How long does it take you to type?

Posted by Maryam Kamvar, Software Engineer

We all know that typing on mobile phones can sometimes be a headache -- especially if the phone in question has a small 9-key keypad. On those kinds of devices, we estimate that it takes an average of 40 seconds and 41 key presses to enter a query. When it comes to key presses, that's more than double what it takes on other phones!

In an effort to help our mobile users, we studied the effect of incorporating a feature like Google Suggest on mobile phones with 9-key keypads. We found that these users respond favorably to query suggestions: Users who were shown suggestions while typing their query rated their overall enjoyment higher and perceived workload lower than users who were not shown suggestions. Users who were shown suggestions also reduced their overall key presses by half. Surprisingly, the time to enter a query for these users was not significantly less than the average time needed to enter queries for users who were not shown any suggestions.

You can find a more complete discussion of our results and findings in the PDF version of "Query Suggestions for Mobile Search: Understanding Usage Patterns." It was presented at the CHI-2008 conference last month. Also, we've incorporated Google Suggest on Google's iPhone interface, so try it out if you haven't already!

Reset Password in OsCommerce

If you have access to phpMyAdmin, go to the database of OsCommerce, open administrators table and replace the password value by clicking the small pencil icon, which stands for edit.

'1060bdf4e47bc8b4ab3fb0cfea9ef70b:77'

This hash equals to the word 'admin'
so your password will be reset to 'admin'

Thanks

Early Android Developer Challenge results

Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

The Android team has announced the selection of the top 50 applications of the Android Developer Challenge. Each of the top 50 apps will receive $25,000 and is eligible to receive further recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards in the final judging round. A total of 1,788 total submissions were received.

While the team is working on a more detailed description of the top 50 apps, you can read a general summary of the apps on the Android Developer blog.

Fast and easy access to Google on Sprint phones

Posted by Chris Barton, Strategic Partner Development Team

Today we're happy to announce that we'll be working with Sprint to provide quick and easy access to Google search, Google Maps for mobile, YouTube, and other Google mobile services on Sprint's new generation of consumer devices. Google will also be the default search provider on the Sprint portal, and Sprint will enable users to take advantage of location data for Google search and Google Maps for mobile on certain devices.

On some of Sprint's upcoming devices, you'll be able to get to the web with even greater ease with one-click access to Google search from your phone's home screen. In the spirit of openness, you'll be able to add, change, or delete your preferred search provider at any time. Also, having more location data available for Google Search and Maps will make it easier and faster for you to get directions and search results for nearby restaurants, shops, services, and more.

We're always looking for ways to work with carriers, device manufacturers, software providers, and others to help you get the information and content you need, whenever and wherever you need it. To learn more about how Sprint and Google will be working together, take a look at our press release.

We also announced today our investment alongside Sprint, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner, and others in a new wireless broadband company, Clearwire. The company is developing a nationwide mobile WiMax network that will adopt open standards and policies that can ultimately make your mobile broadband experience more internet like. Read more on the Official Google Blog.

Google on the iPhone makes News, goes around the world and to your Apps domain

Posted by Ulf Waschbusch, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

Google fürs iPhone jetzt auch in deutsch! Et en français .. en in het Nederlands and in many more languages. When we launched our new Google interface for the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco last January, a number of you approached us at our booth and asked when you could use our new interface in your home country. (Yes, San Francisco IS a very cosmopolitan city.) I am happy to say: the time has come. Today we're launching our new integrated Google experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 33 new markets and 16 new languages, from Argentina to New Zealand, from Swedish to Chinese.

Google on the iPhone is a great way to access your most used Google services. Some of its benefits include

• Fast and fluid search with one-tap access to News, image, local, or web results and search query suggestions when you start typing
• Automatic delivery of Gmail messages (no need to refresh your browser!), and auto-completion of email addresses when typing
• A combined month-and-current-day view of your always-in-sync Google Calendar, and the ability to share pictures with friends and family using Picasa Web Albums
  

Today we're also launching a special Google News edition for the iPhone. Browse the front page or search for results straight from the home page. Enjoy the full catalog of Google News sources and even watch associated YouTube content.

To try out the new Google interface, just point your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser to www.google.com.

