AdSense for mobile content now integrated with DoubleClick Mobile
Last week we launched our new mobile image ads, which give mobile web publishers the flexibility to display image ads in addition to text ads on their sites. As of today, AdSense for mobile content publishers who have configured their sites to display mobile image ads can now have ads served to their sites from DoubleClick Mobile. This means more advertisers for AdSense for mobile content publishers, more inventory for DoubleClick Mobile advertisers, and more ad relevance for browsers of the mobile web.
Read our press release to find out more.
Tips on writing scalable apps
Google App Engine makes writing scalable apps easier, and a well-designed app should be able to grow automatically from one user to millions. What does it mean for a Google App Engine application to be "well-designed," though? Here are a few simple tips that, if you design with them in mind, should help ensure your App will stand up with grace and aplomb, even under heavy load.
- Avoid contention on datastore entities. If every request to your app reads or writes a particular entity, latency will increase as your traffic goes up because reads and writes on a given entity are sequential. One example construct you should avoid at all costs is the gobal counter, i.e. an entity that keeps track of a count and is updated or read on every request. There are some interesting ways of simulating this behavior that don't require reads/writes on every request, and we'll talk about a handy way to cache entities for reads below.
- Avoid large entity groups. Any two entities that share a common ancestor belong to the same entity groups. All writes to an entity group are sequential, so large entity groups can bog down popular apps quickly if there are a lot of writes to that group. Instead, use small, localized groups in your design.
- Write sparingly. Writes are more expensive than reads; keep this in mind when designing your data model. If you can avoid a write--it's best to do so.
- Define a
main()function for code reuse. Instances of your app are kept running for a certain period after each request, so there's a chance that any request will hit an already-running app. Apps that definemainas in the following example:
def main():
application = webapp.WSGIApplication(_URLS, debug=True)
wsgiref.handlers.CGIHandler().run(application)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
canreuse global variables, so although there's no guarantee that any given request will hit a running app instance, you can take advantage of this to non-deterministically cache entities and other expensive values. This works simply because App Engine will detect ifmain()is present in an already-loaded script and call it instead of re-importing. - Profile your code. You can use the Python profiler to profile your code's performance.
Do you have tips for scaling web apps on App Engine? Post them in our Google Group!
new shoes & books: a great combo
Let me preface by saying that I'm not a huge reader... Most of the time, I'd rather curl up and watch a movie than sit with a book for a long period of time. However, there are certain times where I just crave a good book because it helps me relax (and I like to feel a little smarter).
So-- on Friday, after my boss took us out to lunch and a movie, I had the WHOLE afternoon to do whatever I wanted! Since I was already at the mall, I decided to do some much-needed shoe shopping (thanks Ryan!) and then I ventured into Barnes & Noble... Wow. That place is like a drug. With the smell of coffee, comfy chairs and stacks of books everywhere, that place makes anyone feel so happy!! I decided I needed a good devotional and a book about marriage. So, I ventured into the Christian Inspiration section and found 2 great-looking books (I do, in fact, judge books by their covers--can't help it). It didn't hurt that I had already heard some great things about them. And here they are:
This book has been incredible so far... It basically just lists, chapter by chapter, ways that I can pray for Ryan in every aspect of his life...I mean, I've always known that it's a good thing to pray for your husband, but this is a book that tells me what to specifically pray for in the most selfless way possible. It's been really cool to see how my attitude towards him has changed (as well as our relationship) since I've started praying for him in these ways... I'm loving it so far!!!
This is an awesome 40-day devotional journal by Beth Moore that is very interactive and concise for us "busy girls" on the go. There's a small passage filled with great verses, and then plenty of room for answering application questions and writing out your prayers for the day and lift up what you've just learned. So far, it's been great for me to just step out of my busy day and get some peaceful reflection on everything in my life. I can't wait to see everything that I learn in the next few weeks!
P.S. I'll post pics soon of our awesome & fun trip to Waco this past weekend!
