Google is an unconventional company with a huge stake in our online lives. It is a source of fascination for many, including us, but what really happens in the Googleplex? And what cool factoids and stats exist from the company’s relatively short past? Here we bring you 10 fun facts about Google to quench our own thirst for Google knowledge as well as hopefully offer you a distracting diversion from your daily life. Google’s famous homepage “Doodles” (the changing Google logo graphics) are well known and enjoyed by millions around the world as a way to mark an event or anniversary. But did you know that the very first Google Doodle was designed as a kind of “out of office” message? In 1998 Brin and Page took the weekend off to go the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The Burning Man doodle (shown above), was designed by the Google guys and added to the homepage to let their users know they were out of office and couldn’t fix technical issues like a server crash. While the initial price for Google’s stock at its Initial Public Offering in August 2004 is an interesting stat in itself, there’s more to the story. The opening price for Google’s stock was $85 per share. At the time of writing, the stock price was $483 but has soared as high as $600 in the past year, making GOOG a rather nice investment for many. A bonus factoid from Google’s IPO process is the value Google stated it hoped to raise on its S-1 form — as much as $2,718,281,828. It may just look like a string of numbers to non-mathletes, but 2,718,281,828 is actually the first ten digits of the mathematical constant ““e”,” showing that even as their company was planning to go public, the Google guys could still geek out with a bit of numerical humor. As proud hosts to Google back when it was still a research project, and known as “BackRub,” here Stanfordnow showcases the original Google storage from way back in 1996. It’s made up of a whopping 40 GB (less than a modern iPod) and it’s made from, as fans of the building bricks will be delighted to see, LEGO. It even hash funny mini-figures on the top. Legend has it that the reason for the LEGO construction was that the Google guys needed an easily expandable, and cheap way to house 10 4 GB hard drives, and LEGO fit the bill. Whether the primary colors of the bricks used were the hues that went on to inspire the Google logo’s design is up for debate, but we’d guess it wasn’t just a coincidence. Google’s first ever Twitter post was as satisfyingly geeky as you could hope for. The message, sent in February 2009, reads “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.” For anyone not fluent in binary, here’s a hint — it’s a well known phrase from the company’s homepage. Got it? Yep, it reads: “I’m feeling lucky.” This one isn’t actually one of Google’s infamous April Fools’ Day jokes: Google rents out goats. Yes you read that right. It rents goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ. The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.” While you’d think the news that the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary adding “google” as a verb to their lexicons in 2006 would thrill the search engine, Google was actually none too pleased with the development. “We’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services,” the company wrote in a blog post at the time. The rationale behind the semantic displeasure was that Google had “a brand to protect,” and feared Google would “slip from trademarked status into common usage.” Now, four years later, we have to say Google was fighting a losing battle — just ‘google it.’ However, we’ve found some other Google-themed linguistic delights for you — a Google staffer is commonly referred to as a “Googler,” while a new team member joins as a “Noogler.” Nooglers also used to wear a colorful hat with a spinner on top. According to a former employee, those hats are now pretty scarce in some offices, instead: “Every Noogler gets a yellow smiley balloon and a nameplate.” Google is a super dog-friendly company. It proudly names “company dogs,” like Yoshka (described as a “free-range Leonberger”) pictured above. Yoshka accompanies Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex. Less senior staff are also allowed to bring their dogs to the office. According to Google’s “Dog Policy”, one indiscretion too many on the Google carpets, or aggressive behavior, means Lassie will have to stay at home in the future. Strong bladdered and friendly canines are more than welcome across the campus. Unfortunately, cats are not quite as welcome. Here’s an excerpt taken directly from Google’s Code of Conduct: “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.” Back in February, 