Recently Google Images has undergone a re-do and the layout has been changed so that, no image details are visible at the image thumbnails but when on ‘mouse-over’, the image details such as file url,title and file size is shown.

I don’t like this design because it seems crappy. Many a times, especially when there’s a tall image amidst the thumbnails, the image details that shown on mouse over, often overlaps with the surrounding images. This somehow creates a cramped-no room-no space kinda feeling.

After all, what was wrong with the old design?

The image details would right away show beneath every image.And there was more transparency.Many a times, users like to go for images not just depending on their quality or look but factors like which site it is from and what file size/dimensions it is.One look at all the images and it would give you an idea of which image is the best for you.

For example - You wouldn’t want to use an image from a Stock image agency, because it may have copyrights. So you may select another site which may not have copyrights or is more amateurish. This helps when there are same image on different sites too.

With the new layout in place, you got to go to each image and see the url/details to decide whether you got to select this image or not.
That’s less usability - More clicks and More time.(And of course an overlapping crap layout.)

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Oops! I wish if I could turn a blind eye to this - but seems like the number of broken links on Google and Yahoo are increasing in frequency.

Just a few weeks after I found a misplaced link on Yahoo Movies - here is another one from Google, and that too at Google Codes!

If you go to this page (http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/samples.html) and click on the “Solutions and Wizards” link in the - “AJAX Search in a blogger” paragraph - you’ll be taken to a beautiful 404 error page

A few weeks back, I had reported a similar error on Yahoo! where the link was not broken but mis-linked to an entirely different one.

What’s happening with them? I’m forced to guess that less importance is/was given to basics of web development in these cases.

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Just noted another strange yet interesting ad - this time on Problogger.net

This ad was seen in the small 125 x 125 adsense rectangle seen between the posts main content.

It read - I love you Darren Rowse!
Further, down the second line - Your blog that is.Keep up the great work from John Chow.

This was an instant eye-catcher to me. Mainly because the “copy” of the ad was well written and was “outstanding”. When you normally see the “Click here to get rich” type of copies in every adsense plugged blog - this one was definitely crafted to take you by surprise.

With no space for thinking at all - I clicked on the ad to visit John Chow’s blog. He was an Internet Enthusiast and had been blogging for some time now - a pretty interesting blog there. I must salute the guy for thinking of something like this.

All he did was this - Crafted an excellent copy - Targeted the right space, Problogger.net(You can use your adwords settings to select any site/blog you want), and bid for the higher amount.
I’m sure he must have got a 90% or closer click through on those ads.

Another good example of creativity, talent and smart work.

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Selecting a domain name for your blog/site is often confusing.

First of all, with everybody registering domain names like there’s no tomorrow - you are running out of options. If you go to godaddy and search for a domain name(I’m not talking about your family name), it’s most likely that it’s already taken and you got to select from the other options they suggest.

These options are funny too.Because they are randomly generated - they make no sense at all.
If you search for “mydeath” you get the options like - Myofficialdeath, mydoomday, mydecease,myownrests,bestofmydeath etc.

Here’s a quick tip.
If you are looking for Synonyms of a word, just goto Godaddy and search for a domain rather than go to synonym.com. (By the way you get negative results for “death” at synonym.com)

You have the advantages of
- getting a variety of synonyms,
- funny usages,
- a brief idea of wrong usages and
- a good laugh if your’e lucky(proportional to your creative skills).

I tried (eff - you - cee - kay.com) and it suggested me globalbang.com . Cool - I’ll take it

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Amit, may wonder why I’m bringing up such silly issues about his blog every time(this is just the second one). Actually, I’m a fan of labnol that i watch it very carefully(more than mine may be), so such things grab my attention.Since he remains busy reading emails, i thought i’ll post it down here.

This time, it’s about a simple basic mistake on labnol. If you see the left hand panel, there is a small subscribe box and right above the translator tool, there are two links.
1 - Take a site tour link and 2- Site statistics for 2006.

Interestingly, just like on all the blocks on the right and left hand panels - Amit has used the arrow character as bullet list. But in fact, it isn’t a bullet, it’s only a special character(seen as >>).

The mistake here is that he has forgotten to leave a break space between these two links, that’ll separate them into two lines. As of now, both the links align on the same line, with the bullets!

I would have taken this for a deliberate attempt, had Amit not used the bullets prior to the link.
Whenever there’s a bullet , it’s supposed to be on the next line.

Here’s how the corresponding code looks like -
&raquo; <a title=”Are you new here ?” href=”javascript:void(window.open(’http://support.artic…….nY=0′))”>Site Tour for New Visitors</a>

&raquo; <a title=”Traffic for 2006″ href=”http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/12/last-12-months-at-digital-inspiration.html”>Site Statistics for 2006</a>

All Amit need to change is, instead of the two spaces in between the links replace it with a line break(br /) just after this code(before the raquo thing) - Tour for New Visitors</a>

&raquo; <a title=”Traffic for 2006

I’m sure Amit will take up this and correct this soon as he did for my earlier discovery on Labnol.

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I just noted this ad today on a blog - A normal looking “contextual” ad on a Google AdSense leaderboard with a strange character/image near the ad text. - yep, yet another one!

This one’s interesting because it is not a special character, but an icon. An icon image of a shopping cart in the url text of an ad. I have no idea how this crept in, probably because -

1 -The advertiser used a special character or a combination of characters that goes undetected (looks normal) during the checking process.

2 - He used an image.(That’s bit too too weird)

3 - Google is trying some new features on ads like allowing adwords clients to use special characters/images.

Whatever it is, it seemed pretty cool to me, because it caught my attention all of a sudden. I bet it will grab your’s too.

UPDATE - 11.38 pm IST, 28 Dec
—————–

Apologies for those who came in late. I learned that this is the Google Checkout feature that’s seen as the shopping cart on the ad. This thread at digitalpoint had discussed the same topic earlier.

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