So-- on Friday, after my boss took us out to lunch and a movie, I had the WHOLE afternoon to do whatever I wanted! Since I was already at the mall, I decided to do some much-needed shoe shopping (thanks Ryan!) and then I ventured into Barnes & Noble... Wow. That place is like a drug. With the smell of coffee, comfy chairs and stacks of books everywhere, that place makes anyone feel so happy!! I decided I needed a good devotional and a book about marriage. So, I ventured into the Christian Inspiration section and found 2 great-looking books (I do, in fact, judge books by their covers--can't help it). It didn't hurt that I had already heard some great things about them. And here they are:
This book has been incredible so far... It basically just lists, chapter by chapter, ways that I can pray for Ryan in every aspect of his life...I mean, I've always known that it's a good thing to pray for your husband, but this is a book that tells me what to specifically pray for in the most selfless way possible. It's been really cool to see how my attitude towards him has changed (as well as our relationship) since I've started praying for him in these ways... I'm loving it so far!!!
This is an awesome 40-day devotional journal by Beth Moore that is very interactive and concise for us "busy girls" on the go. There's a small passage filled with great verses, and then plenty of room for answering application questions and writing out your prayers for the day and lift up what you've just learned. So far, it's been great for me to just step out of my busy day and get some peaceful reflection on everything in my life. I can't wait to see everything that I learn in the next few weeks!P.S. I'll post pics soon of our awesome & fun trip to Waco this past weekend!
i love my job.
Our team just finished writing for the Fall/Winter big book, which is one of the biggest books of the year (with over 700 pages). Every time we finish a big book, whether it's the Spring/Summer one or the Fall/Winter, our boss Steve takes our team out for a celebration. Most of the time, it's a late breakfast at IHOP or a fun lunch. This time, we're going to lunch and then out for a movie...but the best part is that we can leave after the movie at like 2! It's basically like an afternoon off just for doing our job! Umm... how much do I love my job? A LOT.
Yay for Horton Hears a Who! I'll tell y'all how it goes :)
P.S. Speaking of JCP catalogs, take a look at this one from 1977... Pretty funny stuff (as well as the captions!).
Yay for Horton Hears a Who! I'll tell y'all how it goes :)
P.S. Speaking of JCP catalogs, take a look at this one from 1977... Pretty funny stuff (as well as the captions!).
Google App Engine + Google Data APIs: A Match Made on the Web
Don't you think it'd be cool if you could blog about a party, add it to your calendar and invite all your friends in one fell swoop? After the party, how about viewing photos and videos from the event in the same application? The Google Data APIs make all this possible, and your Google App Engine apps can use feeds from Google services to display and update information for a particular user stored by these services.
The Google Data APIs team just released an update to the Google Data Python client library which includes support for Google App Engine. With this library, your app can now use AuthSub to gain access to your users' feeds.
Jeff Scudder, member of the Google Data APIs team and the main contributor to the Google Data Python client library, has written an article that takes you through all of the steps necessary to use Google Data feeds in your Google App Engine application. He's even added his sample application to our Google App Engine sample code project.
Try out it, and let us know what you come up with!
New mobile image ads
The mobile ads team is happy to announce the launch of mobile image ads. These look like standard image ads for desktop web pages but they are smaller to fit on mobile screens and they run on the mobile content network. Take a look at the mobile image ads example page to see samples. Also, watch the video below to see my interview with Sanjay Agarwal, a mobile ads engineer, and his demo. Note that all mobile image ads are keyword-targeted, are priced on a cost-per-click basis, and must link to a mobile web page.
For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good clickthrough rates. Advertisers using mobile image ads will also benefit because we only show one image ad per mobile page. For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility. They can now choose to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time the ad is shown. Publishers who are already using AdSense for mobile content just need to update their AdSense code to start displaying mobile ads on their site.
For those of you who are mobile web surfers, mobile image ads provide a new way to interact with mobile content. Contextual targeting keeps ads relevant, and with only one mobile image ad shown per page, you can uninhibitedly browse mobile websites while clicking only on the ads that interest you.
Mobile image ads are currently available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the US. As always, leave questions and comments below or on our YouTube channel.
