Find More About a Google Image Search Result

Here's a simple way to learn more about a Google image search result without actually clicking it. Just drag the image to the search box and you'll be able to use "search by image" to find similar images and pages that include the image.



You can also mouse over the result and click "similar" or click the result and use the "search by image" feature, but drag-and-drop is faster. Another advantage is that you can edit the query and filter the results. For example, you can find pages that include the image and the word "hotel".

{ Thanks, Itamar. }

Gmail's Shortcut for Inserting Hyperlinks

Less than 2% of the Gmail users have enabled keyboard shortcuts and actually use them, but that doesn't mean Google shouldn't improve them. Many people complained that Gmail's rich text editor doesn't have a shortcut for inserting hyperlinks and now it's available: Ctrl+K (or Cmd-K if you use a Mac).


The same shortcut is also used in Outlook, Microsoft Word, Google Docs and other apps. "Just select any text, and then press the Ctrl and K keys at the same time. A dialogue box opens where you can type a link," informs the Microsoft Word blog.

I wonder why Google doesn't offer the option to use the top search result for the text you've selected or at least pick one of the top results from the "edit link" box.

{ Thanks, Cougar. }

Cached Pages in Google Mobile Search

Maybe it's not so obvious, but the link to the cached version of a search result is still available when you're using Google Search on a mobile phone. Just like in the desktop interface, you need to click the Instant Preview icon (a magnifier) and you'll find the "cached" link.

For some reason, the links to the mobile formatted version and to the list of similar pages are no longer displayed. To go back to the old interface that displayed all these links next to the search results, bookmark http://www.google.com/m or replace "google.com/search" with "google.com/m/search" in the URL (just add the two characters in bold).

Disable Blogger's Dynamic Views

If you don't like Blogger's Dynamic Views, but your favorite blog enabled one of them, there's a way to go back to the previous template: just add &v=0 to the URL. For example, here's the URL for Gmail's blog: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/?v=0.

Unfortunately, the change is not persistent and you need to add the parameter every time you visit the homepage or one of the posts. You can also bookmark the URL.

How to Try Google's Cleaner Interface

I mentioned in the previous post that Google tests a less cluttered interface and there's now a way to try it. Techno-Net noticed that you can change the NID value of a Google cookie and get the same interface.







Here's how to do this in Chrome:



1. Install "Edit this Cookie", a cookie manager for Chrome.



2. Go to Google's homepage and click the yellow cookie icon from Chrome's toolbar.



3. Find the line that starts with NID, click it, select the value (Ctrl-A or Command-A for Mac), delete it, paste the following value (use Ctrl-V or Command-V for Mac) and click "Submit cookie changes":



50=RbHwrmdgEAl6v3XPDKfJey5zpW7n84oRvsTZOK0LuYwW0m0UDFcPmts2HqKaZc2-Rdo7iLsrYKOUVKV4ztyb7JMDWavDVmvsyC2UldBcyFKsmyM_4Qhr761WpGHfoZPZ





Here are the instructions for Firefox:



1. Install Cookies Manager+ and restart the browser.



2. Go to Google's homepage.



3. Press Alt-T and select "Cookies Manager+". You'll also find the option in the "Web Developer" item of Firefox's unified menu.



4. Search for google.com and find the entry named "NID". If you're not in the US and you use a different Google domain, search for your domain (for example: google.co.uk in the UK).



5. Click "edit" and replace the content with:



50=RbHwrmdgEAl6v3XPDKfJey5zpW7n84oRvsTZOK0LuYwW0m0UDFcPmts2HqKaZc2-Rdo7iLsrYKOUVKV4ztyb7JMDWavDVmvsyC2UldBcyFKsmyM_4Qhr761WpGHfoZPZ





Opera already has a cookie manager that lets you edit cookie values. You only need to go to Google's homepage, right-click on the page, select "Edit site preferences", go to the "Cookies" tab and edit the item that starts with "NID".



I couldn't find some great cookie managers that worked in the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Safari, but the instructions should be similar.



Sharing the "NID" value allows other people to try an experimental Google interface. The next time when you find an interface that looks different and you send a tip to gostips@gmail.com, you can also include the NID value of your Google cookie.



If Google constantly changes the "NID" value and you can't use the experimental interface for too long, delete your Google cookies and start again. What if you don't like the interface and you want to go back to the regular UI? Just remove the "NID" key or delete its value using the cookie manager.

Gmail's Newest/Oldest Pagination Features

The latest Gmail design refresh replaced pagination links with arrow buttons. Even if it's not obvious, the navigation links that sent you to the newest/oldest messages are still available in the new interface. Just click the message similar to "11-20 of 3903" from the screenshot below and you'll see the two options that appeared to be missing.





