Google's new Toolbar

[Aaron Dragushan]

I just found Google's new Toolbar. It's a pretty darn neat add-on for IE.

It has a search box right there, which is handy, and it has page ranking abilities, (sorta like Alexa.) To enable the page ranking your browser has to tell Google's servers where you are on the web though, which may be a privacy issue. On the other hand, I trust Google much more than Alexa for some reason. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
http://toolbar.google.com/

It's also got a cool little "up" button, so you can go up a directory by hitting a button.

[WildComputer]

Quite a few sites have this kinda of thing

One of the nicest things about IE, is it potentially extensible in all kinds of cool ways. I never personally found a use for this - but I know how to do it.

(if anybody wanted one, we could potentially code it for you for a fee).

If you are a C++ programmer, you can code IE extensions yourself using the "search hooks" or "web browser band", which is available in IE4 and up. This is covered in the MSDN docs. (be warned if you are a C++ novice, this is a non-trivial exercise)

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[Aaron Dragushan]

Thanks for the info, Wild. I didn't realize toolbars were so prevalent. It makes a lot of sense for IE to make them possible though, it's a great idea. It encourages other people to do development which makes their product better... and of course they're working for free! http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

Question for ya - how long do you figure it would take to code something similar to Google's toolbar? I have an idea but it'd have to pass data back and forth to a central server...

Happy New Years!

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Have also a look to www.ucmore.com (http://www.ucmore.com)

[WildComputer]

>> Question for ya - how long do you figure it would take to code something similar to Google's toolbar?

I guess it depends on who codes, I can only speak for myself...

(a) I figure it would take me around 1 day to check I really know how to do this (I am pretty confident but not 100%).

(b) I figure after that making a skeleton toolbar could take up to 5 days, maybe less.

(c) Adding functions to the toolbar... depends on what the functions are. If the toolbar just has web browsing (GET) or buttons to bring up programs and/or web sites, this is pretty easy... A more complicated or dynamic scenario could be a fair amount of work depending on what you needed.

(d) Assuming you want a simple installer program etc. This might be an extra day's work at somep point.

Right now, I don't have time, but I could find time (and/or somebody to code this for me under my guidance) in the not too distant future. If you wanted to do this, you'd have to pay for the time it took... I would do part (a) before you paid, and this part is only billable if successful (as I expect it to be).

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[Aaron Dragushan]

Thanks for the estimates, Wild. Most helpful...

I do have some ideas to explore, I'll bounce an email off you when I get closer to "action time." http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif


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[Rhea]

I like Google's toolbar a bunch. Google is my favorite search engine and I trust it for relevancy. (I also like ixquick.)

However, I'm puzzled as to how the ratings are determined. For example, my Pigs in a Polka page is in the top ten of Google's indexed pages for 'pigs' and 'polka'. And yet Google rates the main page as a 7 out of 10.

So what's the missing factor? I've searched Google's site hoping to find some documentation as to how the ratings are determined, but have found nothing.

I'm guessing that a site has to be on the scale of Yahoo!, eBay or MSNBC to rate a 10.

Anyone edified?

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