Googleholic for February 8, 2008

Filed under: Internet, Features, Google, Googleholic, Search

Googleholic for February 8, 2008

by Christina Warren Feb 8th 2008

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

This edition covers:

Android fan site gets a makeover
Has Google acquired Plaxo?
Take a trip down Blogger Memory Lane
Google launches Google Open Source blog
An overview of the other Google stories we've covered this week

Android fan site gets a makeover

Back in November we mentioned AndroidGuys, possibly the first Android "fan site" -- well we revisited the site recently and were pleased to find not only a new overall look, but tons of great content. If you want to keep up on the latest Android news, give the Android Guys a try,

Has Google acquired Plaxo?

Well, that's the rumor, according to Wired. Plaxo, the address book tool (and former spam sender -- no, we haven't forgotten, nor do we give second chances to company's that take our address books and use it to spam our friends and families), has been rumored to be on the auction block for quite some time, but Wired is reporting rumors that Google has made a sub-$200 million offer. Frankly, as much as we distrust and dislike Plaxo, their synching technologies are pretty sweet. Combining that with GMail and Google Calendar could be pretty awesome.

Take a trip down Blogger Memory Lane

Blogoscoped has posted a great screenshot retrospective of the various "looks" carried by the Blogspot/Blogger home pages over the years. It's pretty interesting to look at how web design trends have evolved in the last decade.

Google launches Google Open Source Blog

A spin-off from the Google Code blog, the new Google Open Source blog will serve as a place for all the open source-related Google postings, separate from the regular Google Code blog.

And here are some other stories we've been following this week:

New Google Docs feature makes mass surveys easy - Google has added some great features to Google Docs spreadsheets that make delivering a taking surveys much, much easier. The new forms function makes it easy to ask for information, via short response or multiple choice and the participants don't have to login to respond. Results are e-mailed to you and automatically added to the spreadsheet. Online census has never been so simple.
Google News goes local - Who says local news is dead? Google will now aggregate the local stories from your area for display on your Google News page.
iGoogleBar Firefox add-on supercharges Google apps bar - iGoogleBar isn't perfect. but it's a nice addition to the traditional Google apps toolbar.

Tags: android, google, google code, GoogleCode

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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