Ratings and Profiles in GoogleGroups

While working on a plugin for the new Google Desktop API I noticed a couple of changes to the Google Groups interface. Each post can now be rated for quality and you can easily view the profile of each poster.

Accordingly the layout of each posts header has changed so you can see what average rating a post has received (and the number of votes as well as a link to the profile of the poster.

The profiles show a basic set of information (name, location, website/blog) as well as a detailed posting history including a timeline of when they have posted.



It's been a while since Google Groups got any changes but this is definitely a good improvement. The rating system should help point readers to the one good post that often amounts to the needle in the haystack of a flamewar.

Google Desktop Update

Looks like the rest of the Google boys and girls have been playing nice with the team at GoogleTalk. There's a new Google Desktop release(Beta 3) available, and GoogleTalk features prominently.

Desktop now uses GoogleTalk as a communications layer (Perhaps to encourage others to do the same, there is a new release of Libjingle).

As a result, you can now share your search index between your computers. Enabling this option will keep a copy of your indexes on Google servers and allow you to access that index from any other computer. This is both powerful and dangerous. You can search your files and view your web history anywhere, but then google has a record of all of this as well -- adjust your tin-foil hats now.

Two new related new search operators under: and machine: let you limit searches to paths and machine names respectively.


You can also choose to send the contents of some panels to friends.
News articles for example, can be sent to a contacts email, chat window, or direct to their news sidebar. What's more exciting to a developer like myself is the ability to write plugins that allow the same sort of data transfer with the new API -- watch out for a huge number of online games coming your way.

Other new sidebar features include the ability to 'lock searches' on your computer, detach sidebar items from the sidebar to 'float' on your desktop, spell checking, advanced search dialog, and an improved preferences page.

It's an impressive new release and the new communications features should prompt a raft of new sidebar plugins that take advantage.

More info at the Inside Google Desktop blog.

Google Integrates Chat with Mail

Now this is a beauty. Google is in the process of integrating GoogleTalk with GMail.

They're doing this in a number of ways. First off, the much anticipated ability to record your chat history within your gmail account (with the ability to go 'off the record' during any conversation that will prevent both sides of the conversation to stop logging.



More impressively, chatting and presence have both been integrated directly into the gmail interface.



A small presence window shows you your contact list with status messages and presence. Clicking on your contacts will launch a chat window within GMail, which can be un-joined into a separate pop-up window.

It's a very neat combination that looks good and just the way you'd think it should. It's the next logical step in web-based mail and after the disappointment of Google Video it's good to see Google have done this right.

Google say they're rolling this out now, so expect to see it in your GMail interface soon.

Google Reader Update

More from Google.

The time it's Google Reader. They've added a new 'label' drop-down to the main page which lets you easily filter your reading list by label. To achieve the same thing previously, you had to navigate in via the 'edit subscriptions' link.

Updated
Google Reader has also added some new keyboard shortcuts for navigating around your labels. Especially cool is the 'g then l' shortcut that will overlay a partially transparent label selection screen that lets you use the keyboard to choose a label to view.

Also:
g then h : your full reading list
g then s : starred items
g then u : edit subscriptions

More info at the official Google Reader Blog where they also mention some 'fun things' in the future and link to Niall Kennedy's blog entry about a forthcoming Google Reader API.

Google Cricket Sidebar Update

The Google cricket sidebar is inching its way to release. There's not too much more to do, but free time has been scarce of late making the last stage of testing and development drag on.

One of the biggest problems is the sheer number of games available to watch at any given time. There's test matches, limited overs, and 20/20 games. Then there's the domestic competitions from all over the world including India, South Africa, and Australia. The end result is a lot of different variations to test, but which can only be tested when the games are being played!

To help get a release out sooner, I'm considering offering a reduced version that will feature the one day and test matches from only one international team. My personal preference is for my home team of Australia -- but I'm willing to consider any alternative test playing nation based on feedback.

So, post your comments here or send me an email!

Better Google Maps

Along with releasing Google News out of Beta today, Google has also quietly released a new set of 6" satellite imagery for Google Earth.

What's really exciting about this release, is that they've now synched the imagery available on Google Earth, with Google Local. And to take advantage of the new high quality images they've added two further levels of zoom!

For some areas (the UK especially) this is a significant improvement on quality, and the extra levels of zoom put it in line with Google Earth. Which just leaves the Google Earth style 'tilt' on my Google Maps wish-list.

Ah, There's a Whale in the Thames

Now there's something you don't see every day, it appears a 20' northern bottle-nosed whale has gone on a site-seeing tour of central London, starting with river cruise up the Thames.

