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What to do if you can't access your webmail

This post is the latest in an ongoing <a title="series" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/security" id="tkbs">series</a> on how to stay safe online. - Ed. We know how important webmail is to the people who use it regularly, since (of course) we use it ourselves at Google. So we know that not being able to access a webmail account -- no matter what the reason, or how long it lasts -- can be frustrating at the very least. Sometimes interruptions are caused by technical issues with your mail program or your Internet connection. More often, they're account-related. When it comes to Gmail specifically, there are a couple of things that might cause account-related interruptions in access: a lost or forgotten password, <a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" href="http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=43692" id="v4u8" title="unusual activity">unusual activity</a> that triggers the safety measures designed to keep accounts from being compromised, or, in the worst case, someone has stolen your login info and changed it. Most of the questions we get about account interruptions are the result of lost or forgotten passwords and as such are relatively easy to fix (more below). But no matter what their origin, we take these issues very seriously. Of course, there are certain cases where our options are limited -- we don't ask for much personal information when you sign up for Gmail, which can sometimes make it difficult to prove ownership of an account and trigger the recovery process. Still, there are some simple steps you can take to ensure that your account stays in your hands, and to greatly improve the chances of <a href="http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46346&fpUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Faccounts%2FForgotPasswd%3FfpOnly%3D1%26continue%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fmail.google.com%252Fmail%252F%253Fhl%253Den%2526tab%253Dwm%2526nsr%253D1%2526ui%253Dhtml%2526zy%253Dl%26service%3Dmail%26hl%3Den&fuUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Faccounts%2FForgotPasswd%3FfuOnly%3D1%26continue%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fmail.google.com%252Fmail%252F%253Fhl%253Den%2526tab%253Dwm%2526nsr%253D1%2526ui%253Dhtml%2526zy%253Dl%26service%3Dmail%26hl%3Den&hl=en" id="fzvf" title="getting it back">regaining access</a> if you have any problems: <ul><li>Don't share your Gmail password with anyone. Not friends, not family, not anyone. And if you need to write down your password, be sure to keep it in a safe place, away from your computer. (For info on how to choose a good password and keep it safe, check out this <a title="post" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/does-your-password-pass-test.html" id="ht_y">post</a>.)</li></ul><ul><li>Don't respond to messages asking for your login info. As you may already know, there are people out there who will try to <a title="steal your login info" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-avoid-getting-hooked.html" id="bd5.">steal your login info</a>. Google will never send you an email, IM, or any other communication asking for your Gmail login info, so don't respond to any messages asking for it.</li></ul><ul><li>Always keep the verification number you get when you sign up for Gmail. When you sign up for Gmail, we'll ask you for a secondary email address and then email a verification number to that account. This number is the best way to prove ownership of your account, so be sure to hang on to it.</li></ul><ul><li>If you aren't able to access your account, try <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ForgotPasswd?service=mail&fpOnly=1&dEM=" id="om:l" title="resetting your password">resetting your password</a>. As mentioned above, most of the support requests we get turn out to be lost or forgotten passwords, rather than something more serious. Resetting your password usually gets the job done.</li></ul><ul><li>If resetting your password doesn't work, try our <a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" href="http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?ara=1" id="ozz0" title="account-recovery process">account-recovery process</a>. We recently launched an account-recovery form in our help center that can drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to verify ownership of an account and restore access. If you have the information necessary to prove ownership -- such as the verification code for the account -- this new process can help our support team restore access within a matter of hours.</li></ul>Again, we're always working on ways to help you keep your account secure and to stay safe online. Some of that work is <a title="educational" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/security" id="ykwt">educational</a>, and some of it is technical, like the <a title="new feature" href="http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign-out-and-info-to-help-you.html" id="jwoc">feature</a> we recently launched for Gmail that lets you see when your account was last logged into and whether your account is currently open on another computer. Head over to our <a title="Gmail blog" href="http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign-out-and-info-to-help-you.html" id="kj4w">Gmail blog</a> for more info. Posted by Colin Bogart, Gmail user support team

What to do if you can't access your webmail

This post is the latest in an ongoing series on how to stay safe online. - Ed. We know how important webmail is to the people who use it r...

