Alternatives to Google Instant Previews

A few days ago Google silently disabled Instant Previews in Google Search. It provided small thumbnails of search results, which you could quickly preview before loading the full web page. Here is a list of alternative extensions for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera web browser:

• SearchPreview for Firefox and Chrome
• CoolPreviews for Firefox and Chrome
• ezLinkPreview for Chrome
• Thumbshots for Firefox
• SearchenginePreview for Opera

What is your favorite one?

How to add Google+ Comments to any website

Google+ Comments is a social wigdet from Google, which works similar to Facebook Comments Box or Disqus. For now, it is available only for blogs on the Blogger platform. But here is an unofficial way to embed Google+ Comments on any website or blog:

1. Edit your website and add this HTML:
   

   <script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
   </script>
   <g:comments
       href="[URL]"
       width="642"
       first_party_property="BLOGGER"
       view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
   </g:comments>

   or a valid HTML5 version:
   

   <script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js">
   </script>
   <div class="g-comments"
       data-href="[URL]"
       data-width="642"
       data-first_party_property="BLOGGER"
       data-view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">
   </div>

2. If you want to insert a comments counter, add this HTML code instead of <g:comments>:
   

   <g:commentcount href="[URL]"></g:commentcount>

   or a valid HTML5 version instead of <div class="g-comments">:
   

   <div class="g-commentcount" data-href="[URL]"></div>

3. Replace [URL] with the URL of your web page and fit the width.
4. Link your web page to your Google+ profile.

If you prefer to load Google+ Comments dynamically, insert this HTML code:

<div id="comments"></div>
<script>
gapi.comments.render('comments', {
    href: window.location,
    width: '624',
    first_party_property: 'BLOGGER',
    view_type: 'FILTERED_POSTMOD'
});
</script>

Similarly with Google+ Comments Counter:

<div id="commentscounter"></div>
<script>
gapi.commentcount.render('commentscounter', {
    href: window.location
});
</script>

You can see it in action on the Google+ and Facebook Comments page.

How to use Google Drive as a free web hosting

Do you know that you can host your website for free using Google Drive? There are 4 simple steps you should follow in order to do that:

1. Go to your Google Drive and create a new folder.
2. Make this folder public, by selecting it on the list and clicking the Share button. Then choose Public on the web and click Save.
3. Upload your HTML, CSS, JS files and images to this folder. You can create subfolders too. The file named index.html will become the default page. Note: Google Drive doesn't support PHP, JSP or ASP scripts yet!
4. Look at the address bar and copy the folder ID, which comes at the end of the URL:
   
   https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BzEbtMoF6IXbaVN2Qmx1em9qS0k
   
   Then go to GDriv.es, paste the folder ID there and choose your own short name. After submitting the form, your website will be available under your alias:
   
   http://gdriv.es/<alias>
   
   For example:
   
   http://gdriv.es/cros

The above example is the Cr OS Linux website.

How to zoom the full page, along with Facebook Comments Box

Ever wanted to zoom in that tiny text in Facebook Comments Box? Ctrl-+ doesn't work in this case, at least in Google Chrome browser. But here is a solution - a nifty bookmarklet, which you can drag to your bookmarks bar and click whenever needed. It uses CSS Transforms and it works in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE9+ and Opera.

Drag me to your bookmarks bar: 110%

%

Here is a live demo (change the zoom level first):

YQL as a free alternative to Google Translate, Google Finance and Google Weather API

Google has closed its free Google Translate API, Google Finance API and the unofficial Google Weather API, which many websites were dependent on. Fortunately, the Yahoo Query Language comes to their rescue. It takes SQL-like statements and provides data from many web services (like SQL tables) in JSON or XML format. You can use the following alternatives for Google APIs:

select * from yahoo.finance.quotes where symbol in ("YHOO","GOOG"); for Yahoo! Finance

select * from weather.bylocation where location='Chicago' and unit='f'; for Yahoo! Weather

select * from wunderground.forecast where location='Chicago'; for Weather Underground

select * from google.translate where q="This is a test" and target="de"; for Google Translate

Tutorials and examples of consuming YQL are provided on Yahoo! website.

Baidu Browser featuring T5 Engine is a king of HTML5

Chinese company Baidu has launched a new web browser for Android, called Baidu Browser (or Explorer). It claims to be 20% faster than others thanks to the new T5 Engine. I didn't believe it, so I downloaded and tested it on my Android 2.3.

The home page is clean, but in Chinese. The default search engine is of course Baidu. There is a voice search as well. The user agent contains FlyFlow/2.2, which is a codename of Baidu Browser.

T5 Engine is indeed a king of HTML5, it scores 467 points and 8 bonus points out of 500 in the HTML5 Test - far more than current mobile and desktop browsers!

As to performance of Baidu Browser (right), it's beats Dolphin Browser (left) in BrowserMark by 19950 to 22322 points, which is 11%!

As you can see, Chinese can develop very good and standard-complaint browsers! Download Baidu Browser for Android 2.2+ or Windows Phone 7+.

Chrome Browser for Android 2.3/2.2/2.1

As you might already know, Google Chrome browser is available only for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices and newer. However, on the Android.net forum somebody has posted the Chrome browser for Android 2.3 Gingerbread and lower. After downloading and installing the APK file, I could see a very nice UI and feel a blazing fast WebKit engine.

Try it yourself! Download Chrome for Android 2.*