Google Developers Blog: April 2012

More ways to measure your website's performance with User Timings

Monday, April 30, 2012

By Satish Kambala and Mustafa M. Tikir, Google Analytics TeamCross-posted from the Google Analytics BlogSite Speed reports_trackTimingdevelopers guideHere are some sample use cases for User Timings

To track timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event.

A site can have their own definition of "User Perceived Load Time", which can be recorded and tracked with user timings. As an example, news websites can record time for showing the above fold content as their main metric instead of onLoad time.

Detailed performance measurement and optimization of sub components on a page, such as time to load all images, CSS or Javascript, download PDF files and time it takes to upload a file.

Want to check out User Timings Report in your account?Explorer tabtiming code

Avg. User Timing—the average amount of time (in seconds) it takes for the timed code to execute

User Timing Sample—the number of samples taken

Performance tab

Map Overlay tabSatish Kambala and Mustafa M. Tikir are on the Google Analytics TeamPosted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Fridaygram: translation birthday, photos in trees, giants on streets

Friday, April 27, 2012

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor6th anniversaryGoogle Translate’s statistical machine translation technologynow performs most of the translation work on EarthLOOK3 Festival of the Photographdisplays images high among the treesgiant marionettesYouTube videos of the giants’ visit

Fridaygram posts are made for fun, not technical value. They have been designed for your Friday and weekend enjoyment. Items that are interesting to us nerds are published in these posts. By the way, today has been declared Passive Voice Day 2012, so make sure that fun is had!

African developers finding success with Google technologies

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

By Chukwuemeka Afigbo, Program Manager, Sub-Saharan AfricaCross-posted from the Google Africa Blog
Creating applications and services that use Google platforms to make the internet more relevant to Africans is a big part of Google’s vision in Africa. This is why we are always excited whenever we come across individuals or companies whose efforts are in line with this vision. Here are a few of the interesting applications we have seen in recent months.

Battabox, co founded by Christian Purefoy and Yemisi Ilo, is an online social television platform developed in Nigeria that aims to provide everything Nigerian from music, film, street-life to news, comedy and cooking using the YouTube platform. Crowdsourcing videos is an important part of the Battabox strategy and they were able to achieve this using YouTube Direct running on Google App Engine integrated into their website. They also provided an Android App that enables users to upload videos directly from their Android phones.
Battabox website screenshot

There are many other examples from further afield. In South Africa we met Nomanini who have a Google App Engine backend for Lula, their airtime vending device, which promises to change the way airtime is distributed in the region. Envaya SMS is an amazing application that turns your Android phone into an SMS gateway and has been used by many NGOs in East Africa. SAF SMS is a school management solution built with Google Web Toolkit that has been adopted in more than 100 schools in Nigeria. We also met Serengeti Advisers, a consultancy firm in Tanzania that uses Google Chart Tools to create interactive reports on their website.

Nomanini’s Lula terminal communicates with a backend powered by Google App Engine

As part of our drive to meet and interact with app developers in Africa, our Android Developer Relations team also recently hosted the developers of AfriNolly and the Nigerian Constitution Android app on their weekly Android DevRel office hours hangout on Google+ for Europe, Middle East and Africa. At the hangout, these African developers shared information about their apps with other Android developers.

You can follow the exploits of these and more developers in Sub Saharan Africa as they continue to make things happen with Google APIs and platforms by keeping an eye on our case studies page.

Do you feel your app should be featured here? Let us know!
Chukwuemeka Afigbo is a Program Manager in the Sub-Saharan Africa Outreach Team. He is an avid football (soccer) fan.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Introducing Google Drive and the Google Drive SDK

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

By Mike Procopio, Software Engineerwe're announcing Google Drive18 web appsGoogle Drive SDK

