Jicola.com Blogs

Twitter has redeveloped it’s homepage. You can read more at the Twitter Blog. The new Twitter Homepage is now focusing on what is happening right now, not about joining and what Twitter is about as it was previously.

Good news if someone has hacked your Facebook account. There is now a procedure in place if your account has been compromised. If Facebook thinks your account is being used to spam, you will be sent an email directing you to a page so you can get it back. The first step is an overview giving you information about the process. The second step is a security check. You then have to verify your account and change your password in the third and fourth step. In the fifth step, you can restore your account.

Via Facebook Blog.

I regularly read what Google does, and in the past few days, I have noticed that Google has released quite a few things or made announcements of what they are about to do. So I have put together this list of things that Google has accomplished over the past few months.

• Creative Common Images – You can now search for images based on licence types.
• Announced Google Chrome OS – Google now going into the desktop market. Will they compete against Microsoft? We’ll find out in the second half of 2010.
• Google Chrome Web Browser – Finally, more competition against Microsoft
• Removed the BETA tag from Gmail and other Google Apps – After being in BETA for over 5 years, its about time you removed the BETA label
• Evolution of Gmail Labels – Improvements of managing your emails
• Bloggers 10th Birthday – a few stats about Blogger
• New Google Books features – better ways to browse and share books. Read all the new features here.
• Google Translator Toolkit – improvements of Google Translator
• Google Suggestions – surf the web faster with search suggestions given
• Google Apps Education Edition – Google hitting the schools with educational lesson plans and more
• Google Voice – One number for all your phones. Plus it is free and coming soon
• Property Listing – now lists real estate on Google Maps
• Google Latitude – Find the location of all your friends

Going back a bit further, lets recap on some of the best things Google has given us

• Google Web Search – What will we do (and Google) if it didn’t have the web search?
• Google Apps – Including Gmail, Calender, Docs, Sites, Photo’s
• WebMaster Tools – Adsense, Adwords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools
• Google Reader
• Feedburner
• Youtube
• Knol
• Blog Search
• Google News
• Blogger
• Google Checkout – buy things online securely
• iGoogle
• Web History
• Google Talk
• Groups
• Translate
• Google Labs
• Google Maps, street view
• Google Trends – See what the world searches for (Michael Jackson)
• Google Ad Planer – Find sites to advertise on, their statistics, demographics and more about the people who visit the site.

So you can see Google has a lot of very handy web apps that we all use everyday. The internet will be completely different if it wasn’t for Google.

Have we missed something out on the list? Please let us know in comments.

Google has been on a role recently with revealing new projects such as Google Weave, Latitude for web browsers, Chrome OS, removing the BETA tag of Gmail, flew tracker, and PDF Viewer for search results, and Google Voice, Magazines in Google Book search just to name a few.

Google has now implemented a creative commons search for images on Google Image Search. To use this feature, just select “Advance Image Search, and choose the appropriate drop down box.

You can read more on the Google Blog.

If you have a new web browser that supports the W3C Geolocation API web standard, you will now see a My Location button on the left hand side under the street view button that will pin point your exact location on Google Maps. You will only notice this button if you have a Firefox 3.5 or a Google Chrome 2.0+ web browser.

So what does this do for me? It could worry you that their is now technology that can pin point your exact location from your very own home. On the positive side, if your travelling around and your a bit lost, you can now find where you are.

Once you click the button, you will be prompted to allow Google Maps to track your location. Google says that they take privacy very seriously.

Google takes privacy very seriously, so your location will never be used without your permission. The first time you use My Location on Google Maps, you’ll be asked to confirm that you’re happy to share your location with Google Maps, and you can always undo your decision.

So does this mean if you use the feature once, they can track you? You might want to read their privacy policy first.

You can read Google’s Article on the Google LatLong Blog.

TechMan Help is giving away free domain names in their promotional contest. Read here on how you can win your free domain name.

Good luck to everyone and we hope you win!!!

Jicola Blogs has been featured on TechAU.

Thanks TechAU

TechAU Blog Post

So have we found the edge of the Universe? I don’t think so, but Google Maps Street view might have.

Google Maps Street View has a few images that are not meant to be or can be taken in a way that could have different connotations.

This street view image was taken on Kulin Holt Rock Rd, Jilakin WA which is somewhere in the middle of Australia. I don’t know why I was looking in some weird place, maybe to look at the large mass of water nearby. So I am not quite sure of what the picture represents but I do believe if we go to that location, it will be completely different. Not a star a a colour spectrum in sight.

I do feel sorry for the Google employees who took all that time to drive out here to take these pictures, only to realise when they get back that their camera was broken.

You can find more weird and strange Google Street View images by a simple Google Search.

The location of the above image can be found at: http://go.jicola.com/4×1ho/

Have you come across a Facebook video that you want to save to your computer but can’t find a download link? Well here’s how you do it without any software.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks back, Facebook announced that you can get usernames for Facebook instead of using a bunch of numbers.

You can now get your Facebook username. Just visit http://www.facebook.com/username/ and choose your name.