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INTERACTIVE AGENCY
Posts Aboutgoogle
My favorite iPad Apps
After a few months with the iPad, I’ve settled upon my favorite apps (thus far). I could go into deep detail as to WHY I like each of these, but I decided to save you the preaching. However, you should always remember that the value of many apps is how well you learn them & incorporate their value into your work flow. The best example: Evernote. You either get it (and love it) or you don’t - kinda simple. So, without further adieu, here’s my list:
“I feel the need… the need for speed!”
For anyone (like myself) who has been religiously following Google and the amazing things that they have done to improve people’s experience on the web, you would have noticed a pattern in December 2009 of “speed.” The reasons for their speed obsession are clearly justified; a user’s experience on the web is made or broken by the speed at which they are able to browse, including the initial page load, the responsiveness of the interactive components, and the number of clicks to get to retrieve their desired information.
As such, Google has been busy releasing various tools to help with user’s experiences on the web:
GMail/Google Calendar Integration
Google, why hast thou forsaken us? A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, GMail had this great feature that was a defining reason in my switch from my previous mail provider (me). That was that if you ever got a message that had any sort of “event” — various combinations of a date, time and place — gmail would detect it and automatically create a link on the right sidebar to “Add to calendar”.
Openly Social via Google
Those whippersnappers at Google never rest! Google is introducing a new Web standard called OpenSocial designed to allow developers to build Web-based social applications that has made Facebook such an engaging site for developers and users alike.
Over time, social networks will organically grow to encompass any defined community online: families, schools, churches, clubs, groups, and businesses. Now if we could only connect socially face to face away from the computer screen, only then will our social networks be much more rewarding with the richness of personal relationships.
Google Webmaster Tools: A Comprehensive Guide
Eric Lander from Search Engine Journal provides a overview of Google Webmaster Tools: A Comprehensive Guide.
Web site owners and marketers have always craved more information with regards to how Google sees their site. Google Webmaster Tools address these and other needs as they provide support for those looking to diagnose errors, improve a site’s visibility and declare preferences on how to handle web site listings.
There are Statistics features available to make any web site marketer salivate. They include top search queries, how others link to you, PageRank values, links from page to page and domain to domain, and much more. Seeing your web site with the same lens that GoogleBot uses will supply you the necessary information to build an effective website for your visitors.
Your cheatin’ brain
“I’m trying to think, but nothing happens.” - Curly
Crib notes, quick guides, Cliff Notes, cheat sheets - whatever you choose to call them, they come in handy when the web developer brain goes ___________ .
The guys at Smashing Magazine (we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.) have provided probably over 100 cheat sheets from Ajax to CCS, MySQL to XML. One could print them all out and fill several notebooks full of cheat sheets, but that’s not being environmentally green (unless you’re really green.)
Google and Greylisting
We’d have a recent spat of complaints from our Swirbo customers regarding their inability to receive mail from certain Google apps — i.e. if you invite someone to view a blog, or docs.google.com document. Today I got an example of the actual error they are getting:
Technical details of permanent failure:
TEMP_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 450: Recipient
address rejected: Greylisted for 5 minutes
Anyone see a problem? The error we returned was 450, yet Google seems to think it was a permanent failure. Here’s a bit from the SMTP RFC (2821):
Google Mars
On the day of Percival Lowell’s birthday, Google has announced the launch of Google Mars (think Google Maps but for Mars, get it?). Noel Gorelick (a friend of mine) and Michael Weiss-Malik from Arizona State University worked with Google to combine google maps technology with the data from THEMIS, the most detailed imagery of Mars to date.
Full press release below the jump:
