Fridaygram: #freeandopen Internet, new form of matter, lava flowing

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

This week we launched a campaign to keep the Internet #freeandopen, ahead of a meeting of government agencies next week that could increase censorship and regulation of the Internet. We believe that Internet policies should be discussed and decided by the people who use it, not just governments. You can go to the site to learn more and find out what you can do. You can also watch Google Developers Live next Tue., Wed., and Thu. for live Hangouts on this topic. Your opinion matters!



Speaking of matter, researchers are eyeing data from the Large Hadron Collider for evidence of a new form of matter that has been theorized to exist but never seen. The new matter is a kind of gluon called color-glass condensate. Scientists noted that some wacky particles unexpectedly showed quantum entanglement when they traveled in the same direction after collisions. A new state of matter is a possible explanation.

Finally, take a look at this video of erupting lava from the Kilauea Volcano flowing into the ocean. You can also see a webcam view of the caldera, including some brave people watching from a safe distance. Maybe they’ll wave!


Each Friday on this blog we depart from the usual developer topics and present fun and interesting stuff that’s not necessarily related to writing code. Sometimes we even veer into an important topic, like the #freeandopen program mentioned in this post.

Posted by Ashleigh Rentz, Editor Emerita

Vertical Menu - Wordpress

For vertical menu or changing the id of dynamic menu:-

• Goto root folder


• websitename/wp-includes/nav-menu-template.php


• Probably line no. :-137 or find the below function


• Add the bold character string to the function.


• once you are done with this add 2 files(css & js) & include both of them (define) in header.php of your theme.


• you can find the file codes at the end of the code.

function wp_nav_menu( $args = array() ) {

static $menu_id_slugs = array();

$defaults = array( 'menu' => '', 'container' => 'div', 'container_class' => '', 'container_id' => '', 'menu_class' => 'menu glossymenu', 'menu_id' => 'verticalmenu',

'echo' => true, 'fallback_cb' => 'wp_page_menu', 'before' => '', 'after' => '', 'link_before' => '', 'link_after' => '', 'items_wrap' => '<ul id="%1$s">%3$s</ul>',

'depth' => 0, 'walker' => '', 'theme_location' => '' );

cssverticalmenu.css

.glossymenu, .glossymenu li ul{

list-style-type: none;

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

width: 200px; /*WIDTH OF MAIN MENU ITEMS*/

}

.glossymenu li{

position: relative;

}

.glossymenu li a{

background: url(../images/li_bg.jpg) repeat-x bottom left;

font: bold 12px Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;

color: white;

display: block;

width: auto;

padding: 8px 0 12px 10px;

border: 1px solid #004623;

text-decoration: none;

}

.glossymenu li ul{ /*SUB MENU STYLE*/

position: absolute;

width: 190px; /*WIDTH OF SUB MENU ITEMS*/

left: 0;

top: 0;

display: none;

}

.glossymenu li ul li{

float: left;

}

.glossymenu li ul a{

width: 180px; /*WIDTH OF SUB MENU ITEMS - 10px padding-left for A elements */

}

.glossymenu .arrowdiv{

position: absolute;

right: 12px;

top: 13px;

background: url(../images/arrow.png) no-repeat;

}

.glossymenu li a:visited, .glossymenu li a:active{

color: white;

}

.glossymenu li a:hover{

background:url(../images/li_bg_hover.jpg) repeat-x;

}

/* Holly Hack for IE \*/

* html .glossymenu li { float: left; height: 1%; }

* html .glossymenu li a { height: 1%; }

/* End */

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cssverticalmenu.js

var menuids=new Array("verticalmenu") //Enter id(s) of UL menus, separated by commas

var submenuoffset=-2 //Offset of submenus from main menu. Default is -2 pixels.

function createcssmenu(){

for (var i=0; i<menuids.length; i++){

var ultags=document.getElementById(menuids[i]).getElementsByTagName("ul")

for (var t=0; t<ultags.length; t++){

var spanref=document.createElement("span")

spanref.className="arrowdiv"

spanref.innerHTML="&nbsp;&nbsp;"

ultags[t].parentNode.getElementsByTagName("a")[0].appendChild(spanref)

ultags[t].parentNode.onmouseover=function(){

this.getElementsByTagName("ul")[0].style.left=this.parentNode.offsetWidth+submenuoffset+"px"

this.getElementsByTagName("ul")[0].style.display="block"

}

ultags[t].parentNode.onmouseout=function(){

this.getElementsByTagName("ul")[0].style.display="none"

}

}

}

}

if (window.addEventListener)

window.addEventListener("load", createcssmenu, false)

else if (window.attachEvent)

window.attachEvent("onload", createcssmenu)

-By Parthiv Patel

Google Cloud Storage - more value for performance

By Dave Barth, Product Manager

Cross-posted with the Official Google Enterprise Blog

Earlier this week, we announced a collection of improvements across Google Cloud Platform including 36 new Compute Engine instances, Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) storage, Object Versioning, and European datacenter support. We also announced that we are reducing the price of standard Google Cloud Storage by over 20%.

We are committed to delivering the best value in the marketplace to businesses and developers looking to operate in the cloud. That’s why today we are reducing the price of Google Cloud Storage by an additional 10%, resulting in a total price reduction of over 30%. This price reduction applies to all Cloud Storage regions and the new DRA Storage.

Find out more about the new Cloud Storage pricing and sign up now to get started.

Dave Barth is a Product Manager on the Google Cloud Storage team, based in Seattle. He is idealistic about the capacity of technology to change the world.

Posted by Raj Sarkar

Launching WordPress into the Google cloud

By Artem Livshits, CEO of OblakSoft

This guest post was written by Artem Livshits, CEO of OblakSoft, which makes the ClouSE MySQL storage engine for cloud development. In this post, Artem describes his experience using Google Cloud Storage to store and serve a WordPress blog.


WordPress is popular blogging software used by over 60 million people. If you have a WordPress blog, you want to ensure that your server load is manageable and that your load times are fast. You also want your data to be protected in case your server fails. With that in mind, we at OblakSoft created the Cloud Storage Engine for MySQL (ClouSE). It stores all your WordPress data on Google Cloud Storage, taking the load off your server to improve reliability and speed, and to reduce hosting costs.

We’ve been very impressed with the performance of Google Cloud Storage. Because it’s built on Google’s infrastructure, storage objects are cached within Google’s global network and distributed globally without the need for a Content Distribution Network (CDN). This ensures content is delivered with the best possible performance.

Here is a high-level architectural diagram of a WordPress-powered website that uses Google Cloud Storage to store and serve content:

The website’s content management is done through WordPress, which uses a MySQL server to store the website’s data. It uses the WP2Cloud WordPress plugin we created to upload pictures (and other media files) to Google Cloud Storage. ClouSE makes the web server stateless by storing all data in Google Cloud Storage using the Google Cloud Storage API. Web pages (lightweight HTML) are served by WordPress, while media files are served by Google Cloud Storage directly.

WordPress is one example of a MySQL-based application that can take full advantage of Google Cloud Storage to:

• Keep the data highly available and highly durable.
• Serve media files in a highly scalable fashion.
• Distribute media files across the globe for fast access.

This solution works with any hosting provider, so our users can keep their current hosting arrangement, and move their data to Google Cloud Storage using WP2Cloud and ClouSE. Users who are limited preview customers of Google Compute Engine can get started immediately using a fully configured WordPress image that we created.

We’re very excited about the potential of the Google Cloud Platform to power dynamic web server applications. Launch your own WordPress site in the cloud today - it’s easy and there’s minimal setup. We found it easy to make ClouSe work with Google Cloud Storage, and you can see how you can integrate Google Cloud Storage into your app as well.


Artem Livshits is the Founder, CEO and software architect at OblakSoft, a company focusing on technologies that simplify adoption of cloud computing. Previously Artem led the development of several server products from inception to maturity during his 12 years at Microsoft, including the source control system managing most of the Microsoft code base.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Google Cloud Platform: new features, lower prices, extending European datacenters

By Jessie Jiang, Product Management Director

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Enterprise Blog.)

We're constantly making updates to our Google Cloud Platform products—Google App Engine, Cloud Storage, Big Query, Compute Engine and others—based on user feedback and to improve the overall experience. For example, two weeks ago we introduced a major update to Google Cloud SQL providing faster performance, larger databases (100GB), an EU zone, and a no-cost trial. But, we know there is more to do. Today, we’re continuing to improve the platform with new storage and compute capabilities, significantly lower prices, and more European Datacenter support.

