Doodles for Google

Google has announced a Doodle competition for US Schools with the theme:

Interesting part of that is the Doodle History. A good simple read.

Animated Favicons

Now a days, many sites are displaying animated favicons (like this site on Email trace). How do they do that? Its simple. Create an animated gif file but with the size of Favicon (i.e. 16px by 16px). Then rename this favicon.gif to favicon.ico (.ico is the extension for favicons). Firefox renders these animated favicons, but not IE. IE displays only the first frame

Google Language

Anyone around feeling like they can help Google in translating web pages from regional languages to English, then one can sign in here. (Google Language style guide)

Found this interesting listing of popular blogs, category-wise.

A knol on importing contacts from excel to Gmail / Hotmail Contacts

A security flaw in Google Apps discovered last year, now fixed.

Google's Privacy Policy

Google has recently updated its privacy policy:

Before (see Google Cache):
When you access Google services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.

After (see current version)
When you access Google services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. Also, in order to protect you from fraud, phishing, and other misconduct, we may collect information about your interaction with our services. Any such information we collect will only be used to detect and prevent fraud or other misconduct.

*The content in italics was added today [SOURCE]

• An interesting read on why Google does not want to put up 'Privacy Policy' link on their Google Homepage.
  
• This read is on how to not allow search engines gather the user's information and their online activity.
• Data privacy day celebrated on 28th of Jan 2009.
  

Browsers powered by user choice?

As one may wonder how does this question exist, there is this interesting post on Google Public Policy Blog: Browsers powered by user choice where they have come out with some interesting statements... Dont miss reading the comments following it... Google got a run for its hypocrisy!

Google Web Servers

Google has got its own web servers which are currently running the web for Google ranked 3rd by Netcraft Web Server Survey. Heard its a modified version of Apache Web Server. The whole list of web servers running each of the Google product is given below:

(*) - denotes encrypted page

• (GWS: Google Web Server)
• Main Search: GWS/2.1
• Google Accounts: GFE/1.3*
• Google AdSense: GFE/1.3*
• Google AdWords: GFE/1.3*
• Google Hosted(mail for your domain) : GWS/2.1
• Google Analytics (Login Page): GWS/2.1
• Google Analytics (Auth Page): GFE/1.3*
• Google Analytics (Other Pages): ucfe*
• Google Analytics (Analysis Image and JS): ucfe
• Google Analytics (Images/JS/CSS/Flash): ga-reporting-fe
• Google Answers: GFE/1.3
• Google Base: asfe
• Blogger: Apache
• Google Book Search: OFE/0.1
• Google Calendar: GFE/1.3
• Google Catalogs: OFE/0.1
• Google Checkout: GFE/1.3*
• Google Code: codesite/2750796
• Google Co-Op: pfe
• Google Desktop: GFE/1.3
• Google Directory: DFE/1.0
• Google Downloads: GWS/2.1
• Google Finance: SFE/0.8
• Google Finance Stock Charts (Images): FTS (C)1997-2006 IS.Teledata AG
• Froogle: cffe
• Google Groups: GWS-GRFE/0.50
• Hello: Apache/2.0.53
• Google Help Pages: TrakhelpServer/1.0a
• Google Images: GWS/2.1
• Google Labs: Apache
• Google Local / Maps: mfe
• Google Local/Maps (Images): Keyhole Server 2.4
• Google Mail: GFE/1.3
• Google Mobile: GWS/2.1
• Google Moon: mfe
• Google Moon (Images): Keyhole Server 2.4
• Google Music Search: mws
• Google News: NFE/1.0
• Google Notebook GFE/1.3
• Orkut: GFE/1.3*
• Google Pack: COMINST/1.0
• Picasa (.com): Apache/2.0.53
• Picasa (.google.com): GWS/2.1
• Picasa Web Album: GFE/1.3
• Picasa Web Album (Static Images): staticfe
• Picasa Web Album (Uploaded Images): cachefe:image
• Google Page Creator (Sign-up page): GFE/1.3*
• Google Page Creator (User pages): GFE/1.3
• Google Personalized Homepage: igfe
• Google Scholar: GWS/2.1
• Google Search History: Search-History HTTP Server
• Google Sets: Apache
• Google Site-Flavored: GWS/2.1
• Google Sitemaps: GFE/1.3
• Google SMS: GWS/2.1
• Google SMS Search Requests: SMPP server 1.0
• Google SMS (GMail Registration): GFE/1.3*
• Google SMS (Page Viewer): GFE/1.3
• Google Spreadsheet: GFE/1.3
• Google Suggest: Auto-Completion Server
• Google Transit: mfe
• Google Translate: TWS/0.9
• Google Trends: Google Trends
• Google Video: GFE/1.3
• Google Video (Thumbnails): thumbnail_server.cc version 1.0
• Google Reader: GFE/1.3
• Google Ride Finder: Apache
• Google Talk: GWS/2.1
• Google Toolbar: GFE/1.3
• Google Toolbar (PR Lookup): GWS/2.1
• Google Web Accelerator: GFE/1.3
• Google Web Alerts: PSFE/4.0
• Writely: GFE/1.3

 How did I come to know of this? Well. There is a add-on in Firefox which displays the web server that rendered the current web page. Its name is Server Spy. Await for yet another list of useful add-ons to Firefox in the next post.

Source 1

Source 2

Customized Inbox in gmail

Multiple Inboxes and query strings, together can become a powerful tool for one to have a customized inbox in gmail. For example, one wants the secondary inbox to show all the unread mails from userid xyz@gmail.com, then go to Settings->Multiple Inboxes->Panel 1 (or whichever panel one wants to add it to) type in:

is:unread from:xyz@gmail.com

Whoa! Check your secondary inbox, you have your customized view! If one wants all unread mails from label For Fun, then type in:

is:unread is:For-Fun ('-' is the replacement for a space in label)

and you have all desired results. Go through all the remaining boolean operators and you will be on your way to a better managed gmail power-user.

Reinstall Internet Explorer 6 by using the Ie.inf file

If you already have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, and you do not want to install Internet Explorer 7, you may be able to resolve problems with Internet Explorer 6 by using the Ie.inf file to reinstall Internet Explorer 6. 

To do this, follow these steps:  

• Click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%\inf, and then press Enter. 
• Find the Ie.inf file that is located in Windows\Inf folder. 
• Right-click the Ie.inf file, and then click Install. 
• Restart the computer when the file copy process is complete.

Source