1999, the chewy candy known as “Swedish Fish” became the first ever company snack (not counting beverages) that was ordered into the Google office. Although a relatively small event, it has led to big things. Google is infamous in the industry for treating its employees to not just free drinks and snacks on tap, but full-on gourmet meals, three times a day at a plethora of on-site cafes and eateries, as well as regular BBQs during the summer. Brin and Page have been quoted in the past as saying no Googler should have to go more than 100 feet for food, leading to snack-filled “microkitchens” that are liberally dotted around the Google offices. In fact, the free food is said to be so tempting that Googlers risk the “Google 15,” similar to the “Freshman 15,” where they pile on weight soon after joining the company. Good thing they also have a Google gym. Backing this up, here’s a stat from Google — “Bay Area Googlers consumed approximately 5,500 pounds of handmade chocolates from the snack bins in the microkitchens in 2007.” Wow. Google’s famously sparse homepage is considered a classic design in the online world. The Google logo, however, wasn’t actually centered on the page until March 31, 2001. As early users will remember, the homepage had a bias to the left-hand side, and even earlier — back in 1998 — Google sported a Yahoo-style exclamation mark. By all accounts, there are many wondrous sights to be seen at the Googleplex, but one of the most arresting is surely the gigantic T-Rex skeleton — nicknamed “Stan” after a “real” dino found nearby — that looms menacingly at Googlers in Mountain View. Joining Stan in the unique campus decorations is a scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, enormous Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-colored phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits. One thing seems for sure — just like the company itself — life at the Googleplex must be far from dull.
1. The First Google Doodle
2. Interesting Figures from the Google IPO
3. The First Google Storage Was Made From LEGO
4. Google’s First Ever Tweet
5. Google Rents Goats
6. Google’s Impact on Language
7. Google Is Dog-Friendly
8. Google’s First Ever “Company Snack” Was Swedish Fish
9. The Google Logo Was Not Centered Until 2001
10. Google Has a Company Dinosaur
Dr Mobiles Limited
1 Huron Street, Takapuna, North Shore 0622
Tel: (09) 551-5344 and Mob: (021) 264-0000
Web - Map - Email - Posterous - Twitter - Blogger - Flickr
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Top Ten (10) Fun Facts You Might Not Know About Google (search, engineer, web, net, Apple, iPhone 4, Repair and unlock)
The Top Ten (10) Fascinating Facts You Didn’t Know About Apple iPhone and computer
Here at Mashable, we’re also quite fascinated by Apple and its achievements. The company is known just as much for its veil of secrecy and ability to get the Internet buzzing with rumors, as it is for the actual products. You’re probably in on the gossip, but there are likely a few things you don’t know about Apple. So read on for the origins of product names, factoids about the Apple logo, what Wozniak sold to finance the Apple I, and more wonders dug up from the archives of Apple’s past. Although the now-retro rainbow logo is arguably Apple’s most well known, the very first Apple logo featured Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, with an apple about to hit his head. (Legend has it that he was literally hit on the head with an apple and that led to the concept of gravity.) The Newton logo was designed by the lesser-known Apple founder Ronald Wayne (the guy who sold his stake — that today would be worth $22 billion — to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for $800 – ouch!) and was only used briefly in 1976, since its high level of detail didn’t really show up that well when shrunk down and stuck on a product. The rainbow apple, designed by Rob Janoff, replaced Sir Isaac and remained the symbol of the company for many years until the simpler monochromatic apple logo was introduced in 1998. In order to raise enough money to buy parts and build the first few orders of the Apple I, Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen van and Wozniak, then an HP employee, sold his Hewlett-Packard 65 scientific calculator for$500. Those born after 1990 might be surprised that a mere calculator would raise any kind of capital, but back in 1976, a scientific calculator cost as much as a laptop does today, and the HP-65 was in fact marketed as “the smallest programmable computer ever.” Woz got a decent price considering it retailed for $795, and we imagine any calculator in his possession would have been more than fairly well used. We wonder if the