Cynical observers claim that the whale has 'lost its way', others think he's just taken the opportunity of a rare sunny day in London to cruise the river.

BBC online are offering a live video stream entitled "Watch the whale in the River Thames", featuring live real-time video of the whale in action. Or at least they would be if they hadn't lost it. Stay tuned!

Google Partnering with Intel and Motorola

Google's announced two new partnerships (perhaps alluded to earlier when they denied impending production of 'Google PCs', instead referring to their existing 'great partners'?).

The first is a partnership with Intel to leverage the Viiv platform for bringing Google Video to your living room, the second an alignment with Motorola to add a 'single click access' to Google on a number of their devices.

The Intel announcement is an interesting fusion of the two big rumors floating around the net -- the WSJ predicts a relaunched and expanded Google Video service with the ability to buy video from content provider, and the LA Times article predicting a Google hardware device that many hoped would be some sort of home-Google gateway for search and video.

Personally, I hope it is a combination, with Google announcing the updated Google Video service, as well as a Google branded Viiv box. I mean seriously -- how long until I get my Google-Viiv powered video on-demand+PVR set-top box?

So. How many hours until Larry's keynote at CES??

Google / AOL Partnership to Aid IM Interopability

A much overlooked consequence of the Google / AOL partnership is their commitment to interopability between GoogleTalk and AIM.

From the press release:

"Google Talk Instant Messaging Software to Communicate with AIM users"

Such an arrangement will propel GoogleTalk from the runt of the IM litter to an equal first position with the current heavy-weight of the field, AIM. Will this be enough to encourage the other big players (Yahoo!Talk and MSN) to play friendly?

Apparently Australians Have Lost Their !#@$ Minds

I'm an Aussie born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, so when I opened my morning Metro here in football mad London and found an article about yesterday's Test match between Australia and South Africa in Perth, I was justifiably pleased. Until I read it.

It was not the fact that the South Africans had doggedly denied our boys the win by hanging on for a draw that ruined my day -- rather it was the second time in as many weeks that rampant racism by my (and I hesitate to describe them as such) countrymen, had made international news.

Seriously though, WTF? Being from the west coast, it's easy enough for my to write off the riots in Sydney as 'those idiots from Cronulla', but racist taunts at the WACA? I mean ok, Perth sports fans have never been the most articulate at heckling. 'South Africans are Wan-kers' is about as eriadite as I've heard at the cricket. That, and a lot of these drunken morons seems to think that the harshest 'insult' they can provide is to question the sexuality of opposing teams.

Not that I'm suggesting bigotry is a step up from racial taunts. More like a lateral step along the bottom of a very slimy barrel.

Unofficial Google Modules Homepage

Rather than waiting for Google to get their submissions process sorted, Philipp Lenessen (of Google Blogoscoped ) and Alex Ksikes have put together an unofficial homepage for user created Google Homepage Modules.

I've submitted my cricket module, and suggest you check it out to see what other goodies people have put together.

Gmail On Your Mobile

I'd experimented with forwarding my POP mail to my mobile in the past, but it never really worked for me.

On the other hand, I've become completely addicted to using GMail, it's now the only email client I use. Handily, Gmail is now rendered in a mobile phone / PDA friendly format, including conversion of PDF to HTML and display images. Just point your phone's browser to: http://m.gmail.com

One really neat feature is 'reply by phone' as well as using your GMail contact list to make calls, so now I don't need to synch my contact list -- GMail handles it for me. Nice.

Now they just need to implement the long awaited Google Calendar and have mobile access for that, and I'll be set.

Cricket + Google = Sweet

Those of you who pay close attention to Google's every release (and how could you not?) will know they recently released an API for adding modules to their customised Google homepage.

To satisfy my endless appetite for world cricket, I've put together a module that will overlay all the current matches onto a Google Map for your viewing pleasure.

To add this module to your Google Hompage, go to your Google customised hompage -- choose 'Add Content', and paste this url into the 'Create a Section' text box.

You can check out other available modules at the Google module directory, and find out about more of my cricket tracking projects here.

The Nexus: Beta Release and Website

The Nexus is here!


Ok, so it's still in beta, but after nearly a year, the first release of The Nexus has been completed, and is currently being run through its paces by a team of book freaks dedicated testers.

The Nexus is a home library catalogue for books, CDs, and DVDs that populates your catalogue with details from online sources, and then lets you browse, tag, and track you collection.

Find out more at the (new!) website, and keep track of further developments at the development blog.