bulknews.typepad.com

Google Maps got a Hybrid page

Google Maps now has a Hybrid page like this: Google Maps - san francisco, which layers Street Maps on top of Satellite view. It rocks!

No surprise that they don't have a Hybrid version for Japanese maps, since their Street Maps data are not what Google's built.

Map geocoded RSS to Google Maps

As a result of weekend hack with the new Google Maps API, I created a tool to Map geocoded RSS to Google Maps.  It fetches geourl: geocoded RSS feed and maps items in the feed onto Google Maps. It turns out that Google's JavaScript API is simple to use and sounds sweet.

Source code (same license as Perl) is also available by clicking "View Source". If you don't have a sample geotagged feed, click "Example" and see what happens. Enjoy!

Google Maps is a web of linked XML documents

Link: Jon Udell: Google Maps is a web of linked XML documents.

Then, today, somebody1 this article pointed out something that just knocked my socks off. You can append "output=xml" to any Google Maps URL and receive raw XML. Here's a trivial use of that feature:

Google Maps is really amazing in its DHTML + JavaScript user interface, as well as it seems to use XML backend data available for everyone :)

Google to acquire Flickr?

Link: InsideGoogle: Will Google Buy Community Photo Service?.

InsideGoogle discusses something about the rumor that Google will acquire photo-sharing service Flickr, after their Picasa 2.0 launch. It takes 2 factors related to Orkut and Google Images as a basis of the rumor.

Google AdWords Search Engine

Link: InsideGoogle: Google AdWords Search Engine.

Google provides Sponserdlink Search, which allows you to search AdWords ads based on keyword. It seems like an interesting tool for SEO & SEM, even for some hacking :)

Hacking Google Suggest

Link: Adam Stiles: Hacking Google Suggest.

At its simplest, Google Suggest is javascript code that looks at what you are typing in the Google search box. When you press a key, GS phones home and passes the current contents of the search box. The server returns some suggestions are then displayed to the user.

Adam Stiles hacked Google Suggest javascript code. It uses onkeydown event to capture users input, then passes the query to the Google web server. After gettint the search results back, it shows the suggestions with dynamic HTML. Adam also has released his excellent sample PHP code to retrieve suggestion information via Google web server.

Now I've integrated Adam's code into Perl, and released a new Perl module WebService-Google-Suggest-0.01.tar.gz, which is going on its way to CPAN.

Google AdSense supports URL tracking

Link: How do I create URL channel.

Google AdSense now supports "URL Channel", with which you can track click thrus based on domain, directory or URL itself. So you can comibine this information with referer information available with site traffic statistics (like you have in TypePad) to gain full potential of affilates with SEOs.

Pics from Google Tokyo R&D Center

Link: フォトレポート：動き出すグーグル東京研究開発センター - CNET Japan.

CNET Japan puts up Photo Report from Google Tokyo R&D Center launch party.

iTunes Search Plug-in for Google Deskbar

So here's a Google Deskbar plug-in that searches your local iTunes playlist using iTunes COM API and plays the tunes found.

using System;
using Google.Desktop;
using iTunesLib;

public class iTunesSearch : ICustomSearch {
  public string Title() { return "iTunes"; }

  public OutputType GetOutputType() { return OutputType.kDeskbar; }

  public string Run(string query, OutputType browser_type) {
    IiTunes iTunesApp = new iTunesAppClass();
    IITLibraryPlaylist playlist = iTunesApp.LibraryPlaylist;
    IITTrackCollection tracks   = playlist.Search(query, ITPlaylistSearchField.ITPlaylistSearchFieldAll);
    if (tracks.Count > 0) {
//      IITTrack track = tracks.Item(1);
      IITTrack track = tracks.get_ItemByPlayOrder(1);
      track.Play();
      return track.Name;
    } else {
      return "No tunes found for " + query;
    }
  }
}

You need to import TypeLibs from iTunes.exe manually and make a reference to the DLL file. It can be done as follows:

% tlbimp "c:\program files\iTunes\ITunes.exe" /out:iTunesWrapper.dll /namespace:iTunesLib
% csc /target:libarary /out:iTunes.dll /r:deskbarex.dll /r:iTunesWrapper.dll iTunes.cs

Google Deskbar API

Google Deskbar Help

With the Google Deskbar API, you can write plug-ins to add your own features to the Google Deskbar. Plug-ins can be written in any .NET language, such as C# or Visual Basic.NET.

Google has released Google Deskbar API. With this API, Google Deskbar will pass search term to your plugin code, which then can return a specific URL to be displayed in your browser or Deskbar mini-browser. It seems that it even allows you to run other programs from your plugin code.

Note that your plugin should be written in one of .NET languages like C# or VB.NET and should be installed as a .NET Assembly DLL to Deskbar Plugin directory. If you want to use Perl as a .NET language, you'd better try Perl Dev Kit from ActivePerl.

The document says it would be interesting to:

• Locate and play a music play list on your hard drive
• Solve algebraic equations
• Send instant messages from the Deskbar

There's also an API discussion group.

Without this API, Google Deskbar still allows you to customize Search URL in "Options", but this API gives your more flexibility to use Google Deskbar as a front-end to everything you want to search from your Desktop.

Google stopped "Did you mean" in Japan

Link: Googleの「もしかして」が一時停止、2004年内に復活の見込み (Japanese)

Google has suspended "Did you mean" (moshikashite) in Japanese Search since their replacement candidates are sometimes out of our thought. Many times we feel their "Did you mean" even funny.