Google - Part 3

GMail Desktop notifications for emails and chat: HTML5

Google has introduced yet another innovative feature! Innovation, not because its desktop notification, but because its HTML5 based desktop notification. Its currently working only for those who have enabled it and using Chrome. They are working to make this feature available on other browsers too.

To enable this, use chrome and login to your GMail. Goto Settings. Enable notification and save it.

Chat notification example:

Email notification example:

Browser settings:
Open Google Chrome browser. Goto Options -> Under The Hood tab -> Privacy -> Content Settings. Or click on the settings icon on the chat or email notification.

Source: GMail Blog
Do you prefer to enable this feature or let it be disabled ?

GMail: “Priority Inbox” To Help You Focus On Important Emails

Often time we get a lot of email in the last minute before going to a meeting or exam! But we are unsure if its just another autoresponder mail or a genuinely urgent as well as important.

Check above video – its a very good animated video explaining Priority Inbox neatly.

To solve this problem, Google has introduced a new feature called Priority Inbox. This is a separate section in your email and will automatically separate your important mails, based on which email you read and reply to.

And ofcourse it has some filters to manually mark someone’s email as important or as unimportant.
And Like most things, Priority Inbox isn’t perfect, so it needs your help to get more experience in knowing what is important to you. So it has a + and – symbol to mark any email(either in ‘Priority Inbox’ or regular ‘Inbox’) important or unimportant.
Priority Inbox is in Beta, and will be enabled to all GMail and Google Apps users in 1 or 2 weeks time.

Source: Priority Inbox

Google Doodle Special – Apple falls!

If you observe Google.com today, you can find a falling Apple! indicating the invention of Gravitation. The Doodle marks 366th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton.
Does this Apple Doodle(shown in above video) has anything to do with this “Browser War?”

If you observe Google.com today, you can find a falling Apple! indicating the invention of Gravitation. The Doodle marks 366th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton.

You might have also noticed that, clicking on “I’m Feeling Lucky” button sparks some crackers(virtually!) and wishes Happy New Year.

Happy Google
Google Chrome Overtakes Apple’s Safari in market share.

safari v/s chrome

Does this Apple Doodle(shown in above video) has anything to do with this “Browser War?”

Image Source: TheAppleBlog

Image Ads Embedded Inside YouTube Videos

I had previously seen Text ads embedded inside some YouTube videos, but surprisingly today saw an image ad. So thought of sharing with you guys. So here is the video and some screen shots.

I don’t watch YouTube videos frequently, so it may even be late news for you guys. But still I think its nice to share with people who have not noticed it.
I am not talking about Adsense for Videos program, which is officially retired.

Text ads of various size:
video-text-ads
big-size-text-ad
Have you spotted image ads inside YouTube videos ?

Recover Your Google Account Password Using Text Message

If you are hooked to internet for more than one year, you will surly know or experienced the difficulty of remembering the passwords.

Google has a wide range of service, and many people are so much addicted to these wide services. So its very important that we remember our Google Account password. If we are on a world tour and need to stay away from internet for long time. Then, when we are back to work and try to access our GMail and wonder, what’s the password! And we might have forgot the password of the alternative email ID too!

So Google has introduced yet another useful feature, using which you can recover your Google Account Password. To do that, you need to connect your mobile number to your Google account first.

Google Account Password Recovery Option
Source: Gmail Blog.

Log into your Google account, click on the Change password recovery options . And enter your country, mobile number, a security Q&A and save it. You are done. No mobile number verification! As Google may be thinking that, you won’t enter your friends mobile number by mistake 🙂 But if you ask me, a verification (mobile number verification by sending a verification code etc) is a good, secure way. Because if someone enters a wrong number by mistake(Many time we do typo or it just happens, that’s why it is called by-mistake!), and we will be in the illusion that our account is safe and now there is no worry of forgetting the password, only to realize later, that we had entered a wrong number.

To send yourself a recovery code via SMS:
1. Enter your username on the password-assistance page. After completing the word verification, you’ll receive confirmation that a verification code is sent to your phone. Keep this page open so you can get to the page where you enter your code.
2. Check your phone for a text message from Google.
3. Enter your recovery code and click Submit recovery code.
4. Type your new password.

Caution:
Note that there’s a limit to the number of recovery code requests you can submit in one day. If you think that you’ve exceeded this limit, wait 24 hours and try again. We are not sure about the exact limit though. Knowing that there is a limit, itself helps!, be careful.

Anyway, nice feature, if made use of properly. Next time you forget your password, enter your username on the password-assistance page, and Google will text you a recovery code. No need to check another email account!

Microsoft’s Bing got blown away by Google’s Wave!

I read an interesting article at Techcrunch today, where they have explained the way Google cheered the developers group with the announcement of its 2 years project Google Wave, which excited developers more than Microsoft’s, not yet live, decision engine Bing!

You can watch the videos below to get the preview of Google’s Wave and Microsoft’s Brand New Decision Engine BING!

Microsoft’s Decision Engine BING! :

Microsoft trying to make fun of Google Search:(I feel its just fun!)

The next Big thing on the internet: Google’s Wave

Microsoft has been testing its new search engine with the code name called “Kumo“. Now this new name “Bing” seem to be better, short name which can be spelled by international audience. But the funny thing is, people in twitter and other places are calling BING as – “But It’s Not Google!”. Its funny, but remember its Microsoft, so it has the potential to do innovation(atleast to certain extent!). Lets wait and give it a try before trying to prejudice(Prejudice is Opinion Without Judgment!)

Google Wave is a open source project and developers are already submitting their info, inorder to get the invitation to start playing with the API. Its basically integration of almost all the web2.0 resources.
People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more over it has a real time communication channel(which can be turned off). And we can make our waves public or private. Public waves are crawl able by search engines.
Anyway, we will be waiting to test both these, different services and will share more things in the future. Mean while feel free to share your thoughts about “Google”, “Microsoft”, “BING” and “Wave”.

New Look for Webmasters Tool

In 2006, Webmaster Tool began as a way for webmasters to submit Sitemaps.

webmasters-tool-redesign — Webmasters Tool Re-designed

The important aspects in this redesign are:
1. Faster loading.
2. Easier navigation.
3. More search query list, to which our site appeared in search engines.
4. Display thinks in the form of table. Looks very clean and readable.

Over all the redesign is impressive. And there is no major feature added or removed from the previous version.