Lessfeet » web 2.0

New Google+ Features

Mark — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 04:37:39 +0000

This week we saw some great new features in Google+. Most of what’s new is to Hangouts.

Search – First is the one everyone has been waiting for and that’s search. When Plus first came everyone said, “Are you kidding me no search? It’s Google for Christ sake!” Now it’s here. It is very well implemented. It is a great way to find new people to Circle.
Broadcast your Hangouts – Before you could only Hangout with 9 other people. This is still the case but soon many people can watch the hangout. I heard as many as 150,000 people can watch. This feature is being rolled out gradually.
Screen sharing – When you’re in a Hangout you can share anything in your Google Docs with others in you Hangout.
Notes & Sketchpad in Hangouts – You can share and collaborate with notes and sketches in Hangouts.
You can now collaborate and share your Google Docs in Hangouts.
The new Hangouts API is available for developers to get creative with Hangouts.
Last but not least. There is now Hangouts on your Google+ app on your phone.

The a few of these features puts Google + in direct competition with web conferencing products like GoToMeeting.

These new features have really helped to make G+ a very useful tool.

Kindle Web App

Mark — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:43:19 +0000

Amazon has releast a new HTML5 Kindle app for Chrome and Safari. Now you don’t have to buy a Kindle reader or get eye-strain reading on your phone. You can read books right inside your web browser on your computer. Amazon maked this web application to get around Apple’s wanting a huge percentage of their Kindle book sales when purchased from an iPad app. Amazon wasn’t having it so they made us this great web app to get around that requirement. Get the Kindle app Chrome here.

Google+ Pros and Cons

Mark — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:47:00 +0000

I’ve been using Google+ for about a month and I think it is fantastic. I’ve been using it to communicate what I think is important in the tech world mostly. I’ve also been reading a lot of post from others, Trey Ratcliff the photographer, Leo Laporte and others in TWiT family to name a few.

There have been some gripes about G+ recently one having to do with Google’s ban on pseudonyms. You must use your first name and last name. No company names, handles or nicknames. Many personalities are known only by some other name. How about the singers Jewell, Pink, Cher and Sting. Very few people know Sting by Gordon Sumner. There’s also Dr. Phil. Oh they let him get by with it but not the less famous Dr. Kiki. Does Google force those people to use their real names. Google is supposed to roll out a plan for commercial users soon.

My issues with G+ all have to do with notifications. If you invite someone to Google+ they immediately begin to receive your post via email. A person invited needs to login to their Google+ account and turn all of email notifications. This should be the setting by default. If you don’t turn them off you get emails about all kinds of things. There also should be granular controls on what you see in notification on G+ and other Google pages. I don’t want to see a lot of chatter . It distracts me from seeing what I really want to see.

Over all it has been a great experience. I share more with other now more than ever before. News stories I’ve been reading, things I’ve been doing and places I’ve been going. I have done what some others are doing. I point my person URL to my G+ page. markmonyhan.me

Teamviewer

Mark — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:39:59 +0000

This weekend I tried Teamviewer a free remote access program. There are other remote access programs and some even work better than Teamviewer but the two best things about Teamviewer is it works cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux and many mobile devices) and Teamviewer is free. Like all remote access, controlling the remote computer is a little slow. Teamviewer works like a charm. I thought I had a problem connecting two Linux computers but I adjusted the screen resolution and it worked great. I’ve tried it on Windows 7, Windows XP, Linux Mint, and my Nexus One Android phone and they all worded great. I would say Teamviewer is an awesome free tool but it’s better than that. Teamviewer is an awesome tool!

Everything On The Web

Mark — Sat, 14 May 2011 03:03:15 +0000

Google has just announced the new Chromebooks to being made by Samsung and Acer. They’ll be sold by Amazon and Best Buy beginning June 15th.

The idea behind these computers is everything on the web. Use Gmail instead of Outlook, use Google Docs or Windows Live Office. Watch video on YouTube or Vimeo. Even watch TV with Netflix and Hulu. I just found these today! Do 3D modeling with TinkerCad. Lookout now! The killer app announced at Google IO this week Angry Birds online. Are you excited now? Do photo editing online with Picnik. You can create great zooming presentations with Prezi. This and much, much more.

Do you think you could do everything on the web?

WordPress.com Better Deal

Mark — Fri, 13 May 2011 07:44:35 +0000

I just moved this blog to Wordpess.com form my Godaddy hosting on WordPress software. WordPress.com is like the Energizer bunny. It keeps going and going with little effort by the user. WordPress.com takes care of the software and the network. You take care of the content. No administrating of the software or the database. Now I just write about hopefully interesting tech stories. The parent company Automattic is doing a great job.

By the way WordPress.com sites are cheap to free. They are free for everyone who doesn’t mind a ****.wordpress.com URL. WordPress charges for other services like a custom URL, more disk space and custom CSS.

Get your blog or website today.

YouTube Founders Aquire Delicious

Mark — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:56:05 +0000

I just found out that Delicious my favorite social bookmarks site has been purchase from Yahoo by the founders of YouTube Chad Hurley and Stave Chen. Yahoo annouced the acquasition by Hurley and Chen’s new company AVOS. No one seems to know much about AVOS but these guys are some real pioners and I think they will do some great things with Delicious after years of stagnation under Yahoo.

CloudPrint

Mark — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:08:12 +0000

CloudPrint is a new service from Google that enables you to print via your home printer form anywhere in the world. You don’t even need to have a printer-driver installed. Google takes care of that. Right now you have to use a printer that is connected to a Windows computer. Soon you will be able to use Mac and Linux. Google is even working with printer manufacturers to make CloudPrint aware printers that you will not have to connect to a computer at all. To print using CloudPrint you must install the latest version of the Chrome web-browser. Windows only for now. You can also use some Android phones.

CloudPrint is very interest and it is interesting to play with but I seldom have a need to print at all. Shouldn’t we be over hard-copies by now? CLOUD COMPUTING!

More about CloudPrint.

Yahoo Selling Delicious

Mark — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:42:16 +0000

“We’re selling Delicious not, not closing it!”, is what’s being reported today. Yahoo said it is not being shutdown at all. They’re just hoping someone will take it off their hands. “We believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company.”, said a Yahoo spokesman.

Delicious (a social bookmarks site) is one of several Yahoo properties being cut in Yahoos efforts to lower cost in these down times.

Wave Is Saved

Mark — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:22:35 +0000

The former project from Google called “Wave” may have been resurrected. The benefactor is the opensouce advocates the “Apache Software Foundation“. Apache is calling it WIAB (Wave In A box). You will be able to install Wave on a server of your own so you and your collaborators can work on projects together via Wave. The project is just in the planning stage now. Here’s the whole proposal.