Googleholic for April 25, 2008

Filed under: Internet, Features, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Googleholic for April 25, 2008

by Christina Warren Apr 25th 2008

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

In this edition:

Google Finance gets a revamp
Google Product Search updated; still lousy
Google Docs initial offline rollout complete
Goolgle annoyances

Google Finance gets a revamp

Google Finance has received a nice facelift. The U.S, Canadian and U.K. outposts all sport the new look -- as well as the newest member of the Google Finance family: China. The new language-specific site covers all the latest Chinese financial news and also offers links to other global markets.

[via Google Finance Blog]

Google Product Search updated; still lousy

Google Product Search, nee Froogle, has received an important update that only underscores the lameness of the service. Now, if you search for a generic item, like "computer" - a list of popular search results will appear with price comparisons, product reviews and more. Unfortunately, searching for an individual product (or a less generic term) still leads to one giant list of product mash-ups, sans the comparable price table or product description.

As Google Operating System pointed out, even the old Froogle service had this ability. Way to innovate Google. Even with the updates Google's Product Search still reminds us of a crappier version of MySimon circa 1999.

[via Google Operating System]

Google Docs initial offline rollout complete

After its soft launch last month, the initial rollout for offline Google Docs access is now complete.

In the early stages of the rollout, only word processing documents could be viewed or edited offline. Now Google has added view-only access to spreadsheets and presentations as well. The service is still English-only, and Google Apps users need to specify that they want the service in their preferences, but offline access is developing at a quick pace.

[via Google Docs Blog]

Google Annoyances

We might love our Google, but Google isn't perfect. In fact, lots of aspects of Google and their never-ending list of services annoy us. We aren't alone. The guys over at Google Operating System list some of their top pet-peeves.

Some of our favorites:

Constantly having to re-enter our password when using Google Analytics, even when already logged in
The craptasticness of Blogger's commenting system
The inconsistent nature of the navigation bar

[via Google Operating System]

Tags: google, google docs, google finance, google product search, GoogleDocs, GoogleFinance, googleholic, GoogleProductSearch

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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