InsideGoogle

$10 To Answer This Question

Nathan Weinberg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:24:31 +0000

I’m completely unable to find an answer (though this Russian forum might have something), so I’ll give ten bucks via PayPal (or whatever) to the first person to give me a working answer to this question:

How do I force an ATI X1550 card to output YPrPb signals on VGA under Windows Vista?

Even if it’s a stupid answer, if it works, I’ll pay you. It’s probably a registry key, or maybe there’s software, or maybe the Russians know something. If I have to buy the ATI HDTV dongle, and you can confirm that for me, I’ll give you five bucks.

Thanks for the assistance.

Google Reader Recommends Feeds, Adds Drag-n-Drop Organization

Nathan Weinberg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:06:23 +0000

Google Reader has added a feature to the sidebar that recommends RSS feeds you might be interested in subscribing to based on your current subscription. They list three feeds, but click a link and you’ll get a page with 20 pretty good recommendation.

Reader recommended for me Dave Naylor, Michael Gray, Ross Mayfield, Dave Sifry, the Google News Blog, the AdWords API blog, the Google Checkout Blog, the Vista Team blog, Microsoft’s JobsBlog, Channel 10, Jeff Sandquist, Tim Sneath, Matt Haughey, Eileen Brown and Dosh Dosh, among others, pretty much good recommendations all around.

By contrast, Bloglines has a similar feature which hasn’t been updated in a while (possibly not since its launch three years ago) that is biased towards more popular blogs you may already read in another form, or don’t subscribe to for a reason. They include Slashdot (already subscribe), CNET (I don’t subscribe to all of CNET, just specific areas), kuro5hin (they’re still around?), MacRumors, Gizmodo (already subscribe), Dilbert, all of Wired, Fast Company, 43 Folders (already subscribe), Kottke, Think Secret and Extremetech. Reader’s ahead already on day one.

Reader also added the ability to re-arrange feeds via drag-and-drop. This was a long one coming, given that Bloglines had it in the previous version since February 2006, and a necessary one. Google still doesn’t provide a means for renaming folders, but at least you can improve things by moving them around.

screenshots above by Barry under CC license

Google Experimental Adds Suggest, Search Digging

Nathan Weinberg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:57:23 +0000

Google Experimental, where Google runs experimental search interfaces which you can subscribe to and add to your regular search experience, has added two new experiments.

Keyword Suggestions is Google Suggest, the Google service that offers search suggestions as you type, is now available as an Experiment. This is great, being able to add it as part of your personal search experience, since Yahoo and Ask.com already offer it in their main search engines.

A limited number of users are also being offered this experiment, which allows them to delete and re-order search results. It’s been described as almost a Digg-like system, in that the eventual goal would be to improve Google results through the wisdom of crowds by changing the results for everyone based on a mass consensus in the voting up and down (and deleting) of search results. This feature was originally developed on Google’s SearchMash test engine.

The voting experiment is a tasty one, so much that those who haven’t been offered it are clamoring for it, while the Google Suggest experiment has so much potential appeal, it should be an option in Google’s preferences. One limitation of the Experimental program is that you can only “install” one experiment to your search results at a time. Hopefully, Google will find a way to offer Suggest as an option to all users and let them choose a different experiment to play around with.

YouTube User Comment On Republican CNN/YouTube Debates

Nathan Weinberg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:07:39 +0000

The YouTube blog has put together this playlist of what YouTube users who attended last night’s CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate had to say after the debate:

46 videos in all, so take your time.

Google Helps You Read Experts Exchange For Free

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:38:48 +0000

Experts Exchange is a website that answers questions on computer issues, and it ranks very well in Google search results. Problem is, it costs money to read the answer, $12.95 a month. Luckily, they expose the full answers to search engines (which is why they are able to rank so well), so you can easily read the whole answer without registering and paying for an account.

Any time you see Experts-exchange.com in Google search, just hit the cache link to read the page with the complete answer.

Don’t even bother trying to view it normally, because they expect you to pay for content. Hopefully they left this loophole open on purpose, because we all know paying for content is a loser of a business model. The Wall Street Journal has a back door for Digg users, and this is a type of back door as well. Sites can lock down their communities to paid users, but don’t expect search engine visitors to pay.

After all, why would I pay for a website if I can’t even see the quality of the “Expert” answers?
(via Techblog.BE)

Tay Zonday Sings For Dr. Pepper

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:51:00 +0000

Tay Zonday’s got a new video out,and it’s not what you expect from the deep voiced YouTube viral video star.

Yeah, this time Tay’s got production values, featured rappers, dancers, and behind it all, corporate sponsorship. Dr. Pepper produced this to advertise their new Diet Cherry Chocolate limited edition flavor introduced a week ago. This is Tay’s first endorsement.

Have you tasted Cherry Chocolate? Let us know if it’s any good.

