Archive for category Google
And now for something completely different
Posted by orerfireced in Articles, Google, Twitter on March 11th, 2010
Since I’ve been working on Google Reader, I’ve told a lot of my friends about how great it is. And while some of them try Reader and find it really useful, many of them aren’t interested in taking the time to get Reader set up. That’s why today, I’m happy to announce an experimental product from the Google Reader team that makes the best stuff in Reader more accessible for everyone, while giving Reader users a new way to view their feeds. It’s called Google Reader Play, and it’s a new way to browse interesting stuff on the web that’s easy to use and personalized to the things you like. Best of all, there’s no set-up required: visit google.com/reader/play to give it a try.
Google Wave Adds Email Notifications [Notifications]
Posted by vosduholov in Articles, Google on March 5th, 2010
Google just turned on email notifications in Wave. That's great news if you've gotten your hands on an invite but haven't kept up with the going-ons inside—easy to do when you're not in the habit of visiting the site.
Using notifications is pretty simple stuff (click the drop-down next to your Inbox to see the dialog pictured above), and the implementation seems smart:
From the Notifications menu, you can select the frequency of your email updates. If you are an infrequent Google Wave user we would recommend the “immediately” setting, but you can change it at any time.
When you’re added to a new wave, or a wave that you are on changes, we’ll send you an email with a short summary of the text and links to go straight to your updated waves. Rest assured, we know waves can change a lot, so we will only send you one notification about a changed wave until you have logged in to look at it (i.e.: if a wave changes 10 times after we send the first notification, we won’t send 10 more emails). Waves you have open also won’t trigger updates.
Maybe you won’t need to run a completely separate Wave notifier to keep up with Wave after all.
Read more here:
Google Wave Adds Email Notifications [Notifications]
Upload and store your files in the cloud with Google Docs
We’re happy to announce that over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you’ll be able to upload and access your files from any computer — all you need is an Internet connection.
Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You’ll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don’t convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone. You might even be able to replace the USB drive you reserved for those files that are too big to send over email. Read the rest of this entry »
Instant Answers in Google Suggest
Posted by taupAcourorce in Articles, Google on December 12th, 2009
Google’s search suggestions started to include instant answers for Math calculations, unit conversions, currency conversions, weather information, simple facts, local time, package tracking, word definitions and more. That means you no longer have to click the search button and open a new page to see the results: the answers are displayed instantly.
“This kind of information will appear in Suggest either above or below the suggested search terms for a variety of queries. For example, you can type “delta 140″ to see the flight status. You can also quickly discover the current time, figure out how many Euros you’ll get per dollar, or even brush up on metric conversions,” explains Google.
Most Popular How-To Features of 2009 [Best Of 2009]
Posted by vosduholov in Articles, Google, Twitter, apple on December 10th, 2009
We cover a lot of tips every day on Lifehacker, but we get our greatest pleasure from putting together in-depth, step-by-step guides. From Windows 7 to Hackintoshes and beyond, here’s a look back at our most popular how-to features of ‘09. Read the rest of this entry »
New Google Analytics Snippet Aims to Reduce Page Load Time
Posted by vosduholov in Articles, Google on December 3rd, 2009
Google released a new alternate Analytics snippet. Google writes that “Unlike a traditional installation, asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering.”
[Thanks Pd!]
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: New Google Analytics Snippet Aims to Reduce P ... | Comments]
Which Apps Do You Think Are Missing On Chrome OS?
Posted by Hassan Alsheikh in Articles, Google on November 22nd, 2009
A big target group of Chrome OS may be casual users – e.g. it seems to fit perfectly as operating system on the computers of an internet cafe (not the worst thing for Google, as that’s a place where many young people in many countries may use the internet most of the time). But what if you’re a creator working with your OS to develop software, retouch images, model 3D sceneries, compose songs, or cut videos? What about playing 3D games? The cloud already offers many apps like calendars, photo and video storage, spreadsheets, text editing and so on. But what are some of the more power hungry apps for which you haven’t yet found a good replacement in a web-based app? If you’d want to switch to Google Chrome OS in a year, what pieces of the puzzle are still missing for you?
On a related note, below is a demo video of Google Chrome OS. [Via Waxy]
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Which Apps Do You Think Are Missing On Chrome ... | Comments]
Google’s Gizmo5 Acquisition Official Now
Posted by Deniparfos in Articles, Google on November 13th, 2009
TechCrunch had reported it recently and now it’s made official: Google has acquired Skype competitor Gizmo5. “[W]e’ve acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers,” the Google Voice blog writes. “Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being”.
TechCrunch wrote, “Google Voice is a great VoIP and phone identity service, but they have no endpoint for calls. Gizmo5, which by the way already integrates with Google Voice, is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. In other words, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.”
[Thanks James Xuan!]
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google's Gizmo5 Acquisition Official Now | Comments]
VMWare Fusion 3 Makes Running Windows on Mac Almost Fun
Posted by howlPholveled in Articles, Google, apple, microsoft on October 6th, 2009
As we pointed out yesterday, more and more Americans are buying Macs, but going to the iSide doesn’t always mean you can leave Windows behind. Since 2006, every Mac that Apple sells has also had the ability to run Windows using Boot Camp.
However, for most users, the best way of using Windows on a Mac is using a virtualization program like VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or Virtual Box. These programs let you run Windows alongside Mac OS X all on the same machine. Read the rest of this entry »
Have You Gotten Your Google Wave Invite? [Reader Poll]
Posted by LoMaxamanPills in Articles, Google on October 6th, 2009
It’s been almost a week since Google Wave went live; we’ve toured Wave inside and out, tried to help folks get invites, and even pointed you to the first Google Wave search you should know. But can you use it yet?
Did You Get a Wave Invite?(polls)
So far the only people I know who’ve received their invites were people who were in the dev preview, people who were invited by someone at Google, and the rest of those who were part of the very early 100,000 invite pool. Which is to say, I don’t believe that anyone who’s been invited by another Wave user has gotten their invitation yet. I quickly sent out my Wave invites to my fellow Lifehacker editors as soon as I was in, but as of now none of them have received an invitation.
If you’ve gotten your Wave invite—especially if you were invited by someone who gained access to Wave just last week—tell us about it in the comments.