Usage Examples in Google Translate

Google Translate has a new button that shows word usage examples from the web. This works for both original text and the translated text, but it's no limited to single words: Google can also find examples for longer texts and even translate them for you.

"At Google we're always curious about new words from around the world, from all languages, and we think one of the best ways to understand and make sense of new words is by observing them in their natural habitat. Our latest feature does just that by providing you with example sentences taken from fresh new stories around the web," explains Google.

There's also a "select all" button that selects the entire translated text, so that it's easier to copy.

{ Thanks, Emanuele and Dean. }

Chrome Extensions Not in the Chrome Web Store, More Difficult to Install

Chrome 21, currently in beta, brings bad news to those who install extensions from third-party sites. Users will no longer be able to install extensions, apps and user scripts by simply downloading them and clicking "install" in a Chrome box.

Chrome 21 shows a message that's actually inaccurate: "Extensions, apps and user scripts can only be instlled from the Chrome Web Store." When you click the "learn more" link, you'll found there's actually a way to install .crx files: just download them, open their folder and drag them to Chrome's extensions page (Tools > Extensions).

"Previously, any website could prompt you to add an extension into your browser. In the latest version of Google Chrome, you must explicitly tell Chrome that you want to install these extensions by adding them through the Extensions page," explains Google. The reason for this change is that Google can only find and remove malicious extensions in the Chrome Web Store. "Online hackers may create websites that automatically trigger the installation of malicious extensions. Their extensions are often designed to secretly track the information you enter on the web, which the hackers can then reuse for other ill-intended purposes."

Most likely, this change won't affect too many users and it will encourage developers to submit their extensions to the Chrome Web Store. Power users will complain that it's more difficult to install user scripts from sites like userscripts.org and extensions from sites like chromeextensions.org. Maybe Google could add an option in the settings page that lets you disable this security feature.

Update: There's a command-line flag that disables this feature: --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install. Use the instructions from this page to add the flag. Please note that the feature is available starting with Chrome 21 (right now it's in the beta channel, but it will be in the stable channel next month).

{ Thanks, Sterling and Ruben. }

10 Google Features for Slow Internet Connections

It's not easy using Google services when your Internet connection is very slow. Here are some helpful features:

1. Gmail's basic HTML mode - https://mail.google.com/mail/h/. It doesn't have all the features of the regular Gmail interface, but it lets you read messages and compose mail. This interface uses JavaScript sparingly and every click means a new page request. The good news is that there isn't much too load, so the basic HTML interface is better suited for slow connections. You can even set it as the default interface.

2. Disable Google Instant from the search preferences page. Just enable "never show Instant results" and click "Save" so that Google never tries to load search results as you type the query. Google will still show suggestions, but you can disable this feature by using this URL.

3. YouTube Feather is an experimental interface that's intended to "serve YouTube video watch pages with the lowest latency possible". You can still play videos, check related videos, subscribe to channels and read a few comments, but these are all the features that are available. Since your connection is slow, it's a good idea to select "240p" from the list of resolutions.

4. The old Google image search interface is better for slow connections, but you should bookmark this URL to use it. Unfortunately, you can't switch to the old interface and the "switch to basic version" is placed at the bottom of the page in the standard version.

5. Chrome's click-to-play feature is great because it loads content that requires plug-ins on demand. That means you have to click a gray box to load Flash content, Java applets etc. It's an excellent alternative to extensions like FlashBlock and it's built into Chrome. How to enable click-to-play in Chrome? Type chrome://chrome/settings/content in a new tab, press Enter, enable "click to play" in the "plug-ins" section and click "OK".

6. Google's transcoder available at http://google.com/gwt/n is optimized for mobile devices, but it also works on a computer. Just type the URL of a page and Google will display a compressed version of the page with smaller images, simplified layout and no JavaScript.

7. The text-only Google Cache lets you load a simplified version of the page directly from Google Cache. Sometimes it's an old version of the page, but at least it loads fast. You can get this version by clicking "text-only" in the header of the regular cached page, but that's not efficient. There's also this URL you can use:

www.google.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:www.domain.com
(replace www.domain.com with the URL of the page)

8. Chrome's custom user agent feature is great if you want to pretend you're using a different browser. If your connection is really slow, pretending that you're using a smartphone has an important advantage: many sites will load the mobile interfaces, which are lightweight. To change the user agent in Chrome, open the developer tools (Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux, Command-Option-I for Mac), click the "settings" button at the bottom of the window, click "user agent", enable "override user agent", select "Android 4.0.2 - Google Nexus" or "iPhone - iOS 5.0" from the list and disable "override device metrics".

