Google loses against Microsoft and Mozilla in terms of Anime fan pictures
Posted by: Trung Tran on: November 12, 2009
Just recently I’ve done some image searching. The result was quite interesting. Google has so few manga/anime-style fan pictures than Windows/Microsoft and Firefox/Mozilla, that there’s only one good image of a Google Chrome anime girl…
…while Windows has a lot of images of cute anime girls…
… and Firefox even has more than Windows. And if we are talking about the quality, Firefox totally burn the other two’s asses!
Of course, this is only about fan pictures. There’s no assumption or conclusion be drawn out here. Simply for fun. (^_”)
Electronic Services on Internet: iGoogle and Gadgets explained in English
Posted by: Trung Tran on: November 10, 2009
Today I hack around with iGoogle and Gadgets in my class. So here’s the log of what I’ve learned.
Question: What is iGoogle and Gadgets?
Answer: iGoogle is a place where you can add and customize widgets called “Gadgets”. The Gadgets can be as simple as an RSS display, or as complex as the ones used in online gaming sites. One popular service similar to iGoogle is Netvibes. In terms of functionality, iGoogle is superior. However, Netvibes has the balance between graphic and functionality.
My first try at developing a Google Gadget; nothing fancy; kinda reminds me of my first PHP lesson.
So anyway, I went through the “4 steps for newbies” from this page.
Then I decided to take this as an example. Copy the code to text file, make some changes and save as XML file… simple stuffs.
After that, I read through the code and instruction to figure out the rest. Change , test using Gadget Checker, (loop around for 2-3 times), then upload the XML to my server, and Submit.
Ok. This is how my first prototype Gadget looked like.
Then I start searching for other Gadgets published on iGoogle and find the ones I like, View Source, save the files and open with Notepad ++ (best Notepad evar); read through them, find the parts that can be used, then copy or improve and put those into my own Gadget file. I’m not the best coder out there (heck, I even consider myself sucks at coding). But at least I’m smart enough to do these things. After all, every master starts first by imitating their masters.
A simple example would be my “FOGTHMTJT” (First Official Gadget That Have More Than Just Text). Of which the code I have attached in this pot.
Anyhow, there are a lot of already made features and preferences on Google Gadget. Just call them out using the code is quite easy. What takes time is mostly the HTML and Javascript.
Until next time (^-^)
