MoreGoogle

Why has LostGoggles stopped working?

2007-04-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

Thank you for sending me your comments and feedback regarding LostGoggles; I’ve been a little quiet about the future of LostGoggles, and here’s a little background.

LostGoggle’s thumbnail images were provided by Alexa, but I never actually asked them to use their images; I just did and thought that I’d "compensate" them by linking back to their site, therefore bringing them traffic. Geoff Mack, the product manager of Alexa web search, immediately recognized the benefit of preview images in search results, got in touch with me and gave me permission to use the images for free.

Things changed around mid-2006, when Amazon decided to integrate parts Alexa into their Web Services platform and began charging for the thumbnail images. The problem was that LostGoggles was/is a free product. I made a few hundred dollars from the integration of Amazon links, but that would hardly have financed the fees required to license Alexa’s thumbnails through Amazon’s Web Services programme - and that’s why LostGoggles stopped showing preview images.

So, I am currently looking for a new provider of thumbnail images - and it seems I have found one. I’m talking with my friends at snap.com to integrate their Preview Anywhere.

I’d love to update LostGoggles! If you want to stay up-to- date, please join the LostGoggles Discussion Group - thanks!

Apple moving to Intel?

2005-06-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

I've been reading so many comments on the Apple-moving-to-Intel rumor that I have to have an opinion. First, I'm a Mac person at heart who did the reverse-switch from Macs to Wintels. No, I didn't like switching, but the Mac market was a very risky business around the year ~2002, and programmers have too eat, too :) And I didn't like Mac OS X either.
I'd love to see Apple move to Intel processors, and it has not so much to do with who has the better processor.
So, much has been written about the move anyway, and where analysts and "experts" are completely wrong is that the switch would be technically difficult for Apple and their developers.

Switching platforms is nothing unusual. Sun has done it, SGI has done it, Apple has done it very successfully, and - most importantly - neXt has done it. Next actually they moved from Motorla's 680x0 to x86 Intels and finally to the PowerPC Macs on only a few months, so why would anybody think it would be difficult for Apple to get OS X ported "back" to Intel? The whole Linux / BSD world is more or less architecture independend:

Porting software is easy, or at least "manageable". For "simple" command line applications such as Apache, porting to Intel is as easy as "click here to recompile". But even sophisticated desktop software should be easy to port. MacOS X has so many abstraction layers between the hardware and its subsystems (Quartz, Quicktime, etc) that bringing existing software from PPC to Intels would probably be just a recompile if done well by Apple (and at least I would expect them to do it well).
The opportunity has never been greater than now.
- No-one doubts that Apple is alive and kicking. Actually, Apple is perceived today as probably the most innovative company in the personal computer business, and besides the financial benefits, the iPod is a great publicity devicle for Apple. I forgot the numbers, but a very siginifcant number of customers who buy a Mac today are Switchers - first time Apple PC owners. Linux people are buying Macs, and MacOS X has become the Mercedes of the *nix world. People see Mac OS (X) as a "professional" operating system and no longer as a "toy" OS (it's got a command line shell, 'ey ;) )
- MacOS X is here today, Longhorn is far away. C'mon, why would anybody ant to a) wait for and b) switch to Longhorn? There is absolutely nothing new to say about Windows these days. Mac OS X is the clear innovation leader; it's based on BSD (Linux folks will love that), it´s mass-market "desktop ready" like no Linux distribution, and it runs enterprise apps just as well. Now, add that to the installed base of Intel PCs... maybe Apple won't officially support it, but you bet that hacks and patches will soon appear on the net and make it work on just about any PC.

Want a Mac ...uhm.. Google Mini?

2005-05-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Mac Mini, Google Mini, Mini Cooper? Actually, I'd take all of them :)

The Google Mini comes in blue and it's yours for ony $2.995,00

http://www.google.com/mini/

Testing LostGoggles 1.5 with Google

2005-05-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

google-is-sorry
Originally uploaded by butterseite.

Testing LostGoggles means that I spend most of my day between GoLive, different browsers and search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and A9 these days - hint, hint).

Google obviously doesn't expect a human to make ~1000 queries in a row.

Well, Larry & Sergey... greetings from the the LostGoggles QA department :)

bookaboo finds better prices while you shop

2005-05-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

If you like LostGoggles, you'll probably also like my newest extension, bookaboo. It adds a small price comparison window (not a popup) to online book stores and shows you the best prices from various merchants like Amazon, Textbookx, Overstock, etc.

It's free: http://bookaboo.org

Kids prefer to search visually

2005-05-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

A friend had invited me to dinner the other day; she has a 12-year old daughter who - of course - knows how to use a PC, and who - of course - know how to google for information about her favourite TV shows.