Furthermore, if you use Google Apps - now is the time to use your domain name on the iPhone as well. Just bookmark http://www.google.com/m/a/YOURDOMAIN for fast one-click access to Google. Please make sure to replace YOURDOMAIN with your actual domain name.

AdSense for mobile content now integrated with DoubleClick Mobile

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, mobile ads

Last week we launched our new mobile image ads, which give mobile web publishers the flexibility to display image ads in addition to text ads on their sites. As of today, AdSense for mobile content publishers who have configured their sites to display mobile image ads can now have ads served to their sites from DoubleClick Mobile. This means more advertisers for AdSense for mobile content publishers, more inventory for DoubleClick Mobile advertisers, and more ad relevance for browsers of the mobile web.

Read our press release to find out more.

Tables in MySQL

I want to know how many tables a mysql database can hold ?
When using MyISAM table, the limit will be determined by your operating system, ie. the number of files you can have in one directory.

Using InnoDB tables removes that limitation by allowing multiple tables within a single datafile (tablespace).

The maximum tablespace size is 4 billion database pages. By default, a 'page' is 16K, but it is possible to recompile with 64K pages. This will allow a single tablespace size of ... 'BIG'.

A table will obviously take up at least one database page, meaning you can theoretically have a maximum of 4 billion tables per tablespace.



The number of tablespaces will again be limited by your operating system. Using NTFS on NT, the limit is 4,294,967,295. I imagine UNIX will be limited by the number of inodes. However, before reaching the physical limit of files you wil probably run into an issue with the maximum number of 'open' files allowed.

The first limit you hit will undoubtedly be that of your wallet while buying disk drives. ;)

New mobile image ads

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

The mobile ads team is happy to announce the launch of mobile image ads. These look like standard image ads for desktop web pages but they are smaller to fit on mobile screens and they run on the mobile content network. Take a look at the mobile image ads example page to see samples. Also, watch the video below to see my interview with Sanjay Agarwal, a mobile ads engineer, and his demo. Note that all mobile image ads are keyword-targeted, are priced on a cost-per-click basis, and must link to a mobile web page.

For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good clickthrough rates. Advertisers using mobile image ads will also benefit because we only show one image ad per mobile page. For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility. They can now choose to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time the ad is shown. Publishers who are already using AdSense for mobile content just need to update their AdSense code to start displaying mobile ads on their site.

For those of you who are mobile web surfers, mobile image ads provide a new way to interact with mobile content. Contextual targeting keeps ads relevant, and with only one mobile image ad shown per page, you can uninhibitedly browse mobile websites while clicking only on the ads that interest you.

Mobile image ads are currently available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the US. As always, leave questions and comments below or on our YouTube channel.

Better Know Your Mobile: Using Shortcut Keys and BlackBerry Convenience Keys for Google Maps

Posted by Chris Nguyen and Tom Dimopoulos, Mobile Product Specialists, Google mobile team

Have we mentioned that we like doing things faster? In the spirit of speed and helping you to Better Know Your Mobile, the next couple of videos in our series will show you how to use all the great features, and even open Maps for mobile at the push of a button.

Last time we explained how to get My Location [0] and Traffic [7] with the help of some of your phone's shortcut keys. We've got a new video that shows all the most common numeric shortcut keys in one place. And you may have seen Steve and Mark's duel video setting "convenience keys" for speedy access to your favorite apps on BlackBerry, Blackjack, and Nokia N95 devices. Now we've added a shorter video about the convenience key settings on BlackBerry devices. Time to stop fishing around in menus and start impressing your friends with fast-as-lightning mapping!

As always, we'd love to get your ideas for more features you'd like to learn about, so give us a shout on the blog or video comments. To see all our videos in one place, check out the Google Mobile Help channel. You can always subscribe to it to get the latest videos on using Google Mobile.

Now available: orkut on your mobile phone

Posted by Hazel Mary, Software Engineer

Have you ever wanted to check if your buddy responded to your scrap about this evening's plans, but not been close to a computer? Do you wish you could pass the time on your long commute home by browsing through your friends' profiles?