Chrome Web StoreCreate and collaborateLucidchartStore everything safely and access it everywhereMindMeisterSearch everythingHelloFaxdevelopers.google.com/driveGetting StartedStack OverflowHangout10:30 AM PDT / 17:30 UTCGoogle Apps Developer BlogMike Procopio is a Software Engineer for Google Drive, focusing on all things Drive apps. He gets to leverage his passion for the developer and user experience by working on the next-generation APIs that help unleash Google Drive. Before joining Google in 2010, he was a machine learning researcher, and enjoys engaging in illuminating statistical discussions at every opportunity.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Fridaygram: student photographers, space video, shuttle sights

Friday, April 20, 2012

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog EditorGoogle Photography Prizeamazing work

Photo by Sasha Tamarin
the best view in the solar systemInternational Space StationU. S. Space Shuttleincredible sightsOn the land or in the sky, Fridaygram posts are just for fun. They're designed for your Friday and weekend enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to us nerds.

Changes to deprecation policies and API spring cleaning

Friday, April 20, 2012

By Adam Feldman, APIs Product ManagerOne-year API deprecation policiesGoogle APIs Terms of Service

Google App Engine

Google Cloud Storage

Google Maps/Earth APIs

YouTube API

Clearer deprecation policy languageGoogle Maps/Earth APIsRemoval of deprecation policiesAccounts APIAdSense Host APIChart Tools APICheckout APIContacts APICustom Search APIDocuments APIDoubleclick for Publishers APIFeed APIGoogle Apps Admin APIsLibraries APIOrkut APIPicasa Web Albums APIPrediction APIRetirement of older APIs

We are deprecating the Moderator API and Legacy Portable Contacts API, as well as part of the Account Authentication APIs (ClientLogin, AuthSub and OAuth 1.0) and Google Chart Tools (Image Charts and Infographics).

We are also deprecating the non-current versions of the Spreadsheets, Contacts, Documents List and Freebase APIs.

Finally, we are adding a shutdown date for the Finance API and Feedburner Administrative APIs, which were deprecated last year.

Our commitment to developersAdam Feldman is a Product Manager, focusing on all of Google's APIs and making sure Google provides the best possible platform to developers.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Code Jam’s Sprint to Google I/O

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

By Igor Naverniouk, Software Engineer, Code Jam

7:00 AM PDT / 14:00 UTCThe 100 top scoring developers to solve at least one two-part challenge will be given the opportunity to purchase tickets to Google I/O, which sold out in just over 20 minutes this year.registerquick-startpractice questions+Google Developers7:00 AMUpdate 9:20 PM: We've edited this post to clarify exactly how the successful entries will be determined. Please read the bold sentence above for details.Code Jam is a worldwide programming competition in which contestants may use any programming language to solve algorithmic problems. Although registration for Code Jam 2012 is now closed, developers can still compete in our Sprint to Google I/O for a chance to purchase a ticket to the conference for $900.As his main job, Igor Naverniouk builds analytics for Google Play. In his 20% time, he works on programming challenges for Code Jam.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Back to Morocco: g|maroc 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

By Rania Hadi, MENA Outreach ManagerView this post in Arabicfirst g|day of 2012g|maroc 2012g|marocregister nowRania Hadi has been with Google since 2004 and now works on Outreach in the Middle East & North Africa. She focuses on building relationships and promoting Google technologies with the developer and tech communities.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Add SPDY support to your Apache server with mod_spdy

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Bryan

Matthew

By Matthew Steele and Bryan McQuade,
PageSpeed Insights TeamPageSpeedGoogle ChromeSPDY protocolInstalling mod_spdymod_spdy Debian or RPM packagecompile from source

The server and browser can compress HTTP headers, saving bytes on the network.

Multiple resource requests can be multiplexed over a single TCP connection, saving connections on the network.

The browser can request all page resources at once instead of a few at a time, which reduces the number of network round-trips needed between server and client.

