Google's new browser, Chrome, and Google Bookmarks

Have you tried Google’s new browser, “Chrome”?  It’s fast and it rocks.  But there’s no Google Toolbar!  How can you bookmark pages to a central location (Google Bookmarks)?  Here’s how, in just a few quick and easy steps :-D.

1. First, download Chrome (duh!) :-D.
2. If you don’t already see a bookmarks bar (right below the address bar or “omnibar” and above the actual web page) turn it on by hitting CTRL-B (you can hide it anytime by hitting CTRL-B again).
3. Visit this help page on Google Chrome and bookmarking.
4. Go ahead and—you guessed it—drag that little box to the bookmarks area of Chrome.

VOILA!  Now whenever you want to bookmark a page, just click on that little bookmark.

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But what happens when you want to find that page again?

Well, for one thing, Chrome’s omnibar is pretty damn smart… even smarter than you might initially expect!  Try typing just a few letters from that site’s URL or title and it may very well show up for you in the omnibar :-D. But if you still want to see all your bookmarks, you can do one of two things:

• Revisit Google Bookmarks OR
• Check out the cooler experience of Google Notebook, and you'll find all your bookmarks under the UNFILED folder (click on the left), where you can annotate, group, and optionally share your favorite bookmarks with friends.

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Hope these tips help you enjoy Chrome even more!

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EDITED on Wednesday, September 3 to add:
Thank you to Simon B for the improved link to the bookmarklet! :-D

Gmail tip: Use "Quick Links" to help you find important mail quickly

Do you use Gmail?  The new “Quick Links” feature, offered via Google’s Gmail Labs project, can help save you time and highlight important mail.

WHAT QUICK LINKS DOES
Think of it as sort of a “Saved searches” feature :-D.  Basically, you can take any search and “save” it so that it appears as an option under a Quick Links menu on the lefthand side of your Gmail screen.  For instance, one of my favorite quick links is this saved search: “TO:me IN:inbox.”  When I click on this link now, it shows me all mail that’s been sent to me personally that’s still in my inbox, weeding out all the “junk” bulk mail… e.g., newsletters, ads from vendors, etc.  Other options could be showing mail just from a specific time period that has attachments, mail that is starred but not in your inbox, etc.

HOW TO GET THE QUICK LINKS FEATURE IN YOUR GMAIL
1) Go to your Gmail.
2) Click on “Settings” at the top of the page.
3) Then click on “Labs”
4) You’ll find many add-ons, or labs features which may interest you.  Enable “Quick Links” and/or any other labs features you like.
5) Lastly, click “Save changes” at the bottom.

HOW TO USE QUICK LINKS
1) Type in any search into Gmail (in the regular search bar, or using the Advanced Search).
2) Click “Add Quick Link” on the lefthand side of your Gmail page.  Voila! :-D

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For those of you who have used Quick Links, what are some of the favorite / most useful / most creative links you’ve created?

Super-speedy-search tip for Firefoxers! (search keywords)

I love RottenTomatoes.com.  It’s one of the most useful and addictive movie sites I’ve found, right along with IMDB.com.  Now I can look up movies on either database in a snap by using a surprisingly little-known Firefox feature that lets you assign a keyword of your choice to any search on any site.

I’ve set up my browser so that I can type “rt [moviename]” or “imdb [moviename]” in my Firefox addressbar and be whisked right to that movie’s page in RottenTomatoes or IMDB respectively.

It’s easy to do!  Just go to your favorite site (movie or otherwise) in Firefox and right-click on a search bar on the page (e.g., where you’d normally enter in a movie to look up) and then select “Add a Keyword for this Search.”  You’ll then see something like this:



Enter in any title you want in the first box (that's what'll show up in your bookmarks), choose a short but easy to remember keyword, and the URL should be filled in automatically for you.

From then on, you can enter in stuff like "rt an inconvenient truth" (great movie, btw!) directly into your Firefox addressbar and save yourself the hassle of navigating to the RT homepage, then finding the search box, etc.

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But what if you'd like to make use of such a handy feature at home and work (or on your personal desktop and laptop) and don't want to set up such shortcuts multiple times?

Google Browser Sync to the rescue! (insert standard disclaimer here... I work for Google, I don't work on this particular product, I'm not paid to write this, yadda yadda yadda). It's a super-nifty way of having your bookmarks, cookies, and other stuff (you choose!) automatically synchronized across all your computers. And yes, privacy-keen geeks, you can opt to have all of this stuff encrypted, too :-D. The downside: This extension causes my Firefox to load more slowly (sometimes taking 10-15 seconds), but I'm guessing that's because I have a crapload of settings, extensions, bookmarks, etc. It's still well worth the initial load-wait for me.