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Let's hear it for Google scholarship winners

Across the world, the participation of women and minorities in computer science is at an all-time low. According to studies conducted by the National Science Foundation, the annual graduation rate for women in computer science is just 22%, just 6.5% for Hispanic students, 4.8% for African American students, and under 1% for American Indian students. As part of our global effort to increase diversity in our industry, we have created scholarship programs with the <a title="United Negro College Fund" href="http://www.uncf.org/forstudents/scholarDetailSGA.asp?id=161">United Negro College Fund</a>, the <a href="http://scholarships.hispanicfund.org/applications/subsectionID.1,pageID.123/default.asp">Hispanic College Fund</a> and the <a title="American Indian Science & Engineering Society" href="http://www.aises.org/Programs/ScholarshipsandInternships/Scholarships" id="vrrp">American Indian Science & Engineering Society</a>. Each of these programs is meant to encourage students to excel in their studies and become active role models and leaders. It's our hope that these programs also help dismantle barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. (<a href="http://www.google.com/jobs/scholarships" id="brc4">Read more</a> about Google's scholarship programs.) Now comes the really fun part: announcing the 2008 winners. Please join us in congratulating the 42 students who have been recognized for their outstanding academic and leadership accomplishments in the computer science field. Each of these students will receive a $10,000 academic scholarship from Google, as well as an invitation to attend the all-expenses-paid <a title="Annual Google Scholars' Retreat" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDL6GXlZkh0" id="i5sa">Annual Google Scholars' Retreat</a> held each Spring at the <a title="Googleplex" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1600+Amphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+California+94043,+United+States&sll=37.547027,-122.055359&sspn=0.297792,0.617981&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FfAHOwId_yC5-A&ll=37.42423,-122.085121&spn=0.009321,0.019312&z=16&iwloc=addr" id="b38.">Googleplex</a> in Mountain View. Earlier this year, we also had the great pleasure of announcing the winners of the <a title="Google Anita Borg Scholarship" href="http://www.google.com/anitaborg/" id="g6gk">2008 Google Anita Borg Scholarship</a> in the <a title="U.S." href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/congratulations-to-our-us-and-canadian.html" id="ha-l">U.S. and Canada</a> as well as in <a title="Europe" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/introducing-our-european-2008-anita.html" id="jpct">Europe</a>. (This scholarship is also offered to women in Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.) Congrats to all! 2008 Google United Negro College Fund Scholars <ul><li>Brian Beecham - Alabama A&M University</li><li>Clinton Buie - Stanford University</li><li>Dorian Perkins - University of California, Riverside</li><li>John Mosby - Clark Atlanta University</li><li>Katherine Trushkowsky - University of California, Berkeley</li><li>Lateef Yusuf - Georgia Institute of Technology</li><li>Mamadou Diallo - University of California, Irvine</li><li>Mcdavis Fasugba - University of Miami</li><li>Pascal Carole - University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</li><li>Rashida Davis - University of Delaware</li><li>Remy Carole - University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</li><li>Sheronda Nash - Georgia Institute of Technology</li><li>Souma Badombena-Wanta - George Mason University</li><li>Yolanda McMillian - Auburn University</li></ul>2008 Google Hispanic College Fund Scholars <ul><li>Miguel Rios - University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez</li><li>Milton Villeda - University of Texas, Austin</li><li>Ricardo Rodríguez - University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez</li><li>Marco Medina - Eastern Washington University</li><li>Abel Licon - University of Deleware</li><li>Maximiliano Ramirez Luna - University of California, Berkeley</li><li>Juan Herrera - University of Oklahoma</li><li>Kenneth Faller Ii - Florida International University</li><li>Heriberto Reynoso - University of Texas, Brownsville</li><li>Jose Martinez - California State Polytechnic University</li><li>Otoniel Ortega - University of Illinois, Chicago</li><li>Antonio Rodríguez-soto - Universidad Del Turabo</li><li>Tina Ziemek - University of Utah</li><li>Diana Flores - University of Florida</li><li>Matthew Martinez - University of New Mexico</li><li>Frank Blandon - University of Florida</li><li>Felipe Carmona - Roosevelt University</li><li>Pamela Gutierrez - Oklahoma Panhandle State University</li><li>Daniel Hernandez - Tennessee Technological University</li></ul>2008 Google American Indian Science & Engineering Society Scholars <ul><li>Erik Bennett - New Mexico Tech</li><li> Kaylei Burke - University of Nebraska, Lincoln </li><li> Cory Cornelius - Dartmouth College </li><li> Daniel Jachowski - Stanford University </li><li> Denise Martin - Capella University </li><li> Mitchell Martin - University of Texas, San Antonio </li><li> Melanie Prevett - Oklahoma State University </li><li> Thomas Reed - University of California, Santa Barbara</li><li> Delbert Willie - Colorado State University</li></ul>Posted by Meredith Carroll, Global Diversity and Talent Inclusion Team