This works for Gmail's search results and when you click one of the labels. For example, you can go to the "All Mail" system label, click the pagination message, select "Oldest" and find the first messages from your Gmail account.



For the search terms that return a lot of results, the only pagination feature that works is "newest" because Gmail shows vague estimations for the number of results like "1-20 of hundreds" or "1-20 of thousands" and it can't determine the last page of results.



{ Thanks, jpp. }

Undocumented Shortcut for Caps Lock in Chrome OS

One of the most important changes Google made when designing the keyboard for Chrome OS notebooks was replacing the Caps Lock key with a search key. While the search key is not very useful since it only opens a new tab, the Caps Lock key made a lot of comments, forum threads and emails unreadable.





If you really need to use the Caps Lock key, there's a way to change the search key into a Caps Lock key in the settings. Unfortunately, this is time consuming, especially if you constantly switch between the search key and the Caps Lock key. There's a better way: press both Shift keys at the same time to enable or disable Caps Lock. It's an undocumented shortcut that works in the latest versions of Chrome OS.



{ Thanks, Cougar. }

Change Google's Search Domain in Google Chrome

If you don't live in the US, Google likes to think that the localized version of the search engine for your country is the most useful. That's the reason why it redirects you from google.com to google.tld (google.co.uk, google.fr, google.co.jp etc.).



I prefer the google.com version because it has the latest features and search results are a lot better. To switch to google.com and bypass the redirect, you can click "Google.com in English" at the bottom of the homepage or just go to google.com/ncr. The early versions of Google Chrome used to respect my choice and adjusted the search domain after a restart. Now Google Chrome no longer checks the Google cookie to see if I changed the domain and only determines the right domain based on my IP.



One way to solve this issue is to create a custom search engine for google.com, but the downside is that you lose the search suggestions. A better way is to edit a settings file. Here's how to do that:



1. Close all Chrome windows.



2. Go to Chrome's user profile directory (for example, in Windows Vista and Windows 7 the path is: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\).



3. Open the file Local State in a text editor like Notepad, TextEdit or gedit.



4. Find the two lines that include "last_known_google_url" and "last_prompted_google_url" and change the Google URL from "http://www.google.tld/" (.tld=.co.uk, .fr, .co.jp etc.) to "http://www.google.com/" or any other Google domain.





5. Save the text file and restart Chrome.



6. If you see an infobar that asks if you want to switch to your local domain or keep google.com, choose the second option.



This should works even if you want to change Google's domain from google.es to google.pt, from google.be to google.fr or any other combination. If you live in Portugal, but you'd like to use Google Spain and don't know how to change the country in Google Chrome, this trick should be helpful.

Show Fewer Gmail Conversations

If you've ever wanted to see less than 25 conversations on a page in Gmail, you'll be glad to know that it's now possible to do that. Just go to Gmail's settings page and select 10, 15 or 20 from the drop-down "Show [x] conversations per page". Until now, the only options were 25, 50 and 100.





The new options are useful if you don't receive too many messages or if you want to improve Gmail's performance. Gmail loads a lot faster if it only has to fetch 10 conversations instead of 25.





{ Thanks, Herin. }

How to Use Google Music on an iPad or iPhone

I mentioned in a previous post that you can use Google Music Beta on an iPad and even on an iPhone or iPod Touch, but some users complained that it didn't work for them. Google Music loads well, but after clicking the "play" button nothing happens.

Here's a trick to make Google Music work every time: start playing a song, pause and play again. It's unfortunate that you have to use a workaround, but Google Music doesn't officially support Safari for iOS. The system requirements page says that it only supports "Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 7 and above" and that you need Adobe Flash.


It's interesting that this trick lets you play music on more than one device simultaneously. For example, I was able to play music on my iPad and iPhone at the same time, even if Google says that "music from your library cannot be played simultaneously on more than one device". The unofficial non-Flash interface is an unexpected loophole.

Open Gmail's PDF Attachments in Google Docs Viewer

A recent Gmail update changed the "View" links for PDF attachments, but only if you use Google Chrome. Instead of opening PDF files using Google Docs Viewer, Gmail now uses the PDF plugin included in Google Chrome. Unfortunately, this makes it more difficult to save PDF files to Google Docs.

Here's a simple trick that lets you open a PDF attachment in Google Docs Viewer. Click "View" next to the attachment and edit the URL: replace "view=att" with "view=gvatt" in the address bar. Another option is to right-click "View", copy the URL, paste in the address bar and replace "view=att" with "view=gvatt".


Obviously, you can also disable the built-in PDF plugin. Just type about:plugins in the address bar and click "Disable" next to "Chrome PDF Viewer".