9. Google Public DNS is a simple way to speed up your browsing experience if the DNS service you're using is slow. "The DNS protocol is an important part of the web's infrastructure, serving as the Internet's phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day," explains Google.

10. Use a browser that supports SPDY, a new protocol "designed for low-latency transport of content over the World Wide Web." Right now, SPDY is supported by Chrome and Firefox, while many Google sites use it.

If Chrome or Firefox aren't good enough, use a browser optimized for slow connections: Opera and enable Opera Turbo, a feature that uses Opera's servers to compress pages and their resources. Opera uses Google's WebP image format to save even more data and show crisper images. The average compression ratio for Opera Turbo is about 60%. Turbo is also available in the Opera Mobile app for Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and you can use the Opera Mini app for a higher compression ratio (up to 90%). Opera Mini can be installed on most phones, including feature phones and the iPhone.

Find Public Google Docs

Google Docs and Google Drive don't offer the option to find public files, but you can do that using Google search. Now that the Google Docs robots.txt file allows search engines to index most of the public files, you should be able to find them, assuming that there are some links that point to them.

Search engines only index the files that are "public on the Web". By default, files are private, but you can change the visibility from the "Share" box.

Here are some useful queries that let you find public Google Drive/Docs files (you can append some keywords to the queries):

* [site:docs.google.com/document/d] - find text documents

* [site:docs.google.com/presentation/d] - find presentations

* [site:docs.google.com/drawings/d] - find drawings

* [site:docs.google.com/file/d] - find files: images, videos, PDF files, Microsoft Office documents and more (you should click "repeat the search with the omitted results included" since there are many files with similar titles)

* [site:docs.google.com/folder/d] - find folders (collections of files and other folders)

* [site:docs.google.com/open] - find other documents, folders and files (the links redirect to other URLs)

Public spreadsheets and forms can't be indexed by search engines.

The Game of Life Easter Egg

Google shows a clever Easter Egg when you're searching for [conway's game of life]. It's a low-key simulation of John Conway's model devised in 1970. "The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent," explains Wikipedia.

It's not an actual game because it doesn't require input. There's an initial configuration and all the other configurations are obtained by applying 4 rules:

"Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction."

Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton and it can emulate a universal Turing machine.

You can pause Google's simulation and even hide the search results by clicking the maximize button. If you don't like the Easter Egg, click the close button and it disappears. There's also a simplified version of the Easter Egg for smartphones and tablets, but the controls are missing.

{ Thanks, Dan. }

Google's Interactive Unit Conversion OneBox

Google updated the unit conversion OneBox and this time it's interactive. For example, you can search for [10 pounds in kg], get the result and quickly change the number of pounds or kilograms directly from the OneBox. You can also select a different unit of measurement from the list: metric ton, gram, stone, ounce.

Google's gadget even lets you change the conversion type and switch to a different category: speed, length, temperature, volume, area, fuel consumption, time or digital storage. The gadget is only displayed for common measurement units, so you'll still see the old interface when you search for [10 pascals to Torr] or [2 radians to degrees].

Now you no longer need iGoogle's metric conversion gadget.

{ Thanks, Diego. }

iGoogle Will Be Discontinued

Google's personalized homepage will no longer be available starting from November 2013. The official explanation is that "with modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time".

iGoogle started as a custom Google homepage that allowed you to add gadgets for weather, news, mail and more. "The goal of this initiative is to bring together Google functionality, and content from across the web, in ways that are useful to our users," explained Google in 2005.

Just like My Yahoo, Netvibes and other custom start pages, iGoogle became a dashboard that gathered your favorite content from the web. It was a simplified feed reader, a platform for mini-apps and games, a great homepage for your browser. Social networks and smartphones addressed most of these use cases and iGoogle's popularity declined.

Most likely, Google will promote Google+ as an iGoogle replacement, even though it lacks many of its features. Google+ apps, themes and maybe even a dashboard-like interface could fill iGoogle's void.

iGoogle is not the only Google product that will be discontinued. Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback and the Symbian Google Search app will no longer be available, while the videos uploaded to Google Video will be automatically be migrated to YouTube starting from next month. "Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009. Later this summer we'll be moving the remaining hosted content to YouTube. Google Video users have until August 20 to migrate, delete or download their content. We'll then move all remaining Google Video content to YouTube as private videos that users can access in the YouTube video manager," mentions Google. You can manage the videos uploaded to Google Video using this page.