force to use Google.com, not any local search
Google is a smart ass when it comes to serve what people want. However, most of the time you find yourself aboard, they just assume you are one of local folks. That’s painful when you are searching something. You are likely to get most of local search results than what you are familiar with. So? what can we do with it? It’s varied by how you do things.
1. If you used to open browser, type “google.com” then find things from there. You will have to type a bit more than usual. Try “google.com/ncr” This time you will see same old buddy you saw/expected.
NCR – is likely to be an abbreviation of No Country Redirection.
2. If you are using Firefox, you will have to find new search engine. Lucky us, portugesemike did this for us all. You can just use this instead of regular Google one.
3. If you are using Chrome, you have to go through setting a bit as following.
Customize and Control >> Options >> Basic tab >> click at manage in default search section
You have to add *ncr* to keyword, then magic will happen.
Have fun with real Google.com search!
Popularity: 1% [?]
AT&T Nexus One to Froyo
It’s been a while after T-mobile one got Frozen Yogurt. However, it’s time to end since Google started pushing Froyo OTA update since last week. I got 2 OTA updates, but they both failed to complete the update. Why? because I rooted my EPE54B. Thus, OTA will not do the job nicely.
How? you can do all manual update =) As of now, Google released FRF85B. For whom you might not understand, all T-mobile and AT&T, which have their own build number, will have to same build, FRFxx. When Google first released Froyo to T-mobile Nexus One, it’s like FRF50. However, not it’s FRF85B which is official.
Update procedure: it will be 2 path for rooted N1 and unrooted N1.
1. For unrooted N1, EPE54B, you just grab images of your build below.
2. Rename the file to update.zip and copy to root directory of SD.
3. Reboot your N1 to recovery mode by holding volume down + power. You will get into HBoot/Fastboot mode.
4. Use volume up/down to select menu and power to select “recovery.” N1 will reboot again to /!\ page. That’s fine. Then, you have to get into recovery mode by holding power and press volume up.
5. You will see Android system recovery;you now can use your trackball to select any option. Choose apply sdcard:update.zip
6. Wait until reboot and have fun with Frozen Yogurt.
For rooted N1, you will have to take rougher route. You actually have many ways to do so. Custom ROM like Modaco or else, for example. However, I just prefer to have original ROM with root access. You can follow these steps to do so:
1. go back to original image.
2. update as unrooted N1 steps above
3. root FRF85B
For the first step, you need to download original image, here. Please check md5 too. Then you have to extract boot.img, recovery.img out to your android-sdk tools directory (c:\android-sdk\tools for me) Now you are ready to copy old image to replace superboot one by fastbooting. You have to get to Fastboot mode and check if it’s Fastbook USB which is indicated connection between N1 and computer.
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot devices // to check if computer sees N1 c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot erase userdata c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot erase cacheThis 2 steps above are optional and if you use Amon_RA’s recovery, you will have to get into recovery mode to wipe those.
c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot flash boot boot.img c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot flash recovery recovery.img c:\android-sdk\tools> fastboot rebootThat would be all set for returning back to original image =) (well, not exactly true since we didn’t care about system.img and userdata.img which the update doesn’t bother.)
For the last step, download superboot image here. Then rename to update.zip and apply sdcard:update.zip in recovery mode like when you did with updating Froyo image.
Now you will be very happy AT&T Froyo Nexus One like I am.
Note: FRF85B root update.zip didn’t do the trick for me since it’s error while updating. If you face the same situation, just ask. You can do a manual way also =)
Popularity: 1% [?]
Answer: none, AFAIK. You might argue that you can just add user manually or share calendar by XML, iCal, or even HTML link. That’s just like the way regular Google account can do. What is good about Google apps then?
1. You can set your accout’s calendar to share with everyone in the organization. That would work too and it’s pretty easy to for others to add since that calendar has a name as your email account. But I bet you wouldn’t want to share what is yours to others, would you?
2. Add new calendar, then set share to everyone and share the link. It’s a bit harder then the first option, but that works.
What is a drawback of these two options? It’s pain in the ass if you want everyone that shares the calendar to add/edit too. You have to add each of the manually individually. In short, if you want then to just see, either of these is OK, but not for collaborate.
How? You think Google leave this out really, huh? No, they have a way for that.
[yourdomainname]_@domain.calendar.google.com
That’s the only one calendar ID that anybody can add, and everyone has full permissions! Anyone in the Google Apps can just put this ID to “add a coworker’s calendar” then simply “enter.” It will go to your calendar easily. For the sake of privacy? people outside your Google apps won’t be able to even see.
I would love to have more choices, but so far I have yet to find other ways. If you know any other, please share =)
Added [the day later]
The easier way, and probably better way, is using group. You have to create group then add users or add all. When you want to share, just add team email to the calendar. Google will send out invitation email to anyone in the group automatically. The calendar ID will be like [domain]_[calendar.ID]@group.domain.calendar.google.com and this works similar to domain.calendar.google.com—outsider can’t access in any way.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Where is Google Apps free edition?
The thing is I want to move all e-mails from one of my domains to Google Apps. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t offer free edition (or standard edition), which is allowing up to 50 users only, anymore. After finding for the link for Google Apps standard edition for a while, I just found out that Google started moving Apps, GMail, docs, etc. to be paid service only.
Not like Google at all huh? I started wonder whether Google will force everyone paying for used-to-be-free service or not although Google said that it was free before.
However, in this transient state, you still are able to signup for Google Apps: standard edition by this link. It works now. I don’t know how long this link is going to last though and more importantly, how long this free Google Apps lasts. If you are using it, just backing up all your mail data more often. That should do it! =) I just hope that Google would honor free edition as they claimed when we signed up. No new features? that’s not a problem. For me, GMail engine solely is the factor here. I bet most users are the same.
Popularity: 1% [?]
JavaScript playground: anything possible
I couldn’t believe it can do such a capability. Yes, the one pushing JavaScript to limit is not anyone, but Google and at http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ there are a lot of experiments that you don’t even dream of its possibility.
This NY guys are speaking because of you. This one is real fun to play with. Bouncing ball through many windows. What a cool thing!! I couldn’t stop throwing the ball again and againYeah, they mostly work on every new browsers because of intensive JavaScript. Just don’t expect to play on this playground if you are running with ie6 or something like that =)
Anything is possible and indeed fun @ Chrome Experiments.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Google Chrome: completing the circle of Google’s world
This might be the day Google trying to complete their circle after playing around web applications from the beginning.
Google Chrome is the browser based on AppleWebkit, the core that drives Safari nowadays. It sure is the proved solid browser.
Now it’s only on Windows OS. I could tell that it’s surprisingly fast, clean and nice UI. It’s also imported all my bookmarks from Firefox without a hitch. I’m pretty sure of that Google will release this on every OSes soon.
Now Google already moves to build its own platform. It just surprises me that they haven’t chosen Gecko as their platform after released so many add-ons for it. Probably it is way too many to be able to support them all [and other's too].
However, the only thing that keeps me using Firefox, instead of ie8 and others, is its add-ons!! Will see how Google will react on that issue.
Popularity: 4% [?]