Lower storage prices and new Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) Storage

Updated 3:23 PM to provide more details about DRA. To give you more flexibility in your storage options and prices, we’re reducing the price of standard Google Cloud Storage by over 20% and introducing a limited preview of Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) storage. DRA storage lowers prices by reducing some data availability, while maintaining the same latency performance and durability as standard Google Cloud Storage. This makes it a great option for batch compute jobs that can easily be rescheduled or for data backup where quick access to your data is important. DRA achieves cost savings by keeping fewer redundant replicas of data. Unlike other reduced redundancy cloud storage offerings, DRA is implemented in a manner that maintains data durability so you don't have to worry about losing your data in the cloud.

And, to automatically keep a history of old versions of your data, we’re introducing Object Versioning. You can also use it to help protect against deleting or overwriting your data by mistake or due to an application error.

More European Datacenter support
We are continuing to roll out our European Datacenter support. Now, customers using Google App Engine, Google Cloud Storage, Google Cloud SQL and (soon) Google Compute Engine can deploy their applications, data and virtual machines to European Datacenters. This helps bring your solutions even closer to your customers for faster performance and enables international redundancy.

36 New Compute Engine instance types and overall reduced prices
Earlier this year we introduced a Limited Preview of Google Compute Engine with four standard instance types. Today, we are announcing 36 additional instance types and are reducing the price of our original 4 standard instances by about 5% for those currently in our preview. In the coming weeks, the following will be available:

• High Memory Instance - High performance instances tailored for applications that demand large amounts of memory.
• High CPU Instance - Reduced cost option when applications don’t require as much memory.
• Diskless Configurations - Lower cost options for applications that do not require ephemeral disk and can exclusively utilize persistent disk.

We are also introducing Persistent Disk Snapshotting which makes it simple to instantly create a backup of your disk, move it around Google datacenters, and use the snapshot to start up a new VM.

We want to thank you, the community of developers and businesses who are pushing the platform into new areas and building innovative applications. We look forward to seeing where you take it next. Find out more about the new Cloud Storage pricing and Compute Engine instances. Sign up now and get started today.


Jessie Jiang is the Product Management Director, Google Cloud Platform. She is passionate about building the best platform for developers and businesses in the cloud.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Google Code-in 2012 contest starts today

By Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs

Cross-posted with the Google Open Source Blog

… and Go! The Google Code-in 2012 contest has officially started!  If you are a 13-17 year old pre-university (high school) student interested in computer science who would like to learn more about open source software development while earning cool prizes, sign up on our program site today.  Students have the opportunity to select tasks from 5 categories (coding, documentation/training, quality assurance, research/outreach and user interface) that are designed by 10 open source organizations that will provide mentors for the students.  Students earn certificates, t-shirts and Grand Prize Winners will win a trip for themselves and a parent or legal guardian to Google’s Mountain View California campus in 2013. Each of the 10 open source organizations will choose 2 of the 5 students that complete the most tasks with their organization as their Grand Prize Winners for a total of 20 Grand Prize Winners for Google Code-in 2012- that’s twice as many Grand Prize Winners as last year!

Last year, 542 students from 56 countries competed in the contest: this year you could be one of the students from around the world learning new skills and making new friends by experiencing the awesome world of open source development.

If you’d like to sign up, please review the Contest Rules and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on our program site. You can join our discussion list to ask any other questions. For details on important dates for the contest, see the calendar. If you meet the eligibility requirements you can create your account on the program site and start claiming tasks today!

Join us today, Nov 26th, as members of Google’s Open Source Programs Office host a Live Google Code-in Hangout on Air on the Google Education page at 2pm PST to discuss details of the contest and to answer questions from viewers. If you can’t make the live Hangout on Air it will be recorded and posted on our Google Open Source Student Programs YouTube Channel within a couple of days.

The contest ends on January 14, 2013 so start claiming tasks today.  Good luck and have fun!


Written by Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

The 100 WordPress Related Blogs You Need In Your Life

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS and blogging platform around, mainly because it is free and it is 100% customizable.

Over 80% of people are using WordPress as their blogging platform and one cannot be successful unless he keeps himself updated with the latest happenings & trends in the WordPress community.

The best way to keep updated with regular trends & updates is by subscribing to best WordPress blogs and websites.

Further more, such blogs can provide excellent tutorials and tips that will help you manage the WordPress-powered websites.

