Google Chrome 0.4.154.25 is now available. Aside from having a nearly impossible to remember version number, the latest version of Google's web browser also has a few important updates, the most noticeable being the inclusion of a bookmark manager.

The bookmark manager allows you to import and export bookmarks in HTML format, which makes importing your bookmarks from Firefox or another web browser a snap. Of course, you run the risk of realizing just how out of date your bookmarks are when you do this, but that's another story for another day.

Google has also changed the way its pop-up manager works, by displaying the number of pop ups minimized in the corner of your screen. Google Gears and the V8 JavaScript Engine have also been updated in this release.

[via WebWare]

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Google SearchWiki lets you customize results
• Google adds new features to BlackBerrys and iPhones
• LIFE Magazine's photo archive comes online
• GrandCentral App comes to Mac
• Google plans to work with OEMs to pre-install Chrome
• Access Google Docs within Gmail

Online video site YouTube has been offering a "watch in higher quality" option since earlier this year. But higher quality doesn't mean high definition. It simply means that the videos are encoded in a higher bit rate and if you have a fast enough internet connection to keep up, the videos look a little better.

But now it looks like YouTube is starting to add some honest to goodness high definition, 720p videos to the site. Members of the Video Help forums have spotted some videos available in HD, including the popular "Where the Hell is Matt" video.

Not all videos are going to be available in HD rigiht away, because most videos uploaded to YouTube aren't high definition in the first place, and because YouTube appears to be quietly testing the feature on a small number of videos. It appears YouTube is also experimenting with stereo sound for its online videos. Up until recently most videos were mono only.

YouTube is hardly the first online video site to dabble in HD. DailyMotion, Vimeo, and several other video portals have been offering HD movies for a while, but YouTube is stll by far the most heavily trafficked web video site.

[via Wired]

We've all been there. You're working, and an instant message window pops up. It's your friend, who I'll call "Captain Obvious," and he wants to know what that new James Bond movie is called. Even if you know, why is he asking you? That's what Google is for. Instead of answering his question straight away, just say "Here, let me Google that for you."

Let Me Google That For You will give your friend a step-by-step reminder about how to Google. Step 1 (type In your question) shows the question being input into the Google search box. Step 2: click search. Step 3 is "Was that so hard?" and then your friend jumps to the relevant Google results page. That ought to be a strong enough hint for Captain Obvious, but it's funny enough not to feel too mean.

Not that we were huge fans of Lively to begin with, but I'm sure someone out there loved it. Right? No? Perhaps that explains Google's announcement that, "despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year." So grab those screenies before 2009 and your avatars and rooms go dead.

One or two of you may cry out in anguish as a few million vertices are silenced with the click of a mouse: "why Google, why?" Well, I'm sure it wasn't the fact that it was PC-only (and Firefox or IE7-only). Or that it wasn't the most stable thing Google has produced. Or that it was, ya know, like Second Life Lite but for chat. Because, clearly, the world needs a few zillion more Second Life-style chat clients, right?

If you are to believe Google, it's because they want to focus on their core business. You know, search and ads and apps that don't look like Animal Crossing. Besides, they can always roll this into Sketchup, so you could have a virtual barn raising. We can dream, can't we?

Apparently fed up with horrid, low-quality ripoffs of their work being posted to YouTube, Monty Python has decided it's time to act. They're fighting back by uploading high-quality videos straight from their private vault.

Though there are currently only two dozen clips available, many have been uploaded recently. It's likely only a matter of time before favorites like the Cheese Shop, Fish Slapping Dance, and Nudge Nudge surface on the channel.

Don't fret - they quintessential Python clips are already there: the Black Knight, the Lumberjack Song, and even Pilate talking about his "vewwy good fweind in Wome," who shall remain nameless. Better yet, they've promised to upload HQ versions of the most popular clips.

Just what are they up to? The welcome message is honest enough: "None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years."

Works for me, I've been a supporter for ages (I think I still have my copy of the old Complete Waste of Time "game").

Official HQ Python on YouTube: the videos have been posted, and there was much rejoicing.
[ via gHacks ]

It appears that Google is starting to roll out a new feature that allows some users to choose themes for Gmail. Google has provided a set of themes that change the look of the iGoogle personalized homepage for a while now, but this is the first time we've seen official themes for Gmail.

The new option shows up in the Gmail settings menu, to the right of the Labs option. If you don't see a Themes tab in your settings, you're not crazy. Google has a tendency to roll out new features in phases, with some users getting the update before others.

Ashish Mohta at TechnoSpot is already seeing the new themes, and uploaded the images you see above. If you can't access the new themes yet, you might want to check out Gmail Redesigned, an unofficial theme that changes the appearance of Gmail when viewed in Firefox.

Update: It looks like these changes are rolling out quickly. Less than an hour after writing this post, the new themes tab showed up in my Gmail. Check out the gallery below for screenshots of some of the more unusual themes. OK, the Cold Shower theme isn't particularly unusual, but it's the one I plan to use as my default... for now.

A lot of people don't know that YouTube has high quality videos, as well as the generally poor-quality standard versions. The links to the better (not HD, but still pretty good) versions are easy to miss, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure you're watching (and even embedding) the good stuff. Jason Kottke ran through a few of them recently on kottke.org.

First, make high-quality your default setting. You can do this in the Account menu, under "Playback Setup." That takes care of playback, but what if you want to link to the high-quality version of a video? Just paste "&fmt=18" or "&fmt=22" at the end of the URL. 18 is the 480x360 version, and 22 is the 720p version. Some videos will have one, but not the other, so try both if you need to.

