Lessfeet » web apps

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.

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?

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.

Edit Video Online

Mark — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:55:14 +0000

JayCut is a an online video editor. You may ask, “Why would you use an online video editor?” The answer is for power. I have a relatively slow computer. Editing video does not require a powerful machine but rendering the video after editing requires an awful lot of computer (both CPU and RAM). My machine is a single-core AMD Sempron 1.8 GHz with 2 gigs of RAM. Not bad for what I normally use it for (Web Apps, media playback, Photoshop and Lightroom) but it really chokes when rendering video. That’s where JayCut comes in. You upload your video, edit it using there drag and drop interface then render and download to your computer, mobile device or upload it to YouTube. Use Jaycut to do the work.

Of course JayCut is not Finalcut but it is easy, works very well and it’s free!

Google Wave, We Hardly Knew It

Mark — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:28:27 +0000

There was sad news this week. Google Wave is to be terminated. Google Wave is an online software application formerly developed by Google. It was described as “a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration”. Google has decided that there is not enough interest in it so they’re pulling the plug.

I think everyone that tried Wave had the same feeling about it, “Cool but what can I use this for?”. It was to big an application. Maybe if they had broken it down into many apps. It was to big and to hard to understand for non-technophiles.

RIP

Here’s what I think is a fitting tribute to Wave.

Caution Rate L for strong language!

Google Apps

Mark — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:50:00 +0000

If your like many of my friends your running a small business, organization or school. You know you can’t afford to through money away on your IT management. You need a file server, MS Exchange server and lots of complicated software. Then you need to pay a contractor for set-up, repair and maintain this system. Doing things this old fashion way can cost you thousands and thousand of dollars. Face it you don’t have this money to waste. That’s where Google comes in with there new product Apps. (Actually it’s about a year old.)

Google Apps starts with Gmail a product you mayalready be using but unlike regular Gmail you’ll be using your own domain name (joe@widgets.com). You can create and collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets and presentations with full revision history with Google Docs. You may create collaborate and share calenders with the calendar app. All of this and much more.

With Google Apps Premier, Educational, Government and Non-profit you get Email and call in support.

For Google Apps Premier it cost $50 per seat per year. Far less than then calling IT contractor to set up maintain servers. A similar service is free to Governments, non-profits and schools.

There is a standard version that is free to anyone.

LastPass

Mark — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:30:01 +0000

I’m always saying use good passwords. Use upper and lower case letters and numbers. I do all of this but one has to have an algorithm to remember ones passwords. The problem is in order to use the password algorithm it has to be easy. Something you can do in your head. My algorithm is so easy that if you discovered one of my passwords it would be no problem to figure out the rest. An algorithm that you can do in your head must be more difficult and hopefully you have the gray matter to use it or you must try something else.

LastPass is the answer. LastPass generate pseudorandom passwords for you and store them on a secure website. Then LastPass can auto-fill passwords as you need them. It can even log you in automatically. It took me a while but I generated all new passwords for all of my logins, they are all different and they are saved securely on the LastPass site.

Evernote

Mark — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:02:01 +0000

I known about and have used Evernote a little. Evernote is a web application that saves your text notes, photos, audio note and webpage clips in the cloud to use as reminders and help keep your life organized. I’ve got the phone application on my Nexus One. I’m going to use it more often.

Delicious

Mark — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:51:03 +0000

Delicious – Organize, manage and tag your bookmarks (favorites in Internet Explorer) online. Share with others and search bookmarks of others. The best thing about Delicious is the Firefox plugin. I use it as my personal bookmarks manager on my computer.