So, Marina is awesome, and she totally made our new blog look great! She's wonderful to work with, and she's willing to do anything you want to give your blog a cute update :) Check her out here.
random updates
Well...life has been pretty uneventful lately... great, but uneventful. So, I'm just going to list a few random updates on our life :)
- we went to the bank on Friday and finally combined our checking accounts...woot woot! we're officially adults!
- did nothing all weekend but relax and take Scout for a walk on a pretty trail
- getting stir crazy, though... need a new project.
- allergies are the devil, and they keep us from going to church :(
- we're grilling out at Steph & Cat's tonight.. it's bring your own meat night!
- Steph, Allie & I are having SO much fun planning Machen's baby shower for Elizabeth Joy... it's our first baby, and we're tickled pink!
- taking our first married road trip this weekend to the exciting, thriving metropolis of Waco! why? because we can! and we miss good ol BU, too :)
That's about it... nothing Earth-shattering, but there you have it.
- we went to the bank on Friday and finally combined our checking accounts...woot woot! we're officially adults!
- did nothing all weekend but relax and take Scout for a walk on a pretty trail
- getting stir crazy, though... need a new project.
- allergies are the devil, and they keep us from going to church :(
- we're grilling out at Steph & Cat's tonight.. it's bring your own meat night!
- Steph, Allie & I are having SO much fun planning Machen's baby shower for Elizabeth Joy... it's our first baby, and we're tickled pink!
- taking our first married road trip this weekend to the exciting, thriving metropolis of Waco! why? because we can! and we miss good ol BU, too :)
That's about it... nothing Earth-shattering, but there you have it.
Google App Engine Hack-a-thons!
In May, Google will be holding two free Google App Engine developer events: one in New York and one in San Francisco.
Learn about Google App Engine
The events will include training on the major features of Google App Engine, including data modeling, the App Engine APIs, some aspects of Django, and how to mashup App Engine with other web services. Google Engineers and Product Managers will be on hand to help and answer questions throughout the day.
As well as covering the Google App Engine SDK, we will show you how to deploy and manage your own applications on Google App Engine servers. For people who don't already have a Google App Engine account, we will be inviting people who come to the hack-a-thon to develop on App Engine.
Build With Us, or Build Your Own
We will use the information shared at the event to build up a working Google App Engine application throughout the day, which you can code along with us. On the other hand, if you already have a great idea for what to build, bring that idea along. Even better, bring along anything you can prepare ahead of time (sketches, designs, web page mock ups, etc.) and use the time and information provided to develop your idea into a working application, then share it with the world.
What Do I Need?
We will provide facilities, power, food and refreshments and experts to help you learn to use Google App Engine and write your application. Just bring your laptops, ideas and enthusiasm to complete the mix. We will assume some basic skills and preparation for the event, and these details will be provided soon.
When and Where?
The first event will be in New York, on May 7th from 10am to 6pm. The second will be in San Francisco on May 16th from 10am to 10pm. Space is limited so sign up now!
New York Hack-a-thon
San Francisco Hack-a-thon
Google App Engine Helper for Django
Since the launch of Google App Engine one of the most common requests has been for better integration with the popular Django framework.
We've been working hard and we've made available a helper that eases the process of developing a Django project to run on Google App Engine.
The helper will initially provide you with:
- The ability to use most manage.py commands
- A BaseModel class that appears the same as the standard Django Model class.
- The ability to serialize and deserialize model instances to JSON, YAML and XML.
- Access to Django's test framework with a test datastore and support for fixtures.
You can download the helper from http://code.google.com/p/google-app-engine-django. Issues and Feature Requests should be added to the tracker within that project.
don't hate me, Machen :)
Now available: orkut on your mobile phone
Have you ever wanted to check if your buddy responded to your scrap about this evening's plans, but not been close to a computer? Do you wish you could pass the time on your long commute home by browsing through your friends' profiles?
Fret no more -- if you have a web-enabled phone and a data plan, just point your mobile web browser to m.orkut.com, and stay connected to your friends anytime, anywhere.
