More from Google Labs

When I logged into my google account this morning I saw a message that google labs had cooked up a couple of applications that I thought might benefit the group--at least anyone who uses a google account.

Their first offering is one that acts as a task function

Keep track of what you need to do with a lightweight task list right inside of Gmail. Just click and type to add new tasks, convert emails into tasks, and (most satisfyingly) check them off as you're done.

The second is pretty cool. It allows you to send SMS messages from your gmail account...

Send SMS text messages right from Gmail. You chat from your comfy computer and reach your friends on the go; they get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards.

sort of like twitter in reverse.

These quotes were taken from this announcement page.

SearchWiki

I will freely admit that I'm addicted to Google. I'm not sure how I survived without gmail, Google Docs, iGoogle page, Google Maps, and even basic Google searches before the site was around. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't use Google for something. It seems that they are always adding new features and apps that make using Google even more fun and useful.

I noticed when I logged in the other day that they've added yet another new feature called Searchwiki. Basically, this will allow you to customize your search results, save your results, and make notes about the search pages that you find. This brief video from Google can explain it better then I can.



I haven't gone and played around with this at all in my own Google account, but I thought it looked interesting. It seems like a form of social bookmarking. I could see myself using this to save the sites I go to often or to make a note to remember something about a site. The possiblities could be endless!

Google Chrome

I guess you might have seen Google Chrome doing big roars in the world of bites for being the new light browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

Features of this new browser include:

• One box for everything
  
  Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.


• Thumbnails of your top sites
  Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.


• Shortcuts for your apps
  Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.


• Safer downloads


• Better crash control......But I am not sure how long will this last. As we all know firefox was very efficient for crash control when they started in 2004 but after all those plugins its now a heavy application almost capturing more than half of my memory resources and susceptible to wild crashes.

Check out the notes from the developers themselves on why they built this browser.
"A fresh take on the browser
At Google, we spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And like all of you, in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends - all using a browser. People are spending an increasing amount of time online, and they're doing things never imagined when the web first appeared about 15 years ago.
Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.
So today we're releasing the beta version of a new open source browser: Google Chrome.
On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.
Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.
This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. We've released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and we'll continue to make it even faster and more robust.
We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others - and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.
The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.
But enough from us. The best test of Google Chrome is to try it yourself."
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....................................
You guys simply rock what would be Google's next project. A Operating System?????????????Who knows time will tell.........Sayonara....adiós....GoodBye folks.

Google Translate

It looks like the theme for the week is all about Google. Not to disappoint my blog is about yet another tool this powerful resource has to offer. Not all websites are in English, but just because they're not in English doesn't mean that we can't read and enjoy the content. Google has an excellent tool to translate any web page into English or Spanish or Czech or any of the major languages spoken throughout the world. While there may be minor errors in exact translation by all accounts this is a useful tool for those attempting to expand their horizons and see what others have to say even if it's not in their own language. This site allows you to translate text or an entire web page. I translated our blog from English to Spanish and although I'm not completely bi-lingual from what I could understand the translation was about 95% accurate.

Not only will it translate pages that you supply, you can search for pages in other languages by a specific topic. Basically Google translates your query into another language and returns all matches, similar to if you had just went to Google.com and entered a search term. Not only does it find pages that match in another language it translates it back to English. No more language barriers. How cool is that?? If your interested in a specific language translation hover your mouse over the translated text and the translation pops up in a window. Who knows, you may even be able to teach yourself a second language with this tool. One limitation I did find is that it couldn't translate embedded images, but hey use your imagination!

There's also a gadget you can add to your own toolbar to instantly translate any page. What will they think of next??

Here's an elearning Blog that was originally in Spanish but I used Google Translate to get it in English Spanish Blog

If you run into a page that's not in your primary language, have no fear Google Translate is here (I know it's kind of cheesy but it fit ;~) Check it out here http://translate.google.com/

Googling over Google

I recently wrote a paper for another class and stumbled upon the awesomeness of Google. I was trying to find published papers and articles on my subject matter and I found Google Scholar.

What is Google Scholar?
"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research."

I thought this was a great resource and I will be using it for years to come.


http://scholar.google.com/

Online spreadsheets....there are many!

I was really struggling with my blog topic this week and didn't know where to start. I've just been exposed to Google Docs and their online spreadsheet, as well as NumSum, and decided to research this a little more. What I came to find that there are at least 12 more online spreadsheet programs! They are:

http://badblue.com/

http://blist.com/

http://editgrid.com/

http://exxprsscorp.com/

http://inputwebwizard.com/

http://jotspot.com/

http://numbler.com/

http://peepel.com/

http://sheetster.com/

Simple Spreadsheet - part of the Simple Groupware Solutions

http://thinkfreedocs.com/

Zoho Sheet - part of the Zoho online software applications

Some of them do cost money and others are free. In most of the applications you can upload an Excel file and easily share with others. Numsum is a social spreadsheet - think of it as a "blogsheet" - it is completely open to share with the public and have others comment on it. Blist, pictured above was designed to make spreadsheets more eye-appealing. Rather than just creating another spreadsheet with boring data, they offer templates to make it look exciting, i.e., wedding planning and fantasy football sheets. Make sure you check these out!