Gadget Allows Rule Control Over iGoogle Themes

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:07:56 +0000

Ionut Alex details a ~~new~~ iGoogle Gadget that allows you more control over personalized homepage themes than ever before. With this Gadget, you can set rules for theme switching, using a different theme based on which computer you’re using, the time of day, the weather outside, the day of the week, and choose from 70 user-created themes while doing so. The possibilities for theme combinations are endless, and you can do a different theme per iGoogle tab, giving you more options than you know what to do with.

Google Gadgets Now Run On Mac’s Dashboard

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:25:29 +0000

Google Desktop’s Gadgets are now cross-platform compatible with Apple’s Mac OS X Dashboard. That means you can run Gadgets alongside Widgets in the Dasboard, on Google’s Sidebar, and on the iGoogle personalized homepage, making them amazingly versatile, and letting Google’s platform pick up the slack when Dashboard is missing something important. If Google does the same for Windows Vista, and helps Gadgets run on Vista’s Sidebar, that would be amazing.

Google Announces Highly Open Participation Contest

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:37:22 +0000

The Google Code blog is talking about their new “Highly Open Participation Contest“, an effort to get pre-university students involved in different aspects of software development, part of the Summer of Code program. There are all sorts of tasks available, from fixing bugs to writing documentation or doing user experience research. Google is continuing to try to increase its appeal in the developer community, and this program is here to pull in those in the community who might not be into writing code.

Any student over 13 years of age and enrolled in a pre-university program can sign up. That includes high schoolers, as well as those in a secondary school or other educational institution. Parental consent is a requirement.

Google Checkout and PayPal Unveil Holiday Offers

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:06:39 +0000

Google’s Checkout and eBay’s PayPal unit are showing off their big holiday offers, designed to get you to use their services when making your holiday purchases online.

Google Checkout is giving $5-$50 off purchases at a number of online stores. You can get:

$5 off orders over $30 - PCSuperstore, TheNerds.net, Cost Central, DayDeal.com, Eforcity.com, KitchenSource.com, ReStockIt.com, Cufflinks Depot, Precious Accents, UpTempoAir.com
$5 off orders over $50 - ToolsForLess, AllBrands.com, Discount Dance Supply, Golfballs.com
$10 off orders over $10 for new buyers only - Buy.com
$10 off orders over $30 - Comp-U-Plus (Enter coupon code GOOGLE10), Mrs. Fields
$10 off orders over $50 - HandHelditems.com (Enter coupon code googleoff10 prior to Checkout)
$10 off orders over $60 - Aéropostale, Jockey.com, Your Electronic Warehouse, US-Mattress.com, DVD Empire, Flashlightz.com, Coffee Bean Direct, SelectBlinds.com, Stacks and Stacks Housewares, Discount Golf World
$10 off orders over $75 - Beauty.com, drugstore.com
$10 off orders over $100 - TigerDirect.com, WeaKnees.com (Enter coupon code holiday10), Comp USA, Software Surplus, Digital Foto Club, Dyscern, Focus Camera, SuppliesNet
$15 off orders over $150 - MyJewelryBox.com, BowlingBall.com
$20 off orders over $100 - LuggagePros.com, ArtSelect, Oriental Furniture, Designer Athletics, AdiamorEvesAddiction.com (Enter coupon code google20 prior to Checkout)
$20 off orders over $200 - AreaRugs.com
$50 off orders over $500 - TheFurniture.com, AJ Madison, Gem Stone King
eBags.com Enter coupon code PAYGOOGC07 to get 20% off purchases.
FoxStore.com Enter coupon code GOOG10 to get 10% off all purchases.
Shoebuy.com Enter coupon code GOGOOG to get $5 off all purchases

What’s the best deal? All of them! You’ll have to figure out, based on the size of your purchase, which is the best savings for that particular item. One tip: Seperate items into multiple orders so you can get the discount multiple times.

The highest percentage discount: $10 off $30

The least useful but most exciting: Buy.com’s $10 off $10. If you’re a new customer enjoy it, everyone else just ignore. Here’s Buy.com’s page of items that are free or almost free after the discount is applied.

Potential best deal: 20% off everything at eBags. If only they sold more than bags.

PayPal’s holiday deal, I’m sad to say, tops or matches Google in almost every situation. They’re offering 20% cash back, up to $50, on purchases at 14 stores. At the same levels as Google’s offering:

$30 - Google: $5 or $10 / PayPal: $6
$50 - Google: $5 or $10 / PayPal: $10
$60 - Google: $10 / PayPal: $12
$75 - Google: $10 / PayPal: $15
$100 - Google: $10 or 20 / PayPal: $20
$150 - Google: $15 / PayPal: $30
$200 - Google: $20 / PayPal: $40
$500 - Google: $50 / PayPal: $50

I miss the good old days last year of $10 off $30 and $20 off $50. No major retailers offering that now.