Google's Festive Decorations

Google shows a lot of festive doodles, Easter Eggs and special decoration. Here are some of them:



- The Thanksgiving doodle is actually a video

Here's the video:

"Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year."



- Mr. Jingles is hungry

Here's the animation:

- Hanukkah search results

"Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday."



- Festivus search results include the aluminum Festivus pole

"Festivus, a well-celebrated parody, has become a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 which serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas and holiday season. Originally a family tradition of a scriptwriter working on the American sitcom Seinfeld, the holiday entered popular culture after it was made the focus of a 1997 episode of the program."



As Google says, "it's all about Thanksgivukkah in 2013. This overlap of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah won't happen again for another 70,000+ years, making it a once-in-a-lifetime event".



Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays!



{ Thanks, Mukil and Emanuele. }

Google Health Cards

When you search for [causes of multiple sclerosis], [causes of hiccups], [symptoms of the flu], [how to treat iron deficiency] and other similar health-related queries, Google shows snippets from authoritative sites like WebMD and MayoClinic. Sometimes Google also shows instant answers, but they're not always accurate.

{ Thanks, Sunite. }

YouTube Tweaks Experimental Center-Aligned UI

YouTube continues to tweak the center-aligned UI experiment. The latest version includes a new upload button, a refined guide sidebar with new icons and "more" drop-downs for playlists and subscriptions, a list of recommended channels and probably other features.

The "guide" sidebar is displayed by default only if there's enough room. If there isn't, the sidebar is hidden and you need to click "guide" to see your playlists, subscriptions, video history and more.

The layout still uses cards and it's center-aligned.

Here's how you can enable the experimental interface. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:



1. open youtube.com in a new tab



2. load your browser's developer console:



* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac



* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac



* Internet Explorer 8+ - press F12 and select the "Console" tab



* Safari 6 - if you haven't enabled the Develop menu, open Preferences from the Safari menu, go to the Advanced tab and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close Preferences and then press Command-Option-C to show the console.



* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console".



3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:



document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=rkZGzYxfbLQ; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();



4. press Enter and close the console.



To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:



document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();



{ Thanks, Florian K. }

YouTube's Player, Back to Simple Buttons?

Back in September, YouTube's player grouped controls for annotations, player size and video quality. A few weeks ago, the "large player" button has been removed from the drop-down and brought back to its original position, next to the "full screen" button.

If the video doesn't have annotations and you use the Flash player, you'll even see the video quality drop-down without an additional click:

Preview International Airports And Train Stations Before You Travel On Google Street View

Google Street View already gives us enough reasons to travel. Now, a new Google Maps feature adds a touch of practicality to those virtual dreams. Google Maps will let you preview global transit locations, including 16 international airports, and over 50 train and subway stations. Even a cable car station in Hong Kong is thrown in for good measure. An interactive map shows you the spots that have been selected so far. Google Maps definitely will be adding more. This is Tokyo International Airport… It’s not just visual chutzpah on the part of Google either, as mapping transit locations makes...

Read the full article: Preview International Airports And Train Stations Before You Travel On Google Street View

Chromecast Button in Google Play Store

Sometimes you have to go back to basics, create something simple that works and constantly improve it. That's how Google Search, Gmail, Chrome and other Google products became successful. Google TV tried to solve too many problems and ended up with complicated remote controls, buggy software, browsers with blocked content, unhappy partners and disappointed users.



Google Cast and Chromecast try to solve fewer problems and are much more limited. Apps live on your phone or tablet, the remote control is your phone or tablet and Chromecast is just a way to play content on your TV.



The number of apps that support Google Cast is still very small, but they're some of the most popular apps in their category: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies, Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, HBO Go. This is about to change when Google releases the official Cast SDK and allows any app or site to integrate with Chromecast.



For now, Google continues to promote Chromecast. "For a limited time we're giving you an HD movie rental from Google Play with every purchase of a Chromecast device. It's the perfect treat to add to that special someone's stocking. At just $35 each, why not pick one up for both of you?" suggests Google Play's site. The promotion is actually "valid for any movie rental or other content on Google Play valued at $6 or less".



