Simon Willison’s Weblog

Google Image Search does faces (via) The undocumented imgtype=face parameter. Kind of creepy.

# 28th May 2007, 8:08 pm / google, imagesearch

The Oxford Guide free WiFi plotted on Google Maps. The guide offers a geocoded Atom feed which can be directly plotted on a Google Map.

# 26th May 2007, 9:55 am / google, google-maps, theoxfordguide, oxford, wifi

A whole new experience for Google Analytics. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the new interface. Maybe I’ll finally be able to find the search referrals page!

# 8th May 2007, 9:09 pm / google-analytics, google, jeff-veen

Introduction and Yahoo! Pipes. The official Google Maps API blog describes how to plot KML output from Yahoo! Pipes.

# 3rd May 2007, 10 pm / yahoo, google, google-maps, yahoopipes, xml, maps

Seven JavaScript Techniques You Should Be Using Today (via) Sound advice from Dustin Diaz, who is now a Googler.

# 24th April 2007, 8:20 am / google, dustindiaz, javascript

Google AJAX Feed API (via) Simple cross-domain proxy to allow JavaScript to access any publically addressable syndication feed, with the same logic as Google Reader providing normalisation.

# 18th April 2007, 5:29 pm / google-reader, ajax, javascript, crossdomain, google, rss, feed, atom, syndication

Google Reader Theme. Jon Hicks’ beautiful alternative skin for Google Reader, installable as a user stylesheet for various browsers.

# 16th April 2007, 10:03 pm / google, google-reader, jon-hicks, userstylesheet, skin

Google My Maps: Bodeans. I’ve been talking about how useful a simple tool for creating custom maps would be for ages... looks like Google beat me to it. Here’s one I created showing the location of Bodeans, an excellent Kansas-style BBQ joint in Soho, London. It’s a shame the URLs suck.

# 5th April 2007, 5:40 pm / mymaps, maps, london, google-maps, bodeans, bbq, soho, google

How to beat Google, part 1. Rick Skrenta with 12 steps to taking on Google in the search engine space, including some great insights in to smart UI design.

# 27th March 2007, 12:02 am / ui, rickskrenta, google

New Open Source Utility Library for the Google Maps API (via) Google are taking a hybrid approach to development on their Maps API—an open source utility library layered on top of their closed source, obfuscated core code.

# 23rd March 2007, 9:09 pm / google, google-maps, open-source

My photos tagged “cheese” on a Google Map. You can paste a Flickr GeoRSS feed directly in to the Google Maps query box.

# 23rd March 2007, 1:55 am / georss, flickr, google-maps, cheese, google

KML and GeoRSS support added to the Google Maps API. Since Flickr can output GeoRSS, this means you can now plot your Flickr photos on a Google Map (if you’re so inclined).

# 23rd March 2007, 1:03 am / flickr, georss, kml, google, google-maps

Two visions. It looks like Mark Pilgrim is going to be joining Hixie at Google.

# 20th March 2007, 8:32 am / mark-pilgrim, ian-hickson, google

Google Video: How do I enter transcripts? Neat feature of Google Video I hadn’t seen before: you can upload timestamped transcripts of your videos. Anyone seen a video that uses these?

# 12th March 2007, 10:44 pm / video, google-video, subtitles, transcripts, google

Google Seattle conference on scalability. Google are hosting a conference on scalability in Seattle on June 23rd. They’ve just put out the CfP.

# 10th March 2007, 4:37 pm / cfp, conferences, google, scalability, seattle

Add OpenSearch to your site in five minutes. OpenSearch is easy. DeWitt demonstrates how you don’t even need a site search engine to implement it if you take advantage of Google’s site: operator.

# 9th February 2007, 12:52 am / google, opensearch, dewitt-clinton

This site may harm your computer. Tom Dyson’s personal weblog was flagged by Google as hosting malicious software, without any clue as to what the problem was. Sure looks like a false positive to me.

# 5th February 2007, 9:26 am / google, tom-dyson, blacklists

On Space Art in Sebastopol... Awesome. Our giant mosaic space invaders are going to show up on Google Earth!

# 22nd January 2007, 10:44 pm / google-earth, spaceinvaders, google, foocamp, tom-coates

Designing Google Reader’s trends. “But beyond the visualization, this serves as a good example of collecting and understanding the ambient information that flows through our digital lives.”

# 15th January 2007, 12:53 am / jeffrey-veen, google-reader, google, visualization, design

Details of Google’s Latest Security Hole. For a brief while you could use Blogger Custom Domains to point a Google subdomain at your own content, letting you hijack Google cookies and steal accounts for any Google services.

# 14th January 2007, 1:36 pm / xss, domainsecurity, google, security

MacFUSE: FUSE for Mac OS X. Mac support for user-space custom file systems, API compatible with those already written for Linux. Amit Singh runs kernelthread.com; I hadn’t realised that he had moved to Google.

# 12th January 2007, 9:47 am / amitsingh, osx, fuse, filesystem, google

Beginning of the end for open web data APIs? Google just ditched their SOAP API in favour of a crippled Ajax widget. What are the implications for other free-as-in-beer APIs?

# 20th December 2006, 12:44 am / apis, google

Google Code gets wikis and file downloads. Someone finally wrote a project wiki that stores its pages inside the Subversion repository.

# 16th December 2006, 12:35 pm / google, google-code, subversion, wiki

Google’s own cornershop. Google groups has an undocumented API for generating rounded corners.

# 14th December 2006, 7:34 pm / api, google

Making GWT Better. Explains the philosophy behind GWT. It’s all about the tools!

# 12th December 2006, 5:53 pm / gwt, javascript, google, philosophy

GWT 1.3 Release Candidate is 100% Open Source. At least you can see how the code generator works now.

# 12th December 2006, 5:50 pm / gwt, javascript, open-source, google

Google Mondrian. Internal Google application, powered in part by Django!

# 1st December 2006, 11:27 am / google, django

Good Agile, Bad Agile. Includes interesting insight in to Google development processes.

# 27th September 2006, 3:10 pm / process, google, agile, steve-yegge