When it comes to embedding, you can make a quick change to the embed code to get better video quality. Just add "&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" to the end of the URLs in your embed code. Here's an example:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[via Kottke]

Soocial is a free web service that provides a central location for all of your contacts' phone numbers, email addresses, and other information. If that's all Soocial provided, it wouldn't be that interesting. But Soocial goes a few steps further and allows you to synchronize your contacts across multiple platforms, including your cellphone, Mac, PC, and Gmail.

Yesterday the company released a utility for Outlook synchronization that supports Windows XP and Vista and Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007. While the Outlook sync plugin is in alpha and Soocial recommends backing up your contacts before running, I didn't experience any problems. In a matter of minutes, all of my contacts were backed up online and accessible through the Soocial web site.

Gmail sync, on the other hand is a bit slower. I've been waiting about an hour for the Gmail synchronization to kick in. If and when it does, Soocial wil fill in the next piece of a synchronization puzzle that I've been struggling with for ages. Using Soocial, you'll be able to keep your Outlook and Google contacts in sync, and using Calgoo or Google Calendar Sync, you'll be able to synchronize your Outlook calendar with Google Calendar. And that means you'll be able to update your information on any computer with a web browser, knowing that the changes will be synched to your primary computer and any mobile devices like cellphones and PDAs that you keep synched with Outlook.

Now would someone please release a tool that synchronizes Outlook tasks with Remember the Milk?

Soocial also plans to release a BlackBerry client soon, and already supports hundreds of cellphones.

[via Decoder and TechCrunch]

Google is experiencing some downtime this afternoon. While some users report that they experienced a hiccup or two when sending an email using Gmail, others (myself included) seem to be experiencing a total Google blackout. No Gmail, no Google Reader, no Google Docs, and no Google Talk. Oh, and the search engine isn't accessible either.

I have no doubt that service will be restored momentarily. But I suddenly find myself temporarily helpless. I rely heavily on Google Reader and Gmail for my workflow as a home office worker. And I'm not alone. A quick scan of Twitter Search shows that a lot of other people are experiencing the same problems.

While there are many advantages to cloud computing (like being able to access your data from any computer, anywhere in the world), this outage shows one of the most significant downsides. If Google experiences technical difficulties, millions of people around the world who rely on Google services experience those difficulties as well. It's almost enough to make me go back to Thunderbid and FeedDemon.

Oh wait, after about 18 minutes of downtime, Google's back online. Nevermind.

Update: Word on the street is that the problem was with Verizon, not Google. Verizon high speed internet customers were also unable to access Facebook, CNN, and a number of other sites during the same period.

Google Trends is a fun way to compare the popularity of search terms, but the technology behind it can also be put to some important uses. Google.org, the nonprofit arm of Google, is using Trends to generate a flu tracker, showing the prevalence of flu outbreaks across America. Flu-related search terms are tracked to estimate when and where the flu happens, with data going back to 2003.

The data is tracked by state, so you can check and prepare when the flu starts to pick up in your area. According to Google's data, December is historically the worst flu month, so this is an apt time for Google Flu Trends to launch. Google is hoping that the tracker will be quicker and more accurate than the traditional method of waiting for doctors to report the flu, and they estimate that people are likely to Google the flu 1 to 2 weeks before they tell their doctors about it.

It's been over two years since Google brought text-only Chat to the Gmail web interface: and whilst the feature has certainly seen a number of small additions in that time, I think it's fairly safe to say that the efforts with Chat to date will pale into insignificance with Google's announcement on the Gmail blog that Video and Audio chat will shortly be arriving in an inbox near you.

The features, which require a plugin [available for both PC and Mac OS X] allow you to initiate video and audio chats from within the web browser. You can even expand the size of the video chat, and thanks to the feature being based on a number of widely used standards, you should in theory be able to chat with a fairly large number of contacts who don't need to be using the web interface [it's also worth noting that one-way video and audio chat is also possible].

Unfortunately, the feature isn't available just yet: the Googlers say the feature has only just begun rollout - however you can visit the Gmail videochat page to download the browser plugin and get ready for your account to be enabled in the next few days.

Google Reader, Bloglines and other RSS readers make it easy to keep on top of the latest news from dozens, or even hundreds of web pages without actually visiting those pages. But if you want to read a web site that constantly covers news you're interested in, and just happens to be in a language you don't speak, in the past you've needed to exit your RSS reader and load the page in Google Translate or Windows Live Translate or a similar service.

Or you could use a service like Mloovi to translate the RSS feed, but Mloovi has a few limitations, like the inability to show pictures or full feeds. Now it looks like Google is taking things into its own hands, by combining Google Reader with Google Translate.

Here's how it works. Just subscribe to a blog or news site in another language (assuming you can find the subscribe button). Then go to the feed settings in Google Reader and select "Translate into my language." That's it. You only have to do this once per feed and Google Reader will automatically translate that page until you tell it to stop.

Keep in mind, these are machine-generated translations, so they're far from perfect. But if you don't have time to learn French just to read a few articles from Le Monde from time to time, this could be the next best thing. Or maybe the thing after that.

Welcome to Googleholic, your weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• YouTube adds new features
• Gmail, the Google Toolbar and SMS messaging
• View Office Open XML files in Gmail and Search
• New Chrome release
• Random Roundup

Remember how Yahoo! and Google announced this summer that they would be partnering to place Google AdSense ads next to Yahoo! search results? Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Basically, Google says it's pulling out of the deal because government regulators and "some advertisers" are uncomfortable with the idea. The New York Times puts things a bit more strongly, mentioning that regulators planned to file a lawsuit to block the patnership between two of the largest web search portals.

The deal was first announced back in June, shortly after Microsoft walked away from negotiations to purchase the company. At this point, it's not clear what the future holds for Yahoo!, a company that's clearly looking for ways to revitalize its brand.