We understand that often your phone's data network isn't as fast as your computer's, so in designing orkut for mobile we focused on offering the features that are most useful when you're on the move, instead of replicating all the desktop features. For example, we've made it easy to send, receive, and respond to scraps on our mobile interface so that you can step away from your computer and have conversations on the go. From your phone, simply click the new "Reply" link to respond directly to a scrap from your friend. You can also read recent updates from your friends, view upcoming birthdays, look up and add friends, and accept friend requests.
After you try out orkut for mobile, we'd love to hear what you think. From the m.orkut.com homepage, click on the "help" link at the bottom of the screen to send us your feedback.
Happy mobile orkuting!
church home
If you've known me for a while, you know that I grew up going to Prestonwood Baptist Church. Seriously, I was one of those "church kids" who thought it was cool to hang out at church all week and weekend... I was involved in just about everything in the youth group and choir, and PBC was definitely my home away from home.
Well, ever since Ryan and I got engaged, I really wanted us to find a church that suited both of us. Sure, PBC is my comfort zone, and I know all of the ministers there so it is the "safe choice" for me. But, (and this is something I'm learning) marriage isn't all about me. :) It's about both of us. Both of our comfort zones and both of our church styles.
*A little PBC history...A couple years ago, because PBC had become so huge in numbers, they felt called by the Lord to build another campus. So, they started plans for another location called "Prestonwood North" in Prosper, Texas (very far north, basically in the middle of farm land), and recruited some of the PBC staff and ministers to lead over at that campus. So, while the new building is being built, everyone has been meeting in the gym at Prosper High School. Just to put it in perspective, the first Sunday had over 1,000 people... That's amazing.
Anyway, since we've been engaged, Ryan and I have been flip-flopping between the main campus and the north campus to see what we liked and where we felt comfortable. Well, we finally talked about it and after months of going to both churches, the decision was unanimous. Our new church home is Prestonwood North!
It is just so "us" in the church style...The ministers are young and fun, everyone can wear jeans, and we have a ton of friends on staff there that make us feel so comfortable and welcome. Since we've been married, we've really enjoyed going and being a part of their services, and I can't wait for us to get involved in their bible studies and small groups. :) I'm just so excited to see what God does through this church especially after the building is finished!
Raising the North wall at the new location
So there you have it. Our new church home. :)
If you want to see some pictures of the church life and building progress, click here.
Well, ever since Ryan and I got engaged, I really wanted us to find a church that suited both of us. Sure, PBC is my comfort zone, and I know all of the ministers there so it is the "safe choice" for me. But, (and this is something I'm learning) marriage isn't all about me. :) It's about both of us. Both of our comfort zones and both of our church styles.
*A little PBC history...A couple years ago, because PBC had become so huge in numbers, they felt called by the Lord to build another campus. So, they started plans for another location called "Prestonwood North" in Prosper, Texas (very far north, basically in the middle of farm land), and recruited some of the PBC staff and ministers to lead over at that campus. So, while the new building is being built, everyone has been meeting in the gym at Prosper High School. Just to put it in perspective, the first Sunday had over 1,000 people... That's amazing.
Anyway, since we've been engaged, Ryan and I have been flip-flopping between the main campus and the north campus to see what we liked and where we felt comfortable. Well, we finally talked about it and after months of going to both churches, the decision was unanimous. Our new church home is Prestonwood North!
It is just so "us" in the church style...The ministers are young and fun, everyone can wear jeans, and we have a ton of friends on staff there that make us feel so comfortable and welcome. Since we've been married, we've really enjoyed going and being a part of their services, and I can't wait for us to get involved in their bible studies and small groups. :) I'm just so excited to see what God does through this church especially after the building is finished!
Raising the North wall at the new locationSo there you have it. Our new church home. :)
If you want to see some pictures of the church life and building progress, click here.
