Google's Founders didn't know HTML!

1. The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
2. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked 'Whats up?' to which they replied "We are waiting for the rest of it". To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
3. One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the "Did you mean..." feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom of the results was the most effective area.
4. The infamous "I feel lucky" is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.
5. Orkut is very popular in Brazil. Orkut was the brainchild of a very intelligent Google engineer who was pretty much given free reign to run with it, without having to go through the normal Google UI procedures, hence the reason it doesn't look or feel like a Google application. They are looking at improving Orkut to cope with the loads it places on the system.
6. Google makes changes small-and-often. They will sometimes trial a particular feature with a set of users from a given network subnet; for example Excite@Home users often get to see new features. They aren't told of this, just presented with the new UI and observed how they use it.
7. Google has the largest network of translators in the world
8. They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the 'Advanced Preferences'.
9. They have found in user testing, that a small number of people are very typical of the larger user base. They run labs continually and always monitoring how people use a page of results.
10. The name 'Google' was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for 'Googol'
11. Gmail was used internally for nearly 2years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
12. They listen to feedback actively. Emailing Google isn't emailing a blackhole.
13. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.

Computer Tips in filmy estyle....

Army orders 24 new sentry-bots, Judgment Day moved up two months

Sure, you laughed yesterday when you heard professor Noel Sharkey warn against the impending, apocalyptic man vs. machine battle that was to come, but this news may have you singing a different tune. A pilot program in Nevada which employed robotic sentries to patrol Hawthorne Army Depot is getting an upgrade: 24 brand new drones called MDARS, or "Mobile Detection and Assessment and Response System." The $40 million purchase will nab the Army diesel-powered robots which operate at speeds up to 20 MPH, use RFID tags to keep track of locks and barriers, and can run for 16 hours without refueling. Though the bots have been tested with automatic weapons, these new versions will be equipped with non-lethal armaments, thus making them considerably less deadly when Skynet goes online.

World's greatest Brand names

World's greatest Brand names.Where do they come from?

Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind thehouse of founder John Warnock.

Apache - It got its name because its founders got started by applying patchesto code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'A PAtCHy'server -- thus, the name Apache
Apple Computers - favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three monthslate in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company AppleComputers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock.

CISCO - its not an acronym but the short for San Francisco.

Google - the name started as a jokey boast about the amount of informationthe search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol',a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders,Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project toan angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google'

Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the webfrom a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up withthe business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters "html" - theprogramming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred toas HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

HP - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether thecompany they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so theyhad to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Lotus (Notes) - Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The LotusPosition' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of TranscendentalMeditation (by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi).

Microsoft - coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted toMICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' wasremoved later on.

Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his companystarted manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the timewas called Victrola.

ORACLE - Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting projectfor the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project wascalled Oracle

Red Hat - Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse teamcap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it andhad to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linuxhad an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone !

SAP - "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBMemployees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects"

SUN - founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for StanfordUniversity Network.

Xerox - The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say 'dry' (asit was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying).The Greek root 'xer' means dry.

Yahoo! - the word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book 'Gulliver'sTravels'. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and isbarely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the namebecause they considered themselves yahoos.