Google just came out with an awesome feature that lets you personalize your Google.com experience. And you don’t need to bother with all the iGoogle crap that came with the old version of “customizable background” – let’s face it, we didn’t need another dashboard.

Google came out with a cool new way for you to have your Google.com with a personalized background that takes up the entire screen. Put a pic of your kid on there!!!

Here’s how you do it:

Click the “change background image” button on the bottom left of the screen

Choose the picture you want

And Enjoy!

One of the down-sides to craigslist is its almost-stubborn insistence on being local. Location, location, location. Well – that makes it difficult. Because if I live in New Jersey, and I want to find a sofa for sale in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut, I need to go to three different sites and punch in the same query, slide through three pages of confirmations and specifications, and then see results. Well not anymore.

Here’s an interesting trick I thought up that works flawlessly across all cities and countries on Craigslist.

Use Google, Not Craigslist

Don’t use Craigslist. You won’t beat them at their own game. They are simple, and damn it, they’ll stay simple. So don’t try to figure out any way to search on craigslist without defining the city or at least state. Instead, use Google search to find what you’re looking for. It eliminates the need to filter via location – so you can perform a broader search!

Filter your search to only Craigslist.org

The first thing you need to do is type a query that limits your search to only Craigslist.org. Here’s how you do that:

• Type Site:Craigslist.org
  • What this does is limits your search to only posts on Craigslist.org (no location specified)
• Next, add specific query. We’ll use Sofa for Sale as our query. So the query you need to type into Google is [Sofa For Sale Site:craigslist.org]
  • This will bring up all sofas for sale on Craigslist!

Here is a screenshot of the search results:

You can always play with the query to find different things, but I think this trick is well worth knowing next time you’re searching site after site in Craigslist for one item!

Let me know if this is helpful!

Google’s logo today is a Pac Man screen that spells out Google. That’s not extraordinary. What is amazing is the fact that when you click on the Google Logo today, you can actually PLAY PACMAN!

Here’s what Google had to say about it:

Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include PAC-MAN’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).

This is a first for Google – they’ve never had an interactive screen before on the homepage. But we’ll take it! Here’s a screenshot of the game, but you better go to Google.com and play it yourself!

<rant>

Are you serious, Google? Seriously? For real? WTF?

That said, let me calm myself down enough to articulate my WTF into structured sentences.

A few weeks ago, Google invested in RecordedFuture – a company that “ambitiously” was trying to predict the future for any given topic. The idea sounded genius, and when I heard Google had invested in RecordedFuture I automatically assumed they were the real deal. That is, until I signed up for the service.

Turns out RecordedFuture’s genius plan to predict the future consisted of none other than a slightly-above-average utilization of Google Alerts. They they take those Google Alerts and organize them taking the 4 digit numerical value above 2010 identified as a date, and placing it next to the article that contains it.

Just to illustrate, here’s a screenshot of an email I got from these geniuses:

Underwhelming.

So underwhelming, in fact, that I seriously question Google’s sanity as a company. Forget about Google Buzz and Google Wave bombing under the impossible hype created around them by – um – us. Forget about the fact that Orkut is… well what is Orkut anyway? Forget about the thousand other features and services Google shoots in the dark by creating, and then just lets fade into the distance with no upgrades, updates or any attempt to improve it and make it usable. Forget all that.

RecordedFuture?

You actually invested in a company that relies entirely on your service to bang out a reorganization of the data you already have. Were you drunk when you invested in them? Did someone trip you, and you fell on a piece of paper with a pen?

That must be the only way you can possibly make an acquisition like this. You couldn’t have possibly sat and thought about it for even a minute. If you had – you may have seen that this company couldn’t possibly add any value at all. I really don’t understand.

Just in case you’re wondering – I don’t know anyone at RecordedFuture, and I certainly had no prejudice against them before beginning to write this post. Only knowledge of their product, and it’s complete and utter uselessness.