The interesting thing is the way she uses Google: she only searches in Google Images. She obviously doesn't care (nor know) that Google Images covers only a tiny subset of the actual Web search, and that she probably won't ever see the best content that's available for Charmed. It doesn't bother her at all, because "text is so boring".

(This was, BTW, it first time I would have preferrd a PC with NetNanny; she was also searching for "Beyoncé" and the results were not always what we would have expected ;) )

Of course I installed LostGoggles... let's see if she changes her Googling habits :)

Faster Google thumbnails with Google Web Accelerator

2005-05-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that thumbnails seem to appear more quickly when using Google Web Accelerator.

For the technically interested, this effect has to do with the way proxies and caches work: Web Accelerator caches LostGoggles code, and in addition, it also pre-fetches the Google results, making the total experience much smoother; LostGoggles thumbnails (or placeholders, at least) appear almost instantly.

Google thumbnails for AvantBrowser, Maxthon & Co

2005-04-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've completely re-written LostGoggles. There's not so much new on the surface, but a bit more under the hood that you'll see in upcoming versions. LostGoggles 1.5 builds the foundation for many new features that I'm planning.

Coming to a browser near you
LostGoggles is now a background application instead of a Browser Helper Object (BHO); this will no longer trigger alarms of several Anti-~~Paranoia~~Spyware products, and it will not crash Internet Explorer if something goes wrong (as it did sometimes when viewing PDF files). It's also a more elegant approach than a BHO.

The greatest benefit though is that LostGoggles 1.5 now works with all IE-based browsers, such as AvantBroswer, Maxthon, SlimBrowser or NetCaptor.

Towards version 2.0
Adding features is one thing, but adding them in an intuitive, subtle way is another. I don't want LostGoggles to become too bloated; I've been working on many new things, and I'm now looking to integrate these without making it too complex and messing up the look & general user experience.

Thumbnails on MSN search
Thumbnails on Yahoo
Cross-Browser - read: Firefox- support (more and more)
Thumbnail Plug-Ins
extract context sensitive thumbnails from web pages, like photos from news articles; this already works server-based, but I want it to be done on the client because of the bandwidth and CPU load this would need
"Live-Info" Plug-Ins
extract short info "tags", just like LostGoggles' Amazon integration
Thumbnail Zooming
Preferences (choose thumbnails size, enable zooming)

Generally, I got a lot of inspiration from Klipfolio, and I'd like to think of LostGoggles as the Klipfolio for search. Klipfolio lets you extract information from various data sources - it's like a simple and neat RSS aggregator. I really like the whole Klipfolio Universe, with their API, terminology ("KlipFood" :) ) etc.

Download LostGoggles 1.5 Beta

This release, too, is still experimental Beta software; it's even more beta than the 1.0 release, so it's not available from the LostGoggles.com web site. Please give it a try; the installer will (=should) automatically remove the previous version of LostGoggles. I've tested it with different flavours of Windows XP, so if anyone has a non-XP version of Windows, please let me know if and how it works (or doesn't).

Enjoy!

Download LostGoggles 1.5 (<400k)

LostGoggles ranks #2 on snapfiles.com

2004-12-14T05:52:00.000-08:00

LostGoggles is the #2 most popular download on http://www.snapfiles.com/! :)

Do you like LostGoggles? Please donate.

2004-12-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

LostGoggles is free, but I appreciate your donations.

Donations are processed by eSellerate, a company that has as a good reputation in the shareware business, and who has been processing payments reliably for many years. You can donate as much as you want/can, but due to processing fees etc, the minimum amount is US$ 5.00.

Your donations are used to

cover web hosting expenses
buy new Blue's Clues stuff for my 6-year old
buy myself a cup of Grande Decaf Vanilla Latte at Starbucks
pay legal insurance fees :) (kidding)

Click here to donate to LostGoggles

Thank you!

MoreGoogle stops working today; update needed

2004-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

Update day. More later :)

Shutting down MoreGoogle.com: your help is needed

2004-11-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

MoreGoogle.com will finally be shut down during the coming week, as the domain name is being transferred to Google.

If you like what "the product formerly called MoreGoogle" does, please use this link and send me your e-mail address so I can notify you of changes.

Thank you!

Google demands shutdown of MoreGoogle.com

2004-11-15T06:32:00.000-08:00

Google, Inc. has contacted me several months ago regarding the "unathorized use of Google trademark" and the "unauthorized services on moregoogle.com". Although I've tried to discuss this issue with them, unfortunately, we were not able to reach an agreement that would allow me to further use the name "MoreGoogle".