Here’s the list of 100 WordPress Related Websites:

#	Name	Founder	Categories
1	WordPress Official Blog	Matt Mullenweg	WordPress News
2	WordPress Planet	Matt Mullenweg	WordPress Updates
3	WordPress.tv	Matt Mullenweg	WordPress Videos
4	WP Beginner	Syed Balkhi	News & Tutorials
6	WP Candy	Ryan Imel	News & Tutorials
7	WP Tuts	Envato	WordPress Tutorials
8	Digging Into WordPress	Chris Coyier & Jeff Starr	WordPress Tutorials
9	Theme Shaper	Ian Stewart	WordPress Tutorials
10	Bavotasan	Chris Bavota	WordPress Tutorials
11	WP Smashing Mag	Vitaly Friedman	WordPress Tutorials
12	WP Tavern	Jeff Chandler	WP News & articles
13	WPMU.org	James Farmer	WP, BuddyPress & MU
14	ProBlogDesign	Michael Martin	WordPress Tutorials
15	Lorelle on WordPress	Lorelle VanFossen	WP News & articles
16	WP Snipp	Kevin Chard	WordPress Snippets
17	WP Snippets	Filip Stefansson	WordPress Snippets
18	WP Engineer	Alexander Frison	Hacks & Tutorials
19	Web Tools Collection	Madhujit Ghosh	WordPress News
20	Kovshenin	Konstantin Kovshenin	WordPress Tips & News
21	WP Mods	Michael Jackness	WordPress Themes
22	Pippin’s Plugins	Pippin Williamson	Tutorials & Plugins
21	wpMail	Cristian Antohe	WordPress Newsletter
22	WP Lift	Oliver Dale	Themes & Tutorials
23	WP Living	William Ellington	WordPress Videos
24	WP Garage	Miriam Schwab	Plugins & Themes
25	WP Force	Jonathan Dingman	News & Tutorials
26	DeluxeBlogTips	Rilwis	WordPress Tips
27	Cozmoslabs	Cristian Antohe	WordPress Tutorials
28	WP Theming	Devin	Tutorials and Themes
29	DIY Themes Blog	Chris Personified	WordPress Tips & Thesis
30	ManageWP Blog	Vladimir Prelovac	Themes & Plugins
31	WP Engine Blog	Austin Gunter	News & Interviews
32	WP Arena	Ahmad	Themes & Plugins
33	WP Recipes	Jean Baptiste Jung	WordPress Snippets
34	Do it with WordPress	Dave Clements	Tutorials & reviews
35	WP Pro Business	Adam W. Warner	WordPress Business
36	Theme.fm	Konstantin Kovshenin	WP News & Articles
37	WP Shock	Stuart Duff	News & Tutorials
38	WP Mayor	Jean Galea	News & Hacks
39	WP Explorer	AJ Clarke	Themes & Snippets
40	WP Hacks	Kyle Eslick	WordPress Hacks
41	WPIN.me	Ben	News & Reviews
42	JupiterJims	Jupiter Jims	WP & Thesis Tutorials
43	Sparring Mind	Gregory Ciotti	WordPress + Psycology
44	BobWP	Bob Dunn	WP Training & Tutorials
45	Page.ly Blog	Joshua Strebel	WordPress News
46	WP Lover	Hafiz Rahman	Theme Development
47	Themergency	Brad Vincent	WP News & Articles
48	WP Rockers	Md Jinnat Hasan	WordPress News
49	WP Sites	Brad Dalton	WP News & Articles
50	Blondish	Nicole Lipscomb	WP News & Articles
51	Instant Shift	DKumar M	WordPress Themes
52	WP Square	Bharat Choudhary	Themes & Plugins
53	Cats Who Code	Jean Baptiste Jung	WordPress Tutorials
54	Kolakube Blog	Alex Mangini	Thesis Updates & Tutorials
55	SDavis Media	Sean Davis	Thesis Tutorials
56	1st Web Designer	Dainis Graveris	WordPress Tutorials
57	Specky Boy	Paul Andrew	WordPress Tutorials
58	WP Cookies	Altaf Sayani	WordPress How-to
59	WP Shout	Alex Denning	WordPress Tutorials
60	WP Roots	J.R Farr	WordPress Tutorials
61	PixoPoint	Ryan Hellyer	WordPress Hacks
62	Bill Erickson	Bill Erickson	WP, Genesis & Thesis Tuts
63	Gary’s Code	Gary Jones	WP & Genesis Tutorials
64	WP Smith	Travis Smith	WP News & Articles
65	MFields	Michael Fields	WP News & Articles
66	Were WP	Jeremy Herve	WP News & Articles
67	Design PX	Jason Manheim	WP News & Articles
68	WP Modder	Adam W. Warner	WP News & Articles
69	WP Hub	Michael Jackness	Themes & Plugins
70	Yoast	Joost De Walk	WP News & Articles
71	WP Sift	Stuart Duff	Social Bookmarking site
72	WP Vote	Ben Gillbanks	Social Bookmarking site
73	WP Hits	Omer Greenwald	Social Bookmarking site
74	WP Junkies	Michele Welch & Ditesco	Social Bookmarking site
75	WP Deck	Dev	WordPress Themes
76	WP Insite	Jason Broadhurst	WP News & Articles
77	Perishable Press	Jeff Starr	WordPress Tutorials
78	New2WP	Jared	WordPress Tutorials
79	Please Advise	Mike, Jake & Chris	WordPress Podcast
80	Justin Tadlock	Justin Tadlock	WordPress Tutorials
81	WP 101	Shawn Hesketh	WordPress Training
82	WP Life Guard	Sean McCabe	WordPress Training
83	Austin Passy	Austin Passy	WordPress Snippets
84	Alex King	Alex	WordPress Tutorials
85	WP Seek	Oliver Schloebe	WP Search Engine
86	Theme Lab	Leland Fiegel	WP Tutorials
87	Web Synthesis Blog	Jerod Morris	WordPress Articles & Tips
88	We Love WP	Brett Reilly	WordPress Gallery
89	ColorLabs Blog	Michael Hutagalung	WP News & Articles
90	Woo Themes Blog	Adii	WP News & Articles
91	Studio Press TV	Brain Gardner	Genesis Tuts videos
92	WP Tids Bits	Amat Noor	WP News & Articles
93	Paulund	Paul	WordPress Tutorials
94	Hongkiat	Hongkiat Lim	WP News & Articles
95	InspireDM	Catalin Zorzini	WP News & Articles
96	WMWeb Design Blog	Keith Davis	Genesis Themes & Tips
97	Technosailer	Aaron	WP News & Articles
98	Cloud Theming	Beau	WP News & Articles
99	Otto Press	Otto	WordPress Tutorials
100	WordPress Kube	Devesh	WP News & Tutorials