Fret no more -- if you have a web-enabled phone and a data plan, just point your mobile web browser to m.orkut.com, and stay connected to your friends anytime, anywhere.

We understand that often your phone's data network isn't as fast as your computer's, so in designing orkut for mobile we focused on offering the features that are most useful when you're on the move, instead of replicating all the desktop features. For example, we've made it easy to send, receive, and respond to scraps on our mobile interface so that you can step away from your computer and have conversations on the go. From your phone, simply click the new "Reply" link to respond directly to a scrap from your friend. You can also read recent updates from your friends, view upcoming birthdays, look up and add friends, and accept friend requests.

After you try out orkut for mobile, we'd love to hear what you think. From the m.orkut.com homepage, click on the "help" link at the bottom of the screen to send us your feedback.

Happy mobile orkuting!

Can Women use a weapon to protect herself

Question: Does a woman have to defend herself if someone wants to rape her, and is she allowed to use a weapon for that purpose?

Answer:
Praise be to Allaah.

A woman who is being forced to commit zinaa [unlawful sexual activity] is obliged to defend herself and should not give in even if she kills the one who wants to do that to her. This self-defence is waajib (obligatory), and she is not at fault if she kills the one who wants to force her into zinaa. Imaam Ahmad and Ibn Hibbaan reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever is killed defending his property is a shaheed (martyr), whoever is killed defending himself is a shaheed, whoever is killed defending his religion is a shaheed, and whoever is killed defending his family is a shaheed.” In the commentary on this hadeeth it says: “whoever is killed defending his family is a shaheed” refers to the one who defends the honour of his wife and female relatives.


If a man is obliged to defend his wife and fight off the one who wants to rape her – even if this leads to his own death – then this obligation applies even more to the woman herself, who must defend herself and not give in to the aggressor who wants to violate her honour, even if she is killed, because if she is killed she will also be a shaheedah, just as her husband will be a shaheed if he was killed defending her honour. Shahaadah (martyrdom, the status of shaheed) is a high status which is only achieved by the one who dies in the way of obedience to Allaah and that which He loves, which indicates that Allaah loves this kind of defence, a man’s fighting to defend his wife’s honour and a woman’s fighting to defend herself. But if she is unable to defend herself, and the evil aggressor overpowers her and rapes her by force, then she should not be subjected to any punishment (hadd or ta’zeer); rather, the punishment should be carried out on the evil aggressor.

It says in al-Mughni by Ibn Qudaamah al-Hanbali: “Concerning a woman who was pursued by a man, and she killed him to protect herself, Ahmad said: ‘If she knew that he wanted [to rape] her, and she killed him to protect herself, then she is not at fault.’ Ahmad mentioned the hadeeth which al-Zuhri reported from al-Qaasim ibn Muhammad, from ‘Ubayd ibn ‘Umayr, in which it said that a man had visitors from [the tribe of] Hudhayl, and he wanted [to rape] a woman, so she threw a rock at him and killed him. ‘Umar said, ‘By Allaah, there is no diyah for him ever’ i.e., she did not have to pay the ‘blood money’ for him. If it is permissible to defend one's money, which one can give away, then a woman defending and protecting herself and her honour which cannot be given away, is clearly more permissible than a man defending his money. If this is clear, then she is obliged to defend herself if she can, because letting someone overpower her [rape her] is haraam, and by not defending herself, she lets him overpower her.” [al-Mughni, 8/331]

And Allaah knows best. Al-Mufassal fi Ahkaam al-Mar’ah, 5/42-43.

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in al-Turuq al-Hukmiyyah, 18: “(Section) … A woman who had committed zinaa was brought to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allaah be pleased with him), and he asked her about it and she admitted it, so he commanded that she should be stoned. ‘Ali said: ‘Maybe she had a reason.’ So he said to her, ‘What made you do that?’ She said, ‘I had a partner who shared livestock with me; his camels had water and milk, and mine had none. I got thirsty, so I asked him to give me something to drink, but he refused unless I let him have his way with me. I refused three times, but I was so thirsty that I thought I was going to die, so I gave him what he wanted, and he gave me something to drink.’ ‘Ali said: ‘Allaahu akbar! “… But if one is forced by necessity without wilful disobedience nor transgressing due limits, then there is no sin on him. Truly Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” [al-Baqarah 2:173 – interpretation of the meaning].’”

