Messing around with Google’s new Lively Service.  Not sure what to make of it yet. I created this room as a test. If you feel like checking it out, I’ll be in the room off and on for the next week or so. Click the image below and sign in with your Google Acct.

Announced today at the Google Factory Tour is Google’s new product, Google Health. Search medical issues and store you medical history online. Very interesting service/product, please take a moment to look it over. Finally a service that allows you to bring all your medical information to one location including doctor visit information, lab results and prescriptions.

Here’s what I came across this morning. I was doing a search on the Acer Aspire 5610z and googled the model # and received a Google Error. Huh? That’s right it was a “403 Forbidden” error. Quick test shows the same results in IE and Firefox. Here’s what the page said:

We’re Sorry

… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

If you’re continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser’s online support center.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

Then it asks for you to key in some text so that it knows your not a robot. Apparently this is how Google responds to spam queries. After an initial freak out, and a quick google search on the error, all looks good. No more 403’s yet, but I’m keeping an eye on it.

BTW, the Acer Aspire 5610z search came up with some interesting results. . . .

Here’s a cool trick I just found. Many of you may already know about this one, but I just found it and I think it’s pretty darn slick.

Google provides a lot of flexibility with it’s search. If you have the Google Toolbar installed, you can customize it further with the addition of buttons. There are over 1000 buttons availabe in the Google Button Gallery.

But here’s the twist… You can create your own custom button for any site you want, as long as it has a search field. Here’s how it works. Go to any site you like and find their search field. You can do a right mouse click in the search field and choose “Generate Custom Search”. This will start an install dialog that will load a custom search button into your toolbar.

The result is that now you can type a search into your Google Toolbar and click your newly made custom Google Search Button and pow, you’re sent to the site you want to search and the search results are displayed.

Take a look at the button I made for our Upgrade Computer Memory site.