Tips, tricks, and thoughts about Google, AdWords, Google Cloud Platform, and all its subsidiaries. Not affiliated with or sponsored by Google.
In case you missed the recent Google I/O convention, Google has a recap of their I/O announcements conveniently summarized here:
https://www.blog.google/technology/developers/100-things-we-announced-io-19/ .
I really like the new privacy features Google is rolling out, but IMO the best one is number 77 on Google’s list: All Chromebooks launched this year will be Linux-ready right out of the box. The Chromebook is great, but sometimes you need the power of a CLI.
This recent Business Insider article details how to download Google Maps information to your phone’s local storage, so you can use Maps even when offline or when your phone is unable to get a signal: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-google-maps-offline .
When I travel, I always have Google Maps save a map of the area I’m travelling to. It’s not always possible to have a working cell signal – in flat Illinois where I live, it’s easy to have cell signal all the time. When I travel to more mountainous regions such as Colorado, I often lose signal due to mountains and hills between me and the signal tower.
Today’s Google doodle celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week!
Here’s a screenshot of the Google home page with the doodle:
Clicking on the doodle leads to a search for Teacher Appreciation Week:
Here’s a copy of the doodle image:
I love poking around Google Maps – there are so many unexpected things you can find that are obvious from a top-down view, but are so hard to see at a ground-level view.
I was looking at a Google Maps of the Epcot theme park in Disney World, Florida. Do you see any interesting shape in the screenshot below?
There’s a hidden Mickey in the top left hand corner! The three black circles are arranged into the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head! See the screenshot below for detail:
If you zoom in enough on Google Maps, you’ll notice that this is actually an array of solar panels, generating electricity to feed the Disney theme parks. Notice that there seems to be a dirt access road to the panels and a fence around the entire array. As I said before: this solar panel array would be difficult to see in person, much less the general shape of it; but with Google Maps, the difficult becomes so obvious!
Today’s Google doodle celebrates the sculpture artist, Ruth Asawa.
This is how the Google front page looked like:
Here is the doodle by itself:
The doodle linked to a search for Ruth Asawa:
Need to book a hotel room, but you’re looking for a good deal? Google Maps has you covered. This post is if you already have a particular hotel picked out.
As an example, I’m going to pick the Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida. First, go to Google Maps and type in contemporary resort. Select the Contemporary located in Orlando, FL.
After searching, you’ll see a screen similar to the below:
On the left hand side, there are advertisements (note the small Ad disclaimer in the middle of the screen) where Expedia and other trip planning sites offer deals for the hotel. You can comparison shop between providers – KAYAK is offering rooms for $492, but Expedia is offering for $488 (see purple arrow). The dates of the hotel stay can be changed as well, see the red arrow for the date pickers.
Keep your eye out for similar ads and deals in Google Maps – I frequently see travel deals being offered.
FastCompany profiles a new Chrome plugin in this article published today: https://www.fastcompany.com/90338929/the-former-lead-designer-of-gmail-just-fixed-gmail-on-his-own . The plugin greatly simplifies Gmail’s interface – and it’s made by the same person who wrote Inbox.
I loved using Inbox, and I see the same design sensibilities from Inbox in this plugin: a focus on the email instead of wasting screen real estate on navigation bars and miscellany.
I saw this interesting TechCrunch article about Google making it easier to find work-from-home jobs:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/24/its-now-easier-to-find-work-from-home-jobs-in-google-search/ .
I love working from home – it’s great that Google is making it easier to search for remote-friendly positions.
Search Engine Land posted an insightful article today: Apparently Google is featuring images more often in its search results than in the past: https://searchengineland.com/google-starts-showing-more-images-in-the-web-search-results-315804 .
For example: search Google for a keyword, and if Google decides you might be interested in an image search, it’ll show an image bar within the search page. Now this images bar has always existed, but the Search Engine Land article indicates that this bar is becoming more frequent/being added to more searches. Here’s a demonstration:
cupcake
With this new emphasis on images, it’s important to properly SEO images on your website. Make sure to fill out the ALT attribute on the IMG HTML tag, and have a caption explaining the image. Use a high quality image if available.
BGR Media reports that Google Maps is popping up alerts, asking for information on how crowded the train/subway is:
https://bgr.com/2019/04/17/google-maps-features-how-crowded-is-your-train-question-explained/ .
This is just the start of beefing up Maps’ ability to predict traffic levels – I expect Google will be collecting much more information about public transportation, and use that data to power its AI. In the future I could see Google Home offering route planning comparisons between an Uber or train: including informed predictions about how long each will take, how crowded the train will be, etc.