-By Parthiv Patel

How to Setup Secure Media Uploads

As discussed, it’s important to protect your site by setting proper file permissions on the server. This can be tricky for certain directories such as /uploads/, /upgrade/, and /backups/, which need to be writable by the server in order for things like uploads, upgrades, and backups to work.

On the one hand, you want the most restrictive permissions possible for security reasons, and in most cases the default/recommended settings for directories such as /uploads/ work just fine. On the other hand, if your directory permissions are too restrictive, things like media-uploads stop working.

The good news is that we can have the best of both worlds: solid security for writable directories and suitable file-permissions for working uploads, upgrades, and backups. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use .htaccess to secure WordPress’ /uploads/ directory or just about any other directory, WordPress or otherwise.

Securing directories with .htaccess

In my experience studying server logs, WordPress’ /uploads/ directory is heavily targeted by malicious scripts and bots. Unfortunately, some server configurations require 777 permissions in order for stuff like Media Uploads to work. Of course, that’s never a good idea, so let’s lock down those vulnerable directories with a bit of .htaccess.

Note that this technique is written for use in .htaccess files, but is better implemented via Apache’s main configuration file (httpd.conf). If you don’t have access to configuration files or prefer to localize via .htaccess, the following technique will make it happen.

Step 1: Create an .htaccess file for your /uploads/ directory (or use existing file if present). In it, place the following code and upload to your server:

# secure uploads directory
<Files ~ ".*\..*">
 Order Allow,Deny
 Deny from all
</Files>
<FilesMatch "\.(jpg|jpeg|jpe|gif|png|tif|tiff)$">
 Order Deny,Allow
 Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

This denies access to all files but then allows access only to the specified types of images. If you’re working with other media types such as .zip, .mp3, .mov, or whatever, simply edit the FilesMatch pattern like so:

(jpg|jpeg|jpe|gif|png|tif|tiff|zip|mp3|mov)

Likewise you can remove anything that you won’t be using. This is the key to implementing this technique in other directories such as /upgrade/, /backup/, and so forth. Once in place, this technique prevents bad guys from injecting any PHP or other scripts, but allows images (and/or other specified file types).