What does this mean: well, I'm going to close the www.moregoogle.com web site and possibly transfer the domain name to Google, Inc.

More news later...

Better images & site integration

2004-09-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

I'm working on better image results that work very much like the current Amazon integration where you see a product image instead of the site's preview thumbnail.
There will be images and live information for

Blogger profiles (image, age, sex¹, etc)
News articles (article image; cnn.com, usatoday.com, bbc.co.uk ²)
Software sites (screenshots & ratings - cool :) )

Please share your thoughts with me, as well as suggestions of what kind of sites you'd like to see integrated!

¹ No, this is not going to be an Amazon-style rating :D
² I'm also adding some Austrian magazines: derStandard.at,kurier.at, diepresse.com are already implemented

MoreGoogle for Firefox, Continued

2004-09-28T02:06:00.000-07:00

There's going to be a FireFox version of MoreGoogle. This won't be out before mid-October since I'm travelling to Los Angeles from Oct 3 to Oct 10, but it's definitely coming!

Taiwan Day :)

2004-09-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

Lots of users again, today from Taiwan. Hi everyone :)

But no referrer-entries - can someone please be so kind and let me know how you hear of MoreGoogle? A link, possibly? Thanks :)

Info Porn

2004-09-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

Now this is really cool: when CBS Marketwatch reported about MoreGoogle, the web site's traffic rank climbed up to 6,600 - the world's 6,600st most popular site. Not too bad :)

Before CBS, MoreGoogle made it into the top 16,000 - in only a few days after the site went online.

Google finds around 10,900 MoreGoogle entries.

MoreGoogle for Firefox

2004-08-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

Carlo Zottmann has created a firefox extension that is inspired ;) from MoreGoogle. It's called McSearchPreview and it's free.

U.S. print publication featuring MoreGoogle?

2004-08-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

MoreGoogle is getting a lot of traffic from the U.S.; looks like a print publication has mentioned MoreGoogle, because people are coming in by typing "www.moregoogle.com" in their browser.

Can anyone please let me know which publication that would be? (A scan of the page would be extra cool ;) =

Thanks!!

OT: I watched a soccer game!

2004-06-14T05:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is totally off topic here, but it's still of historic importance that I need to write it down somewhere :)

Yesterday, for the first time in my 32-year lasting life, I watched a soccer game with honest, serious interest. :) England vs France; I favor the Brits, of course ;) (although I like Paris more than London; on the other side, Beckham dresses better than Zidane, and the UK has Oasis, the Who, etc). But anyway, it was a shame that the French actually won the game by 2:1 in the last three minutes.

That's all. Thanks for reading :)

Link to MoreGoogle and increase your Amazon earnings (BETA)

2004-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Since MoreGoogle is now able to display Amazon product details, I invite all Amazon Associates / Affiliates to link to MoreGoogle and start earning $$ :)

Here is how it works:

You link to MoreGoogle and include your Amazon Associate ID

MoreGoogle stores your Amazon Associate ID in a cookie

People download "your" MoreGoogle

When a user clicks on an Amazon link, MoreGoogle inserts your Amazon Associate ID. On every second click, MoreGoogle inserts its own ID, so we effectively share the click-through-rate 50:50.

Linking to MoreGoogle
Update: I've created a link building page that makes the whole process a lot easier

The link looks like this:

http://scripts.moregoogle.com/redirect/associates.php?amzncom=[your-Amazon-Associate-ID]

where [your-Amazon-Assiciate-Id] is your Amazon.com Associate ID.

If you are an Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de associate, use the following parameters:

amznuk=[your-Amazon-UK-Associate-ID]
amznde=[your-Amazon-DE-Associate-ID]

If you have multiple Amazon Associate IDs, just add all parameters to your link. For example, if you have Associate accounts with Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de, your link could look like this:

http://scripts.moregoogle.com/redirect/associates.php?amzncom=myamazoncomid-20&amznuk=myamazonukid-21&amznde=myamazondeid-22

All you need to do is add the link to your web page :)

Testing it

Once you have your link in place, just click it and make sure you have MoreGoogle installed (It is also important that you are running IE when you click the link).

Go to www.google.com (or google.co.uk or google.de, whatever your preferred address is)

Find some Amazon products; a good start is to search for "Harry Potter DVD"

Now look at the Google results. Somewhere you'll find a link to an Amazon product.

Click the link

Look at the URL in the address bar - you'll see your Amazon ID :)

BETA!
This is the first attempt, and everything is still running in Beta-mode. If you have questions or feedback, please post them here!