7 Chrome Annoyances and How to Fix Them

Guest post by Shankar Ganesh

Google Chrome was released more than two years ago and it's the browser of choice for many people. Despite having won hearts for its speed and elegance, Google Chrome does have some minor flaws that you might want to fix. Here are some of them:

1. No confirmation when closing multiple tabs

Google Chrome does't show a warning when you close a window with multiple tabs. If you accidentally close Chrome windows, you can install Chrome Toolbox. The next time you close many tabs, you'll at least get a warning.


2. Basic history page

Google Chrome's history page is pretty basic and you can't restrict the list to a certain time interval.

The History 2 extension comes to the rescue by allowing you to sort web pages based on the day/week you visited them. History 2 allows you to delete multiple items from your history page at the click of a button – something that's not possible by default.


3. Missing image properties

There's no way to quickly examine an image when you're in Chrome. Fortunately, you can install Image Properties Context Menu, an extension that lets you right-click on an image and find information about the image size, location, dimensions and more.


4. No support for feeds

Chrome simply doesn't recognize RSS feeds and all you get is a page with gibberish text. If you install the RSS Subscription extension developed by Google, you can quickly subscribe to any feed using Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines or My Yahoo.


5. You can't send a web page by email

While other popular browsers allow you to quickly send any web page you're viewing by email, such an option is nowhere to be found in Google Chrome.

Worry not, because you can create a simple Javascript bookmarklet to open your default email program with the current URL. If Gmail is what you use, you can alternatively install the Send from Gmail extension to send the web page to Gmail.

6. No session manger

Closing Google Chrome and reopening it does not restore previously opened tabs. In order to do that, go to the Options dialog and enable Reopen tabs that were open last.

If you want advanced session saving options like the ability to create multiple sessions, try the Session Buddy addon for Google Chrome.

7. You can't switch to a tab from the Omnibox

Firefox 4 lets you switch to any open tab by typing relevant words into the address bar. If you'd like to see a similar feature in Chrome, install the Switch To Tab extension.

The next time you have too many open tabs, just type sw <TAB> followed by some words from the page. Hitting Enter switches to the tab that's listed as the first match.



Have you ever wanted to switch from Chrome to another browser because of a missing feature? Did you mange to find a workaround or an extension that adds the missing feature?

---

Shankar is a blogger and an engineering student from India who writes tech tips at KillerTechTips.com. His latest articles helped users block Facebook and improve productivity in Google Chrome. This post was inspired by an article written by Amit Agarwal.

9 Things to Try in Google Chrome 9

Google Chrome 9 is now available, two months after the previous release and two weeks later than Google's self-imposed deadline. Here are 9 features you should try in this new version:

1. WebGL is now enabled by default in Google Chrome and you can try the 3D web apps from Google's gallery. Don't miss Body Browser, a Google Earth for the human body, and the WebGL Aquarium.


2. Google Instant is now integrated with Chrome's address bar, but this feature is not for everyone because it automatically loads web pages as you type. It's disabled by default, so you need to enable it by checking "Enable Instant for faster searching and browsing" in the Options dialog.

3. Cloud Print can be enabled from Options > Under the hood if you use Windows. This features lets you print from devices that can't communicate directly with printers. The first two applications that use Cloud Print are the mobile versions of Gmail and Google Docs.

4. Chrome supports WebP files. WebP is a new image format created by Google whose main advantage is that it offers better compression. "Our team focused on improving compression of the lossy images, which constitute the larger percentage of images on the web today. To improve on the compression that JPEG provides, we used an image compressor based on the VP8 codec that Google open-sourced in May 2010." Here's an example of WebP image.

5. Right-click on an extension button next to the address bar and select "Hide button". When you change your mind, go to Tools > Extensions and click on "Show button" next to the corresponding extension.


6. Create desktop shortcuts for your web apps: right-click on an app in the new tab page and select "create shortcut". You can also add shortcuts to the Start Menu and the Quick Launch Bar if you use Windows.


7. Launch web apps in a new window. Right-click on a web app and select "open as window".

8. Install extensions that add custom menu options to images. For example, install Clip It Good to upload any image from a web page to Picasa Web Albums.


9. Install extensions that use the Omnibox API to associate keywords with new search engines. For example, install the DOI Resolver extension and type doi 10.1205/096030802760309188 in the address bar. The extension added a new search engine and associated it with the keyword doi.

Esc to the Rescue

Google's search engine is already fast, but what if you could save more time?

Let's say that you've typed a query and pressed Enter, but the results aren't great. How to quickly delete your query and type something else? Press Esc and start typing the new query. Another option is to click on the small "x" icon from the search box.


If you want to add some new keywords to your query, there's no need to scroll to the top of the page and find the search box. Just type the words you want to add. Google is smart enough to insert a space since this key is used for scrolling.

