thêm »

Google Site Search taps the power of the cloud

Posted by Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Lead Product Manager, Google Enterprise Search, and Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search Search is never far from our minds -- not just on Google, but also for the millions of websites that don't yet have high-quality search. And since we've already built powerful search technologies into our computing infrastructure, site owners don't have to build it themselves. It's an aspect of something you might have heard about recently: "cloud computing". Our ability to work in the cloud is one reason we've just announced <a href="http://www.google.com/sitesearch" id="qj_r" title="Google Site Search with enhanced index coverage">Google Site Search with enhanced index coverage</a>. Previously known as Custom Search Business Edition, this service gives any website the same relevance, ease of use and familiar search experience you get on Google.com. It takes just minutes to set up, and is hosted entirely by Google, so site owners can have great search capabilities with little or no maintenance and technical resources needed. We've also added enhanced index coverage and customization features that help us crawl and index all content (even pages deep within a site) -- and as a result, we can deliver comprehensive search results on any website. It's not only webmasters who can take advantage of these features; so can site owners who want to maximize e-commerce opportunities and increase their conversions when they deliver a high-quality search experience to site visitors. Read more on the <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/06/super-charging-search-on-your-site-with.html">Google Enterprise blog</a> to learn how you can offer better search on your site. To see Google Site Search in action, watch this video featuring eHealthInsurance: <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/72pBiop9Yec&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/72pBiop9Yec&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>

Google Site Search taps the power of the cloud

Posted by Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Lead Product Manager, Google Enterprise Search, and Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search Searc...

Đọc thêm »