Google as a Proxy

When we were at the university we were restricted to access some sites on the internet. Accessing those web sites had been a big challenge and we tried several ways to overcome that. I could really remember my campus days while I was reading this article. It explains how to use Google as a proxy to access those banned sites; i.e.: accessing other sites through Google servers. (Google is always accessible from any network).

Two tricks have been listed.

1. Using Google translation service
   A request is made to Google to translate the required page (already in English) to English. This is done by replacing the section in red with the required URL, to which the access is denied by the home network.
   http://www.google.com/translate_c?langpair=zh%7Cen&u=http://www.myspace.com/
   
   
2. Using Google Wireless Transcoder
   This is a straight forward method. First access the page at http://www.google.com/gwt/n and then enter the desired (banned) URL in the text box there. Only drawback here is that, the page is rendered to suit a modile browser. Something is better than nothing!
   

I'm sure that the author would definitely be honoured by those who have been suffering from the firewal restrictions.

End of the Internet - from Google

To check the new items in Google Reader, I use the bookmark ('Next>>'), provided by the site. Today, when I clicked my bookmark, I saw the bookmark was redirected to this URL; http://www.google.com/reader/next?go=noitems. Obviously it has the meaning that I don't have any new items to read. But a funny page was displayed with a link to an interesting page.

And this is the page to what the 'End of the Internet' link is pointing to.

By curiosity, I checked the registration information for the domain SHIBUMI.ORG (where the page is hosted) and its not registered to Google. Google, points to an external link as the end point of it service... isn't it interesting?

Blogger - currently unavailable ??

This should be a rare situation and not everybody would have noticed. An interruption to a google service, blogger, in the state " We're out of beta!", has been captured.

Today I got this maintenance page when tried to access my blog. But, when I refreshed the page, it had gone and correct site was loaded (just a few seconds of downtime).

Google personalized search - permanently disable

Do you enjoy using the Google personilized search? Or you are worried whenever it starts with your first sign-in to one of the google services such as gmail, blogger, calendar, etc..?

If you are one of the disappointed, don't worry. There is a way to permanently disable it. And you can enable it back whenever you want.

1. Permanently disable it
2. Enable it back

Trackbacks in Blogger

A big disappointment I have with the Blogger is that, it doesn't facilitate trackbacks in its blogs. Today, I googled the net to find out alternative ways to do that (I was sure that I would find at least one solution, since millions of users host their blogs here).

Haloscan, 'weblog commenting and trackbacks', had been recommended by many, so I chose that and registered myself. I followed the instructions they had provided, to install the trackback into my blog. After that, I could see a new hyperlink 'trackback' appearing below the 'comments' link. Assuming everything goes fine, I tried to make a trackback ping from haloscan, and it resulted in a 'System error'. Tried many times and it didn't work :-(

Then I checked my blog to check whether it looks ok; I found a big problem; the right side bar was missing. I spent some time on editing the template HTML, but I couldn't get it working properly, so finally I rolled back my blog to the state it was before trackbacks.

It has been everybody's wish to have trackbacks in blogger and I hope the google won't delay to provide such a feature soon.

UPDATE: The problem was due to the template I used for my blog earlier. Now it works fine! My blog site looks better now! huh!

Google Patent search

Everybody know, a patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by an authority. Now, Google has launched a new tool for searching patents in U.S. This tool provides the patent number, contents and any pictures associated in the results.

I just searched for the 'Java Virtual Machine' phrase and found that the IBM Corporation had filed a patent on March 11, 2003. Here is a screen shot of the patent details.

You too can start searching at the Google Patent Search site.