Omar Kattan - search in a nutshell

“This site may harm your computer”, this is what Google placed underneath all my listings towards the end of last week, why?… Well basically because a hacker managed to penetrate my server and place invisible code designed to place “trojan horses” onto my users’ computers.

If you’re unlucky enough to be tagged with ”This Site May Harm Your Computer” this is what your listing will look like:

If you actually click on the listing, Google will proceed to take you to a page that looks like this:

I spent the best part of the weekend cleaning up the mess the hacker left behind and trying to figure out a way to tell Google to remove the  ”This site may harm your computer” from my listings! I finally managed to do so on Sunday night when I discovered that the solution was right under my nose… Google’s webmaster tools!

If you don’t have a Google webmaster tools account I suggest you get one right away!  It is truly a fantastic interface that includes among other things, the quick soultion for the  ”This site may harm your computer” problem!.  Basically the interface tells you that your listings are marked with “This site may harm your computer” and gives you a sample of pages where the malicious code appears.  Its your job to go and clean that code and then submit a form telling Google that the code has been removed and request a review. 

Google will then review the site and if all is okay, it will remove the “This site may harm your computer” statement from your listings and all back to normal.  If the results of the review are negative, Google will let you know and will guide you further by giving you more sample urls were malicious coe (or malware/badware as they refer to it).  Once you’ve cleaned your whole site, Google will remove the “This site may harm your computer” from your listings.

Anyway, to cut a long story short,, sign up for a Google webmasters tool today.  I will blog separately about about this fantastic free service offered by Google so stay tuned…

Are you a gadget developer?  If you are then you’ll be happy to learn that Google has, on its official blog , decided to invest $5,000 grants for gadget developers who want to invest time making their already successful gadget even better.  Google has also decided to pledge $100,000 seed investments for new gadget-related businesses.

For now, applications are restricted to gadget developers who have more than 250,000 pageviews per week on their gadget.

I’m glad that Google has decided to pledge financial  support for the developers that have helped it improve its iGoogle personalized homepage through the Google Gadgets API.  This is what will make people fall in love with Google all over again.

Well done G!

For more info visit the Google Gadget Ventures homepage.

In yet another direct attack on Microsoft’s core business, Google has acquired the assets of Zenter, a company that specialised in a providing software for creating online slide presentations.  This is the latest addition to the ever growing segement of Google’s empire, Google Docs and SpreadSheets.

The price wasn’t disclosed by Google but I’m sure we can all guess the ball park figure ($$,$$$,$$$).

I must say, I’m a bit perplexed by the mixed signals we’re getting from the big G these day.  I mean on the one hand, CEO Eric Schmidt openly says that Google is not competing with Microsoft, actually, this is his exact words in a recent press conference in Paris:

“We keep saying we are not doing that and no-one believes me. We don’t position them as competitive–it is a sharing paradigm,”

And on the other hand, we hear news like this.  So what is it Eric, are you or aren’t you competing with Microsoft?  Actually, don’t answer that, we all know you are so best of luck taking on MS Office.  Although, I’ll have you know, I won’t be replacing my favourite slide presentation application anytime soon, sorry mate.

Have you created an avatar of yourself at Gizmoz yet?  No? what are you waiting for!!

I’ve created the picture in this post using Gizmoz and I must say… its fantastic! (BTW, I’m not talking about the picture here) . 

Gizmoz was founded in 2003, and “offers consumers a new generation of  character-based visual expression for use across their digital lives” such as SecondLife.com.

Gizmoz also allows you to create 3D talking characters to use as talking avatars on Skype.

The process is as easy as uploading a single pic of yourself, and off you go… 

Gizmoz characters can be used on social networking sites such as My Space and Facebook as well as video sharing sites like YouTube, blogs and even in emails.

What are you still doing here?  give it a go now!

Google has bought Panoramio Photo Sharing for an undiscosed sum (but probably for a few billion $$$)

Panoramio lets users publish and locate photos via Google Maps and Google Earth and allows other users to view them based on location.  Panoramio’s database already contains over one million photos.

Here is the statement on Panoramio’s homepage:

“Today, we are pleased to announce the planned acquisition of Panoramio by Google. This acquisition is a great opportunity for Panoramio uploaders to leverage Google’s reach, increasing the exposure of their photographs to photophiles around the world and for viewers to choose from a larger universe of photographs as Panoramio becomes more widely known. We hope to close the acquisition in mid to late June of 2007. Got questions? Go to Q&A to learn more.”

The purchase of Panaromio allows the Google to ramp up its’s photo sharing technology and strategically repositions the search giant to regain some battle ground lost to Yahoo  as a resut of it’s purchase of the popular photosharing site flickr.

I’ve given Panoramio a try and its actually a very cool tool.  Its very easy to register an account, with no email verification required (although the big G will soon change that).  The interface is also very user friendly, allowing you to  upload, tag and map images in seconds.

Try it out if you haven’t already.