Amazon.com Product info

2004-06-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

MoreGoogle now inserts basic product info when a search result links to an Amazon.com product. It inserts a product image instead of the site thunbnail, the media type (such as CD, Paperback, DVD, CD-ROM, etc), Amazon's price, price of used & new 3rd party items, and the product rating. Feedback welcome :)

All about Google

2004-06-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Found this lovely site: http://google.indicateur.com/

No more ads!

2004-06-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

MoreGoogle no longer inserts ad banners. Interestingly, users don't care as much as the media (and probably site owners and advertisers); it seems that everyone gets very suspicious these days when it comes to free software...

EvenMoreGoogle: Results, remixed.

2004-06-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

"Great artists steal", Pablo Picasso said, and I remember Steve Jobs quoting him. (I'm a big admirer of both of them; the only picture I found worth decorating my living room with is Picasso's "A Dog", and I own a Picasso portrait print from Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

Christina Wodtke, former Yahoo! Search design lead: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal: If the old saw is true," she writes, "then MoreGoogle is great." Thanks :)

I had a short e-mail discussion with Philipp Lenssen, who runs FindForward and Google Blogoscoped. He writes that MoreGoogle would "hijack" Google results.

Of course, I have a different opinion on this issue. Probably the last thing the world needs today is Yet Another Search Engine Based On Google. FindForward, as many other Google based Search Engines, uses Google's results through the Google API, but has its own user interface. And it removes Google's advertising. Instead, it displays its own ads. Duh. Now... if the term "hijacking" is appropriate at all, one might wonder who's the real "hijacker" here :)

The most interesting view though comes from techdirt: It appears that there are a lot of folks out there who are trying to "remix" Google's interface. Remixing - this is it. Results, remixed!

I prefer to see MoreGoogle returning "annotated search results" - much like you ask someone to do research on something and get back a pile of paper with sticky notes on it. And, technically, this is what MoreGoogle does: you get 100% of Google and when the result pages is loaded, MoreGoogle adds more information.

The whole point of it is this: Google is the search engine today, and all these Google-based ones just add a few new aspects or (worst case) modify the user interface. So why develop a "new" search engine if you basically just want to add one new aspect? Adobe and many other Mac companies recognized years ago that there is so much potential with Plug-Ins. There's a whole Plug-In microeconomy for Photoshop, Illustrator and GoLive. You can find hundreds of Plug-Ins for WinAmp. And it makes so much sense: focus on core competencies! Many small companies only exist because they develop add-ons for Adobe. Others just write WinAmp plug-ins for the fun of it. Let's "Just add value" :)

The possibility to enhance a product with new custom features basically transforms that product into a platform. Why not let people customize Google? How about custom Google skins? There are a couple of sites out there that compute a site's PageRank - why not make that a Google Add-On? And who says that this is limited to Google? Why not add stuff to Amazon, eBay or any other site? There are many online phone directories that don't have an "Add to my address book" button. And guess who added one to his favourite directory? Correct :)

Now, add a few buzzwords to all of this, like Web Services, XML, Semantic Web, etc... that's what MoreGoogle is all about. Results, Remixed.

MoreGoogle Performance Improvement

2004-06-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

One neat thing about MoreGoogle is that it doesn't require software updates. The part that's installed on the PC (a DLL) is only 30k small, the rest are scripts. Those scripts are downloaded from the MoreGoogle server, so whenever there's an update, it's automatically available to everyone without installing new software.

There's a small disadvantage, though: Internet Explorer automatically checks for MoreGoogle script updates, which generates quite some traffic on the MoreGoogle web server and might slow down the browser.

To overcome that, I've now optimized MoreGoogle to take advantage of web caches. Internet Explorer and proxy servers will now cache the MoreGoogle scripts and only check for updates from time to time.

MoreGoogle: No Popups, no Spyware.

2004-05-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

A few people are posting comments about MoreGoogle being "spyware", which is just not true.

MoreGoogle does not collect any personally identifiable information

MoreGoogle does not display popup-advertising or similar disturbing "promotion"

Zooming-in on preview thumbnails, ToolTips

2004-05-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with new MoreGoogle features, one of them being a "zoom-in" on preview thumbnails (just move your mouse over the image), and another one is a site info "ToolTip". I think both are pretty cool, but I'm not sure if they really add value, so your comments and suggestions are more than welcome!

I've uploaded a demo page. This is work in progress, so please forgive me if you find a bug...

Yohoo, MoreGoogle goes online!

2004-05-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, Google is cool, but there's still stuff missing; like site preview thumbnails (they had this feature but removed it again) and an "open in new window" button like in Yahoo search.

So I wrote MoreGoogle, a small Windows app that adds these and other features to Google. It's pretty cool, but obviously, I'm biased :)

Feedback & ideas welcome!