Getting your data on, and off, of Google App Engine
One upcoming feature of Google App Engine that's worth mentioning is large-scale data import and export. We know that many of you have large apps that already run on other platforms, and getting all of that data into the Datastore API is a challenge. And, conversely, we also know that a lot of you want to make sure it's easy to move off Google App Engine in the future, in case you need to switch to a different platform.
With Google App Engine, you own all the data in your app. As stated in our terms, you always have the right to get your data out of Google App Engine at any point. We wouldn't have it any other way.
To that end, we would like to solicit feedback on what form you would like the data exporter feature to take. We've started a thread in the discussion group about this, and we'd love to hear what you think. XML output? CSV transform? AtomPub? RDF? Let us know!
lazy weekend & some anniversaries
One of the greatest things about being married now is that our weekends are generally open to do whatever we want. We don't have any more vendor meetings or appointments, no long to-do lists to fulfill... So on Saturday, we slept in until 11:30 and ended up watching 8 hours of the Lord of the Rings marathon on t.v. Wow. I wouldn't say that we're "the type" to enjoy that much LOTR, but we really enjoyed the down time (and some Orlando Bloom...okay that was just me)! Then we managed to get out of the apartment for enough time to grab Carraba's with Dad & Dawn--yum. Yay for lazy weekends!
So, this week has some pretty big anniversaries to celebrate. First and foremost, tomorrow is our one month anniversary of being married! (I know, I know, it will get really annoying if we celebrate every month, but this is a big one!) It definitely doesn't feel like a whole month has gone by... I guess time flies when you're having fun & finally together 24-7!
Also, Wednesday marks my one year anniversary of working at JCPenney. I thank God that He has blessed me with such an incredible place to work... I've made some great friends, accomplished a lot, and I've become so thankful for my incredible boss who treats everyone with the utmost respect. He just celebrated his 20 year anniversary at JCP, and I can only hope I'll make it to that milestone because I could literally work here forever! I couldn't say enough nice things about this company and the people I work with...
Anyway, that's all for now. I hope all of my friends out there are being blessed this week. I love you all!
So, this week has some pretty big anniversaries to celebrate. First and foremost, tomorrow is our one month anniversary of being married! (I know, I know, it will get really annoying if we celebrate every month, but this is a big one!) It definitely doesn't feel like a whole month has gone by... I guess time flies when you're having fun & finally together 24-7!
Also, Wednesday marks my one year anniversary of working at JCPenney. I thank God that He has blessed me with such an incredible place to work... I've made some great friends, accomplished a lot, and I've become so thankful for my incredible boss who treats everyone with the utmost respect. He just celebrated his 20 year anniversary at JCP, and I can only hope I'll make it to that milestone because I could literally work here forever! I couldn't say enough nice things about this company and the people I work with...
Anyway, that's all for now. I hope all of my friends out there are being blessed this week. I love you all!
Do you have nomophobia?
A recent article in the Evening Standard introduced a "new, peculiarly 21st century affliction" called nomophobia or "no mobile phobia," which is exactly what it sounds like - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Besides citing research that claims up to 53% of mobile phone users feel great anxiety when their phones run out of battery life or have no network coverage, the article also suggests ways to avoid nomophobia, such as carrying a charger at all times or remembering your most important phone numbers.
So are you a nomophobe? If you are, you're not alone. I suspect that many of us on the Google mobile team are nomophobes too!
We're up and running!
Google App Engine has been live for several days now and we're thrilled with the response we've gotten so far! We filled our initial batch of accounts within a few hours after Monday night's Campfire One. And today, we've just invited another 10,000 developers to try it out.
We're excited to see the beginnings of a developer community forming in our Google Groups! We're actively reading your posts and responding with help where we can, and it's great to see some of the more experienced members of the community start helping others out too!
We've also seen a lot of feature and bug reports on our Issue Tracker, including requests for Ruby, Java, Perl, PHP, and Fortran. Here are are some of the general areas we're focusing on right now:
- Support for more languages. We're obviously huge Python fans, but we recognize that there are other great languages out there that developers use to build web applications.
- Support for offline processing. Right now Google App Engine is great for web apps that do all of their processing in response to user requests, but what about apps that need to perform scheduled tasks or larger-scale data migration? We'd like to support those apps too.