Other things to try

If you’re trying to get media-uploads to work but don’t want to go all 777 on the server, here are some other, more round-about things to try:

• experimenting with incrementally more secure permissions until something works


• disabling PHP Safe Mode


• unchecking the auto-organization year/month option


• trying different file paths


• switching hosts if possible

I’ve experimented with all of these tactics in various server environments, but it’s generally hit-or-miss — works or it doesn’t. Some alternate solutions/workarounds aren’t as secure as others, so if you’re stuck with 777 permissions, the previous .htaccess technique will help secure your /uploads/ directory against malicious scripts and other nefarious behavior.

-By Parthiv Patel

Fridaygram: learning English, counting legs, playing games

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

Google Developers Live (GDL) is designed to bring you great technical content, live as it happens and archived for whenever you need it. We want GDL to teach you about our tools and platforms, but Eiji Kitamura, a Google Developer Advocate in Tokyo, had another idea: use the captions on GDL videos as a tool for picking up English while learning about technology. As Eiji says, “Learning English and technology at the same time is a killer feature, because it is time efficient, practical, and enjoyable”.

For the best translation, make sure English is selected (shown circled in red).

For the best translation, click the CC button and make sure English is selected (shown circled in red in the image above), and not English (transcribed). The English translations are usually available about a week after each event.

Eiji posted about this idea on the Google Developer Relations Japan Blog, and it proved to be very popular, so several other Googlers around the world picked up the thread and created their own versions of the post, translated into Korean, Spanish, and Hebrew, with more translated posts in the works. If you’re a developer learning English while studying a new technology, now you can absorb both at the same time.

Switching our focus to nature, we’ve often wondered: how many legs are enough? 2? 4? 100? The answer turns out to be 562 to 750, which is the number of legs you’ll find on llacme plenipes, a rare millepede species. This creature was long thought to be extinct, but according to a recent journal was rediscovered in 2006 in a densely foggy area of central California. (Note: humans thought the species was extinct, but llacme plenipes itself was not fooled.)

Finally, if you need some new gaming fun this weekend, check out Ingress, a game that takes place online and in the physical world. Just be sure to stop playing and come back to your family at some point.


On Fridays we depart from our usual fare of new tools and events, and instead tell you about general cool stuff you might find interesting. This week we’re wondering: are you disappointed to learn that millipedes don’t really have 1000 legs?

Women Techmakers: starting the conversation

By Amanda Surya, Manager of YouTube and Commerce Developer Relations

Google strongly supports diversity and inclusion in all our communities, including users, employees, and developers. In that spirit, last week we launched Women Techmakers (WTM) on Google Developers Live, bringing visibility to talented women leaders in technology industries.

The inaugural week of WTM programming told the stories of 6 prominent women in the tech industry and produced some enlightening conversations. From impromptu in-house product testing, to how to start a company, to crafting that perfect startup pitch, to visualizing the presidential election in a new way, to manipulating petabytes of data, our first class of women techmakers taught us new things technically and professionally.

We hope WTM inspires more women to add their expertise and creativity to the tech community. As Google+ community member Meghan Peters posted, “This is wonderful. What a great series – and very inspiring to see the thread speak up about so many more amazing women! It's this kind of support from each other that can really help push more women to the top.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. And we’re only getting started. Read on for video highlights and what’s next for WTM.

Video Highlights

Women Techmakers with JESS3

Visualizing data in new and compelling ways. Check out a visual walkthrough of the 2012 Presidential Election infographics from JESS3.



Women Techmakers with Pixel Qi & One Laptop Per Child

Real-time hardware testing and on-air demos.



Women Techmakers with Startup VC and NewME Accelerator

When startups are angel material & what makes a good pitch.



Didn’t get a chance to tune in live? No worries! You can watch all of the Women Techmakers episodes right now or any time on our YouTube playlist:



What’s next for WTM?

We’re open for suggestions! Share with +Google Developers and @googledevs who you’d like to see on the next Women Techmakers series. Use hashtag (#WTM) and +mention your nominations.


Amanda Surya is Manager of the YouTube and Commerce Developer Relations team at Google. In her spare time, she likes to blog about time-saving tips and of course watch YouTube videos.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

A week of digital innovation on GDL

By Hope Friedland, Agency Marketing

Creative genius meets digital innovation this week on Google Developers Live (GDL). Airing Monday through Friday at 2:30pm EST | 19:30 UTC, the agencies and developers behind some of the coolest stuff in the Creative Sandbox gallery sit down with Google product experts. They’ll talk about what they built, how they did it, and explain their hangups and breakthroughs. Visit the Google+ Event to RSVP, tune in live on GDL, and explore the gallery here.

