I don’t use Google Maps on daily basis. Now, it offers a short URL for map location link (reference). Now, compare this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Jakarta+Capital+Region,+Indonesia&sll=-6.21185,106.845174&sspn=0.019454,0.038581&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Jakarta+Capital+Region,+Indonesia&z=11

With this: http://goo.gl/maps/vDOY. For me, shorter is better. This feature is still available under Google Maps Labs. So, the first thing you need to do is to enable “Short URL” feature from Google Maps Labs page.

<object width="560" height="340">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XdQxtQFfxiM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XdQxtQFfxiM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed>
</object>

Now, look at the this line of code:

http://www.youtube.com/v/XdQxtQFfxiM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

To have the video inserted using a new player design, just put version=3 parameter there. So, it will be like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/XdQxtQFfxiM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&version=3

You will have YouTube video displayed like what you see below. Of course, you can still modify out it looks using another player parameters.

I personally like the new player design. So, I modified all video codes used at my videoblog to have the new look. It didn’t take much time since I replaced the codes using search and replace plugin. :)

Today, Jan Ole Suhr (Gravity developer) tweeted an update and he put a link to his Flickr photo page. Right now, I’m using Gravity version 1.30 build 6501. Gravity already support direct photo upload to some services like Twitpic, MobyPicture, Yfrog and also img.ly. But, seeing the screenshot above, it will support Flickr also. Yes, this is good since I use Flickr. Now, waiting for an update.

Today, Yahoo! and Nokia announced a worldwide strategic alliance to extend the reach of their industry leading online services and offer people rich experiences that keep them connected to their world and the world around them.

Building on more than five years of collaboration, Nokia and Yahoo! ® will leverage each others’ strengths in e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services, to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.

You can also find the press release at Yahoo! Yodel Anecdotal. So, what does it mean for you? Probably… nothing. But, for me it means something. Let me tell you why.

I use Flickr — and I’m really enjoying it. Sometime, I take advantage of its geo-location feature. I can put my photos into map. You can do it manually, or automatically using geo-location meta data captured from your mobile device. I did it using my mobile device. Flickr photos with geo-location information will be integrated with Yahoo! Map. You can see my Flickr map page to see it in action. Is it good? Yes, but not that good. Why?

• When I had my photos with location information, they’re not placed at the correct information. So, I have to edit their location in the map.
• Yahoo! Map does not have much details about my hometown, Jogjakarta. Especially, when it comes to street names. For example, my photo taken in Malioboro Street, it’s detected as it was taken in other area, and it’s not even close.
• I remembered that I have put my photos into correct location. But for some reasons — I don’t know why — the location was changed. I hope I’m wrong with this. The zoom effect or something, I don’t know.

With the new partnership I mention above, I hope I can see improvements. Ovi Maps has a great database of location, and it works really well. I know, sometime it has some mistakes on the street naming, but… still, it’s a great tool.

But, this ‘problem’ didn’t happen if the box is displayed using <iframe>. I use XFBML, so do the sites using the same code. Hmm… not sure what happen, but it’s not working really well right now. Any thoughts?

Yet when using the mobile internet, people around the world face two main challenges–sometimes the experience is too slow to be fun and the cost of data plans and understanding them can be daunting. We have designed 0.facebook.com to help solve these two barriers and we hope that even more people will discover the mobile Internet with Facebook as a result.

Since this site focuses on speed, the design looks very simple, of course. For Facebook users in Indonesia, there are three mobile operators supporting this site: 3, AXIS and Telkomsel. Well, I’m using XL Axiata right now and I think it’s not cheap.

After signing-in, I was greeted with this message:

We’ve updated Google Calendar to make it more consistent with other Google Apps. Everything works the same as before, with one exception: we’ve removed the Tasks link. Now to turn tasks on and off, just click the Tasks calendar in your calendar list.

It’s more polished now. Look at the screenshot below (Click to enlarge)

‘

Now, let’s compare with the “old” one — Google Calendar design for Google Apps domain I’m having right now.

In most cases, Google Apps for domain service will have the same features (including design) with primary accounts under Google account. I think, I just need to wait. The new design looks better.

I just found a tool (hat tip: Read Write Web) to check my Facebook privacy settings. This tool will help me — and you, too — to check one more time about my privacy settings. This tool can be found at ReclaimPrivacy.org. What does this tool do? When you’re using this tool:

You will see a series of privacy scans that inspect your privacy settings and warn you about settings that might be unexpectedly public.

So, it’s a web-based tool. You don’t have to download any software. Just use the simple bookmarklet there. About the result, you can follow the advisory, or ignore it. I checked mine, and I got this (based on my current privacy settings):

It says:

• insecure: Instant Personalization is is currently sharing personal information with non-Facebook websites.
• good: all of your personal information is at restricted to your friends or closer
• good: all of your contact information is at restricted to your friends or closer
• good: all of your friends, tags, and connections information is at restricted to your friends or closer
• insecure: your friends can accidentally share your personal information.
• good: you have blocked all known applications that could leak your personal information

I didn’t ignore this and I wanted to make sure about the settings marked as “insecure”. Did I adjust the “insecure” settings? Yes, but not all of them. I left one of the advisory settings without any changes. The most important things is: I’ve decided to use Facebook, and understand the risks.

The new algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the “most breaking” news stories from across the world. (We had previously built in this ‘emergent’ algorithm for all local trends, described below.) We think that trending topics which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting. While this is very much a work in progress, with this tweak we have taken a big step toward capturing how trends quickly emerge and grow on Twitter.  We also think it’s compelling to know what the “most popular” topics are, and we will look to capture this in some way in the future.
Source: Twitter Help Source: About Trending Topic.

Like what I wrote in the first paragraph, it’s interesting to see what Bieber’s fans think about this. :)

Back to Geocities-izer. It’s a website/tool for you if you want to see how popular websites designed using Geocities-like styles. Just enter the website domain name, and this tool will ‘redesign’ the website.

I tried it and got lots of entertaining looks. Here are some:

Try it!