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Anyway, I hope you find these tips helpful, and feel free to share any of your own Firefox tips below! :-D

Thoughts on choosing a domain name

It’s easy to get your own space on the Web (Geocities, Google Pages, Live Journal, Blogger, etc.) without cost and without fuss.  So why get your own domain name?

• It can provide you with a nice vanity and (generally) permanent e-mail address… e.g., .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
• Same goes for a Web address; also, you can then host your site anywhere you want!
• It’s dang cheap!  $5-$10/year for the domain registration (+ optional Web site hosting costs, usually $2-20 depending on how much space/bandwidth/power you need)

In the rest of this note, I’ll cover very briefly how you get a domain name, and—more comprehensively—some things you’ll want to consider before choosing a domain name.

Actually getting, or “registering” a domain name is the easy part.  For $2-10, you can get a domain name at registrars like GoDaddy, Yahoo, and many other companies in literally a matter of minutes (though it can take a day or so for the domain to propagate, or go live across the net).  Make sure that whatever methods you use to register a domain name, you actually maintain full ownership!  Beware of registrars or Web hosts that offer seemingly fabulous deals on a domain + hosting but keep ownership of the domains for themselves!  You want the control and freedom to take your domain anywhere and put whatever (legal stuff) you want on it.

The hard part?  That’s choosing a domain name!  Granted, with domain registrations so cheap, you could just buy domains willy-nilly and not really commit… and in fact, there are quite a few folks (domain speculators, spammers, very very very indecisive or bored folks) who buy thousands of domains a month.  But let’s hope that’s not you.  I’m going to assume that you’re the thoughtful and careful and deliberating sort of person :-)

So with that said…

*  *  *

Settle on a purpose and expected / desired audience

If you’re wanting to put your resume somewhere, sexyhotlegs.com is probably not your best bet (though I admit it depends on your profession). If you’re interested in voicing controversial political opinions or posting scary photos of your armpits under green light (or both), you may not want to reserve yourname.net. Use common sense, particularly weighing issues of personal and professional image, privacy, and anticipated and desired audience.

Consider spelling hassles

You are likely going to be mentioning your domain name in person and perhaps even over the phone quite a bit. Unless you really enjoy having to say for the one billionth time “Let me spell that for you…,” consider choosing a domain (or even a domain that points to your real domain) that is reasonably easy to write without thirty seconds of spelling and verifying.

Be afraid of lawyers

If you’re thinking about reserving yahu.com or sleshdot.com or waltdisny.com… don’t. It’s not cute, it’s not clever, and—though admittedly a few typo-squatters and the like do unfortunately make a lot of money from sewing confusion in this arena—it’s likely not worth the headache and stress of getting nastygrams and court summons.

Homonyms, numbers, and related issues

Be wary of sound-alike words (bearplace or bareplace?), numbers/abbreviations-vs-words issues (is it happy2seeu or happytoseeyou…?), and so on. These ambiguous domains create confusion not only when spoken, but even pose memory-challenges for people wanting to revisit your domain. Even worse, if someone else has a similar domain in this context, you can pretty much bet that not only web surfers but also e-mail messages are going to get misdirected.

Avoid-names-like-this

They look spammy. Seriously, given smartautos and smart-autos, which domain looks more professional to you, and which one are you likely to remember when surfing or e-mailing?

Length matters

Think of length… even as it relates to your business card, online design, and so on. If your name is Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, I respectfully recommend you think twice before using your name as your domain.

Yes, Virginia, there’s a world beyond the U.S.

And some of the folks there even speak languages other than English. You may not care if your blog domain name translates as “Ugly dog urine” in Swahili, but you may want to do at least a bit of language checking. If you’re getting a domain name for a serious business, you may also want to examine international intellectual property (e.g., trademark) issues as well

Bluntly obvious or open-endedly opportunistic?

On one hand, you have companies like amazon, expedia, and yahoo who named their domains (probably intentionally) in a way that was deliciously flexible. On the other hand, you have sites from the moderately bounded (esurance.com, travelocity) all the way to the tightly focused (danceshoes4u, danishhistory.denmark.dk).

Which is better? That’s a great question! You can certainly find success stories all over the spectrum.

Personally, I’d tend towards the more general and/or non-dictionary-worded domains. Time and time again, we’ve seen that outstanding organizations have started off with one focus, only to develop into significantly different areas due to market pressures, new interests from the executives, and so on. Such topical expansion isn’t easily handled with a topically restrictive domain name.

Others might argue that the more tightly-focused domain names will be significantly favored by the search engines and offer snappier and faster brand insight to consumers. While I can understand the latter, I personally give little credence to the former [as always, note my BLADAM disclaimer!].

