A while ago (sometime last year that I don’t remember anymore) I came across a quick blurb in a now long-forgotten Google blog entry telling users exactly how to get their names verified for their Google Profile pages.

It’s really simple, and free — the whole thing’s furnished by Knol, which has itself become somewhat forgotten when compared to Google’s many other ventures. I hadn’t given it much thought since, but with the recent advent of Google Buzz, our Google Profiles have taken on a whole new responsibility.

I also feel like I should have told more people about it when I got my own name verified, but that’s neither here nor there.

As I said before, it’s pretty easy to do, and should only take a couple of minutes to complete if you’ve got the right information on hand.

Disclaimer: This only works for Americans. Sorry (whole rest of the world), but the company is based here and the data they need to reference for verification is the kind that they can’t go looking for elsewhere.

Step 1: Go to Knol.

Google used their Knol service as the one-stop shop for name verification due to its extant system based on reputation, credibility, true name usage and basically the fact that it’s existence is contingent upon its users not being trolls.

Once at Knol, look up to the top right corner of the page and sign in. Even if you’re already logged into other Google services, it’s likely that when you load Knol you won’t be signed in yet. It uses your regular Google account so this won’t be a problem for anybody already using Buzz or Gmail.

Once you’re signed in, look back to the same top right corner and see that the options have changed to include a link to your Knol preferences. Click the link.

Step 2: Choose the tab for Name Verification.

Seriously, I wasn’t kidding when I said it was easy. Once you’re in Knol Preferences, choose the tab that says Name Verification. You’re almost done.

Once you’ve clicked the tab for Name Verification, you’re presented with two options:

Step 3: Verify.

Now you’ve got an easy decision to make. You can either verify your identity by using a credit card, or by using your Social Security Number. Either works just as well as the other, but since there are still masses of people who seem to think their SSN is somehow both secret and special in some way, the credit option is a safe bet.

Once you submit your info, the system processes it rather quickly. In fact, you may have a note in your inbox telling you it’s done before you close the tab. Now simply go to your Google Profile page, et voila! You’re verified.

I happened across a wonderful surprise tonight as I went to fetch something using Google’s Image Search. Right there on the front page, sat an invitation to Explore images using Google Image Swirl.

Almost Ready

Google talked about this back in mid-november and even had a rocky preview available for users to try out. Afterwards it was quietly forgotten about by most, and just recently people have begun to see it linked from the front page of Google Image Search.

Clicking the link on the starter page takes you into Swirl, which then nudges you into searching for something. It has a pre-selected list of queries that they use to showcase the technology, such as Andy Warhol, but you can choose your own.

Easy on the Eyes

It’s nice, and by nice I mean it’s amazing. Everyone had mixed feelings when Bing popped up with its Silverlight-powered Visual Search (my feelings weren’t mixed at all — I think it’s garbage), but this offering from Google is just as pure and inviolate as the rest of their stable of search-related tools. You don’t need an obnoxious and unwanted plug-in to use it.

On first glance, it appears to basically to group similar images together into families of distinguishable likeness, and then array them for the user to choose what type of image they’re looking for to best suit their query. Say, for instance, that you searched for Jaguar. Oldschool Image Search wouldn’t know if you meant the big cat, or the overpriced car, and it would show a jumbled mess of both depending on which had hired better SEO consultants. Swirl seems to leverage the same data, while mixing it with pixel-data to allow it to divide the pictures so that like mingles with like. This lets the user choose right off the bat whether they meant to look for cats, or cars.

Try Swirl Now: http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/

Once you select a family of like images, you’re presented with an exploded grouping of those images, and a tree of any sub-groupings composed of variants that may interest you. Hovering the mouse over the main image of the family tree will show data like image size and source, along with an option to pop it out to its own window.

It’s a little rough around the edges at the moment, and doesn’t even work for all search terms yet (my default search term for engine tests is monkies, it didn’t even let me try), but it’s not bad considering it’s only just getting started. I’m quite eager to see how it shapes up in the weeks to come.

My inbox had a nice surprise for me tonight; Google floated a Christmas present to Gmail users, and it was nice. I don’t mean like closed-beta nice, or anything of the sort — their gift is $20 million in charity to a laundry-list of both national and international organizations.

See the gift here.

When Google says everyone, they really mean it.

Yes, they’ve finally done it. After months of talk about incorporating the mounds of real-time data to which Google has access, they’re finally piping it all into their own search results. The sources they listed are some pretty big names: Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace, and Jaiku, among others — and that’s not counting the major media outlets they’ve also tapped to glean time-sensitive information.

See the official release for more details.

Annoyingly, of course, all anyone can say about this (aside from it’s about damn time) is that “Bing must be nudging them to be more competitive.” I can’t help but recall the fact that Google was in talks with Twitter regarding real-time search results several months before Bing ever existed.

Personalization without Google sign-in is enabled via anonymous cookie, while active accounts benefit from a beefed up version of already extant personalized search results — results now bolstered by location, search terms, search history, and web history. This all makes search results potentially more relevant to users, but not everyone is comfortable with this. I am, but I think I may become slightly more of a minority with every new release/advance/acquisition that Google makes. Either way, for the tinfoil-hat wearing masses out there, it only takes a couple of minutes to disable the whole thing.

Easy to Disable:

Logged into Google or not, the new personalized search is easy to deactivate. For Google account-holders, it’s as simple as removing Web History from their Google accounts.