</rant>

I would love to be talked down from this one – because deep down inside is a believer who wants to believe. But this seems crazy.

Google’s released two new features, according to their blog post today. They both clarify searches and make them more relevant. They also prioritize results based on reliability – not only magic SEO power. Sound familiar? Yeah – Bing basically built themselves on that principal, and Google are releasing it as two minor features.

The first feature is cool – it lets you find more relevant sources easier by putting credible sources on top. .edu and government domains get precedence. The biggest difference is that you will not find Wikipedia.org on the top of ever damn search you run just because every college student around the country with a blog for their class is linking to it.

Another great – and pointless – feature – suggest similar searches. But not searches of similar things – just similar kind of stuff. For example – a search for [Giraffe] will suggest [Zebra] [Elephant] etc. Seriously, Google? Why? Pointless, much?

Oh – and don’t get excited, Steve Ballmer – I still think Microsoft sucks!

I’m Israeli. So when I wanted to type in Hebrew, I’d have to go to Mikledet.com, and type what I wanted to type, and then transfer over the text to Google or anywhere else. Now Google have released a Virtual Keyboard in non-English language Google pages that allows you to click your way through that non-English search term without ever leaving the page! Amazing! I don’t know why, but it’s not on the main page, only on pages after search. But nevertheless – awesome!

Here’s a screenshot!

April Fools!

In it’s rich tradition of April Fools jokes, Google changed the usual “Google” graphic at the top of their simplistic homepage to “Topeka.” The stunt is related to the mayor of Topeka declaring that if it were chosen to be the first city to get their Google internet service, they would change the name of Topeka to Google for a day!

Google has a tradition of pulling elaborate April Fools stunts every year. Last year, Google “released” Gmail Autopilot. I think 2008 was Google Mars.

I swear this must be the Year of the Awkward Non-Asked-For-Alternative-User-Interface! Google just came out with Google Reader Play – an alternative view for Google reader that allows you to flip through all of the top news you might be interested in. As you star articles, it will get smarter and suggest more articles you might like! Wait a minute… I said “flip” – there already IS something like this! It’s called Google FastFlip! Oy vey! Anyway, any new feature is exciting and shiny and new.

Here’s a screenshot:

Earlier tonight, Google announced their opening up of the Google Apps Marketplace to the public. This way, developers can create integrations for Google Apps as well as new applications for businesses to use. The concept behind the marketplace is, of course, that the developers can then sell the services to companies at a fair price. And they definitely are! Many of the services are not cheap by any means.

Anyway, the fallout of this announcement is the release of at least five other integrations made available by well-known companies. They’ve clearly been waiting for the announcement by Google!

GetSatisfaction have announced that they will be integrating Google Apps into their already robust collaboration tools. As GetSatisfaction CEO Wendy Lea said: “Now our customers can take full advantage of their existing Google Apps document-sharing practices to better leverage conversational data throughout all levels of the organization.”

Electronic fax company eFax have announced that they, too, will be integrating their service with Google Apps to allow domain admins to control eFax accounts and permissions directly from Google Apps!

Corporate Collaboration company SuccessFactors have launched their Google Apps integration as an Express version of their tool.

Two other examples of companies that have announced their Google Apps are expense-tracking companies Expensify, and Concur.

This should make for an interesting experiment. Will companies use the Marketplace to buy these products? Will they see the value in it? Are enough domain administrators using Google Apps to justify a critical mass that would render the Google Marketplace a success?

Google are taking advantage of their huge user base once more to identify logos, landscapes, artwork, landmarks, and lots more! Why? Because they want to use the info to make their new Google Goggles into a working Search Engine that uses images instead of text! The application is available now on Android phones.

Here’s a video explaining the new Google Goggles Labs:

In a statement today, Google were referring to the implications of this new technology in terms of the eventual ability of someone to point their camera at a menu in French, and view it in English! Neat-o!

What do you think of the new Google Goggles?

Do you think images as search terms will catch on?