Google and Privacy - Freakin' me out

I love Google and their innovative (and FREE) products and services. But lately, they're starting to freak me out.

For one, I noticed that all the display ads on the sites I visited started to look the same. That's right, Google knew what sites I had visited in the past and were showing ads for these sites. It was mildly disturbing. I guess I should have known that they had all that data on me, but when you start fixing my ads it is a little creepy. And how do you stop this? You can't unless you install an extension on your browser. That's right, there is actually no natural, install-free way to stop it. Google's extension for doing this is called IBA Opt-out (stands for Interest Based Ads).

(Aside: Does anyone else think that the weird random combination of lower-case letters in the Chrome Web Store URLs make it look like a spam site?)

Google web search has added a new feature lately that is creepin' me out, too. There is a new integration with your social contacts. I don't have a Google+ account yet I keep seeing what friends of mine recommend when I search for something on the web. I don't care what they recommend! I am searching Google not asking my friend Bill what he thinks. I could care less. And showing pictures of my friends at the top after I search is not as endearing as you'd think. It is like I having a friend whisper his answer in my ear every time I ask someone else a question.

If you go to Google websites even occasionally, it is hard to miss that they have a new privacy policy that starts March 1st. I applaud the simplicity of the policy. However, I suspect that it isn't as innocent as it appears. Google now wants the ability to share your information across all of their products. That's right, you could have a Google Docs account and a Gmail account and now Google wants to be able to use that information to shape your ads on Google Search. And even better, they can use your Google+ demographic data for their ads! (See 3/23/12 Update.)

To rant a bit longer, what about the strange Google Chrome login that has started to appear in my browser? I don't even remember asking it to sync EVERYTHING between my two computers and their browsers. But it assumed I did. How nice (that's sarcasm, by the way).

This all is starting to make me want to diversify. Microsoft, for instance, appears to have a nice replacement for Google Docs. Maybe it also time to switch to WordPress for my blog. One thing  is for sure, I certainly wont be using Google+ anytime soon. That's all I need, to give Google more personal information about me.

This is affecting how I see Google new products, now. I saw an article today about a new Google tablet. If this had come out last year, I would be excited to check it out. Now, well ... not so much. Why would I buy something from the company that has an over-zealous approach to taking my information and spreading it across all of their services and sites with or without my permission? No thanks.

Update 3/2/12: After reading this I started migrating my personal Blogger blogs to a self-hosted multi-site WordPress install. This one blog (firelitdesign) is going to stay here for the time being. The rest were migrated.

Update 3/23/12: An ex-Googler apparently also had concerns and started a project to help block Google, Facebook and Twitter from tracking your movements around the web.

2 reasons I dislike Google's new look

Google has been rolling out a new look lately. They are going with a very simple gray and red scheme (and orange in blogger?) for most of their products. I like the idea of it. I also think it is very attractive. But I also have 2 problems with it. And they both have to do with the usability of the new design.

1) They removed all but two visual cues. They've oversimplified it. When our eyes scan pages they pick up visual cues as to what is important and where to find things. It is very quick and very subconcious. Google used to have a lot of visual cues around the page with their old, colorful look. Now, they have red buttons, blue search buttons and everything else is gray. The red indicates something important. Everything else, they are saying, is not important. The problem is that is WAY over simplified. The fact is that this binary visual cue system (that is, red or gray) really slows me down. It is hard to find things quickly or to even orient myself on a page. I even have to think more when I try to figure out what Google service I am using. Their new look doesn't help my brain instantly digest a page. It slows me down because it is ultimately camouflaging the entire page of non-red text links and text interactions in a sea of gray.

2) The new look also makes lots of space for the top of the page. The Google search bar is prominent and then the actions. Then the rest of the page, the area I spend most of my time working and interacting with important data (whether it is a calendar, email list or voicemail transcripts), is now smaller. Not a lot smaller but enough that it really is annoying. This area should be bigger if they are going to change things, not smaller. This is the most important part of the page. The search bar does not need 1/4 of the site. Search is a single input and I spend only a fraction of my time there.

CSS: background-position

Today I discovered a new trick I can use for background images in CSS. It is based on the background-position property. This allows the designer to offset a background image used in an object (like a span or div).

I was looking at the images that Google uses in Gmail and noticed that some of their icons come all together in one larger PNG file. They form an array of icons. After some searching the web I landed on this article that explained how to select a single image from an image array: http://www.guistuff.com/css/css_imagetech1.html

Pretty neat. It reduces page load-time (because you load one image instead of multiple ones, and each file comes with overhead transaction data) and removes the need to pre-cache images for DHTML. A little bit of JavaScript and CSS and you're all set. It is going to be a handy thing to have in my design toolbox.

New Site - Search Engine Submission

Do you have a new website? Is it time to let the world know about it? Then submit it to the major search engines! And don't be fooled, this is not something you have to pay for. There are a lot of people out there trying to make money by submitting your site to search engines for you. You don't need to do this because it is really easy and straight forward.