buyer knew he was getting a piece of computing history — just imagine how much that calculator would fetch on eBay today. The high prices of Apple’s current computers have recently been among critics’ biggest complaints. But historically speaking, Apple products have always boasted a higher a price tag. In fact, when you account for inflation, back in the day, the very first Apple computer would have been more expensive than the MacBook Air or even a 17-inch MacBook Pro today. The Apple I wasn’t priced at $666.66 with any Satanic connotations, but rather for more practical reasons, asSteve Wozniak once explained at a news conference: “I was into repeating digits,” he said, and explained that the wholesale cost to stores was $500, and adding a third to get the retail price made it around $667, which Woz changed to all one repeating digit — $666.66 — “was just easier to type.” Ever heard of “Dogcow?” Early Apple users probably have, as she — yes she — was included in the Cairo font as part of the original Macintosh. After the Cairo font was discontinued, Dogcow lived on with LaserWriter Driver 4.0 and then became a sort of mascot for the Apple tech staff. Designed by Susan Kare, Clarus — Dogcow’s given name — makes a “moof” sound and was found on all versions of the Mac operating system until OS X. In the late 1980s, she surged in popularity and started to be used by other developer groups — even Microsoft once used Dogcow in an advertisement. As you could guess, Apple was none to fond of this, and the tech staff decided to write a Technical Note to stop the misuse. Later on, Technical Note #31 was included on the first Apple Developer CDs as an Easter egg, and Apple even registered trademarks for both Clarus the Dogcow, and her “moof” sound. It’s often cited that the Apple Lisa was named after Steve Jobs’ daughter, but where did the name “Macintosh” come from? Apple employee Jef Raskin is responsible for coining the machine after his favorite variety of apple, smartly tying the whole fruit theme together. Macintosh was just a code-name, and Steve Jobs is said to have tried to change the project’s name to “Bicycle” while the McIntosh-loving staffer was out of office. But Raskin clearly knew a good name when he coined it, as Macintosh just had too much staying power and stuck right to the end of the product cycle. Back in 1994, Apple actually launched the first mass-market color digital camera in the U.S. The Apple QuickTake 100 could snap an amazing eight photographs and connected to a Mac via a serial cable. It cost $749, which is about the equivalent of $1,000 today, which seems ridiculous for a camera boasting less than one megapixel resolution and no digital display. The QuickTake line expanded to two more models before Steve Jobs shut it down in 1997 when he returned to the helm at Apple and streamlined its product line. Clever copywriter Vinnie Chieco is credited with coming up with the iPod name as part of a team assembled by Jobs to create a consumer-friendly moniker for the new device. The story goes that Jobs had already decided the MP3 player’s tag-line was to be “1,000 songs in your pocket,” which left naming options wide open since it wouldn’t have to explicitly refer something music related. “As soon as I saw the white iPod, I thought 2001,” Chieco told Wired in 2006. “Open the pod bay door, Hal! Then it was just a matter of adding the ‘i’ prefix, as in ‘iMac.’” Of course, Hal has another place in Apple history, in the sinister Y2K warning ad that Apple aired to advertise the fact that Macs would not implode with the whole 2000 switchover, unlike those pesky PCs people insisted on using. Oh wait… Apple’s first iPod came with a little secret — an Easter egg — in the form of a game that could be accessed if you knew the right combination of buttons to press. How to find the game is described in Nick Triano’s early 2002 Geek.com review of the iPod (memorable quote: “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it will change the way you listen to music”). “Go to the ‘About’ menu, hold down the center button for about three seconds, and you’ll get a Breakout (Pong) game to play while you listen.” Breakout, the hidden game itself, is notable in Apple’s history as it was a product that both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked on together at Atari, where legend has it Jobs cheated Wozniak out of thousands of dollars of bonus money. The name John, or Johnny Appleseed comes up time and time again in Apple history, but so far there is yet to be an official explanation as to why. As many students will know, Johnny Appleseed was an 18th century American pioneer, missionary, and gardener. He was a kind-hearted folk hero with a penchant