- Support for large files. Google App Engine currently imposes a limit of 1MB on all requests, both inbound and outbound. We're interested in providing efficient support for much larger uploads and downloads.
- Billing for additional quota. During the preview release period, all apps are restricted to a set of free resource quotas. Although Google App Engine will always be free to get started, we plan on allowing developers to purchase additional resources in the future, while paying only for what they use.
Judging by the the feedback we've gotten so far, these are areas you're interested in as well--we'll keep you posted. Keep letting us know what you think about the Google App Engine and where you think it should be headed!
finally!
Our long-awaited wedding pictures are up on the website! If you want to see ALL of the pictures, you can go to this website and put in "russell" as the password. There's everything from the rehearsal/dinner, getting ready, ceremony, reception, and formal portraits.If you just want to see a fun slideshow of the best pictures, go to this website and enjoy :)
We are THRILLED with all of our pictures, and if you engaged girls need a photographer, they are definitely worth the money! Joe and Steph have become our friends throughout this process, and we would recommend them to anyone.
married life & a spoiled dog.
Uploading pictures used to be one of my favorite things...but that was before I had a fun roommate to distract me! Now, it has fallen on the priority list :) Thankfully, my loving husband has given me some nice relaxing time to just chill out (long day at work) while he's cooking dinner. So I can finally share some pictures of married life!
A couple weeks ago, we met up with Steph, Cathryn, Justin, Allie, Aaron & Bryan for the FC Dallas (club soccer) opening game. It was hotter than we were expecting, but we cooled off with frozen lemonade and fans (or anything we could find in our purses to create a breeze).
Soccer isn't my favorite sport on Earth (haha-Karen), but the fans are totally different than any other sporting event. They brought drums, huge flags, streamers, and totally went crazy for their teams. It was fun to watch!
Just for fun, I decided to make 2 dozen cupcakes for my co-workers last week...any excuse to use my new toy :) One tier of the carrier was Devil's Food cake with vanilla icing and sprinkles, and the other tier was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. They were such a HIT. I think people expect me to do this on a weekly basis now. Um... how about you pay me?!
On this past weekend, we went out to return some wedding gifts and buy the rest of our bedding! Here it is... Ryan thinks it look like a face with two eyes and a mouth. Maybe one of these days we'll spend the dough to get our bed skirt (sorry mom).
And last night, mom and the McCradys came over for pizza, brownies and ice cream while we watched the NCAA basketball championship game. Those McCradys are BIG KU fans, so that was obviously a very exciting game for them since KU won in overtime :)
This photo serves a great transition into the next subject of this blog... Our dog is S-P-O-I-L-E-D. For real. How hard can his life be? He spends all day and evening cuddling up to his favorite people who like to give him people food and pet him constantly. Couldn't we all be so lucky...
*Note: I promise we don't spend all of our time on the couch. Scoutie's just not allowed on the bed, so that's his only chance at cuddle time. :)
We made an exception and let him on the bed. Can't say no to those puppy eyes!
Alright, I'm out... Time to finish off those brownies from last night. Yum :)
A couple weeks ago, we met up with Steph, Cathryn, Justin, Allie, Aaron & Bryan for the FC Dallas (club soccer) opening game. It was hotter than we were expecting, but we cooled off with frozen lemonade and fans (or anything we could find in our purses to create a breeze).
Soccer isn't my favorite sport on Earth (haha-Karen), but the fans are totally different than any other sporting event. They brought drums, huge flags, streamers, and totally went crazy for their teams. It was fun to watch!
Just for fun, I decided to make 2 dozen cupcakes for my co-workers last week...any excuse to use my new toy :) One tier of the carrier was Devil's Food cake with vanilla icing and sprinkles, and the other tier was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. They were such a HIT. I think people expect me to do this on a weekly basis now. Um... how about you pay me?!
On this past weekend, we went out to return some wedding gifts and buy the rest of our bedding! Here it is... Ryan thinks it look like a face with two eyes and a mouth. Maybe one of these days we'll spend the dough to get our bed skirt (sorry mom).
