How to Find Visited Pages in Google Search

I'm not sure if this is a new quality, but it's pretty useful. Like most websites, Google's search engine changes the color of visited links from blue to purple. All browsers grip links this way by default, but websites can alter the colors using some CSS code.

If you're logged in using your Google Account and Web History is enabled, Google saves all the search results you visit to your Web History. When you're using a different browser or a different computer and you're logged in using the similar account, Google changes the color of the visited links from blue to purple, irrespective of the browser or computer you've used to visit them. For example, I searched for [haploid] using Chrome, I clicked on one of the results, then I tried the same query in Internet Explorer and the page I've visited in Chrome previously had a purple link.

Google also has a search filter that lets you limit the results to visited pages. Just click "More search tools" in the sidebar and select "Visited pages". For pages you're visiting regularly, Google shows an explanation below the snippet: "You've visited this page X times. Last visit: ...". When you mouse over the snippet, Google suggests to +1 the link: "You've visited this page X times. +1 to suggest it on Google search!".

"Google+ Is Google Itself"

If you thought that Google+ is just a divide service you can effortlessly disregard if you don't want to use it, you were wrong. In an interview with Steven Levy, Bradley Horowitz - Google's VP of products - says that Google+ is really Google itself.

Until now, every single Google property acted like a split company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each separation within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction. That was dizzying. But Google+ is Google itself. We're extending it across all that we do — search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube — so that each of those services contributes to our accepting of who you are.

Redesigning all Google services to match the Google+ interface is not just about constancy, it's also a way to show that they're part of the same super-service, an surrounding layer that makes them work together.

Google+ made Android's camera app put together with Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk put together with YouTube and Google Docs. It's probable that Google+ will make Google services more useful by combining their strengths. That's almost certainly the reason why you'll use Google+ even when you're not going it to Google+ and you'll end up joining Google+ even if you don't like communal networks.

Dynamic Views: seven new ways to distribute your blog with the world

As we said a few weeks ago when we launched a totally rebuilt, streamlined authoring and editing experience, we’re in the process of bringing you a much enhanced and modernized Blogger. The next phase of these updates starts today with seven new ways to display your blog, called Dynamic Views.

Built with the newest in web technology (AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3), Dynamic Views is a exclusive browsing experience that will inspire your readers to discover your blog in new ways. The interactive layouts make it easier for readers to enjoy and find out your posts, loading 40 percent faster than conventional templates and bringing older entries to the exterior so they seem fresh again.

Dynamic Views is a lot more than just new templates. With just a couple clicks, you’ll get endless scrolling (say goodbye to the “Older posts” link), images that load as you browse, integrated search, sorting by date, label and author, light box-style posts for easy viewing, keyboard shortcuts for rapidly flipping through posts, and one-click sharing to Google+ and other social sites on each post.

No two blogs are the same, so you can decide from seven different views that display text and photos differently. For pattern, if you have lots of photos on your blog, you may prefer Flip card or Snapshot. If your blog is more text-heavy, then Classic, Sidebar (what you’re seeing now on Blogger Buzz) or Time slide may be preferable. Here’s a quick report of each of the new views, along with links to some of our favorite blogs where you can check each of them out in action.

• Mosaic (Crosby’s Kitchen) - A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
• Sidebar (Blogger Buzz Blog) - An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
• Snapshot (Canelle et Vanille) - An interactive pinboard of your posts 
• Timeslide (The Bleary-Eyed Father) - A horizontal view of your posts by time period

If you want to insert your own touch to any of these new views, you can upload a header image and customize the background colors. We’ll be adding up more ways to modify Dynamic Views in the coming weeks.

We hope you enjoy the newest update to Blogger, and that, as always, you tell us what you think by completing this short review.

Google's New Search border Disables Many Shortcuts

With the newest redesign of the search results pages, Google made it more difficult to use most of the keyboard shortcuts that permitted you to quickly select a result or see a small preview.

Until now, you might type your query, press Enter to hide the list of suggestions and press Enter once again to go to the first result. If you didn't like the first result, you might press the down arrow to select the second result. Google also incorporated a keyboard shortcut for Instant Previews: the right arrow. None of these shortcuts are obtainable in the latest interface, at least not by default. Now you need to press Tab after performing a search to allow the old keyboard shortcuts.