for apples, which appears to be the only tenuous connection to Apple Inc. The earliest Johnny Appleseed reference we can find relates to Apple investor and former CEO Mike Markkula — it was apparently the pen-name he used when he wrote programs for the Apple II. Then there’s the letter that could be seen when the Leopard TextEdit icon was enlarged. Yes, there is an actual letter composed on that icon, and it’s Apple’s “Think Different” campaign that ran in print and television ads in 1997: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.” That letter, is addressed to “Kate” and signed “Take Care, John Appleseed.” And most notably, John Appleseed shows up in the iPhone ads and related iPhone and Mac imagery. We fully admit to being geeks, as we actually called John Appleseed’s number. Sadly, all we got on the other line was a voicemail box that hadn’t yet been set up, and when we e-mailed to appleseed_john@mac.com it came back with a “delivery to the following recipient failed permanently,” which seems like a missed marketing opportunity to us. Although much is made of Steve Jobs’ uniform outfit (black St. Croix turtle neck, Levi 501 jeans, New Balance trainers) it turns out he is not the only senior Apple staffer to stick to the same styling year in and year out. Apple’s senior vice president of Industrial Design Jony Ive appears to have worn, if not the same, then the samestyle of t-shirt in every single Apple intro product video to date. For the last ten years, at least. Hey, we’re on the same page as Jobs and Ive on this style sheet — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
1. The First Apple Logo Featured Isaac Newton
2. Wozniak Sold His Scientific Calculator to Raise Capital
3. The Apple I Cost $666.66
4. Apple Invented the “Dogcow”
5. The Name “Macintosh” Was Inspired by an Apple
6. Apple Made the First Mass-Market Color Digital Camera
7. The Name “iPod” Was Inspired By 2001: A Space Odyssey
8. The First iPod Had A Secret Easter Egg
9. Who Is John Appleseed?
10. Jony Ive Sticks to the Same Shirt Too
Dr Mobiles Limited
1 Huron Street, Takapuna, North Shore 0622
Tel: (09) 551-5344 and Mob: (021) 264-0000
Web - Map - Email - Posterous - Twitter - Blogger - Flickr
Do you know how the top10 (ten) useful Apple iPhone 4 Keyboard shortcuts, tips and tricks?
Here, we’ve rounded up ten useful ways to be faster and more productive with your iPhone’s keyboard. We hope these tricks are handy for anyone new to the platform, or those who have not had the time to really experiment. Ranging from basic how-tos to more advanced trickery, have a read of our ten tips below, and do share any keyboard-, language- or other text entry-related hints you’ve discovered on your iDevice in the comments. iOS4 has more language options than ever before. If you’re bi-lingual, there’s an easy way to add an international keyboard to your iPhone’s set-up so you can switch between English and Chinese — for example — on the fly. From the home screen, go to “Settings,” then “General,” then scroll down to see “Keyboard” and tap this option. You can then select “International Keyboards” and scroll through the list to add the language you need. Now, for all iPhone OS versions, when you have the keyboard on the screen, if you hit the little globe icon next to the space bar, you can switch between languages at the press of a button. If you don’t quite see the need to add an international keyboard, but will occasionally need to use special symbols, then there’s a quick way to do it. Simply tap and hold the relevant letter and the special symbols associated with that letter will appear on the screen. This also works for common symbols too, and is particularly useful for changing a currency sign, using alternative quotation marks, longer hyphens, etc. If you’re not already using this trick, you most certainly should, as it can seriously speed up your typing. It is enabled by default, but to confirm it’s active, go to “Settings,” then “General,” then “Keyboard,” then make sure the toggles next to the “Auto-Capitalization” option and the fourth option down — “.” Shortcut — are set to the “On” position. Now when you’re typing away, a double tap of the space-bar will add a period (or a “full stop” if you’re British!) and automatically capitalize the very next letter you type. EDIT: As many commenters have rightly pointed out, this option only appears if you have certain Chinese or Japanese international keyboards added (as we did at the time of writing, hence the error) and is not, as you might logically assume, a way to add Western words to the dictionary, even though it appears to give you that functionality. We are sorry for any confusion, and for raising false hopes. New to iOS4 is the