Thursday, March 24, 2005
A bun gartetg!
Google is already available in 104 languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu, but we had no Romansh. It's an old tongue that's still spoken in valleys in the Swiss Alps. Only about one percent of Swiss people can speak it, but even so it's one of the country's four official languages. Romansh is in the same family as Spanish or Italian, but looks more daunting because of the long sequences of consonants. For example, "image search" becomes "tschertga da maletgs."
So we threw a party in Zurich and asked people fluent in Romansh to translate text like "I'm feeling lucky." (They found this particularly hard to translate, and settled on "A bun gartetg," which is more or less "on good luck"). And now there is Google in Romansh. Why do we bother? Call us obsessive, but we like it when everyone can use Google in their native language.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Tech tip: Rather forward
Get lots of mail? So do I. The problem is that only some of it is worth getting — or at least getting quickly. That's why I use the auto-forwarding feature in Gmail to filter and forward only messages that match certain criteria. For instance, I want to know immediately when I get email from my closest friends, so I've set up a filter that looks for Heather OR Joel in the from: field, and forwards those messages to my cell phone. To create a search-based filter of your own, click the "Create a filter" link beside the search box on Gmail and follow the steps from there. The Gmail Help Center also has how-tos on auto-forwarding and forwarding to your cell phone.
Monday, March 21, 2005
In the land of the googly
Who says things never leave beta at Google? Our Hyderabad office is formally opening today after a mere nine months. This is where we help AdWords clients run their campaigns. We also have a QA team to ensure Google product quality, and run all of the support functions for our operations throughout India. Like any other Google office, lava lamps and colored balls abound; unlike other offices, we have Indian food for lunch every day. Perhaps most important, we have launched the first chapter of the International Google Cricket Club, where the preferred delivery is, naturally, a googly. If you're in the area, we're always looking for more smart Googlers.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Code.Google.com: new open source
We're very happy to be launching code.google.com today. To begin, we're releasing some developer-oriented libraries and tools. A number of engineers have used their 20% time to ready these tools for release, and will also help build the communities we hope will form around them.
We're also featuring links to all current Google APIs. Come check them out and if you'd like more information, please join our group, subscribe to our feeds, or if you're shy, email us directly. And happy coding!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Lessons learned launching a web service
Seven weeks ago we launched the AdWords API, and since then had the chance to reflect on what we learned creating a new web service. I just gave a talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference about it, and here are the slides. Some of the (admittedly geeky) highlights: the value of document/literal style SOAP, a description of the real-world problems in building interoperable web services, and my opinion on when to use SOAP vs ReST. Despite the geek factor, perhaps it's useful for people building web services and developers using Google's own services.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Google goes X
Today is an amazing day: A small idea - a fun late-night coding jaunt to help me learn Javascript & DHTML - has just launched on Google Labs. I never expected it to make it as far as it has when I wrote it a month ago, especially since my "real" job is working on Keyhole, where I'm having the time of my life taking our cool 3D mapping application and putting the power of Google behind it. It's fulfilling to have the opportunity to reach the audience we always dreamed of when we started Keyhole five years ago, and that by itself is absolute coolness.
And now there's Google X, which came about because I wanted a quick fun way to access all of Google's services. I gave it to a few friends in the company, who gave it to their friends, some posted it on their blogs, others sent it around on mailing lists, and it eventually made its way to Marissa Mayer, who liked it enough to say, when do you want to put it up on Labs? So after some spit and polish from some enthusiastic Googlers and the keen eye of the UI team, Google X is here. I hope all of you enjoy it - especially Mac users, who I'm sure will appreciate its lineage.
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