Let's hear it for Google scholarship winners

Across the world, the participation of women and minorities in computer science is at an all-time low. According to studies conducted by the...

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Google Audio Indexing now on Google Labs

Nearly two months ago, we <a title="introduced" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-their-own-words-political-videos.html" id="cdff">introduced</a> the Google Elections Video Search <a title="gadget" href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/elections_video_search.xml" id="onwt">gadget</a> on iGoogle, a tool that transcribes and indexes the spoken content on YouTube's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/members?s=mv&t=a&g=8">Politicians channels</a>. It didn't take long for folks to find some <a title="creative uses" href="http://www.citizentube.com/2008/08/googles-voice-to-text-gadget-makes.html" id="l_.g">creative ways</a> to use it! Now it's possible to enjoy this technology in a bigger way: We just launched <a title="Google Audio Indexing" href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi" id="l1gc">Google Audio Indexing</a> (aka GAudi) in Google Labs. The dedicated site offers more features, such as "search within video" and "sharing," and a more robust user interface. As with all things in <a title="Labs" href="http://labs.google.com/" id="sgxz">Labs</a>, we will continue to experiment with new features. So whether you care about <a title=""flip flopping"" href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi?q=%22flip+flopping%22" id="tdk8">flip-flopping</a>, <a title=""glass ceiling"" href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi?q=%22glass+ceiling%22" id="ho:3">the glass ceiling</a>, <a href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi?q=change">change</a> or <a href="http://labs.google.com/gaudi?q=taxes">taxes</a>, we'll keep working to provide the most relevant results for you. Posted by Arnaud Sahuguet, Product Manager

Google Audio Indexing now on Google Labs

Nearly two months ago, we introduced the Google Elections Video Search gadget on iGoogle, a tool that transcribes and indexes the spoken c...

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The future of online video

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Google%20at%2010">their responses</a>. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors Ten years ago the world of online video was little more than an idea. It was used mostly by professionals like doctors or lawyers in limited and closed settings. Connections were slow, bandwidth was limited, and video gear was expensive and bulky. There were many false starts and outlandish promises over the years about the emergence of online video. It was really the dynamic growth of the Internet (in terms of adoption, speed and ubiquity) that helped to spur the idea that online video - millions of people around the world shooting it, uploading it, viewing it via broadband - was even possible. Today, there are thousands of different video sites and services. In fact it's getting to be unusual not to find a video component on a news, entertainment or information website. And in less than three years, YouTube has united hundreds of millions of people who create, share, and watch video online. What used to be a gap between "professional" entertainment companies and home movie buffs has disappeared. Everyone from major broadcasters and networks to vloggers and grandmas are taking to video to capture events, memories, stories, and much more in real time. Today, 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and we believe the volume will continue to grow exponentially. Our goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. This new video content will be available on any screen - in your living room, or on your device in your pocket. YouTube and other sites will bring together all the diverse media which matters to you, from videos of family and friends to news, music, sports, cooking and much, much more. In ten years, we believe that online video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication. The tools for video recording will continue to become smaller and more affordable. Personal media devices will be universal and interconnected. Even more people will have the opportunity to record and share even more video with a small group of friends or everyone around the world. Over the next decade, people will be at the center of their video and media experience. More and more consumers will become creators. We will continue to help give people unlimited options and access to information, and the world will be a smaller place. Posted by Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder, YouTube

The future of online video

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has cha...

