Category: Google Adsense Tips
Google Maps are without question one of the most useful Google applications. Recently, I’ve not only used it to find addresses, but also to scope out neighborhoods for a potential future move. In Canada it can get pretty cold in January, and if I can use Street View in Google Maps to take a quick look at a street or neighborhood, instead of going out into the icy cold, I’ll gladly do it. When trying to help people find my location, I used to send a screen shot of a Google Map by email, or post a screen shot of a map on my website.
However, a screen shot isn’t like looking at an actual map, where you can zoom in and out, enable Street View, and get directions. When you are thinking of adding a screen shot of a Google Map to your blog or website, consider adding an actually functional map instead. Here is how it’s done.
Adding Google Maps to your website with gMap
gMap is a handy little plugin that you can use to add dynamic Google Maps to your website. gMap is a small, flexible, jQuery plugin you can download. It only has two requirements:
- You need a Google Maps API key.
- You also need a jQuery library.
Once installed, you can show locations on a Google Map directly on your website by using the longitude and latitude coordinates for a particular location. At the moment, gMap doesn’t support the use of addresses. Either way, coordinates are a very accurate way of presenting a location. You’ll avoid accidentally publishing the wrong location due to the same address existing in different cities. I recently made that mistake and called a store in Vermont, because the same street name and city exist there as in Ontario. I figured it out fast enough, but if by chance you accidentally post the wrong location on your website it could at the very least be embarrassing. If your website is supposed to bring in business, it is downright detrimental, so I don’t think that not being able to use addresses for a location in gMap is a big deal.
How to get your Google Map coordinates
To use gMap, you need to have the coordinates for your location. Google Maps doesn’t automatically show them, but Google Earth does. There are ways of showing coordinates in Google Maps though, and here is one way how:
- Go to the Google Maps Gadgets directory.
- Find the “position finder” gadget.
- Add it to your Google Maps.
- Now, if you click on any location in Google Maps, the coordinates are shown.
Buy an ad right here. You are reading this aren’t you?
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Category: Google Adsense Tips
I just found out about Google Buzz, which was released today. Normally I am always signed in to Gmail, but after restarting my computer I had to sign back into Gmail and when I did Gmail gave me a little surprise:
Buzz is automatically added to your Gmail account, so you do not need to activate it in any way. If you sign out, and back in, to your Gmail account and see the same screen as I did above, you can start exploring Google Buzz by clicking on the big blue button. However, if you are in a hurry to get to your mail, you will see a link to Buzz right under “Inbox” in your regular Gmail Inbox:
Google Buzz is another addition making Gmail more social. Gmail used to be just an email client, but since the addition of chat, tasks, and quick links to Google Docs, Picasa, and Google Calendar there is just so much more we can get out of our Inbox.
At first glance, Google Buzz looks like another way to communicate with the people you already exchange email with. Google Buzz looks a bit like a mix of Twitter and Facebook status updates. Google Buzz allows you to update your status, and see updates your contacts make on all the Google services they link to Google Buzz, such as on Picasa Web Albums, Blogger, and YouTube. Updates to Twitter can also create buzz on Google Buzz, and all you need to do is link all these services together.
How to start using Google Buzz
When you first start using Google Buzz, you will see the following welcome window pop up in your browser:
The first step is to start following the people who are already following you on Google Buzz. As you can see above, I have three people in my contact list who have beaten me to the punch and found out about Google Buzz before I did. It helps that each of them happens to be in a different time zone 
.
You can click on “View and follow back” to individually choose the contacts you want to follow as well.
When you are done selecting who you would like to follow back, you might also see a request to update your public profile. Your contacts can only see your updates once you have updated your public profile:
Once you click “edit”, you are given the option to show the people you are following, and who are following you, in your public profile. Because I’m a fairly private person, I’ve not selected this option and will keep this information to myself:
Now you’re ready to start posting some Buzz to your account! Back in the Google Buzz window, you can update your status. Unlike in other services, like Facebook and Twitter, you can choose who sees your update in Google Buzz:
You can either publish your update for everyone to see (Public), or if you click on the Public button, which is the default option, you can choose to publish the post privately. If you choose the private option, you can choose the groups of people who are able to see the Buzz:
Are you going to use Google Buzz? I think it will be incredibly handy to see my contact’s latest updates right in Gmail, but I can’t wait to see what you think in the comments!
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Category: Google Adsense Tips
Last year, Google brought out Social Search in Google Labs. Just a few days ago it graduated to Beta in Google. That’s all nice and dandy, but what is Google Social Search, and how can you benefit from it? Here’s what you need to know.
What is Google Social Search
Google Social Search pulls together information from blogs and social networking sites about the topic you are searching on. What’s special about it, is that it pulls together information on that topics, posted by your contacts and friends. The purpose for this is that you are accessing information posted by people you already know, and trust.
How do you use Social Search?
To use Google Social Search you need to put in a tiny bit of effort first, before any related search results posted by your friends pop up. Next time you type something into the Google search bar, first make sure you’ve done the following to benefit from any know-how your contacts have posted online:
- Create your Google profile from Google.com/Profiles.
- Once you’re at Google Profiles, click on the blue button that says “create my profile”.
- Fill in the information requested, and link your profile to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
- At the bottom of the page, you can complete the process.
Now that you have set up your Google Profile, you can view information posted by your friends next time you perform a Google search. What will show up depends on what you have added to your Google Profile.
In addition, for social search, to work you need to be signed in to you Google account. Anything that is displayed in the search results is already published on the Internet, so technically you can find any of the information anyways, but social search puts it all together in one spot. The idea behind it is that hopefully you will get more relevant search results.
If you use Gmail, your Google Chat contacts are also included for social search, as well as your friends, family, and coworkers groups. If you’ve linked Google Reader to your profile, then some content from websites you already subscribe to may also be part of the social search results.
Mom will check your computer eventually. Clear your search history!
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If you are an avid YouTube user, you probably would like to save some of the videos you’ve seen online so you can find them again more easily later.
SaveTube converts YouTube videos to FLV files. You’ll need a special FLV player to view the videos again, but you can easily download a free player directly from the SaveTube website.
KeepVid works in a similar way as SaveTube. You can enter a link to the video you want to save, and click download. The major benefit of KeepVid is that you can choose to download the video file as a FLV or an MP4 file. KeepVid also has a bookmarklet you can drag to your bookmarks toolbar to automatically convert a video file while you are watching it online.
At MyDownloadVideo you’ll find an easy to use YouTube video converter. The video converter will save the videos as FLV files on your computer. However, the site also has a link to a handy video converter you can use to convert FLV files to MP4, or AVI format. Very detailed instructions on how to use the program can be found here.
If you are a PC user you can download this video converter. It will allow you to download YouTube videos and convert them to .avi format, or any other popular video format you want. Unfortunately, Mac users won’t be able to use this program, but any of the other video converters do work on Mac computers as well. 
