Slashdot Mirror
Google's X Files Vanish
An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports that Google's latest technology experiment paid tribute to Apple Computer, but the Mac OS X-themed version of the search king's Web site was taken down a day after its debut. Though that particular page was taken down, there is a screenshot here displaying how the icons were magnified as the mouse hovered over them."
You can see a working version (minus the images) at the google cache of the page. It is really neat. Sucks that it was taken down.
Ironically, this is still talked about on the Google's own Blog
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
In case you have a good use for it, you can find the HTML here:
9 7173&st=40&p=585627099&#entry585627099
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2
http://almostsmart.com
I was lucky enough to see the page before it was taken down, but a (non-zoomed) screenshot is linked from the article.
Here is a fully functional mirror of Google X:
http://www.theplaceforitall.com/googlex/
Dashboard Widgets
here and
here
John Susek
There's a mirror here: http://googlex.foxified.info/, from someone in ATM at DSLR.
Here's the mirrordot
There is a reason why the code looks like this: bandwidth. With the amount of people loading Google.com every day, even one character off their home page must make a significant difference.
Non Working Mirror of Page but it has a zip of all the files you need to run it locally, works too so I can still use it as my homepage. http://www.geocities.com/googlexmirror/
Apparently, anything put out to the public for google must run through an obfuscator/compressor.
The reasons would obviously be:
a) Bandwidth: All those extra characters (newlines, variable names, etc) can really add up.
b) Security: Competitors can't steal what they can't read.. or can they?
Definately cool, though!
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Why all this about Apple's legal department? Google Labs says that sites will be pulled down if they're too intensive on the Google Labs server, and this was a VERY popular layout today. It's quite possible that that is the reason they pulled it down. I doubt Apple would threaten them over something like this.
Quite possibly code re-coded. Ie it was obfuscated after the fact. Obfuscated might be a bad word, smallized might be a better one. ;)
because when a million slashdot users click the link to see, they don't want to waste any of their massive distributed server farms resources :) And it's just good practice as a web developer. He probably has a clearer version of the code kept for himself, thats what I do.
It's interesting to note that the OS X dock magnifier doesn't actually work like the google representation. Note that google magnifies the icons individually while OS X magnifies a radius around the cursor where the greatest magnification occurs at the center.
I was able to get a full working mirror before it went down, it can be found here:
http://www.eaglescrag.net/Googlex/
Well if I am looking at the right one, he should first learn about descriptive variable namees. There are a lot of single-letter variables and function names in there.
You're seeing the live version, stripped down to save a few bytes on every load. This is an incredibly common practice on sites with extremely high bandwidth use. Shaving off a few hundred or even thousand bytes on each of a few million page loads adds up. Look at this from Google's main page: "function sf(){document.f.q.focus();}"
There are scripts out there that will cut variable names down to one or two letters.
The code I used is available from logjjic.net at http://lojjic.net/script-library/OSXBar-doc.html . It's available freely to use as long as it's for a non-commercial purpose. I'm not an expert at javascript or DHTML so I used that and then modified bits and pieces to display the bar the way I wanted it.
JasonBlogs
The truth is out there. Or here: http://68.7.205.246:9500/googlex/Google.htm
1) Slashdot loves Apple.
h tml if you are curious).
/. news worthy. However, I'm not one that makes those kind of decisions.
2) Slashdot loves Google.
3) It looks kinda nifty.
4) It's not something most people expect HTML to be able to do.
I mean your same criticims apply to the actual dock. Tog (Bruce Tognazzini, founder of the orignal Apple Human Interface Group) did a writeup on the dock and complained about it as being a nice tech demo but not good for usability. One of the reasons was no labels on icons (http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.
However, seems clear in the case of Google it was just a tech demo. Some guy showing off some nifty stuff with DHTML. Doesn't look like Google was at all serious about actually using it as theri new interface. They've long maintaned a very simple, clean, compatible interface and this would break from that.
But ya, neat though it is, not sure it's front page
Be Gentle
GoogleX screenie from yesterday. Icons grow when your mouse hovers above. Looks like it could be done with only CSS extensions... but i digress. Take it easy on my server /. haha
http://hoteats.net/googlex.jpg
If I remember correctly, Australia has Registered Designs, which allow a company to register the design of something, like a clothing uniform, website design, or possible a program / os interface. Similar to how Registered Trademarks offer protection to words and logos.
You're thinking of the Lotus 123 case.
The difference was that Lotus didn't have a patent, they only had copyright, which as you rightly point out doesn't cover look and feel.
This time, though, Apple have a patent for the graphical design which means they may well be able to successfully sue those who copy the look and feel of their interface.
Which IMHO just goes to show how dumb patent law is these days, but hey, everyone's doing it so it might be right. Right? :-(
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
google x
http://www.iamcannabian.com/googlex/ has it! it even has a gmail link check it out!
Same happened in the infamous Apple vs. Microsoft lawsuit.
No, it didn't.
Instead of hearing that Apple lost that case and jumping to an incorrect conclusion about what it says, maybe you should actually read the ruling?
But, no, this is Slashdot, where people can't even be bothered to RTFA (which, talking about the current article, makes no mention of Apple legal putting pressure on Google). So, I'll sum the ruling up for you:
Apple sues Microsoft for stealing its "look and feel". Apple loses because the judge ruled that the license agreement that Microsoft had with Apple could be interpreted to give Microsoft right to the look and feel. Without the fuzziness in the license wording, Apple would have won easily.
- Tony
Oh, shut up! No one "wins easily". All contracts (and licenses) are about wording.
grandparent: He probably has a clearer version of the code kept for himself, thats what I do.
people work on the unobfuscated code. then when they make changes to it, they obfuscate it, test the obfuscated version, and post the obfuscated version.
the obfuscator returns a table showing which variable names have been changed to what, to make debugging easier.
Same way Microsoft is a monopoly. You're not forced to use it, but because everyone does, we call it a monopoly.