At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you make a conscious, not accidental, decision in this realm, understanding the benefits and disadvantages of general/imaginative vs. blunt/focused domain names.

Be wary of non-friendly relationships with your .com and .net neighbors

It may seem frustratingly limiting, but IMHO I’d avoid registering a, say, .org domain if the .com is already taken… especially if the .com is prominent. At least in America, I believe that most folks think “dot com” by default, and so you’re likely to get lots of people visiting yoursite.com and mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) even though you registered the .org. At the very minimum, make sure your non-dot-com registration is done in the context of an amiable relationship with the .com holder, so that if he or she does get misdirected e-mail, they’ll be sure to forward it on to you. Or, better yet, they might even create a forwarding alias, automatically redirecting mail from .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Be aware of unintentional word combos

When the folks behind Experts Exchange registered expertsexchange.com, they probably didn’t have transgendered folks as their intended audience. However, with a brief look at their domain name, I think you’ll now understand why they’ve since rebranded themselves as experts-exchange.com. Don’t make the same (amazingly not-uncommon) mistake.

And last but definitely not least… apply the Friends Test

Ask your friends… “What do you think of [domain you’re considering], and don’t be afraid to be blunt!” You’ll be shocked and grateful, I’m sure, at the insights—sometimes quite obvious insights you’ve overlooked—that you’ll get from your friends. Ask them how they’d spell your domain, what the name brings to mind, whether it sounds too suspiciously like something else, and so on.

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Do I practice what I preach? Reasonably so, I think. BLADAM is “The Blog of Adam” or “The Blatherings of Adam” and it’s pretty easy to spell (“B-L and Adam, my name”) and nicely short. Lasnik.net… well, it’s not super-easy to spell, but it’s unambiguous and it’s been a decently professional place for me to place my resume.

I’m also proud of Ascena (and ascena.com)—what I renamed a German company I once worked for (formerly “fortISinformationssysteme”—whew!). Pleasantly evocative (“to ascend”) in multiple languages, short, pretty easy to spell, and (at least formerly) available in a ton of domains (ascena.de, ascena.com, etc.)

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I hope my thoughts on domain naming have been helpful! I welcome your opinions and questions below :-D

Want me to click on your links? Let me see them!

Let me bravely be an old fuddy duddy and remind Webmasters of something here:
Everyone… I really believe everyone using the Web knows that blue, underlined text signifies a link.

Unfortunately, here’s what I’m seeing a lot of nowadays:

- Linked text that looks practically indistinguishable from non-linked text
The dangers of this should be obvious.  If people can’t tell that they can click on a word to go somewhere they want or to learn something new or perform an action, they aren’t going to click. 

- Linked text that is somehow decorated in a “clever way.”
Dotted line.  Boxed.  Anything other than plain blue underlined text.  See danger #1, albeit perhaps with a little less uncertainty and a little more annoyance.

Then there’s the opposite problem:

- Blue (colored exactly “link” blue) text used for non-linked text or headlines.
Why is this bad?  Well, you’re telling the pre-conditioned surfer “Click on me!” when clicking does absolutely nothing.  This confusion then undoubtedly causes many visitors to say, well, if this blue text isn’t clickable, what is? 

*  *  *

Am I suggesting that Webmasters must absolutely positively use only the “right” blue colored underlined text for links?  No.  I am, however, saying that the further your text links stray from this known appearance, the more likely you are to have at least some of your visitors confused.

And no, scheming to “keep your visitors from leaving” is not a valid Web strategy, IMHO.

P.S.—Yes, I admit I’m being at least a bit hypocritical here, since the buttons on my menu above are neither blue nor is the text underlined.  No one’s perfect… ;-)

Helpful numbers to save in your phone!

I invite you to go grab your cell phone / mobile phone / home phone whatever and program the following numbers into it:

- 1-800-555-8355 ("555 TELL" -- TellMe)
- 1-800-373-3411 ("FREE 411" -- Free411)
- 1-888-392-7563 ("EZ ASK ME" -- AskMeNow - Initial signup on site required)
- 46645 ("GOOGL" - Google SMS beta - Google via Text Messaging)

NOTE: One or more of these numbers may be U.S.-only... sorry :|

For details on each service, read on...

TELLME
I've been using this service for ages, and it's really gotten me out of some tight jams!

Via interactive voice menus, callers can easily get weather reports, serious and entertainment news, movie info, and much more. But the butt-saving features I've particularly appreciated are TAXI and DRIVING DIRECTIONS. The former will connect you (free of charge) with a local cab company, and the latter gives you step-by-step spoken driving directions between any two points in the U.S. (powered by "Microsoft MapPoint Technologies")

Supposedly, TellMe is ad-supported, but I have yet to hear any ads on the service.