How mod_spdy works in Apache

Download mod_spdymailing listopen-source projectMatthew Steele and Bryan McQuade are Software Engineers on the Google PageSpeed Insights Team in Cambridge, MA. When not working on mod_spdy, they focus on developing tools to help site owners understand how to speed up their sites.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Register now for the global Dart hackathon

Monday, April 16, 2012

By Seth Ladd, Developer AdvocateCross-posted with the Chromium BlogSign up

North America:

Silicon Valley, California, USA

South America:

São Paulo, Brazil

Europe and Middle East:

London, England
Prague, Czech Republic
Tel Aviv, Israel

Asia:

Bacolod City, Philippines
Chandigarh, India
Goa, India
Karnataka, India
Manipal, India
New Delhi, India
Seoul, Korea
Tokyo, Japan

full list

Dart projectRegister todaySeth Ladd is a Developer Advocate with the Chrome team, and is having a grand ol' time learning Dart.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Fridaygram: Chrome tools, Goldberg machines, Lehrer songs

Friday, April 13, 2012

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog EditorGoogle Chrome Canarystable version of Chrome

see the documentationRube Goldberg Machine ContestTom Lehrerclassic tunesFridaygram posts are just for fun. They're designed for your Friday and weekend enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to us nerds. Disclaimer: we do not advocating poisoning pigeons, whether in the park or elsewhere.

Join Hack4Kids, the second edition of the EUHackathon in Brussels

Thursday, April 12, 2012

By Marco Pancini, Senior Policy CounselEUhackathonHack4Kids

applicationhttp://www.euhackathon.euhttp://suggestions.euhackathon.euMarco Pancini was part of the start-up project iBazar, the first online auction web site in Europe, and after that he joined eBay from 2002 to 2007. In July 2007 he joined the Google team as policy counsel in charge of government relationship for the Italian market. Since February 2011 he has been a member of the Google policy team in Brussels.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Fridaygram: 3D graphs, battling bacteria, viewing art

Friday, April 6, 2012

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editorgraphing capability to Google Searchadd 3D graphing

WebGLinactivates bacteria on skinGoogle Art ProjectFridaygram posts are just for fun. They're designed for your Friday and weekend enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to us nerds. And just because you read this far, here are a couple of bonus links: a test of Google’s self-driving car, and a very special 2D graph.

Join us for g|Senegal and g|Cote d’Ivoire

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

By Tidjane Deme, Lead Francophone, Google Africa and Melina Mattos, Program Manager, Google Africaonline with Google+EastWest Africafeaturedg|SenegalPlace du SouvenirDakar Google Technology User Groupg|Cote d'Ivoire#gsenegal#gcotedivoirePosted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Google Cloud Storage: high performance that just works

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Ville

Navneet

By Navneet Joneja, Product Manager,
and Ville Aikas, Technical Lead1. Network

Serve the request from as close to the user as possible

Optimize the network routing between the end-user and the service, including avoiding pockets of network congestion and minimizing the number of network hops between the user and the service.

2. Storage

Google Cloud Storage is built on Google’s proprietary network and datacenter technology. We’ve spent more than a decade building out proprietary infrastructure and technology to power Google’s sites (after all, we believe that fast is better than slow). When you use Google Cloud Storage, the same network goes to work for your data.

We replicate data to multiple data centers and serve an end-user’s request from the nearest data center that holds a copy of the data. We also offer a choice of regions (currently U.S. and Europe) to allow you to keep your data close to where it’s most needed. We then take this one step further. When you upload an object and mark it as cacheable (by setting the standard HTTP Cache-Control header), we automatically figure out how best to serve it using Google’s broad network footprint, including caching it closer to the end-user if possible.

Finally, you don’t need to worry about optimizing your storage layout (like you would on a physical disk), or the lookups (i.e. directory and naming structure) like you would on most file systems and some other storage services. We take care of all the "file system" optimizations behind the scenes.

Google Cloud StorageNavneet Joneja loves being at the forefront of the next generation of simple and reliable software infrastructure, the foundation on which next-generation technology is being built. When not working, he can usually be found dreaming up new ways to entertain his intensely curious almost-two-year-old.Ville Aikas likes to work on tools and services that make developers lives easier and "just work". When not busy cranking out code, he loves to play soccer with his kids, build robots and watch F1.Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

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