Sterling Alvarez noticed a Chromecast button in the Google Play Store app (landscape mode). It only lists the apps that support Google Chromecast, but it's interesting to notice that the link is prominently placed in the default Play Store section for apps.

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

Where To Study: Navigating The Free Online Education World

If you are interested in free education online, you’ve probably heard the big names: Coursera, Khan Academy, MIT, etc. But now that these learning avenues are commonplace, it also is bit of a nightmare to choose between them and decide which learning systems to use. Top Universities Offering Free Education Online Many universities offer access to their lectures publicly now, as it is a great way to showcase their courses and their generosity. MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, and Berkeley all offer a lot of great content online. However, due to many great partnerships with MOOC (Massively Open...

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You Can Have It All: Enlightenment Is A Light Linux Desktop Environment That Looks Good

Ever since the development team behind GNOME went ahead with their plans for GNOME 3, people have been scrambling to find the new favorite desktop environment. Although there are plenty of choices available (such as other GNOME-based ones, KDE, Xfce, and LXDE), you might still be looking for something else that is easy to use, relatively lightweight, powerful, and good looking. If none of those previously mentioned desktop environments tickle your fancy, then you may be interested in a unique desktop environment named Enlightenment. About Enlightenment Enlightenment, or simply “E”, is a desktop environment that has actually been around since...

Read the full article: You Can Have It All: Enlightenment Is A Light Linux Desktop Environment That Looks Good

New Interface for Google's Account Permissions Page

Google's account permissions page has a new interface which does a better job at listing the permissions, shows bigger thumbnails and the date when you authorized a service.



"On the Account Permissions tab of your Google Account, you can see a list of third-party sites and applications. These are sites and applications to which you've granted permission to access your Google Account, and you can see on this list to what parts of your account they have access. For example, you might have downloaded an app that helps you schedule workouts with friends. This application might have requested access to your Google Calendar and Contacts to suggest times and friends for you to meet up with," informs Google's help center.



Google shows your Android and iOS devices at the top of the page. My Nexus 7 tablet was listed 3 times, so I clicked "Revoke access" next to the entries that include: "Inactive - We haven't seen activity from this device for at least 60 days."

If you see some services you no longer use, click "Revoke access". You'll be asked for permission the next time you use them.



{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Technophilia 90 Live From MakeUseOf

This week: a judge rants about his cases on Facebook, resulting in a reversed decision against a sex offender. What will Facebook ruin next? Political campaigns can’t accept BitCoin donations, yet another setback for anarchists seeking to participate in the political process. And The Beastie Boys don’t want their songs in ads but a toy company claims parodies are fair use. Does that mean I can use any song for any purpose provided I change the lyrics? Awesome, because I’m putting together an ad myself: I’m just a hot dog nobody loves me (he tastes amazing, don’t believe his modesty,...

Read the full article: Technophilia 90 Live From MakeUseOf

F-Secure KEY Generates and Remembers Passwords Across Platforms

Security firm F-Secure, which we reckon is one of the best antivirus apps on Android, has made its foray in the crowded password manager market with the new F-Secure KEY, a cross-platform tool to generate and remember passwords across different devices. The service works much like its existing competitors, like Lastpass. It will let you generate safe and difficult-to-crack passwords and log you in across Mac, Windows, Android and iOS, as long as you have the F-Secure KEY app installed. All of these usernames and passwords are protected by a universal password. And while it generates great passwords, you can...

Read the full article: F-Secure KEY Generates and Remembers Passwords Across Platforms

How To Check If An ISO File Is Bootable

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So, you have created a bootable Windows 7/8/8.1 DVD disc by burning the ISO file that you have downloaded only to find that your Windows 7/8/8.1 DVD isn’t booting when connected to a PC even after necessary changes to BIOS/UEFI to boot from DVD. There are plenty of tools out there to help you create […]

Xbox One Fix, Bookless Library, Microsoft Attacks Chromebooks [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, an Xbox One disc drive fix is revealed, the Xbox One swearing ban is publicized, the Xbox One enjoys a teardown, free Xbox One games are up for grabs, the library with no books is revealed, Apple is found to have invented the smartphone, YouTube battles back against commenters, the “OK, Google” voice command comes to Chrome, Twitter seeks user feedback, and Microsoft attacks Chromebooks as part of its ‘Scroogled’ campaign against Google. Xbox One News Aplenty How to fix the Xbox One disc drive… and it actually works! https://t.co/idZP9iZlYs — GamesRadar.com (@GamesRadar) November 26,...