This only works if Google Instant is enabled, just like the other Google search shortcuts and Google Instant shortcuts.

Google Bookmarks Import Without Using Google Toolbar

I really don't understand why Google didn't add a feature that lets you upload a bookmarks file exported by your browser to Google Bookmarks. Google still recommends to install Google Toolbar in Internet Explorer or Firefox to upload bookmarks, but this shouldn't be necessary. That's like installing Picasa to upload your photos to Picasa Web Albums.

Fortunately, Mihai Parparita built a tool for exporting your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks and it can be used to upload any bookmarks file to Google Bookmarks. Here's how to do that:

1. Go to delicious.com and sign in. If you haven't used Delicious before, you'll sign in using a Yahoo account. If you've previously bookmarked web pages using Delicious, it's probably a good idea to create a new account.

2. Unlike Google Bookmarks, Delicious has a bookmark importing feature. Upload the HTML file exported by your browser and wait until all your bookmarks are imported.


3. Use Delicious to Google Bookmarks to import your bookmarks to Google Bookmarks. You'll end up with two new labels added by the importing/exporting tools: imported and delicious-export.


The nice thing about Mihai Parparita's tool is that it's open source and it can be modified to import HTML bookmarks file.

Change Default Zoom Level in Google Chrome

Google Chrome 9 lets you change the default zoom level for all pages, but this feature is more difficult to find because it's only available in the tab-based settings page. Here's how to change the zoom level:

1. Make sure that you use Google Chrome 9 (beta, dev), Google Chrome 10 (Canary) or a recent Chromium build. For example, you could type about: in the address bar.
2. Type about:flags in the address bar.
3. Click "Enable" next to Tabbed Settings and then click the "Restart" button at the bottom of the page. This will restart the browser.
4. Click the wrench menu and select Options.
5. Select Under the hood and pick a value from the "Page zoom" drop-down.


If you don't like Chrome's tabbed settings interface, you can go back to the standard settings dialog by disabling Tabbed Settings from about:flags. You won't lose the default zoom level, but you'll have to switch to the tabbed interface if you want to change it.

Bonus tip: Another option you can change from the tabbed settings interface is minimum font size (Under the hood > Web Content > Customize fonts > Minimum font size).

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

It's Easier to Link to a YouTube Timestamp

Linking to a specific timestamp of a YouTube video is not a new feature: you only need to append #t=1m30s or #t=90s to a YouTube URL to skip the first 89 seconds of the video (here's an example).

Now you no longer have to manually add the special parameter to the URL. Just right-click on the video and select "Copy video URL at current time". It's probably a good idea to pause the video before using this feature.

Google's AROUND Operator for Proximity Search

Google has an undocumented operator called "AROUND" for finding web pages that include words or phrases which are near to each other.

If you want to find results that include both "Steve Jobs" and "Andy Rubin", you might search for ["Steve Jobs" "Andy Rubin"] or even for ["Steve Jobs * Andy Rubin"]. Google's AROUND operator lets you specify the maximum number of words that separate the two names. For example, you could search for ["Steve Jobs" AROUND(3) "Andy Rubin"] and only get web pages that include the two names separated by less than three words.


"The AROUND operator is a handy trick to use when you're looking for a combination of search terms when one dominates the results, but you're interested in the relationship between two query terms. Note also that if Google can't find anything within the limit, it will just do regular ranking of the terms without the AROUND coming into play. Using AROUND is especially useful when the documents are rather long (think book-length articles). So try this operator in Google Books.... [slavery AROUND(4) indigo]," suggests Google's Daniel Russell.

Barry Schwartz notes that Bing has a similar operator, but it's called "near".

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Instant Previews

You don't need to use your mouse to enable Google's visual previews for search results. Just press the right arrow key to show a small screenshot for the currently selected search result. You can navigate using the up/down arrow keys to highlight a different result and use the left arrow key to hide the previews.


Google Instant Previews can't be disabled from the settings page and, despite having a similar name, it's not related to Google Instant. If you disable Google Instant, you'll still see the magnifying glasses next to the search results, but the keyboard shortcuts are no longer available.

This feature is not yet available to everyone, but you can try it using this special page or by adding &esrch=instantpreviews to the URL of a search results page.

Undocumented Gmail Shortcuts for Composing Messages

Gmail's keyboard shortcut for composing new messages is "c", but there are two undocumented shortcuts that let you compose a message, while also adding the CC (carbon copy) and the BCC (blind carbon copy) fields:

• b - compose new message and add both CC and BCC
• d - compose new message and add CC

To use these shortcuts, you first need to enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail's settings page. Gmail is the only Google service that doesn't enable keyboard shortcuts by default.

{ Thanks, Cougar Abogado. }