Brand new co-location facilities await the hardware behind the Alexa updates, and they won’t be online until the end of the week.

The Firefox extension Performancing for Firefox received an update to 1.1, adding several new features and squashing several bugs in version 1.0.1.

Two new items from the Google blog:

The business of Google rolls along, subpoenas and the potential of trade secret exposure to the Feds notwithstanding; two sections and one button made their way into Google News and Gmail, respectively.

Ladies and gentlemen, update your computers! Microsoft announced that it would release a security update to help protect customers from exploitations of a vulnerability in the Windows Meta File (WMF) area of code in the Windows operating system on Tuesday, January 2, 2006, in response to malicious and criminal attacks on computer users that were discovered last week.

The mini-applications provided by Yahoo after its purchases of Pixoria/Konfabulator have received some new entries and a tweaked engine to run them.

The webmaster-friendly project started by Google over the summer has its own blog and some new features available for its users.

Google Sitemaps makes a tool available that lets site publishers create a map Google’s spiders can use to more effectively index its content. On the official Google Blog, Grace Kwak posted about some new features in the Sitemaps service.

Yahoo announced last night on the search blog a minor update in the ranking of their index. This means some may want to check out their Yahoo results to see if they need to make any modifications in their search tactics.

The word verification system used by Blogger to help thwart spammers has been revised to address some problems encountered by users.

Google has announced via a post in its blog an update to its useful toolbar for Firefox, and made all of its features available on that browser.

Setting your RSS newsreader to ping your subscribed feeds every five minutes just isn’t fast enough for you, eh? …

eBay’s latest acquisition announced they have added new mobility and personalization options to their phone call client for Windows.

The networking company will make new tools for Web conferencing and other communication needs available by late 2005.

Commercial developers will be able to take advantage of a new license and build Virtual Earth maps into their applications.

Matt Cutts (from Google) has an enlightening post on his blog titled – What’s an update? which quite simply lays out information on the topic of their updating system.

Google has added new content to its personalized homepage at google.com/ig, but most people will be excited to hear that it is now an RSS reader. Just click add content to try the nifty slide-out side panel which allows you to choose from dozens of sources and type in RSS feeds.

Planned incremental releases for the Firefox browser will be skipped in favor of a September 1.5 version release.

An issue with third-party extensions has led to a minor update of Firefox and the Thunderbird email client.

One thing is certain about covering Google, don’t ever expect them to become stagnant. They are constantly refining and improving new and existing products, ensuring that they function as intended, as well as addressing concerns associated with users or outdated policies.

While the desktop search craze (if there really was one) may have subsided some, that doesn’t mean developers are going to stop improving their product.

Since the integration of Keyhole’s satellite technology into their mapping service, Google Maps has become incredibly popular and quite useful. The use of high-resolution images puts portions of the globe in the palms of their visitors’ hands; and it appears as if this ability will only increase.