Google

FIX: Google Toolbar resets/breaks/messes up IE7 toolbars

urig — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:42:00 GMT

Ever since I've upgraded from IE6 to IE7, I've noticed that whenever I reopen my Internet Explorer, all my toolbars get messed up. It's as if they are reset to the original "factory" setting, regardless of how carefully I've tweaked them before previously closing IE7.

Clearly something was wrong, but to my surprise the fault lay not with "Evil Microsoft" but with the "Benevolent Google"'s beloved Google Toolbar(!). I've learned here that the Google Toolbar uses some evil voodoo ("hijacks ITBarLayout from within its satellite BHO") which interferes with IE7's layout mechanism.

Luckily, a site called IECustomizer.com makes a simple solution available here. It's a small Windows Registry .reg file that disables the Google Toolbar's BHO with the effect of restoring IE7's toolbars to their normal self, while keeping the Google Toolbar alive and well.

I've tried it and I'm pleased to say that it works. Now it's up to Google to fix their code so other people don't have to go digging for third-part solutions. I wonder how I can submit a bug report...?

Google Checkout - We don't serve your kind here.

urig — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:45:00 GMT

I just tried to register with Google Checkout - Google's shiny new payment service. To my surprise, I could not find my beloved country of Israel in the countries drop down list.

Turns out Google Checkout is only available in a few, select, countries. I learned this and little more in a support article buried deep inside the site.

Why isn't Google Checkout available in Israel and so many other countries? Google isn't saying.

Until then - Bad service Google dudes!

What's missing in the new Google Reader?

urig — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:24:00 GMT

I've been giving Google Reader a spin and I'm finding it very easy to get used to reading my RSS feeds through it. They've done an excellent job with the UI, as usual.

But then I needed to find an old blog entry from Oren Eini's blog (a book recommendation for a fantasy trilogy of all things) and I've discovered that Google Reader is missing something very important. Something that Google is almost synonymous with - a search box.

What and odd surprise - there is no search feature (that I could find) in the Google Reader. That's like finding out that your brand new Victorinox swiss-army knife doesn't have any knife blades. Or that Nike Town doesn't sell sports shoes.

It's definitely a WTF moment and the only excuse I can come up with for this, is that the Reader is still in the Google Labs and maybe somebody took the search feature off to do some work on it (?!).

test

Google to offer Voicemail and e-vite integration?

Uri Goldstein — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 18:05:00 GMT

Garett Rogers has done some digging into gmail's javascript code and found what he thinks are precursors to Google offering Voicemail and integration with the Evite.com online invitation service.

Nice detective work. Check it out: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=108.

Google Base is up!

Uri Goldstein — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:31:00 GMT

Check it out - Google Base is finally up.

This is Google's publically available (and publically maintained!) open database of everything. A a repository of structured data that everyone can add to. You can either structure an "Item Type" for yourself or choose one from the many already defined and then you feed Items of that type into the system.

Everything ends up indexed in Google Base's search engine. One possible use for it is for classified ads, much like craigslist. I noticed that when inputing data for an item of type "Car", the first field to fill is the desired price for it :).

But it could generally be used to store any kind of list data or object data. I expect Google to provide users with some kind of API for programmatically accessing and manipulating this huge public mega-db.

I guess this is just another step ahead on Google's road to owning The Index of Everthing!. Yikes :).