I buy gas. You buy gas. We all buy gas. Thus, today s highlighted videos will be useful for all of us. How Stuff Works enlightens us on why gas prices are high, how to be more fuel efficient, and how spiffy hybrid cars work.Today s Highlighted VideosCl…
Yesterday we identified a bug in the AdWords API registration process that is preventing some developers from successfully entering their billing information and accepting rejecting the Terms and Conditions. We have identified the issue and hope to h…
Yesterday we identified a bug in the AdWords API sandbox that results in requests returning error code 131. We are working on a fix now. In the meantime, we would like to recommend a work around. Developers can still work with the sandbox by using t…
In addition to the testing we re doing you may have seen the news we launched Windows Live QnA beta this week! A link to it is also showing up in the search bar on our recent testing. For all of you still new to our question and answer service, we will be providing more blog posts here to help guide you through the features, but here s a quick roundup of what you will see with the Windows Live QnA beta: A smooth interface that enables you to ask, answer and vote on a question. A free form tagging system that allows you to attach your own keywords and phrases to your question to make it more discoverable by other users. With QnA, you tell us what the question is about, not the other way around! Integration with Windows Live Spaces via modules that show off questions you ve asked and questions you ve answered. See your score constantly increase on the Superstars page and earn reputation stars for consistently giving great answers. Windows Live Messenger gleams that show when you and your buddies have participated in QnA. Email notification that someone has answered your question, or when others have voted on a best answer, via MSN Alerts. Ability to subscribe to a customer, question or site search via RSS. Message boards that let you get support information, discussions with other people, and contact with the QnA team. You can t chat or discuss things in Windows Live QnA without breaking the format so instead, go to our message boards. http: boards.live.com qnaboards forum.aspx?ForumID 17 Try Windows Live QnA out and let us know what you think! Betsy Aoki, Program Manager Windows Live QnA PS: Some of you may have seen earlier versions of this post as I struggled to edit it. The formatting got odd. Sorry about that.
Take a look at your settings you know, the link up in the top right corner of any page when you re logged in. It s not cryptic anymore! Your settings pages are where you have all kinds of interesting options:…
Sick of skyrocketing gas prices? Trying to save the planet? Whether your motivation is to spend less on fuel or give a big hug to Mother Nature, maybe the new Tesla Roadster is for you.The newest entry into the
It s hard to believe the month is already over. It seems like just yesterday when Mike Gutner first announced that August was Optimization Month. Since then, members of the AdSense optimization team and Googlers representing other products have shared …
In the spirit of posting quick but useful tips, here s a question paraphrased from a post in the AdWords Help community that we d like to answer:The state of California, where my office is located, shows under my ad. Why is that there? I m not sure I…
Posted by Jeanne Williams, Staffing Programs There are only 5 days left until registration closes for Google Code Jam 2006. So far, about 16,000 competitors have signed up to show off their programming skills and perhaps win an all expenses paid…
Last time I posted about search I talked about our new extensibility mechanisms: window.external.AddSearchProvider, and Search Discovery. nbsp; Today I d like to talk about enhancements we made since that post, and point you to a tool that you can use to create your own custom providers. To recap the last post: In Beta 2, window.external.AddSearchProvider gave website authors the ability to put a link on their page to prompt users to add a new search provider. nbsp; We locked this call down using logic similar to how we lock down pop up windows to ensure it would not be abused by bad sites. Since then we have added a few additional features. window.external.IsSearchProviderInstalled Since Beta 2 we received feedback that sites really do not want to show those links for the people who already have their providers installed: similar to how our homepage API works. nbsp; To make life better for site authors we introduced a new API: window.external.IsSearchProviderInstalled. A site author can use this API to see if their provider is already on the search provider list and also check to see if it is the default. In order to protect your privacy we created this API in a way that sites can only ask about providers with the same top level domain. nbsp; For instance: site1.com can ask if any site1.com search provider is installed, but cannot ask if a site2.com provider is installed. nbsp; For more details on this API please check out the MSDN article. OpenSearch Referrer Extension In Beta 3 we did not have a good mechanism to tell search providers whether the query came from the search box or the address bar. nbsp; OpenSearch has an extension for this the referrer extension and RC1 supports it. nbsp; Here s an example for the following OpenSearch URL: lt;Url type application rss xml nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; xmlns:referrer http: a9.com opensearch extensions referrer nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; template http: www.example.com search?q searchTerms amp;src referrer:source? gt; If the query came from the address bar IE will replace referrer:source? with IE Address , and if it came from the search box we replace it with IE SearchBox allowing search providers to track which IE 7 entrypoint their search came from. Search Discovery Sound If you recall from my previous post, Search Discovery is a feature web sites can use to suggest search providers in your search provider dropdown. nbsp; When you navigate to a site that supports Search Discovery the search button dropdown will change color, and the discovered provider will appear within the dropdown. nbsp; Since we introduced this feature we have seen adoption on various sites around the web. nbsp; A great example of a site that recently started supporting Search Discovery is Yahoo! Tech. In Beta 3 we did not have a fully accessible notification for Search Discovery; we only had the ability for the button to light up. nbsp; In RC1 we added the ability to set a sound for this action. nbsp; It is off by default, but you can set this sound where you set other windows sounds the Sounds and audio devices properties from the Windows Control Panel . nbsp; From this properties dialog select the Sounds tab and add a sound to the Search Provider Discovered event within the Program events box. Build your own provider Shifting gears slightly, another piece of feedback that we ve heard is that people would like to know how to add custom providers not necessarily shown on the Windows Search Guide. nbsp; We hope that eventually your favorite site will leverage Search Discovery or AddSearchProvider, but until then you can add a specific provider yourself using this tool. Have fun, and keep browsing! Aaron Sauv Program Manager