ability to customize the iPhone’s dictionary and add words to it that you use often, such as proper names, brands or lesser-known places. Although previous versions of the iPhone OS’s dictionary did offer the ability to “learn” the word preferences of the user, this new feature gives the user complete control. To add a word, go to “Settings,” then “General,” then “Keyboard,” then tap “Edit User Dictionary” and hit the plus icon in the top right to enter your word. It will then be listed alphabetically and can be edited or deleted as necessary. To add punctuation to text, most iPhone users will pause typing, press the “123″ key to see the numerical and symbolic options, tap the symbol (or number) they want, and then hit the “ABC” menu to return to the alpha keyboard. If you’re still adding in symbols and numbers this way, then boy, do we have a treat for you. This will take a teeny bit of getting used to, but from now on, the next time you want to add punctuation, pause typing, press and hold the “123″ key, then without removing your finger (or thumb!) from the screen, slide it over to land on what you want to insert. As you release your digit from the display, the symbol will have been entered into your text and you’ll be back on the alpha keyboard. If you’re typing in the browser bar in Safari, the iPhone adds a handy “.com” button to the keyboard. However, there are a ton of other domain extensions that you’ll likely need to type out on a regular basis. There is a shortcut that can help you out with this — simply press and hold the .com button and other common options will come up. Similarly, when composing an e-mail, pressing and holding the period will offer a list of domain endings to make entering e-mail addresses super quick. It’s often useful to know how long your SMS messages are, either for Twitter purposes, or to be sure that you’ll only be charged for the cost of one text. The iPhone does not show character counts by default, but it’s not hard to set-up. Just go to the “Settings” menu, select “Messages,” then slide the “Character Count” toggle to “On.” Now when you are composing a text message — after you get to the end of the first line — you’ll see a running count of how many characters you’re sending on the right of the display, above the send button. We’ve all done it — while pecking away at the iPhone keyboard with our mind on other things, we realize that last sentence was utter nonsense. Instead of holding down the delete key while you curse your uselessness, there’s actually a more fun, and somewhat therapeutic way of deleting the text you’ve just typed. Simply shake the handset and you’ll get a pop-up asking you if you want to “Undo Typing” or “Cancel.” Hit undo, and the latest lot of gibberish will be gone forever. Although the iPhone’s dictionary will notice spelling errors and suggest corrections, it does “learn” your preferences. This means if you repeatedly spell a word wrong, and don’t take the phone up on the option to change it, it will eventually stop suggesting the easy correction. There is a way to fix this by resetting the dictionary, although this will also delete any words you’ve added via the “Edit User Dictionary” option we highlighted above. If you want a clean slate for your phone’s vocab, simply open “Settings,” select “General,” scroll right down to the bottom to “Reset,” select that and then hit the red “Reset Dictionary” button which will erase any settings that have been overly forgiving of bad spelling or grammar. For some bizarre reason, the default font for the iPhone’s “Notes” app is Marker Felt — one that’s only a few design steps removed from the typographical outcast Comic Sans. However, there is a workaround that will enable you to scribe your notes in the arguably more classy Helvetica. Simply add a special symbol-based international keyboard (Korean, Japanese and Chinese all worked for us) and then when you’re next in “Notes,” change the language (via the globe button), type something, and then change it back to English. Everything you type after that will be in Helvetica, rather than Marker Felt — thanks and praise be to the font gods!
1. HOW TO: Add an International Keyboard
2. HOW TO: Quickly Add a Special Symbol
3. HOW TO: Use a Sentence-Stopping Shortcut
4. HOW TO: Add Proper Names to the Dictionary
5. HOW TO: Insert Punctuation More Quickly
6. HOW TO: Quickly Change .com to Other Domains
7. HOW TO: Display Character Counts in Messages
8. HOW TO: Delete Text Using Gesture Controls
9. HOW TO: Reset the Dictionary
10. HOW TO: Change the Font in Notes
Dr Mobiles Limited
1 Huron Street, Takapuna, North Shore 0622
Tel: (09) 551-5344 and Mob: (021) 264-0000
Web - Map - Email - Posterous - Twitter - Blogger - Flickr