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FREE 411
Tired of paying $1.25 and up to your greedy mobile or landline phone company for directory assistance? Then you'll especially love Free 411! Not only does it find residential and business phone numbers for you, it also connects you free-of-charge (even to long distance numbers!) This service is apparently ad-supported (e.g., ask for Dominos Pizza, get a 15 second ad for a competing pizza place), but I've never heard any ads during the 3-4 times I've used this service.

Voice recognition is pretty decent, but the one time I stumped it, I was transferred to a human operator who was able to promptly get me the number I requested.

Frankly, though, I do wonder how sustainable this is. Will enough companies really pay to have folks redirected to them? If people are asking for Smith Window Washing services, will they really be so easily swayed towards a competitor? I have my doubts. But in the meantime, I'm happy to use this very convenient free 411 service!

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ASK ME NOW

Need to know the capital of Wisconsin? Or find the phone number of a particular Citibank branch? Sure, if you're near an Internet-connected computer, you could probably quickly and easily find this info yourself. But what if you're busy or not near a computer? Yes, I have a Web browser on my Treo phone, but it's slow, the screen is small, and it's generally just a miserable experience trying to navigate Web sites with it.

Well, Ask Me Now is indeed a viable alternative. You call their number, leave a message, and 1-3 minutes later, you get back text messages with the right answer. Or at least AN answer. In my minimal testing, Ask Me Now gave me the right answer to "What is the Capital of Wisconsin?" but gave me the wrong answer to "What is the phone number of the Citibank branch located on Diamond Street in San Francisco?" The person (apparently located in the Philippines) who answered my query clearly just quickly googled for the answer and didn't bother checking on Citibank's Web site, since the correct answer is available in the latter, not the former.

This service costs 49 cents per query, billed to your cell phone account. Supposedly you can get free 'automated' answers, but it's not clear to me what qualifies as free and not-free, even after looking on the company's Web site.

* * *

GOOGLE SMS
Another option is Google's SMS service. Text message GOOGL (46645) to get driving directions, movie showtimes, weather reports, price comparisons, and more.

I've found this service to be both wonderous and frustrating. For instance, when I asked it [What is the capitol [sic] of wisconsin?] it replied back "Did you mean CAPITAL..." and gave me an appropriate Web page... when I would have preferred for it to actually include the answer, not just a link, in the reply. Additionally, when I asked it [Phone number for Citibank on Diamond St in San Francisco CA] it replied unhelpfully: "Looking for map of [query]? Unfortunately map information is not available through Google SMS."

I had better luck with other queries, such as [weather 91360] and [what is the population of belgium].

* * *

YAHOO SMS
Despite multiple attempts, I could not get this service to work. I kept getting an "Invalid..." message, with instructions relating to Y! Messenger, after even using the exact queries listed on this page. Bummer. Any Yahoo people out there wanna help me figure out what's going on here? I've heard good things about Yahoo's mobile offerings and perhaps there's just something small / obvious I'm missing?

Ridiculously insane Web hosting deal... 77 cents a month

First, let me offer a sincere disclaimer: I've debated whether or not to post this, because I'll get free Web hosting credits when people sign up with the link below.

But I've decided that this deal is simply too amazing not to share, and I just can't feel that guilty for using an affiliate link (when being up-front about it) in this context. I've already set up an account for myself, urged my good friends to get accounts, etc.

Here's the deal:
- 4.8gb of space (increases weekly by 40mb)
- 120gb of monthly bandwidth (increases weekly by 1gb)
- Plus shell access, mySQL, mailing lists, ftp, etc. etc. etc.
- Free 1-year registration of a domain
- Unlimited domain/subdomain hosting

...for $9.24 *TOTAL* for the first year (77 cents a month).
After that, it's $7.95 or $9.95/month (still a fab deal), and perhaps even cheaper by then.

Here's how to sign up:
1) Click here.
2) Click on "Managed Web Hosting."
3) Click on the "signup now" button under "Crazy Domain Insane."
4) Select the 12 month term.
5) Make sure to enter promotion code 777 to receive the special pricing!

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I do welcome your frank thoughts both about this post and about DreamHost. My experience with DH so far has been generally good... a relatively straightforward signup process (with my account active in under 2 minutes), a friendly forum... but on the flip side, my control panel was initially slow, and I find the CP to be a bit unintuitive. Site speed, thankfully, seems pretty fast.

Lastly, I'd like to give a hat tip to the fabulously cool and useful deals site SlickDeals.net, from which I initially learned about this offer.

UPDATE: Comments closed on this entry due to the enormously lame spamming by tons of competing Web hosts... not actually offering any particular deals, just glomming onto any mention "Web host" in a blog entry. Losers.