Getting Google Enabled

Need Page Number In Google Docs Check Out This Tip!

2008-03-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

The Web Worker Daily blog has a very helpful tip for all who use Google Docs. One of the thinks I know I have missed about Google Doc's is the ability to create headers and footers with page numbers. What I didn't know is that with just a bit of HTML code I could have added them myself check out Web Worker Daily's Archive Wednesday Time Saver: Add Page Numbers to Google Docs «:

I’m a web worker who is constantly using Google Docs. It’s a service that is very easy to use. It’s accessible wherever I can get online and it’s a fully functional word processor that has all the features I need on a daily basis. There are however some little things I miss from Word.

The Google Operating System recently featured a post providing a useful tip for embedding dynamic page numbers into Google Document files. The secret to the tip is a block of HTML. To add page numbers to the top of the document, hit the “Edit HTML” tab and paste in the following HTML code:

Page 1 of 1

If you want to have the page numbers at the bottom of the page, paste in the following HTML code at the bottom of the page:

Page 1 of 1

Keep in mind that these page numbers will only appear when you export to PDF.

Here Is A Summary Of Today's YouTube API and TiVo News

2008-03-13T00:49:00.001-05:00

YouTube is all over the news today, not only for the prospect of everyone creating their very own YouTube, but announcement that TiVo will have a direct connection to YouTube in the near future.

To start the summary off check out the Geek News Central article, Utilize YouTube to Build your Own Video Portal:

YouTube has made a pretty huge announcement that is sure to have a number of programmers burning the midnight oil over the next couple of weeks.

YouTube will no longer be just a place to get video it is changing in that it will now be platform where you will essentially have your own YouTube Portal or YouTube videos integrated into software and web applications.

People will be able to login and upload videos directly from your own website and from your website you will be able to manipulate on your site how those submitted videos appear. (still figuring this out)

This is pretty remarkable and what this does is allows publishers like me to use the infrastructure of YouTube yet mash things up in a way that will benefit my site a great deal more.

I am still wrapping my brain around the different ways we will be able to use this. It’s to bad that someone would not do the same thing for Audio as well. CNET

In response to Google's recent monetization problems ZDNet felt how Google plans on monetizing its news APIs is the main story check out YouTube’s new APIs and how Google will monetize them:

YouTube rolled out a series of new APIs that turn the site into a wide-ranging video service, but the more interesting aspect may be monitoring how Google’s monetization strategy plays into the announcement.

First, the APIs. YouTube said on its blog that its site has become a cloud video service. To that end, YouTube has announced the following API services that allow developers and partners to do the following:

Upload videos and video responses to YouTube
Add/Edit user and video metadata (titles, descriptions, ratings, comments, favorites, contacts, etc)
Fetch localized standard feeds (most viewed, top rated, etc.) for 18 international locales
Perform custom queries optimized for 18 international locales
Customize player UI and control video playback (pause, play, stop, etc.) through software

YouTube noted that Electronic Arts is using the APIs and others are likely to follow. This YouTube as a service riff is really a no brainer, but things get interesting when you layer in Google’s monetization strategy. On Monday, Tim Armstrong, president of advertising and commerce in North America, talked up YouTube’s display ad potential.

Armstrong said Google was taking its time monetizing YouTube, but clearly sees 2008 and 2009 as big years for display ads on the video site and elsewhere. Meanwhile, YouTube gets a lot of traffic via social networking sites. These APIs will help put YouTube everywhere and Google’s ads–delivered via video and most likely widgets–will ride shotgun at some point.

ReadWriteWeb thinks the new YouTube API's may be a remarkable development check out YouTube's Could Be the Best New Platform Yet:

The video uploading platform announced by YouTube last night may not have been what many pundits expected but it could mark a major turning point for both YouTube and thousands of other sites around the web.
By allowing website owners to combine an on-site video publishing option for their users with the huge number of people looking to discover new content on YouTube, the platform will create a mutually beneficial feedback loop that will breathe new life into both YouTube and the web at large. It's also got potential to show up all the other big platform plays we've seen to date.

A Niche Community Feedback Loop

There is already a large number of niche content sites around the web that host communities interested in everything from knitting to urban drag racing. Many of those sites receive millions of monthly visitors, even though they aren't widely talked about outside their respective niches.

YouTube, on the other hand, is the place to go to find video about anything. Website owners couldn't ask for a better way to make their sites discoverable than this system wherein their existing community can upload video from a niche site but new users can discover the video and links back to those sites from inside the public square that is YouTube.

Meanwhile, YouTube becomes all the more important. If niche site owners have an easy way to publish to YouTube without directing their users off site then those niche communities will be publishing more high quality content to YouTube.