Here's a search results page after typing a doubt (notice that there's no arrow next to the first result):

Here's what happens when you press Tab (you can use the up/down arrows, but the shortcut for Instant Previews no longer works

Google most likely disabled these features because not many people used them and a lot of users complained that the shortcuts made routing more difficult. Power users need to learn that Tab enables keyboard shortcuts, but having to allow the feature every time you use Google Search is annoying. After all, shortcuts were supposed to make your life easier and help you be more creative.

Google Instant shortcuts are still obtainable. You can continue to use the up/down arrows to select a different look for suggestion, the right arrow to visit the first result for the search suggestion, Tab to use Google's suggestion and continue to type your query, Esc to choose the query so you can quickly overwrite it.

New border for Google Instant Previews

Google tweaked the UI for Instant Previews and made the seek interface a lot cleaner. There's a new big icon for Instant Previews, but it's only displayed when you mouse over a snatch. Click the new icon or only hover over the gray bar and you'll see a much bigger screenshot. 

"Instant Previews have been about since last year, allowing you to click on the magnifying glass to the right of the result to see a visual overview of a page. Now these previews are no longer even a click away: if you move your mouse over a look for result, arrows will appear. Hover over them to see a visual sample of that result," explains Google.

Clicking the snippet no longer triggers an immediate Preview in the new interface. Unfortunately, the keyboard shortcut has been disabled, so you can longer get a glimpse of the page with the right arrow.

Google now repeats the title of the page and the URL then to the screenshot, while the links to the cached page and to other similar pages are incorporated in the new enlarged snippet. It's a bad news for those who regularly use the "cache" link, who now have to spend more time to find it.

The only action that's still displayed is the Google +1 button, but you require to log in to see it. Probably Google wanted to highlight the button, which is now located next to the URL.

Here's the old border:

Google Wallet

Google originate an interesting way to launch the Google Wallet app for Android: as an over-the-air update for Sprint Nexus S 4G phones. Google Wallet makes use of the NFC chip from Nexus S phones and allows you to create credit card payments at physical stores using your Android smartphone.

"Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your accessible plastic credit cards. As a thanks to early adopters, we're adding a $10 free bonus to the Google Prepaid Card if you set it up in Google Wallet before the end of the year," informs Google. The Google Prepaid Card is powered by MasterCard and Money Network and it's a provisional solution until you can add credit cards from other companies. Google says that the submission could add support for Visa, Discover and American Express cards in the future.

Google Wallet is more than a contactless payment explanation: it's a virtual wallet that could store information about your credit cards, coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, tickets and much more. It's also a great chance for Google to integrate Google Offers and make it easier to use by allowing consumers to pay, redeem offers and earn allegiance points in a single step using their mobile phone. Google says that it doesn't have access to the list of products you buy, but this feature could be additional in the future.

While Google Wallet seems to be a suitable solution, many people might not use it because of privacy or security reasons. Google says that the payment credentials are stored in a separate chip called Secure Element and only official programs can begin transitions. Google Wallet users need to enter the PIN to confirm a payment, so someone who finds an Android phone can't use the app because he doesn't know the code.

Google's vision is to generate "an open commerce ecosystem" that will support many payment instruments, APIs that allow adding loyalty points, transferring offers, receipts and more. Google Wallet is Google Checkout's extension to offline payments and it's a big opportunity for Google to generate a successful payment system. PayPal will soon offer a similar service and Apple's iPhone 5 could contain a NFC chip, so Google Wallet will have a few competition.

Google Goggles Makes Your Phone's Camera Smarter

Google Goggles is an request that's sometimes useful, but it's not good enough to use it every time you want to find something about an object. The Android app has a new characteristic that integrates it with the Camera app, uploads all the photos you're taking to Google's servers and shows notifications in the status bar if Goggles found something useful. It may sound spooky, but it makes your phone's camera smarter.

"With this new opt-in feature in Goggles, you can just photograph an image using your phone's camera, and Goggles will work in the background to examine your image. If your photo contains items that Goggles can distinguish, the app will notify you," explains Google. The feature is disabled by default, but you can facilitate it from the settings page by choosing "Search from Camera".

It's almost certainly a good idea to only enable this option when you're on vacation or when you're planning to photograph barcodes for products you want to buy. It's also helpful if you're in a bookstore and you want to "bookmark" some books.

Google Mobile's help center informs that "each Goggles query consumes about 100 KB of data" and you can limit the amount of data that's inspired by selecting "Search on WiFi networks only" under "Mobile Connection".

"Search from Camera" is one of the features that won't be obtainable in the Google app for iPhone because iOS' background APIs aren't that powerful. If you have an Android device, install Google Goggles 1.6 from the Android Market.