Tag Archive for 'google'

¿Google de pago?

Durante toda la mañana de ayer estuve (practicamente) sin poder usar Google. Al abrir Google me salia la pagina de siempre, pero cualquier busqueda que hacia me llevaba a una pagina que decia “We’re sorry…”, explicando que Google estaba recibidendo muchas consultas que se parecian a consultas emitidas por un virus o un spyware. Tras introducir el captcha (lo cierto es que a veces ni podia entenderlo de lo dificil que lo ponian), me daba las respuestas a mis consultas. Lo que pasa es que no siempre me permitia meter el captcha. A veces solo lo sentia, diciendome que buscara si tenia virus/spyware, o alguien de mi red.

Aqui tenemos mas informacion:

The CAPTCHA page you’re referring to is served by Google when we experience a quick spike in traffic on Google.com. A CAPTCHA image helps us determine whether traffic is coming from automated robot software or individual users. Please be aware that your network is receiving this page because our system is detecting automated querying coming from your network’s IP address.

Lo cierto es que estar sin google toda la mañana fue una experiencia dura. Cambie el buscador por defecto de mi Firefox a Yahoo!, pero tenia la impresion de no encontrar nada de lo que buscaba.

A raiz de esto se me occurrio una idea: Google podria cobrar por el uso corporativo/masivo de su buscador. Por ejemplo:

  • por encima de 500 consultas al dia (digo 500 por definir un umbral razonable), que sea de pago: x€ por consulta, bonos de consultas, tarifa plana por volumen de consultas,…),
  • por debajo del umbral, gratias (para familias). Supongo que la gente de Google ya lo habran pensado y que por alguna razon no lo querran hacer (¿todavia?).

Versión PDA-friendly de cualquier sitio web

Google propone una gateway para ver versiones PDA de cualquier sitio web.
Si añades http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u= delante de la URL de (casi)cualquier web, veras una version amigable para tu PDA de la misma!
He configurado esa cadena en las “macros” (Fx) del Resco Keyboard. De esta forma, cuando pongo una URL en PIE, solo me cuesta un par de teclas mas para lanzar la version PDA friendly. ¡Pruebalo!

Fatfree Gmail

Every now and then I feel like if Gmail where been slower and slower, with continuous script timeout alerts (Firefox).

If the only thing that you want if reading your Gmail Inbox, I’ve found recently that Gmail has a mobile (read a lightweight UI) version available at: https://mail.google.com/mail/x/ (note the trailing /x/).

It fatfree: no slow Ajax scripts. Of course no all the options seem available, but it’s really fast!

By the way, the main Google search engine is also available in a lightweight version at http://www.google.com/pda.

Google definition bookmarklet

Do you know the “define:” Google’s keyword? It’s a powerfull keyword that let you look for word definitions on the web.

For example, yesterday I was looking for the definition of the word misgiving, so I googled it, and it gave me:

* scruple: uneasiness about the fitness of an action
* apprehension: painful expectation
* doubt about someone’s honesty

I find it very usefull. However I still have to open a new google page and type there the define: query, what I find a bit unefficient.

As i couldn’t find any bookmarklet to achieve that for me, I modified one that catches any selected word on the active page and look for it on Google. The result is: Google definition bookmarklet.

As any bookmarklet, just bookmark it and you can use it. Then when reading a web page, if you want to look for a word’s definition, just select the word and click the bookmarklet in your browser bar.

Google search history vs. CustomizeGoogle

CustomizeGoogle is a firefox extension that let you tweak many options and features of Google pages.

On the other side, Google offers a feature called “searchhistory” (available to all those who have a google account — actually, if you have a Gmail account, it is a google account). Acording to what google says:

Personalized Search is an improvement to Google search that orders your search results based on what’s most relevant to you. The Search History feature of Personalized Search lets you view and manage your history of searches and search results you’ve clicked on; this information then personalizes your future search results by bringing results closer to the top when it’s clear they’re most relevant to you.

I love this searchhistory thing. I think what i prefer is that i can search between all the searches i’ve done and all the pages i’ve clicked on from google, from any computer connected to the web. I also like the fact that Google could order results based on my previous searches, what should hopefully give me better results. Actually i’m almost never disapointed by Google results.

Unfortunately, recently i’ve seen that Google searchhistory stopped to record clicked results as such, and all searches started to appear as “Searches with no clicked results” — sigh.

I RTFM, and found a question in Google searchhistory’s help page about this, and they directed me to check if i use a supported browser with Javascript enabled. Yes, i use Firefox with Javascript enabled.

After trying Google searchhistory with an MSIE browser, and verifying it actually worked fine I started to suspect that maybe CustomizeGoogle was for something in my troubles.

I then remembered that some days ago I actualized the extension to it’s last version. After checking the options (Tools/CustomizeGoogle options…) i saw the option causing this “side effect”:

  • Remove click tracking

The option was selected.

Actually, if you look at the extension’s changelog, you’ll read:

2005-08-23 v0.25 — Added: Remove Google click tracking in websearch (enabled by default)

If you leave the option checked (by default), Google searchhistory won’t work for you! You have the choice.




Close
Powered by ShareThis