Read the full article: Xbox One Fix, Bookless Library, Microsoft Attacks Chromebooks [Tech News Digest]

How To Install Windows 8.1 On SSD

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Solid State Drivers (SSDs) are not only faster than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) but also last longer. While many new PCs that are available in the market today come with SSDs, most of the PCs that have been purchased in the past couple of years can also be upgraded to SSDs to improve the […]

How to Tag all your Friends on a Facebook Status in a Single Click

I wrote a lot of Facebook Tricks on my blog.Today here I am back with a special trick on "How to Tag all your Friends on a Facebook Status in a single click".Using this trick you can invite all your friends to view your status.This way you can get a lot of exposure if you are promoting any brand or you can invite all your friends to like your photo or status.

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Gmail's Google+ Interstitial

Google works hard to convince people to join Google+. I went to Gmail, signed in using an account that hasn't switched to Google+ and got this interstitial page (the URL starts with "https://plus.google.com/up/accounts/inter"):



"Update your account. Create a public Google+ profile and get great new features in Gmail."

You only have to check "I understand the changes to Picasa Web Albums when I create a profile" and click "Update and continue to Gmail". For now, you can ignore this page and click "not now, continue to Gmail".

OK Google in Desktop Chrome

Google Voice Search works in Chrome for desktop, not only in Android and iOS. Just click the microphone icon from the search box and you can tell Google what do you want to know, assuming that you have a microphone.



Now you can bypass the microphone icon and use the hotword "OK Google" when you're using Google search or the new tab page. You need to install this extension first.

"Chrome will listen for you to say 'Ok Google' and then send the sound of the next thing you say, plus a few seconds before, to Google," informs the options page. By default, Google stops listening after 5 minutes to reduce battery consumption on a laptop.



Hotword detection works offline and doesn't send the recording to Google's servers until you say "OK Google". You need to open a Google search page or go to the new tab page first, assuming that you have the updated new tab page which uses the Google homepage.



You can tell if Google is listening by checking the microphone icon from the search box:

Now Google handles Voice Search queries differently. In addition to providing voice feedback and using the previous query for disambiguation, Google now changes your query and removes unnecessary word. For example, if you tell Google "show me some Brad Pitt movies", Google will show results for [Brad Pitt movies].

Everybody Hates Google+ [We Ask You Results]

The YouTube comments system recently underwent a huge change, with Google, in its infinite wisdom, deciding to use Google+ as the means by which everyone can comment on the most popular video-sharing site on the Internet. This change went down about as well as could be expected (hint: not well at all). Then came the impassioned pleas for a reversal of the decision, a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of people asking Google to reconsider, lots of anti-Google videos posted to YouTube itself, and comments registering distaste for the change using the very medium which was being hated on....

Read the full article: Everybody Hates Google+ [We Ask You Results]

From Boys To Men: 4 Subreddits All Guys Should Read

Physical appearances matter. Ideally they wouldn’t but the cold truth is that human beings tend to make snap judgments about everything based on first impressions — and it feels wrong to do so. “The inside is more important than the outside,” right? Well, our physical appearances actually say a lot about us and it’s important that we don’t neglect that aspect of our humanity. Not that physical beauty is an indicator of moral purity or personality — no one should ever judge another person’s worth as a human being based on their outer skin. But at the same time, that...

Read the full article: From Boys To Men: 4 Subreddits All Guys Should Read

Create Scalable Graphics With Open-Source, Cross-Platform Tool Inkscape

While the GIMP may be a great tool for image manipulation, it’s not the most ideal one when it comes to scalable graphics. If you’re looking for an open source tool to do the job, then the best choice is Inkscape. While it may not be quite as advanced as a pricey professional vector drawing tool such as Adobe Illustrator, it can certainly handle most things you throw at it. Let’s take a look at what Inkscape is capable of, and whether it can fit your needs. File Types Inkscape supports all of the common file types associated with scalable...

Read the full article: Create Scalable Graphics With Open-Source, Cross-Platform Tool Inkscape