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Search evaluation at Google

<a title="This series" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/search%20quality" id="so8g">This series</a> of posts has described Google's search quality efforts in areas such as ranking and search UI. Now I'll describe search evaluation. Simply put, search evaluation is the process of measuring the quality of our search results and our users' experience with search. Let me introduce myself. I'm Scott Huffman, an engineering director responsible for leading search evaluation, working with a talented team of statisticians and software engineers. I've been here since 2005, and have been working on search in one form or another for the past fourteen years or so. When I'm interviewing folks interested in joining the search evaluation team, I often use this scenario to describe what we do: Imagine a Google ranking engineer bursts into your office. "I have a great idea for improving our search results!" she exclaims. "It's simple: Whenever a page's title starts with the letter T, move it up in the results three slots." This engineer comes armed with several example search queries where, lo and behold, this idea actually improves the results significantly. Now, you and I may think that this "letter T" hack is really a silly idea, but how can we know for sure? Search evaluation is charged with answering such questions. This hack hasn't really come up, but we are constantly evaluating everything, which can include: <div id="gd2q"> - proposed improvements to segmentation of Chinese queries </div> <div id="gd2q0"> - new approaches to fight spam </div> <div id="gd2q1"> - techniques for improving how we handle compound Swedish words </div> <div id="gd2q1"> - changes to how we handle links and anchortext </div> <div id="ucyj"> - and everything in between As Udi mentioned in his <a title="initial post" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/introduction-to-google-search-quality.html" id="xxu8">initial post</a> on search quality, in 2007 we launched over 450 improvements to Google search, and every one of them went through a comprehensive evaluation process. </div> <div id="yygm12"> </div> <div id="yygm14"> Not surprisingly, we take search evaluation very seriously. Precise evaluation enables our teams to know "which way is up". One of our tenets in search quality is to be very data-driven in our decision-making. We try hard not to rely on anecdotal examples, which are often misleading in search (where decisions can affect hundreds of millions of queries a day). Meticulous, statistically-meaningful evaluation gives us the data we need to make real search improvements. Evaluating search is difficult for several reasons. <ul id="yygm20"><li id="yygm24" style="margin-left: 15px;"> First, understanding what a user really wants when they type a query -- the query's "intent" -- can be very difficult. For highly navigational queries like [ebay] or [orbitz], we can guess that most users want to navigate to the respective sites. But how about [olympics]? Does the user want news, medal counts from the recent Beijing games, the IOC's homepage, historical information about the games, ... ? This same exact question, of course, is faced by our ranking and search UI teams. Evaluation is the other side of that coin. </li><li id="yygm27" style="margin-left: 15px;"> Second, comparing the quality of search engines (whether Google versus our competitors, Google versus Google a month ago, or Google versus Google plus the "letter T" hack) is never black and white. It's essentially impossible to make a change that is 100% positive in all situations; with any algorithmic change you make to search, many searches will get better and some will get worse. </li><li id="yygm27" style="margin-left: 15px;"> Third, there are several dimensions to "good" results. Traditional search evaluation has focused on the relevance of the results, and of course that is our highest priority as well. But today's search-engine users expect more than just relevance. Are the results fresh and timely? Are they from authoritative sources? Are they comprehensive? Are they free of spam? Are their titles and snippets descriptive enough? Do they include additional UI elements a user might find helpful for the query (maps, images, query suggestions, etc.)? Our evaluations attempt to cover each of these dimensions where appropriate. </li><li id="yygm30" style="margin-left: 15px;"> Fourth, evaluating Google search quality requires covering an enormous breadth. We cover over a hundred locales (country/language pairs) with in-depth evaluation. Beyond locales, we support search quality teams working on many different kinds of queries and features. For example, we explicitly measure the quality of Google's spelling suggestions, universal search results, image and video searches, related query suggestions, stock oneboxes, and many, many more. </li></ul> </div> To get at these issues, we employ a variety of evaluation methods and data sources: <ul><li> Human evaluators. Google makes use of evaluators in many countries and languages. These evaluators are carefully trained and are asked to evaluate the quality of search results in several different ways. We sometimes show evaluators whole result sets by themselves or "side by side" with alternatives; in other cases, we show evaluators a single result at a time for a query and ask them to rate its quality along various dimensions. </li><li> Live traffic experiments. We also make use of experiments, in which small fractions of queries are shown results from alternative search approaches. Ben Gomes talked about how we make use of these <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/search-experiments-large-and-small.html" id="leq_" title="experiments for testing search UI elements">experiments for testing search UI elements</a> in his previous post. With these experiments, we are able to see real users' reactions (clicks, etc.) to alternative results. </li></ul> Clearly, we can never measure anything close to all the queries Google will get in the future. Every day, in fact, Google gets many millions of queries that we have never seen before, and will never see again. Therefore, we measure statistically, over representative samples of the query-stream. The "letter T" hack probably does improve a few queries, but over a representative sample of queries it affects, I'm confident it would be a big loser. One of the key skills of our evaluation team is experimental design. For each proposed search improvement, we generate an experiment plan that will allow us to measure the key aspects of the change. Often, we use a combination of human and live traffic evaluation. For instance, consider a proposed improvement to Google's "related searches" feature to increase its coverage across several locales. Our experiment plan might include live traffic evaluation in which we show the updated related search suggestions to users and measure click-through rates in each locale and break these down by position of each related search suggestion. We might also include human evaluation, in which for a representative sample of queries in each locale, we ask evaluators to rate the appropriateness, usefulness, and relevance of each individual related search suggestion. Including both types of evaluation allows us to understand the overall behavioral impact on users (via the live traffic experiment), and measure the detailed quality of the suggestions in each locale along multiple dimensions (via the human evaluation experiment). Choosing an appropriate sample of queries to evaluate can be subtle. When evaluating a proposed search improvement, we consider not only whether a given query's results are changed by the proposal, but also how much impact the change is likely to have on users. For instance, a query whose first three results are changed is likely much higher impact than one for which results 9 and 10 are swapped. In Amit Singhal's <a id="n.lb" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/technologies-behind-google-ranking.html" title="previous post on ranking">previous post on ranking</a>, he discussed synonyms. Recently, we evaluated a proposed update to make synonyms more aggressive in some cases. On a flat (non-impact-weighted) sample of affected queries, the change appeared to be quite positive. However, using an evaluation of an impact-weighted sample, we found that the change went much too far. For example, in Chinese, it synonymized "small" (小) and "big" (大)... not a good idea! We're serious about search evaluation because we are serious about giving you the highest quality search experience possible. Rather than guess at what will be useful, we use a careful data-driven approach to make sure our "great ideas" really are great for you. In this environment, the "letter T" hack never had a chance. Posted by Scott Huffman, Engineering Director