In Sunan al-Bayhaqi it says: “From Abu ‘Abd al-Rahmaan al-Sulami, who said: ‘A woman was brought to ‘Umar who had been extremely thirsty, and had passed by a shepherd and asked him to give her something to drink; he had refused to give her something to drink unless she let him have his way with her. [‘Umar] consulted with the people as to whether he should have her stoned. ‘Ali said, ‘She was forced to do it. I think you should let her go.’ So he did so. I say: this is what should be done. If a woman is in desperate need of food and drink from a man, which he will not give her unless she lets him have his way with her, and she is scared that she will die without them, so she lets him have his way with her, then she is not to be punished. If it were asked, is it permissible for her in this situation to let him have his way with her, or does she have to suffer [her hunger and thirst] with patience, even if she dies? The answer is that her case is like that of a woman who is forced to commit zinaa, to whom it is said, ‘Either you let me have my way with you, or I will kill you.’ The woman who is forced to do this should not be punished; she can save herself from being killed in this manner, but if she bears it (i.e., being killed) with sabr (patience), this is better for her. (But she does not have to put up with with being killed). And Allaah knows best.”

Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

What are the limitation for a boy & girl during Engagement

Question:
i searched through all the relevent sections but i could not find the answer for my question.so i am asking it here. i was engaged to my present wife. and during the engagement period (before Nikah) we used to meet and touch and kiss and fondle with each other.. etc . but we never committed an intercourse. and later on we married. now i came accross the ayat of sura Noor for which some scholars say that a couple who had committed Zinna with each other, then they can not marry each other. another related question is that in some parts of pakistan people use to renew their marraige contract (Nikah) without any sharee requirement. Is it permissible to renew ones Nikah if the earlier nikah is still valid.

Answer:



Praise be to Allaah.

The marriage contract is valid and it is no need from an Islamic point of view to renew it simply because of a doubt. But what is mentioned in the first part of the question, about kissing the woman during the engagement period – if this was before the marriage contract (‘aqd or nikaah), then it is haraam. The same applies to being stimulated manually by the woman. But if it was after the marriage contract then there is nothing wrong with kissing. With regard to adulterers marrying one another, there is nothing wrong with that, after waiting out an ‘iddah period and after both parties have repented. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “Women impure are for men impure… and women of purity are for men of purity…” [al-Noor 24:26 - Yoosuf ‘Ali’ translation of the meaning]. Repentance is essential on the part of both, but it is not permissible to conclude the marriage contract until after the waiting-period and making sure that the woman is not pregnant as a result of zinaa. Once that has been established, there is no reason why they should not marry one another.

In your case, as you describe it in the question, there is no need to repeat the marriage contract, but you must both repent to Allaah for the forbidden relationship which you engaged in before you were married. And Allaah knows best.

Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

Kissing your Children according to Islam

Question:
Is it true that a father should not kiss his daughter on the mouth and that a mother should not kiss her son on the lips?

Answer:
Praise be to Allaah.

This is true. A man should not kiss his mother or daughter on the mouth. Similarly, a brother should not kiss his sister on the mouth, or his paternal aunt or his maternal aunt, or any of his mahrams. Kissing on the mouth is only for husband and wife. And Allaah knows best.




Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

How to create a toolbar for your portal - Like google and Yahoo tool bar

Its very easy to create a custom toolbar for you website or blog. Just follow the link below, create an account for free, customize your toolbar and give your users a new reason to visit your Website or Blog!!! :-D

http://www.conduit.com/Publishers/WebsiteSyndication.aspx

Do you have nomophobia?

Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

A recent article in the Evening Standard introduced a "new, peculiarly 21st century affliction" called nomophobia or "no mobile phobia," which is exactly what it sounds like - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Besides citing research that claims up to 53% of mobile phone users feel great anxiety when their phones run out of battery life or have no network coverage, the article also suggests ways to avoid nomophobia, such as carrying a charger at all times or remembering your most important phone numbers.

So are you a nomophobe? If you are, you're not alone. I suspect that many of us on the Google mobile team are nomophobes too!