Find Images that Contain a Certain Color

Google Image Search has a new option that lets you restrict the results based on their color. For now, the option is not available in the user interface, but you can tweak the search results URL to try it.

Searching for [red bird] shows good results, but you can still find some unrelated images. What if you search for [bird] and restrict the results to red images? Here's the URL:

http://images.google.com/images?q=bird&imgcolor=red
(you can replace "red" with "blue", "green", "teal", "purple", "yellow", "orange", "pink", "white", "gray", "black" and "brown")



You can try the new feature using this simple drop-down:

Black Blue Brown Gray Green Orange Pink Purple Red Teal White Yellow

Web Search Tips for Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 has many useful features that improve the way you search and browse the web. If you like to search from the address bar, you can now get suggestions from the default search engine if you prefix your query with "? ". IE8 also shows previously visited pages that match the text you typed, but it only searches titles and URLs.


One of my favorite features is that the new version of Internet Explorer knows when you're using a search engine directly, without typing the query in IE's search box. The browser detects the query and displays in the built-in search box so you can easily find results using a different search engine.


Another interesting integration lets you find the matches of your query in a search result. After clicking on the result, go to the browser's search box and click on "Find" to see the exact matches and navigate to them.

If you open search results in separate tabs, IE uses distinct colors to visually group the related tabs. Right-clicking on a tab you'll find the option to ungroup the tab and to close the entire group.


Some of the search provides that are available in IE's add-on gallery offer enhanced suggestions. For example, Wikipedia lets you navigate directly to one of its pages, Yahoo and Live Search show instant answers for weather, while Amazon includes product images.

All of the search engines are accessible from the contextual menu so you can search for a text you select. They're added to the list of accelerators, which can include any web service that provides useful information about the selected text or the web page you visit: mapping addresses, translating text or bookmarking the page.


Unlike other browsers, Internet Explorer 8 encourages users to use multiple search engines and makes it easy to switch between them. Sometimes you can even obtain instant answers while you type a query or when you select an accelerator that supports previews.

Google Tests Enhanced Suggestions for IE8

Internet Explorer 8 has been released today and there are many reasons to download it if you use a previous version of IE. Microsoft has finally released a standard-compliant browser, tabs run in separate processes, the annoying modal dialog for finding words in web pages has been replaced with a less intrusive bar, the search box includes suggestions, the browser is faster and more polished.

Speaking of search suggestions, Google tests two features that could save a few clicks: displaying the top result for navigation queries, which usually have a single best answer, and showing ads related to the query at the bottom of the list of suggestions. I don't see the two features, but Sterling, a reader of this blog, spotted them while testing IE8.


Google also tests enabling search suggestions in Image Search:


In other news, Google Maps Germany added a questionable feature that shows suggestions when you start to enter a location, after being tested in Google Maps China. If you are logged in, the first suggestions are from your list of saved locations.


{ Thanks, Sterling and Luke. }

Undo Sending a Gmail Message

If you ever send a Gmail message too early or you change your mind after you press "Send", there's a feature that will help you. It's called "Undo Send" and you can find in the crowded space of experimental features from Gmail Labs.

After enabling the feature, Gmail will show an "undo" link when you send a message. You have to react quickly because the link disappears in 5 seconds and there's no way to bring it back. If keyboard shortcuts are enabled in your Gmail account, a better option than clicking on "undo" is to press "z". When you undo sending a mail, Gmail saves it as a draft and you can continue editing the message or discard it.


"Sometimes I regret sending a message the morning after. Other times I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake. I forget to attach a file or email the birthday girl that I can't make her surprise party. I can rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet — but Gmail almost always wins that race. (...) I could undo just about any other action in Gmail — why couldn't I undo send? (...) My theory (which others shared) was that even just five seconds would be enough time to catch most of those regrettable emails," says Michael Leggett from Google.

I don't think that 5 seconds are enough to realize that sending the message was a mistake, but it's a good trade-off between functionality and the need to provide a reliable service. A simple improvement could be a configurable delay before sending messages.

{ Thanks, Niranjan. }

Alternative Answers for GoogleLookup

One of the most interesting functions available in Google Spreadsheets is GoogleLookup, which uses an automatically-generated database of facts to find answers for questions like "What's the population of Quebec?" or "How many employees does Google have?".

Unfortunately, the answers aren't always accurate and it would be useful to choose a different result or to edit the existing one. A recent Google Spreadsheet update added a way to change the answer: click on the cell you want to edit, select "More options" and choose one of the other two alternative answers. Maybe Google will go one step further and provide an interface for editing the facts or flagging the facts that are inaccurate.


To use GoogleLookup, create a Google Spreadsheet and type in a cell:
=GoogleLookup("name", "attribute")

Some examples:
=GoogleLookup("Quebec", "population")
=GoogleLookup("Google", "employees")

Google Spreadsheets has a special function that returns information related to the Men's and Women's NCAA Division I Basketball Championship in the US and there's also a function for stock market quotes.

Homework: Create a spreadsheet that displays facts about 20 people, companies or geographical locations by using the Google Sets-powered AutoFill feature to generate the list of entities and GoogleLookup to find the facts. You can make the spreadsheet public and share the address in the comments.

Google Street View for UK and Netherlands

Google Maps added street view imagery for many major cities in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are some of the cities added to Google Street View.

"Having checked my old house in Sheffield, which I moved out of last year, I can tell that the photo was taken in the last nine months, so it's much more up-to-date than the Google Maps imagery for the area," noticed Tony Ruscoe.



More interesting photos at Google Maps Mania blog.

Gmail Media Previews

Gmail launched four new experimental features in Gmail Labs that show previews for some of the links included in an email. For now, Google supports YouTube videos, images from Flickr and Picasa Web Albums and Yelp reviews.

Here's an example: if you receive a message that includes links to YouTube videos and Flickr images, you'll see a list of previews below the message.


"Gmail currently automatically detects package tracking information, addresses, and event information and shows quick links to delivery status, maps and directions, and Google Calendar. So why couldn't Gmail automatically detect links in emails and show videos, photos, and ratings right inside these messages as well?" asks the Gmail blog.

While the previews are useful, placing them below the message is unfortunate. A Firefox extension like Interclue does a better job at showing smart previews for many other kinds of content and it's not limited to Gmail.