Tomorrow, work that bike

Posted by Joe Gross, System Ops Manager

So many Googlers commute by bike every day that you can't easily look down a hallway and not see a bicycle or two leaning against the wall. Some people bike in from just a few miles away while others combine their commute with other training. I ride 40 miles from San Francisco to Mountain View (and back!) twice a week. Somehow, I'm much more awake and refreshed than I would have been if I sat in my car on 101 for an hour. Or more...

Google is a huge supporter of bike commuting, and Bike to Work Day is a real party in Mountain View. Cyclists can get Google-branded bike goodies, monthly onsite bicycle tune-ups, and classes on basic commuter skills, bike maintenance, touring - even how to ride your first century. But it doesn't matter what or how far you ride. Biking to work is a great way to get some exercise, save some gas, improve the environment, and most importantly of all, have fun!

this just in from Aparna Brown, Commuting Coordinator:

Since he was just named San Francisco County's Bike Commuter of the Year by the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, Joe is the perfect Googler to write about bike commuting. As someone who only bikes 2.5 miles to work, I'm pretty darn impressed with his dedication to regular rides to work. To encourage others to bike to work, Joe and others will be leading rides to Mountain View from all over the Bay Area on Thursday. Watch for bikers with Google shirts and give them a friendly wave (from your bike, natch).

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Search for the enterprise

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Product Manager

Looking for a crucial file you lost somewhere on your computer? At home you’d use Google Desktop Search - and at work, you’d start updating your resume. Not anymore. Check out Google Desktop Search for the Enterprise: fast, secure (and free!) desktop search that you can actually use from 9 to 5.

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A Video Uploader for the rest of us

Posted by R.P. Hughes, Software Engineer

As a Mac user, my heart sank a little when I first saw the post about the Google Video Upload Program. Clearly, the concept is cool. It was just that all-too-ubiquitous .exe file you must run to upload your videos. Of course I know that something like 90% of the desktop/notebook computers sold today run Windows. But in my circle of friends (admittedly a small one -- I blame the caffeine), almost everyone uses a Mac, and the rest use Linux or some other UNIX-like substance. Anyhow, this Video announcement inevitably led to a lot of flak (again) from my friends about how Google was shipping yet another Windows-only application. "I thought Google has lots of smart developers." "Doesn't Google know how to write platform independent software?" Blah, blah, blah.

But this time, I took it as a personal challenge. I shoot a lot of video, and I edit it on my Mac. How hard could it be to write a compatible video uploader that would run everywhere? As I soon discovered, not very hard at all. After all, I have access to the C++ source code for the existing Windows-specific uploader, and I can spend my 20% time working on whatever I want. And I have plenty of experience writing portable code, given that I program in Java.

Java comes pre-installed on the vast majority of operating systems in use today, or it's available as a free download from Sun. And software written in Java really, really does work across all those platforms, as a decade of work by software developers can attest. The Java mantra "Write once, run anywhere" is a reality -- it just works. Java programs also tend to be less buggy than their C/C++ counterparts, and programmers working in Java are a lot more productive - but these are topics for another post.

Anyway, now you can sign up for the Google Video Uploader for Macintosh, and ditto for Linux (and UNIX and Solaris and HP-UX and AIX and lots of other platforms). The same sign-up page goes to to the Windows version too. So now I can ponder a different problem - namely, which of my videos I want to share with the world.

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Feed me

Posted by Shuman Ghosemajumder, Product Manager, AdSense for Feeds

If you're like many savvy web users, you may be reading this via a feed reader, along with all the other blogs, newspapers, and other content that interests you. Whether a feed is Atom-enabled or RSS, it offers great flexibility for users and additional distribution for publishers. As with many promising technologies feeds haven't quite hit the mainstream yet, nor are the business models entirely sorted out.

Enter AdSense for feeds, launching today in beta. The idea is simple: advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising - and in the long run, more quality feeds to choose from. Given the great flexibility that feeds can offer, it's essential to get the model right, especially so that readers are satisfied. Towards this end we have outlined what we believe are some best practices for advertising in feeds. Publishers who want to participate in the public beta can apply here.

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A Bay to Breakers break

Posted by Nat Criou, "We're Feeling Lucky" Team

The Bay to Breakers 12k run is a hallowed (if irreverent) Bay Area tradition that starts at San Francisco's Embarcadero (the Bay), and ends in Golden Gate Park (sort of close to the breakers of the Pacific - ok, it's a bit of poetic license). Though serious runners compete, the streets are clogged with up to 70,000 hardy souls —



— a mix of halfway decent and annual runners, often in costume (or not; there's a band of nude runners too).

Today's 94th race included more than 40 Googlers running as the "We're Feeling Lucky" team. We ran for fun and to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our "Lucky" Team "donned special T-shirts emblazoned with the hurdles doodle from the 2004 Summer Olympics on the front, and individual letters that collectively spell GOOOOOOOGLE on the back. Faster runners got the G-O tees, and well, the rest of us got O-O-G-L-E.



Of course, we did a little advertising. This was a good crowd to inform that as always, we're hiring.

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Q&A: the world tour

Posted by Jonathan Betz, Q&A Tech Lead

When we launched Google Q&A, we told you it was just the beginning. Today marks the start of the Google Q&A world tour -- we're kicking off with the UK (who's the prime minister again?), Ireland (what's the population of Dublin?), Canada (how many people live there?), Australia (what's the capital?), and New Zealand (how big is it, anyway?). So now I can't say it's still just the beginning, but it's still very early. We're putting together a lot of new information like this to help you get the quickest possible answers to all your questions, so keep checking back for more.

(updated with a new link)

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Mini goes Euro

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Mini Product Manager

Turns out that businesses in London, Madrid and Dusseldorf have the same headaches as those in Chicago or Vancouver: they can't find that sales presentation on the company intranet. Or customers fill up the support line with calls for info that's actually on the website. Google Mini to the rescue. So now it's for sale in the UK and throughout the EU.

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