Search evaluation at Google

This series of posts has described Google's search quality efforts in areas such as ranking and search UI. Now I'll describe search...

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Alaska-bound!

As this post goes live, five Googlers are on their way to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost inhabited location on the North American mainland. What brings us to such a far-off place? We're visiting three rural school districts to show teachers and students how <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a> and <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Maps</a> can be powerful tools in the classroom. There has been a lot of interest in the 49th state of late, but our trip has actually been months in the making. The idea for an educational outreach tour began when one active Geo developer, John Bailey of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), told us about his experiences teaching undergrads with Google Earth. We wanted to learn more and help spread the word on how educators are using these technologies, and knew we wouldn't find a better guide than the <a href="http://www.geographyua.org/">Geography Department at the University of Alaska</a>. In each town, we'll begin with a school-wide assembly with 9th-12th graders where our colleagues from UAF will explain our visit and help introduce Google's Geo tools, after which we'll inject some Googley fun into the mix with a trivia contest. Then we'll break into smaller groups where we'll focus on three classroom activities: First, we'll use Google Earth and image overlays to see how Alaska has changed over time. Then, we'll get out in the field on a geo-caching mini-adventure where students will learn how to upload GPS tracks. Finally, students will collaborate to build a <a href="http://local.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68480">My Map</a> showing their favorite spot in each town, some of which we'll capture with <a href="http://www.gigapan.org/?window_height=975&window_width=1920">GigaPan</a> technology. <iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100898834134734910368.000456de638de51ce1c5d&ll=66.25382,-156.56341&spn=10.07252,17.68258&t=h&output=embed&s=AARTsJqt5TZqp7TMU5XpaNVR6qEuCkRQ4A"></iframe> <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100898834134734910368.000456de638de51ce1c5d&ll=66.25382,-156.56341&spn=10.07252,17.68258&t=h&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a> In addition to the materials already available on the <a href="http://www.google.com/educators/geo.html">Google for Educators</a> site, we'll be posting updates and more tips for teachers on the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/">LatLong blog</a> throughout the week, so be sure to check back often. Posted by Anna Bishop, Geo Education 20% team

Alaska-bound!

