Google Chrome Safe Mode

Firefox has an option that lets you temporarily disable themes and extensions, so you can still use your browser even if one of your add-ons is buggy. It's called safe mode and it's "a special Firefox execution mode that can be used to troubleshoot issues in Firefox. In Safe Mode, you can reset some settings or disable add-ons that might be the source of the issue. By comparing Firefox behavior in normal mode to its behavior in Safe Mode with various items disabled, you may be able to diagnose issues."

Google Chrome doesn't have this feature, but you can open an incognito window to temporarily disable extensions.


If you want to create a shortcut that opens Chrome in incognito mode, duplicate an existing Chrome shortcut, right-click on the shortcut, select "Properties" and append this flag to the target value: --incognito (don't forget to add a space to separate the flag).

Chrome OS Tablet Mockups

Hot on the heels of the Apple iPad announcement, Google released some mockups for Chrome OS tablets.

"On tablets, the UI would be adjusted to handle larger touch targets. Initial explorations have maintained the same basic chrome layout, but enlarged the controls. Icons could be placed above tabs to provide larger, square targets. Panels would be placed along the bottom edge and could be opened with upward dragging motions," explains Google.



Even if Chrome OS was initially designed for netbooks, Google hopes to create an operating system that works on tablets, laptops and desktop computers. "Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power".


Chrome OS has the advantage of a simple interface optimized for web applications. This may seem too restrictive, but Chrome, Safari, Firefox and other browsers are quickly evolving and many popular apps are migrating to the web.

{ via TechCrunch }

Better Google Search Integration in Gmail

One of the few great Hotmail features is the web search integration. When you compose a message, Hotmail lets you add maps, movie listings, local search results, images from the web without opening a new page.

Google's AJAX Search API lets you add similar features to any application, so it was surprising to see that Gmail didn't include a gadget that integrates with Google search. Last year, Gmail Labs added a Google Search gadget, but it only displayed web search results.

The Gmail Labs feature has been improved and you can now find images, maps, news articles, simple facts, weather information, definitions and even use Google Calculator from Gmail. Depending on your query, the gadget shows web search results or results from specialized search engines. Sometimes you'll see information that's usually displayed in an OneBox.



The main problem is that the gadget displays a small number of images, news articles or local search results, but there's no option to see more results from the same category. Another issue is that the specialized results are displayed only if Google finds that they're appropriate for your query.

{ via Gmail Blog }

Star Google News Stories

Google News added a new feature that lets you star news stories. If you click on a star next to a Google News cluster, you'll add it to the Starred section and Google will notify you when it finds related articles.

"When you star a story in Google News, it's one way to let us know that you're interested in that subject. When there are significant updates, we will alert you by putting the headline in bold so you can get more information," mentions Google News blog.

For some reason, Google doesn't add the starred news stories to Google Bookmarks and there's no option to star a news cluster after you open it. Another issue is that the Starred section only includes the most recent 20 starred stories.

I don't know if this is best way to use this feature, but you could star news stories to read them later. If you don't already use Instapaper or Read It Later, starring Google News clusters is a great way to save them for later.

Google's False Advertising

Google claims that you can store "up to 8,192,000 photos from a 5MP camera" if you buy 16 TB of storage. There's also a promotion that offers a free Eye-Fi card if you buy $50 or more of storage.


Apparently, you can't store 8,192,000 photos, at least not in Picasa Web Albums. Google's photo service has some strange limitations: a photo album can include up to 1,000 photos and a Picasa Web account can only have 1,000 albums. That means you'll be able to upload less than 1,000,000 photos, especially if you think that not all albums will include 1,000 photos.

Dave, a reader of this blog, is concerned: "Many people are upset that they purchased additional storage capacity from Google only to learn later that although they have plenty of free space, they have easily maxed out the 1000 files allowed by Google. Here is one of several threads on the Picasa help forum that discusses this issue. As someone who is/was considering purchasing extra storage space from Google in order to upload more pictures to Picasa Web Albums, I am a little concerned about this."

Of course, Google might say that the photos can also be stored using Google Docs or Gmail. Picasa Web Albums has to remove the limitations, improve photo uploading and the way you organize photos. Why do you have to upload photos to an album when Gmail and Google Docs use labels to organize messages and files?

{ Thanks, Dave. }

Update (February 28th): Google no longer shows the misleading message if you select 2 TB or more.

Google Video Finds Playlists

Google's video search engine started to index playlists from YouTube and other video sites. Playlists are mixed with standard video search results, but you'll probably find them on the first search results pages if they're relevant.

It's interesting to note that Google's algorithms detect groups of videos even if they aren't called playlists.


"Our intent is to represent the video content of the internet fairly and accurately. We don't give special ranking preference to videos hosted by YouTube or Google Video, nor do we manipulate search results in any way. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the Web to determine the inclusion and ranking of videos in our search results. After determining the content of the video using our spidering technology, Google then combines sophisticated text-matching techniques to find videos that are both important and relevant to your search. Our technology examines dozens of aspects of the video's content (including number of hits and rating) to determine if it's a good match for your query," explains Google.

Google Translate Adds Haitian Creole

Google's translation service added support for Haitian Creole, the most popular language in Haiti. "Haitian Creole language, often called simply Creole or Kreyòl, is a language spoken in Haiti by about eight million people, which is about 80% of the entire population, and via emigration, by about one million speakers residing in the Bahamas, Cuba, Canada, Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Belize, Puerto Rico, and United States," mentions Wikipedia.

It's an early release labeled as "alpha", so the translation quality isn't very high.


A week ago, Microsoft Translator added support for Haitian Creole. "In the current crisis in Haiti there are a number of initiatives to rapidly build software to assist in humanitarian aid. Responding to community requests for a machine translation (MT) system to translate between English and Haitian Creole, our team has been hard at work over the last few days. I am glad to announce that an experimental Haitian Creole MT system is now publicly available via several services and APIs powered by Microsoft Translator technologies. We will continue working on improving the system, but we hope meanwhile that in spite of the experimental nature – it will be of use in the relief efforts."

I used both Microsoft Translator and Google Translate to translate an article from VOA News. Google's translation (on the right) is much better: