News Items
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Google Docs Now Features Drag and Drop Insertion of Images in Documents
10/19/2010 - 18:09Google has added the ability to insert images in Google Docs Documents by dragging and dropping an image from your computer. Google Docs users could already add images to their documents using the "Insert" menu to select images from their hard drives, by URL, or via a Google Image search to include. (And this method continues to be available.) Currently, the feature works only with the...
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LinkedIn Launches New 'Updates' Interface | 'Signal' Gives Greater Flexibility in Filtering Information from Connections
10/18/2010 - 15:05The professional networking site LinkedIn has launched a new interface for displaying the updates sent out by users you follow and locating information posted by any user - regardless of whether you follow them or not. Dubbed "Signal," the new layout gives you the ability to quickly filter updates by various criteria, see the most popular content referred to in your connections' updates, and...
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MySpace Creates "Official" Visitor Tracking Tool | "My Visitors" Feature Allows Users to see Who's Viewed Their Profile
10/14/2010 - 00:19One of the questions we're asked most often about conducting investigative research through social networking profiles is, "Do the people whose profiles I'm looking at know that I've looked at their profiles?" Most major social networking sites have refrained from giving the end-users specific information about who has visited their profiles. There have been a few exceptions to this rule like...
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Google-powered Search of the Texas Statutes (and Constitution)
09/29/2010 - 11:18Recently, in response to query on Twitter, we created a Google-powered search of Pennsylvania statutes. This got us thinking about other states that offered access to their statutes online, but did not offer the full flexibility and/or familiar search options offered by Google's Web search. So, we started poking around a bit, looking for other state statutory materials onto...
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Google Powered Search of the Pennsylvania Statutes (and Constitution)
09/16/2010 - 10:46In response to a tweet yesterday afternoon mentioning the awkwardness of the existing search offered by the state of Pennsylvania for the online version of its statutes, we created a Google-powered custom search of the state's statute pages/files. It allows you to search the Pennsylvania statutes with all of the familiar Google Boolean connectors, syntax, etc. This custom-search is accessing...
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Google Introduces "Google Instant" - "Search Before You Type"
09/08/2010 - 10:55This morning, Google announced a major innovation to the way it processes queries and delivers results - Google Instant. Google Instant takes the auto-complete, predictive suggestions that automatically display under the Google search box as you type your keywords one step further. Google Instant not only displays those predictive suggestions for your search, it also displays a full list of...
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Send Scheduled E-mails in Gmail With Boomerang Plug-In
09/07/2010 - 13:04Boomerang for Gmail is a third-party plug-in for the Firefox and Chrome Web browsers that lets you schedule when you send and receive email messages. The plug-in is still in beta and is only available via invitation - however, in our tests it works as described. It works with Gmail accounts and Google Apps for Domains Gmail email accounts. The plug-in is developed by Baydin Software...
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Gmail Priority Inbox Comes to Google Apps Mail Accounts
09/03/2010 - 11:19Earlier this week Google announced an innovative new (automatic) filtering feature to its Gmail service to help users better organize their incoming messages and determine which should be read first - and which could wait. Named "Priority Inbox," Google described it as "a new view of your inbox that automatically helps you focus on your most important messages. Gmail has always kept spam...
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Google Proximity Search Site (GAPS) No Longer Functional
07/01/2010 - 13:45One feature that Google does not offer in its Web search is the ability to create a well-defined proximity search. Unlike paid search products, we cannot indicate how close we want our keywords to be to one another in search results. While Google does offer the asterisk (*) to take the place of one (or more than one) word in a search (e.g., Mark * Rosch), we cannot indicate that we want...
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Google Voice Now Open and Free to All - in the United States
06/22/2010 - 13:30This morning, Google announced that its Google Voice service is now available to anyone in the United States. Google Voice is Google’s free telephone service offering a wide range of calling and voicemail services. Its best-known feature is probably the ability to simultaneously forward incoming calls to multiple phone numbers, like a switchboard. You can configure your...