Google Blog Search

Google as adapted it's news search technology for blog posts. With its revamped Blog Search, Google can now better track the thousands of new blog posts made per day.

The search features greatly resemble your standard Google Search features including Search, Advanced Search, and Preferences. On the left side of the site, popular subtopics (Top Stories, Politics, US, World, Business, Technology, Video Games, Science, Entertainment, Movies, Television, Sports) are included for easier searching.

Kudos for Google making a simple, straightforward, blog search.

Links: Google launches 'Google News for blogs'

IT at Sea

IT at Sea: Google to launch a computer navy

I found the title of this website to be very interesting. I am not a big science related person but the fact the Google wants to use wave energy to power and cool multilple data centers adript at sea amazed me. My first thought, with this being hurricane season, what happens in stormy weather. Will power cease to the data centers aboard these ships if the power is knocked out?

Then as I read on in the article, others have the same concern. Plus, they bring up the fact that these ships floating at sea are open to attack by others. There are reports of "Pirates" attacking ships in other areas. I guess this could happen. If I were a science / diehard technology buff I guess I would check into this much further. I will be concerned if this turns out to be the way of the future.

Curiously enough, there is a Blog related to this debate at the bottom of the website.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SPORT/09/18/computer.navy/index.html

First Android Phone Coming to T-Mobile "Soon"

Android is a new operating system for phones that is being developed by Google. The phone is an open source project, like Linux, which will allow users and developers to change the code on the phone. This is a departure from the regularly locked down software in cellphones, such as Windows Mobile and iPhone. The goal is to make it so programs can run on an android phone and are interoperable. This could make it so Web 2.0 applications work on more phones and in the same manner. Engadget has a write up on it here.

Google Chrome Continued

Last week Google released the Beta of its Browser, Chrome. Within the last few days some interesting information about the browser has been released.

Google Chrome in its first week took 1.48 percent of Browser Market Share. This number later stabilized at 1 percent and finished the week off at holding 0.7 percent of the Browser Market. What the bigger surprise is, they took the share solely from Internet Explorer. Overall Internet Explorer had a bad week, as it lost market share (Down to 71 percent) to all browsers including Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Chrome also received its first patch on Sunday, which addressed many security issues.

Chrome did receive some serious complaints during it first week, as it became known that the Google URL bar, the “OmniBox” records user keystrokes and transmits them to Google’s servers. Google has changed its policy and will make all data received Anonymous, but security experts have questioned exactly how that will occur. In most cases, the keystrokes sent to Google are not saved, but the 2 percent that do have the users IP address recorded. The OmniBox feature can be disabled by changing the search engines that Google can use in the URL bar.

This browser is important to E-Learners as it’s another browser we have to be concerned about when designing online training. The privacy matters related to the browser are also concerning, as we have to be worried what information it is sending to Google about where our online training is and what could be in it.

Article: Chrome snatches share from IE
Article: Google bends to Chrome privacy criticism

Google Chrome Aims to Make Browsing Better

I ran across a lot of chatter about Google's new web browser, named Google Chrome, on my favorite tech blogs Engadget and Gizmodo. I found several reviews and am hoping to download it and give it a try when I get home today. The main goal of Google seems to be setting standards for the Web2.0 applications to ensure they run properly in their browser. While it may not ever replace stalwarts like Internet and Explorer and Firefox, I think Google Chrome will force competing browsers to adopt a more standards driven approach for handling Web2.0 applications, making things better for end users in the long run.

Google Chrome

GOOGLE CHROME


As I was familiarizing myself with my Google account again, I ran across an interesting article. I discovered that Google is trying to create an all inclusive workable website that looks and acts like Internet Explorer with tabs. Plus it has all the capabilities for creating interactive projects.
This seems to be the up and coming way to create projects and interact with others.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/03/review.chrome.ap/index.html

There is even a Blog that discusses pros and cons of Google Chrome.

http://www.download.com/8300-2007_4-12.html?keyword=%22Google+chrome%22

Teaching Old Dogs, New Tricks

A few weeks ago Olympic fervor was taking hold of the world's attention. As I grew more interested in different events, I tried to find out more about the participants of different countries. As I was searching, I stumbled on this article describing how the 2008 Olympics would see a vast rise in web-based coverage. Fans seeking out more information would most likely encounter language barriers, as the vast majority of information about a specific athlete would be in a publication from their home country.


The article described how Boost eLearning developed a training module that focused on using tools already present in Google's search engine. The training provided users with tips on using Google to find better search results and enable fans to overcome language barriers.


The implications of Boost eLearning's training is to provide users with better, faster, and more accurate search results. The training can be applied to other areas, including education, to empower individuals with the skills necessary to seek out more information. Companies like, Boost eLearning, are helping less internet-savvy users to become search gurus.


MarketWatch and Boost eLearning