Google Search page has been around almost as long as I have on the Internet, which is too scary to think how long this actually is. The main search page has been kept the model of simplicity, both in terms of design and of usability. This simplicity has helped Google become iconic.

Whist there have been a long running stream of tweaks to the page, very little of this simple design has been changed. With Google now reaching out with their Chrome OS operating system on devices like the Asus Transformer Prime, the main search page is in for a bit of a major facelift.

I must confess that I do rely on Google for a lot of services, not just search but also email, calendars, blogging, websites, RSS reader and so on.. So I am very keen to see what changes are coming to the search page and other services.

From the information available so far, things are looking promising. The clean and simple look is going to be retained and a new Google bar and menu system will help you move quickly between the different services.

The current black Google bar is replace by this with a more subtle design. The Google logo will provide an application menu and although this requires an additional kick with the mouse, hopefully it will make the Google apps I use most frequently easier to select.

When this new year present from Google arrives I hope I will find it a welcome one. Check out the blog post and video on this change from Google itself.

Thank you.
@jr0cket

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Although Google have decided not to continue with Google Wave as a service, Google have stated that the existing wave.google.com site and waves will still be around into 2011.

It is a real shame that this service is going away as it was great for conferences and events and lots of other collaborative working opportunities. Perhaps when more people discover the benefits of collaborative working then another service such as rich as wave will emerge. Until then its back to either basic Google docs or pastebin, both of which are good at what they do but limited compared to all the plugins that were available for Wave.

I found another alternative to wave, PyGoWave, which looks promising but their public site is running on a test server (at the time of writing). Something to try out over the holidays.

I am also interested in running my own wave server in a box, but my Internet service provider may have other ideas about that!!

Lets hope we all find rich ways to collaborate with each other in 2011.

Thank you.
@jr0cket

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 ShareAlike License, including custom images & stylesheets. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at @jr0cket

If you find your browsing a little slow or find that some sites are blocked by your ISP, then you can try using the Google Public DNS as an alternative (full set up details). Here is the how and why of setting up your Internet connection via Google DNS on Ubuntu.

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A Google Wave has been set up for the Lean and Kanban exchange being held at Skills Matter on Tuesday 1st December.

The wave will be updated during each talk with a summary, please add your contributions at the same time if you can - wave is collaborative so join in… Dont worry if what you type it not perfect…

Direct link to wave: http://bit.ly/7yiiQ2

Or search for the wave in the Navigation panel or type in the search criteria in the Inbox panel search box. Either way you should use the following text:

with:public tag:#leankanbanX 
with:public tag:skillsmatter

Until you follow a wave or are added by someone, you need to include the with:public, otherwise google wave will just look at your inbox.

Once you are following the wave you can find it in your overcrowded inbox by using tag:#leankanbanX or tag:skillsmatter GoogleWave accounts are by invite only at present, if you need an invite please let me know.

Thank you.
@jr0cket

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 ShareAlike License, including custom images & stylesheets. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at @jr0cket