And last night, mom and the McCradys came over for pizza, brownies and ice cream while we watched the NCAA basketball championship game. Those McCradys are BIG KU fans, so that was obviously a very exciting game for them since KU won in overtime :)
This photo serves a great transition into the next subject of this blog... Our dog is S-P-O-I-L-E-D. For real. How hard can his life be? He spends all day and evening cuddling up to his favorite people who like to give him people food and pet him constantly. Couldn't we all be so lucky...
*Note: I promise we don't spend all of our time on the couch. Scoutie's just not allowed on the bed, so that's his only chance at cuddle time. :)
We made an exception and let him on the bed. Can't say no to those puppy eyes!
Alright, I'm out... Time to finish off those brownies from last night. Yum :)
Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog
At tonight's Campfire One we launched a preview release of Google App Engine -- a developer tool that enables you to run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it's receiving significant traffic and has millions of users.
Google App Engine gives you access to the same building blocks that Google uses for its own applications, making it easier to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data. The development environment includes the following features:
- Dynamic webserving, with full support of common web technologies
- Persistent storage (powered by Bigtable and GFS with queries, sorting, and transactions)
- Automatic scaling and load balancing
- Google APIs for authenticating users and sending email
- Fully featured local development environment
Google App Engine packages these building blocks and takes care of the infrastructure stack, leaving you more time to focus on writing code and improving your application.
Today's launch is a preview release -- we're by no means feature-complete, and we're giving you early access because we really want your feedback. This preview of Google App Engine is available for the first 10,000 developers who sign up, and we plan to increase that number in near future.
During this preview period, applications are limited to 500MB of storage, 200M megacycles of CPU per day, and 10GB bandwidth per day. We expect most applications will be able to serve around 5 million pageviews per month. In the future, these limited quotas will remain free, and developers will be able to purchase additional resources as needed.
If you'd like to try it out, sign up for access to the preview release and then download the SDK to get started. The best place to give us feedback is in the discussion group. Future announcements from us will appear there and/or this blog.
Better Know Your Mobile: Using My Location and Traffic features on Google Maps
We've found that a lot of you that use our services like Google Maps for mobile haven't yet tried some of the great features that are available. Well, those days are hopefully coming to an end. Today we're launching a new video series to help you Better Know Your Mobile by showing you some cool tips and tricks for getting information on the go.
If you've ever wondered how to get the most out of Maps for mobile, then this post is for you. These first two videos highlight the My Location and Traffic view features of Maps for mobile. Stuck in terra incognita? Check out the My Location video to learn how you can quickly find yourself on the map. Once you know your approximate location, you can also figure out whether there's traffic nearby using the Traffic feature. We'll even show you exactly what the different traffic colors actually mean.
If there are any features you'd like to learn more about, give us a shout on the blog or video comments - we'll be rolling out more videos in the near future. To browse all of our videos, hop over to the Google mobile help channel. While you're at it, bookmark that channel to catch new videos about using Google mobile.
a funny thing happened...
Last night I was writing some thank you notes in the sun room, and I thought I heard some rain outside. For a brief moment I thought to myself "I hope the weather isn't bad for Ryan to drive home in." And then the sweet reality hit me: But wait, he IS home! Ahh... the married life. I LOVE him staying with me and not having to leave every night. One of my favorite things by far. Just thought I'd share. :)
we made the blog!!!!
So our photographers, Joe & Steph, have given us a "sneak peek" at some of our wedding pictures!!!! I'm soooo excited!
Here's the link to their blog:
Joseph Mark Blog
Check it out! :)
Here's the link to their blog:
Joseph Mark Blog
Check it out! :)
Android's First Five Months
As some of you may have heard, Wireless Week has chosen the Open Handset Alliance and Android for its Emerging Technology Award, noting that "Android's potential promises openness and innovation, perhaps changing not only the mobile Internet but the Internet itself."