Money

One question that is still unanswered is advertising and revenue sharing. YouTube will likely use display advertising on the channel pages for their new partner sites and those partner sites can do the same back at home. Almost every video ad on the web is annoying and there's no reason to get those involved.

In as much as YouTube's monetization strategy has been to run ads on the pages of trusted content partners, the company is about to get a whole lot of new trusted channels. This content may still be User Generated and thus not completely predictable, but the channel pages from high quality sites using the YouTube platform are going to be much easier to monetize than YouTube in general.

Paradigm Shift

Welcome to the era of the platform. When, years from now, the importance of platforms is recognized by the end-user market at large, it's not going to be the Facebook or OpenSocial platforms that will be known as the first big platform play. Those platforms just let developers build applications on the big sites (though Facebook may not stay that way). This YouTube offering is going to lead to some very noticeable "powered by YouTube" language around the web.
YouTube could go down in history as one of the first publishing services to really recognize the value in pointing people elsewhere. That's a big part of what's so exciting about the web today; not just letting others add value to your site, but adding value to your users' experience by serving as the source for pointers to the best things elsewhere. The YouTube platform could be uniquely good for that. (Speaking of pointing to what's good, Silicon Alley Insider broke the rumor of this move and has been providing good discussion since.)

And Finally Gizmodo: TiVo Getting YouTube:

Good news, kind of. TiVo has just announced that their networked Series 3 and TiVo HD subscribers will be getting YouTube access through their boxes sometime "later this year." While new media features are always a plus, TiVo's more recent advanced service offerings (like Rhapsody integration) have been a bit buggy. Here's hoping YouTube rolls out smoothly.
Here's the full announcement:

ALVISO, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced an agreement with YouTube(TM) that will offer access to YouTube videos directly from the TV via a TiVo DVR. The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3(TM) DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.
Every day hundreds of millions of videos are viewed on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded. Upon launch of the TiVo-YouTube service, TiVo users will be able to search, browse and watch these videos directly on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs. The combination of having the YouTube experience with the convenience and familiarity of TiVo's intuitive user interface will provide TiVo subscribers with the ability to discover and enjoy the most shared and most discussed web videos in the world on their televisions. Importantly, users will be able to log into their YouTube accounts directly from their TiVo boxes and access their favorite YouTube channels and
playlists.

"We're delighted to be working with the world's leading online video community so that TiVo subscribers can access YouTube's popular content on the TV via the TiVo DVR," said Tara Maitra, Vice President and GM of Content Services at TiVo Inc. "Being able to make available YouTube videos
to the TiVo subscriber base using one device, one remote and one user interface is another major step in our commitment to combine all of your television and web video viewing options in one easy to use service."

Firefox's gTranslate extension uses Google Translate on the fly!

2008-02-20T01:19:00.004-06:00

In addition to using the Google Translate widget on your web pages to translate web content with Google Translate you can now use gTranslate, a Firefox extension that lets you select some text from a web page and translate to any of the languages that Google Translate supports.

It even can replace the original text with the translation in text boxes. You can reply to a post from Google Groups or compose a Blogger post in English and then using gTranslate on the Firefox pulldown, instantly translate it to another language.

Google's Blogger Makes Blogrolling easier with its Blog List

2008-02-13T01:16:00.004-06:00

As you can tell by my blogs I'm a proponent of blogrolls, and Blogger has just made blogrolling much easier with their new blogrolling page element. Detailing this new feature we have a new post from Blogger in Draft called New Feature: Blog List.

It states:

Bloggers often feature a list of their favorite blogs, called a “blogroll,” in the sidebar of their own blog. Our latest page element, Blog List, helps you do just that, but we’ve mixed it in with Google Reader to make it even more powerful and useful.

At its most basic, Blog List displays a list of links to your favorite blogs, with an optional icon. If you link to a blog with an Atom or RSS feed, however, the Blog List can show the date of the blog’s last update or even the title and snippet of its most recent post.

You can set the number of blogs to show in the list and whether they should be sorted by update time or alphabetically by blog title.

You add blogs to your Blog List by entering blog or feed URLs directly, or by importing subscriptions from Google Reader. When you add by URL, Blogger will attempt to detect an Atom or RSS feed for it in order to show post and update information. If none is found, the blog will still be added to the Blog List, just as a simple link.

Please try this out! Add a Blog List (Or two! Or more!) to your blog and let us know what you think in the comments. We value your feedback, and will try to incorporate as much as we can before the Blog List goes big-time on www.blogger.com.

Remember: Like all features mentioned on this blog, you must log in to http://draft.blogger.com/ to add a Blog List.