Here’s the detailed schedule:

Monday: Mobile | archived | featuring Beattie McGuinness Bungay | Watch at http://goo.gl/ITC17

Tuesday: YouTube API | 2:30pm EST | 19:30 UTC | featuring Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Stoop LA, and Ogilvy Paris | Watch at http://goo.gl/0OlFr

Wednesday: DoubleClick Rich Media | 2:30pm EST | 19:30 UTC | featuring Grow and Spinnaker | Watch at http://goo.gl/xKvKp

Thursday: Google+ API | 2:30pm EST | 19:30 UTC | featuring Resn, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Hook | Watch at http://goo.gl/kdqlW

Friday: Geo API | 2:30pm EST | 19:30 UTC | featuring McCann New York, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Famous Interactive | Watch at http://goo.gl/AwQT6

Connect with us at developers.google.com/live. Tune into live programming, check out the latest in Google tools & technologies, and learn how to make great apps.


Hope Friedland is a marketing manager on the hunt for cutting-edge digital campaigns that will inspire ad agency creatives to come up with the next big idea (see Creative Sandbox). She's an occasional globetrotter and is especially fond of anything creative, interactive and newsworthy.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Scaling automatic web optimization with mod_pagespeed and memcached

By Jud Porter, Software Engineer, PageSpeed Team

Making your website fast is crucial to creating a great user experience – but doing so can be complicated, with many factors to consider. That’s why we created mod_pagespeed, an open-source Apache module designed to optimize your web pages automatically and easily. We recently introduced our milestone 1.0 release, and today, we’re following it up with the release of mod_pagespeed 1.1.23.1 to our beta channel.

With this release we've reduced server load time and improved utilization for large, multi-server environments. We accomplished this by adding support for memcached (a popular, scalable cache), and improving logging and statistics reporting. With memcached, multiple Apache servers share and fetch the same resources optimized by mod_pagespeed. Logging and reporting have been improved to make it easier to keep track of resource consumption and optimization effectiveness across multiple sites hosted by a single Apache installation. These new features make mod_pagespeed even better for high-traffic sites and network providers hosting many individual websites on their infrastructure.

We’ve also added a number of other new features and optimizations including:

• Improved CSS optimization. CSS media queries are now supported, and the new fallback_rewrite_css_urls filter allows partial optimization of CSS containing unsupported or proprietary extensions.
• The default set of optimizers now includes the flatten_css_imports filter, improving out-of-the-box performance.
• Improved mod_spdy interaction with support for custom mod_pagespeed configuration and filters for SPDY enabled clients. This makes it easier to deploy SPDY on your site, which can significantly decrease page load times.

Check out the release notes for all the new features and improvements. For more information about mod_pagespeed, please see our documentation, and if you have any questions or issues let us know on our issue tracker or discussion group.


Jud Porter is a software engineer working on mod_pagespeed, an Apache module designed to automatically make websites faster. In his free time he enjoys experimenting with cocktails, brushing up on his foosball game, and discovering obscure music.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Fridaygram: Chrome Jams, distant stars, building footprints

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

Hey, wanna start a band? A new Chrome Experiment, JAM with Chrome, lets you play music in a web app and jam with others online in real time. You get to pick from 19 different instruments, including drums, guitars, and keyboards. Once you get really good, you can use shortcuts on your (computer) keyboard to play your instrument.



When you’ve had enough fun making music with your friends, you can explore how JAM with Chrome works. Take a look at the tools and technologies that were used to make this app, and for details, read the case study. Then you can decide whether you want to build the next great web app or become a rock star instead.

Speaking of stars, scientists have astonishingly figured out how to learn about light from every star that ever existed. Researchers used the orbiting Fermi Large Area Telescope to look at distant galaxies and measure photons from various places around the universe. This data goes back to the formation of the first stars more than 13 billion years ago.

Finally, back on our own planet, you might have noticed that Google Maps recently added more building footprints to map displays. In case you didn’t count them, over 25 million new building footprints have been added to both desktop and mobile versions of Google Maps. Maybe you’ll see the new footprints while exploring your favorite city this weekend.


On Fridays we detour slightly from our usual posts and publish a Fridaygram, a fun compilation of nerdy stuff to amuse you (and us). And how cool is it that we have orbiting telescopes?