We at Google would like to congratulate all the members of the Open Handset Alliance and the fantastic Android developer community for this well-deserved recognition. Android's growing momentum is the result of an amazing effort and collaboration among many different people.
Coincidentally, this week marks five months since the Open Handset Alliance and Android first went public. A lot has happened in this short period of time. Among the things of note:
- We released an early look at the Android software development kit (SDK), allowing anyone to learn and start creating apps for the platform.
- Feedback from developers has contributed to numerous fixes, improvements, new tools, and major updates to the SDK, the latest version of which you can find here.
- Google announced the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in total awards for the best Android apps -- and the first phase has nearly wrapped up. (Be sure to get your submissions in by April 14!)
- Several companies gave the first working demonstrations of Android in February.
Picasa Web Albums for Windows Mobile
When Joe Walnes showed off the shiny AJAX interface on the iPhone version of Picasa Web Albums I started thinking - can we make an AJAX interface work on new Windows Mobile devices? After all, Internet Explorer Mobile supports many of the advanced browser features that we used to build the iPhone version. Joe and I wanted to give it a try so we got to work. Today we're pleased to tell owners of Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen devices that you can now enjoy a much faster and slicker way of browsing Picasa Web Albums on your phone.
Working with Windows Mobile also meant that we could add some cool features using the newly announced Google Gears for mobile, which gives web applications the ability to work even when there is no internet connection available. This means that you can view albums of your choice offline. Gears also lets you add a Picasa icon to your Program Files folder so you can have faster access to your favorite photos. If you'd like to learn more about how we leveraged Google Gears for mobile, watch Dion Almaer's interview with Joe.
To try out Picasa Web Albums on your WinMo 6 touchscreen phone, just go to picasaweb.google.com on your Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Let us know what you think!
"The times, they are a changin"
Hey everyone! This is the husband giving you all some insight to what I've learned over the past couple of weeks.
1. They say a marriage is all about both man and wife giving 100% but when it comes to sharing a closet it's more like the woman getting 80% and the man getting 20% (that's on a good day).
2. Body pillows apparently cause much strife to the person who is not using one.
3. Grocery shopping is much more different now than it used to be (lots more food that I do not care for).
4. In two weeks I've learned that I have more bad habits than I have had in my entire life.
5. The dog will never love me as much as he does his mom.
6. The constant supply of diet coke keeps my wife happy.
7. The amount of laundry has gone from large to never ending.
8. It doesn't matter what I fix for dinner, she'll always want Pei Wei.
9. The way I do things is slowly being "phased out."
10. I wouldn't have it any other way.
P.S. I'm sorry Jeff
changing my name
Happy Monday, everyone. Thanks to all of you who emailed me recipes! Y'all are truly life savers! I can't wait to start cooking and experimenting in the kitchen...especially with our new crock pot! Seriously, whoever invented that is my new best friend because they're so easy to use!
On a different note, I am in the process of changing my name this week. Boy, what a hassle! I have to change my social security, drivers license, insurance info, billing info...the list goes on and on! I wish I could just snap my finger and all of a sudden be Jennifer McCrady. But, oh no. I have to get legal approval. UGH!
Other than the formalities and technicalities, being married is SO much fun. I am LOVING this! Everything about it just seems right. I love that we are a team now, and we go everywhere together. It's so nice not to have to meet each other somewhere...now we go together!
Anyway, y'all should look forward to the next post because Mr. McCrady himself will be gracing your computer screens with his own post on our blog :)
Have a good week!
On a different note, I am in the process of changing my name this week. Boy, what a hassle! I have to change my social security, drivers license, insurance info, billing info...the list goes on and on! I wish I could just snap my finger and all of a sudden be Jennifer McCrady. But, oh no. I have to get legal approval. UGH!
Other than the formalities and technicalities, being married is SO much fun. I am LOVING this! Everything about it just seems right. I love that we are a team now, and we go everywhere together. It's so nice not to have to meet each other somewhere...now we go together!
Anyway, y'all should look forward to the next post because Mr. McCrady himself will be gracing your computer screens with his own post on our blog :)
Have a good week!
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