Android app: Never liked the not-so-human look of the little green Androids? Wished that they were more handsome and charming just like you?

If you own an Android device, you could just do that. Google had just release Androidify to the Android Market, an app which you could customize the green Android with different hair styles, eyewear, beards, clothings, shoes and other accessories.

It’s like a little dressing game which you could make the Android look just like you, or rather, make yourself look like an Android. You could then share it across social networks or make it your avatar across the web.

©2011 SheepTech

Turn Yourself Into An Android Avatar with Androidify

Today, there is a new addition in Gmail Labs that does exactly that.

This is definitely welcoming for users who pin the Gmail tab on Chrome, and also to those who have so many tab opened that they can barely read the tab’s title anymore.

To enable, simply go to Gmail Labs and look for Unread message icon.

It’s only supported in Chrome 6+ or Firefox 2+, but what else can you be using?

The next feature Gmail Labs should work on would be sound notification. A perfect companion to the unread messages favicon.

©2011 SheepTech

Gmail Labs Add Unread Count on Favicon

Can be done. Minimalist Gmail is a Chrome extension that provides option to hide almost all possible elements in Gmail, as well as other extensive customization option.

What can you hide? The top link bar, the Gmail logo, the search box, buttons, sidebar items, advertisements, navigation and just everything else (except for the inbox itself).

For customization, you can change the Gmail logo, highlight starred items with a color of your choice, replace the top links with your own links, use custom attachment icons etc.

If you have a Gmail checker extension installed to monitor new emails, you can uninstall that already. Minimalist Gmail doubles up as a Gmail notifier by indicating the number of unread mails on the favicon. You can also opt for a toast notification whenever a new mail arrives.

A must have for avid Gmail user.

©2011 SheepTech

Minimalist Gmail: Fully Customize Gmail & Remove Clutter in Chrome

Being a tech-savvy bunch, one could only imagine how much tech support the folks working in Google have to play whenever their loved ones run into the slightest issue with their computer. They feel the pain, and created Teach Parents Tech to relieve you from the same pain.

They have made some 50 how-to videos, ranging from basics like copy and paste, changing time on PC, to something more advanced like starting a blog, video chatting, and making calls from a computer.

Before you get started, you need to get two things done:

1. Make sure your parents already have an email address and know how to use it
2. Make sure they already know how to play an embedded YouTube video

Once done, you can head over to Teach Parents Tech, select some how-to videos that you think your parents would benefit from (and you indirectly), complete the email template and send it to their way.

This is how your email might look like, depending on your settings:

And beware, you parents might reply with

1. Thanks for sending me such an insulting tech support care package
2. I can officially describe myself as a tech ninja.

The Google folks should really make a video on “Any key”.

©2011 SheepTech

Send How-To Videos to Computer-Illiterate Parents

Photos can be selected from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa.

Don’t worry if you’ve yet to see the new feature:

We are beginning to roll out this new feature to users in the U.S. over the next few days, so if you don’t see a link in the lower left-hand corner of Google.com now, check back soon. For those of you outside of the U.S., you can expect to see this new feature in the coming days as we roll it out internationally to offer similar, consistent experiences globally.

Google seems to be going more and more “Bing”, first by having a left sidebar and now a background image. For good.

via Official Google Blog, WebProNews, lifehacker

©2011 SheepTech

Add Background to Google Search Homepage

Here’s a simple tool that can partly solve the problem, Google Map Saver. With it, you can save any part of Google Maps as an image to your local disk, at a zoom level and resolution of your choice. Being able to select the zoom level lets you dictate how detailed you want your map to be.

If you are wondering how big the map can be — it can go, this big.

Video demo:

Usage idea – print a large map pointing to your house, frame it and hang it in your room. Geekiness +10 overnight.

No installation required. Just download and start the app. After starting it, click on the “About” on the right top corner and click “Agree”. Otherwise there would be an ugly watermark on your saved maps.

Download: Google Map Saver

©2011 SheepTech

Save Google Maps for Offline Use

• Site Speed now part of Google’s search ranking algorithms
  As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed.
• Firefox Lorentz Beta Isolates Plug-in Crashes for Uninterrupted Browsing
  Lorentz brings a Chrome-like process isolation to Firefox, containing messy plug-in crashes.
• Apple iPhone OS 4: Everything you need to know in one handy list
  After months of speculation and rumors, Apple’s newest OS has finally arrived.
• Video Chat Coming To The Next iPhone? All Signs Are Pointing To Yes
  As they do with any major new iPhone OS release, people have been tearing apart the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK from the very second it was available.
• iPhone OS 4: Google branding removed in Safari search
  iLounge has pointed out that the “Google” branded search button in mobile Safari has been renamed “Search” in iPhone OS 4.
• Hacker jailbreaks the iPad less than a day after release
  A lot of people complained about the iPad’s closed-off software. But no one did anything about it — until now, apparently.
• Adobe Employee: Go Screw Yourself, Apple
  Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

Expect more Apple news in the following weeks at the rate things are going right now. Probably there would be another wave when the new iPhone is announced in the next few months.

©2011 SheepTech

SheepTech Weekend Read: 11th April

Several days back, TechCrunch reported that Google Japan hired a local marketing firm to promote its newly launched “Hot Keywords widget” (to display the top 5 search terms on Google Japan), via a pay-per-post campaign. However, unlike what’s suggested by Google itself on paid links, the links in the sponsored posts bought are not nofollow links.

That is what prompted Google to penalize Google Japan, for purchasing paid links. Matt Cutts who works for the Search Quality group in Google confirmed it on Twitter.

The Apology

Posted on Google Japan’s blog under the name of Senior Marketing Manager Koji Baba. (via)

“Google Japan is running several promotional activities to let people know more about our products.

It turns out that using blogs on the part of the promotional activities violates Google’s search guidelines, so we have ended the promotion. We would like to apologize to the people concerned and to our users, and are making an effort to make our communications more transparent in order to prevent the recurrence of such an incident.”

The Impact

It’s shameful for Google to set a guideline, breaks it, and then penalize itself.. making itself a laughing stock. A PageRank drop however should not affect anything else, for it will still rank #1 for the term “Google Japan“, and that is the only term it should rank well for. Who would search for a search engine online anyways, especially for Google?

I see more good than bad for this PageRank drop:

1. Google Japan will be getting lots of buzz from this issue, for free.
2. Serves as a warning to other link buyers, implying that Google will even penalize itself for buying links, who are you Google should have mercy on?

What say you?

©2011 SheepTech

Google Japan’s PageRank Drop from ~9 to ~5

Days ago, the description was:

Search and browse mail-order catalogs online. Focuses on standard US mail-order product catalogs which have prices printed in them and are designed to help …

But for now, it has been change to the Doodle 4 Google thing. Still wrong.

Searching for Google on Yahoo!:

The Yahoo! shortcut says:

You could go to Google. Or you could stay here and get straight to your answers.

It was a laughing material back when it was first implemented. But now it acts as salts to Google’s injury.

Searching for Google on Live Search:

Looks like Google know better about Yahoo! and Live Search than itself:

Google got its malware warning glitch fixed in less than an hour, but it has been days since its site description went wrong, but there’s still no fix. Although it’s unlikely for someone to Google for Google, but when one does, and see the wrong description for Google itself, it’s just shameful.

©2011 SheepTech

Google Get Site Description Wrong for Google Itself