As this post goes live, five Googlers are on their way to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost inhabited location on the North American mainland...

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Google Desktop 5.8 for Windows: increased performance

We love getting your feedback, and one of the themes that has cropped up in the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Desktop" id="ez8a" title="Google Desktop Help group">Google Desktop Help group</a> is that you want a lighter, faster product. We heard the message loud and clear and decided that the <a href="http://desktop.google.com/">Google Desktop 5.8 for Windows</a> release would be based entirely on performance. In true Google fashion, we took a data-driven approach: Measure, then analyze, fix the most important issues and lowest hanging fruit, then rinse, lather and repeat. First, we built performance tests that simulate a typical user's behavior when using Google Desktop and measure the time spent on actions such as starting up, shutting down, searching, adding a gadget, adding a new document to the search index, and so forth. We then took a page from the <a href="http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/small_08.html">Google Chrome playbook</a> by running the performance tests automatically for every single change we made to the software, on dozens of machines each time so that an average of the time measurements from all of them would give us a reliable comparison against previous versions. Next, we refined an option that helps us improve the product, with your agreement. To send us information about problems you might experience, you can opt in to our error reporting system. If you have opted in, the system will send us anonymous diagnostic information about such events as crashes. In the new version, we improved this system to also detect and report situations where our product could be making your computer slow to respond. We've learned a lot from these two new sources of data. The performance measurement system enabled us to discover some seemingly small changes that had a major impact on performance. We've been able to immediately fix changes that decreased performance, and learn from changes that improved performance. For example: <div style="text-align: left;"> <ul><li> We found a way to cut memory usage during startup by about 50%. </li><li> Shutdown now happens five times faster, and we were able to avoid a seemingly innocuous state that would have almost doubled startup time. </li></ul> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <div style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> <div style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> From automated error reports sent by our beta testers, we learned that while Google Desktop generally performs very well, certain types of usage and some interactions with 3rd party software can trigger problems. We've made dozens of improvements based on this data. Here are some examples of what we've been able to fix: </div> <div style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> <ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> A few obscure cases where interaction with third party software could slow the computer down when certain types of files were being added to the search index. </li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> A rare issue that could cause slower computers to become temporarily unresponsive during Google Desktop startup. </li><div> </div></ul> </div> </div> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> We still weren't satisfied, so we analyzed the design of our software to find ways to improve it. This led us to make a few more changes: </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> <ul><li> We realized that with the <a href="http://desktop.google.com/plugins/" id="zap7" title="hundreds of Google Desktop Gadgets">hundreds of Google Desktop Gadgets</a> available from third parties, there is always the possibility that one of them performs badly. To help you deal with this, we added a system that detects when a gadget is causing your computer to perform poorly, and asks you whether to remove the gadget. While we were at it, we added proactive security measures that prevent malicious gadgets from stealing information from other gadgets, and we made changes that allow Flash programs such as interactive games to be embedded in gadgets; for certain types of gadgets this can be a lighter weight approach than previously possible. </li><li> To reduce memory usage, increase stability and reduce memory fragmentation, we reduced the number of different processes that Google Desktop runs, and we now recycle some of our processes frequently (just like <a href="http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/small_06.html" id="vtw9" title="Google Chrome">Google Chrome</a>). </li><li> Microsoft Outlook users will be glad to hear that we've reduced memory usage while at the same time improving the coverage and increasing the stability of our Outlook support. </li></ul> </div> <div style="text-align: left;"> We've had a fun and rewarding time improving performance, because at every step of the way we were sure that you would enjoy our product even more. Please give our <a href="http://desktop.google.com/" id="osdg" title="new version">new lighter, faster version</a> a try. We hope you'll enjoy it. Posted by Jói Sigurðsson, Tech Lead, Google Desktop for Windows</div>

Google Desktop 5.8 for Windows: increased performance

We love getting your feedback, and one of the themes that has cropped up in the Google Desktop Help group is that you want a lighter, faste...

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