The cookie that enables personalized search for users not signed-in to Google runs a lifespan of 180 days unless either removed by the user, or disabled via preference — at Google — here’s how:

1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
2. On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.

Ironically, the preference to disable the cookie is in fact stored on the user’s computer as a cookie. Because of this, users should remember that clearing the affected browser’s cookies will reactivate the feature, which brings me to my last point.

Hate Google?

If, by chance, you despise Google and never meant to allow such a cookie on your system, completely removing it is as simple as clearing your browser’s cookies.

Official pages on the matter:

• Official Google Blog Post
• Google Code Overview
• Google Code Instructions

It’s as easy as entering two numbers in your internet connection settings. The payoff is minimal, but I’m quite happy to be using Google’s servers instead of Comcast’s.

Notice Anything?

It’s not a huge difference, but it’s noticeable to those who use Google regularly. The front landing page is now more obviously inviting and accessible for touch-screen devices. The results page is cleaner with formerly hidden options brought to light as standard fare, and sidebar prominence. Overall, they’ve upped the efficiency while keeping it classy, and that’s all anyone could ask when something as iconic as Google’s design gets tweaked.

You Can Activate It For Your Account

The Method is dead simple — you set a cookie. You have to do this for every browser in which you want the new design to take effect. After that, when using a browser that you’ve activated, your entire account will be opened for the redesign. Here’s how to do it:

• Go to Google.com
• Clear your browser’s address bar once there, then enter this code:

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com");

iPhone users: It doesn’t appear to work for mobile Safari, but if you’d like to try the code anyway, click here.

• Press Enter.
• Nothing should happen. You’re only setting a cookie; the change will not take effect until you reload Google again.
• (Reload Google)

Voila! Now, bear in mind that the redesign isn’t in effect for every page in Google’s lineup just yet, so don’t be surprised when you click on Images and see the regular old interface for now. It’s not only experimental, but much like Wave, it’s also incomplete. Also, should you run into difficulty, or in the odd chance the cookie goes bad and stops Google from loading correctly, simply clear out your cookies like you’re taking out the trash. No harm, no foul. That being said, happy Googling :)

Thanks to Matt Karolian and the guys at Gizmodo for getting this out to people.

And now I have to change all my home pages back to regular Google.

No matter what you’ve heard, Wave does work on iPhones.

There’s recently been a bit of a murmur about Waveboard, a “client” for Google Wave, and whether or not it’s worth the download. I’m going to say the answer is a technical no. Please, feel free to give it a try for yourselves, but for those of you out there who are curious — but not that curious — don’t bother.

Waveboard: What is it?

I’ll open up by saying what it’s not: Waveboard is not an app. It’s presented like one, it’s referred to as one, it’s even downloaded and installed like one, but it’s not. It’s nothing more than a site-specific browser (see: Fluid) with Growl built into it. That being said, there’s no monumental reason not to use it — there just isn’t any reason to use it. The only plusses you’ll get in using Waveboard will be notifications popping up on your screen (which will inevitably get annoying), and a separate browser devoted singularly to Wave that will not crash when the most recent Facebook app breaks in one of your open browser-tabs.

Waveboard is available as both a desktop application as well as an iPhone app. At the time of this article, both run poorly.

What about the iPhone?

People have thus far been pretty quick to see the uselessness in Waveboard’s desktop app, but they’ve not been so quick to see the same logic concerning the iPhone. The problem is a simple one, it’s just misunderstanding. When a user goes to wave.google.com on their iPhone, they are greeted with the very same warning splash that users with unsupported browsers receive. The key here is to read the whole splash warning, which ends in a tiny clause that gives the option (via hyperlink) to proceed at one’s own risk.

Those intrepid enough to select this option and press their luck will then proceed into Wave. They’ll find an iPhone specific, gmail-esque webapp in fully functioning and very efficient working order, and they’ll see their inbox populate before their eyes. People need to realize that when they’re surfing the web on an iPhone, that they are in fact using Safari, that they’re browsing a full-blown webkit browser. As you can see from the image; Wave works on iPhones.

The first thing that you’ll notice when using Wave on an iPhone is the speed, or lack thereof. Wave is extremely intense for browsing on the iPhone, and its framework is young. That being said, it’s a shaky experience. As it stands, Wave in a desktop browser is already plagued with constant loading activity. This is because unlike emails, which simply show up, waves are always checking in and updating. All that data can be a bit much for the iPhone to handle, and the overall user experience suffers in the long run. None of this changes the fact that it’s actually working.

The Logical Desktop Alternative:

Aside from the obvious “just be more careful about crashing your browser, and use less tabs” approach, there is a sensible alternative that works quite well. Simply use another browser. This is done as simply as opening two browsers, and using the second only for Wave. What I’ve found to work quite well, being that I currently use Safari 4 as my primary (default) browser due to its native 64-bit operating mode, is to open an instance of Google Chrome, which would be used solely for Wave and wave-related browsing. This way, when I hit a link in Wave, my activity stays within the same browser as Wave. Everything is clean and simple; no worrying about either browser affecting the other.

If you’re a big fan of site-specific browsers, there’s always the option of simply using Fluid on your own, to create an SSB for Wave. It won’t have the extra clunky business that the folks at Waveboard have somehow managed to introduce, since it will be an SSB in its simplest form. Again, I honestly don’t see a reason to ever do this, but there’s also no real reason not to do it if it makes you happy.

Happy Waving.

Yep. It really happened. An ad appeared on the Google homepage.