Introduction: Google Magic

One day i was on google, and i thought to myself, "Those O's in the logo are staring at me. That was a little annoying, so i decided to get rid of them.

Okay, not really. Actually, I found this awesome magic trick from darkartsmedia.com /google
I noticed that it was a little dated, so I decided I would make a new page that would look better.

Let me first tell you the trick. You invite your audience to your computer where you have a seemingly innocent google homepage on your screen. You place two fingers over the two O's in the logo. You slowly move your fingers downward and, like magic, their gone! Now you can place your fingers back over the gap, and make the O's reappear. After the trick you can let your audience check out the page and see for themselves that it is really Google.

Step 1: Before You Get Started:

The gimmick page is basically an exact replica of the actual thing, but the logo has a mouseover option, so when a mouse hovers over it, the O's disappear. You can make a gimmick page for anything.
Go to View|Page source.
Save it somewhere.
Find the logo and save it. Then make the gimmick logo using paint and save it.
Then go http://www.htmlbasix.com/mouseoverimages.shtml to make the mouseover image.
Open the page you copied using note pad.
Paste the two codes, One in the head and the other one replaces the original logo.

If you would like me to make an instructable for making a gimmick page for this trick, PM me or just comment.

Lets continue with the google trick. The page is found at triplebirch.com/googlemagic. There is also a page with basic instructions on in at triplebirch.com/google.

Step 2: The Setup

Before you invite your audience, you'll have to do a few things:

1. If you have mouse keys, turn it on (shift+alt+num lk).
2. If you are logged onto an iGoogle account, now would be a good time to log out of it. Also make sure that the Google has its normal logo and not a special one such as Christmas or Easter.
3. Change the address bar to http://www.google.com/, but make sure that you keep the blinking cursor in the address bar (more on that later).
4. Place your mouse cursor below and slightly to the left of the O's in the logo so that they are still visible, but if you move it up, they disappear. Now you can test it by hitting the 6 on your number pad if you have mousekeys, or by just moving your mouse up. Then put it back under the logo.

Note:I cant use note in my pictures for some reason. Once i figure out why, I'll add some!

Step 3: The Show

Now you can invite in your audience. You can say something like, "Yea, look what i can do", or "I bet you can't do this!" Then place your fingers over the two O's with your left middle and index fingers. Hit the 8 key or move up your mouse. Then when you move your fingers away, the O's are gone.
After the audience takes in what just happened, place your fingers back over the gap and (make sure the blinking cursor is still in the address bar) hit the enter button very quietly and discreetly. This time when you move your fingers, the O's will be back, and you'll be on the actual google page so your audience can check it out.

Step 4: Notes

Practice this trick a few times until you can do it seamlessly. It really does help.

If google does have a different logo, don't do the trick or:
After the O's have disappeared, place you whole left hand over the logo hand hit enter, and viola, you changed the whole logo!

I'll soon be adding a video of me doing the trick, but for now, the only video camera i have is the one on my laptop, so i can't do it with this computer.

Step 5: Updates

Later next month (August '08) I'll be making some changes to the page like making all the links actually work. I'll also be figuring out a way to make it look like the O's in the logo get stuck to my fingers. I'm thinking of using red and yellow sharpie on my fingers.

I am also planning on making an instructable showing how to make you browser go to a different page then the one in the addressbar. This will allow you to go to google, but have the gimmick page pop up.


By the way this is my first instrictable, so don't be too nice, tell me what i should change in the future!