According to Hitwise.com, the top 4 used search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Almost 97% of all searches done on the internet are through one of these engines. So, these are the guys you will want to inform about your new website.

Visit each of the links, and you should be good to go:

• Google


• Yahoo (you'll have to make an account)


• MSN Live UPDATE new URL for Bing


• Ask (you'll have to make a sitemap)

Site Search Engine

This is my last post about free Google services (for now). This one is about Custom Search by Google. Searching is a very important tool for a website to have, especially for sites with a large amount of content. You can not have visitors getting frustrated and leaving because they can not find what they are looking for.

The problem is, search engines are not easy things to create. If you have ever seriously thought about the prospect, you know it takes a lot of time and energy to implement a good one. Instead, why not use the great search technology that Google has created right on your site?

Google allows webmasters to install code that will allow your visitors to search your site. They constrain all search results to the domains you choose so the results are specific to you. And you can integrate the search results directly into your own template, so it all has a very coherent look and feel.

PS. "Custom Search" is similar to but not the same as "Site Search," a commercial (i.e., not free) service offered by Google.

Google Calendar

The third blog post in my series of great Google freebies is Google Calendar. Google calendar is great for my wife and I. We both share a calendar and we can setup events to remind each other of upcoming appointments. It helps us communicate about our shared schedule.

Beyond this, Google Calendar is great for non-profits for two big reasons. First, everyone involved with a non-profit can have a shared calendar. This way everyone is on the same page and they are totally up-to-date with what is going on. You can also manage assets and room reservations through it, if you wanted. Just like with Outlook exchange server, you can see the busy/free calendar of your invitees when you try to find a good meeting time. And it is all free!

The second reason is that you can embed your calendar in your webpage. This is great for web designers. It takes a lot of programing to get a good calendar back-end up and running. Why not use what Google has done instead? You can do a simple embed of html calendar code (like this one) or you can completely customize the front-end while using Google's back-end. There are just so many options!

Google Calendar has worked well for me and saved me a lot of time. It is worth considering, especially with its low price tag (its FREE, if you missed that).

Free Email

The next Google service that I would like to highlight is hosted email. This is a lesser known service offered by Google, I believe. However, it is probably the most powerful and most beneficial free service available to non-profits! Google offers free email service for any domain. Non-profits also get enhanced services that businesses have to pay for. You can get as many email addresses as you want, the SPAM protection is amazing, and each account gets over 7 GB of space!!

Once you set it up you get an administrator panel where you can manage all account information. And even though it is Gmail, all of your email addresses will reflect your domain name (e.g., name@your-domain.org). You can also customize it a bit and use your own logo. Additionally, you will get chat and other Google applications automatically. It can really boost in-office communication and efficiency.

I have used this service on multiple domains. I have set it up for the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, and it has been a dream for them. Major universities have also started using it. Fuller Seminary, for example, uses it for all their student accounts.

Check it out. I really think you'll like it.

Analyzing Traffic

Google has tons of great tools for webmasters. And the best part is that most of them are free! So, I decided to spend some time mentioning some of Google's free services. They are perfect for non-profits, ministries and whoever else is trying to save some money. This is the first post in a series on free Google resources.

The first Google service I want to mention in Google Analytics. It is a great statistics and web traffic analyzer available to the public. It has all kinds of nifty features and abilities. For instance, it will produce multiple world and country maps of your visitors, it outlines traffic flow, it details traffic sources, records visitor browser information and tons more. You can also set it up so that periodic PDF reports are sent to email addresses you provide--perfect for that monthly report.

It has one drawback: it is javascript based. This means you can only track web page hits, not image loading or anything else. It also means that anyone with javascript disabled will be invisible to the reports. However, with this in mind, Google Analytics is still an amazing resource that everyone should know about.

Image Editors

There are some good, free image editors out there. If you are on a short budget but want to produce some top quality images, check these out:

• Picasa2 - This is a really easy program to use and it is great for basic photograph edits. It handles some otherwise intensive tasks with easy (like shrinking and emailing images, exporting at reduced sizes, creating HTML photo albums). I also noticed that its file type compatibility is impressive (it was able to open a raw image file from my SLR).


• Paint.NET - This is a more advanced image editor that is really easy to learn. It has a lot of features, is constantly being updated by its creator, is pretty powerful, and anyone can learn to use it. There is also an online library with extensions if you want even more graphics tools. When I first got into web design, this is the program I used.


• GIMP - Now this is my favorite. It is even more powerful than Paint.NET and can create some amazing pictures. It rivals Photoshop in many ways. And, just like the others above, this one is free! There is a drawback, however. It is a hard to learn. It took me some real quality time before I felt comfortable with it. I suggest going to YouTube to watch some free tutorials on how to use it. This will give you a much needed head start on the learning curve and reduce some of the frustration that many experience. This is the only image editor I use now for web and graphic design.