How to Embed MP3 Files With Google Readers MP3 Player

2008-02-06T20:45:00.000-06:00

The Digital Inspiration blog is a great resource for finding out how to accomplish tasks to make your blog or web page stand out from the crowd. On of their latest posts goes into detail on how to embed MP3 files into your web page.

They go into four different players, Google Reader MP3 Player, Yahoo MP3 Player, Yahoo Media Player and the Odeo MP3 Player.

Check out Digital Inspiration - How to Embed MP3 Audio Files In Web Pages With Google or Yahoo! Flash

Directory of100 Google Maps Mashups Available

2008-02-06T20:23:00.000-06:00

One of the few things I can see that Google has missed is a directory of Google Maps Mashups, luckily the Google Bloggers are there to fill the gaps. Check out Geek News Central - 100 Google maps mashups:

Google maps is one of the more interesting technologies released in recent times and some of the applications that have been built on the API are delivering some cool services.

The Google Maps Mania Blog has put together a list of 100 mashups using Google maps. These range from finding a public toilet or wifi hotspot to measuring the area of a mapped location.

This is a great example of the power of an open platform. If people had to develop these applications from scratch, or license the API to use Google Maps, they would never exist. Conversely, by building a platform that other people can develop on, Google increases the value of their product.
....

Definitely check out the list though as there are some interesting ones there.

Here are the first 20 or so...

1. Find a world brewery
2. Track world terrorism
3. Find a WiFi Hotspot in the US
4. Align your satellite dish properly
5. Catch live music in your area
6. Track a US package
7. See the world at night
8. Walk in a straight line around the world
9. Explore the new 7 wonders of the world (More)
10. Map 2008 presidential campaign contributions
11. Find a public toilet
12. Track a US or Canadian flight number
13. Lookup real-time US airport status
14. Map US FAA delayed flight information
15. Find a world airport, airline or connection
16. Find out "walkscore" for house or apartment
17. Calculate US or Canadian Taxi Fare
18. Look at the clouds!
19. Explore any location on earth
20. Map US telephone area codes

Google Spreadsheets Now Have Forms

2008-02-06T18:50:00.000-06:00

Thats is right Google Spreadsheets now have emailable forms, which means say you want to create of list of people interested in a particular meeting, product and service you can make a Google spreadsheet containing headings for all the contact information you need and then enable forms. Once you've created your form you can send it via email to anyone you think might be interested.

All they have to do is fill in the form a mail it back, and their answers will populate your spreadsheet. You can create signup sheets, polls, advertisements to name just a few possibilities.

For more on Google Forms check out the Official Google Docs Blog- Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information:

Today we're asking you to do something new: stop sharing spreadsheets.

Well... only sometimes, and only in certain situations. See, we've noticed that, in some cases, you want to collect just a tiny bit of information from dozens, scores, or even hundreds of users or more. Some of them are Google Docs users. Some of them are not. Either way, you don't always want them all mucking around with the whole spreadsheet and you're tired of telling those new to Google Docs that they don't need to switch to Gmail just to use Docs (huh? you didn't know that either?).

We're really excited to bring you forms! Create a form in a Google Docs spreadsheet and send it out to anyone with an email address. They won't need to sign in, and they can respond directly from the email message or from an automatically generated web page. Creating the form is easy: start with a spreadsheet to get the form, or start by creating the form and you'll get the spreadsheet automatically.

Responses are automatically added to your spreadsheet. You can even keep a closer eye on them by adding the Google Docs forms gadget to your iGoogle homepage, created by software engineers Valerie Blechar and Sarah Beth Eisinger (in her first month at Google!). It lists your recent active forms, with new responses highlighted. Add this gadget to your iGoogle page:

At Google, we've already been using it for signups, surveys, and miscellaneous mischief. And we can't wait to see what you do with forms in Google Docs.

P.S. Navigate all the extra data you're collecting with the new freeze columns feature. It's been our most requested feature for twelve months, but we hope you'll cut software engineer Eric Bogs a break since he's only been here for a few!

How To Measure Distance Between Two Locations Using Google Maps

2008-02-05T23:15:00.000-06:00

Digital Inspiration has a nice post on what you can do with Google Maps besides just finding how to get where your going. If you've ever wanted to know the distance between two buildings, you can find it, if you want to know the difference in the distance between to routes you can find out.
Check out Digital Inspiration: Measure Distance Between Two Locations Using Google Maps:

Google Maps has a neat feature that lets you calculate distance between two points anywhere on the Earth - you could use this to measure the approximate distance between two cities or to calculate the size of a local football field or to know how far is your new office from home.

In the above example, Google Maps helps us measure the length of Manhattan Bridge between Brooklyn and New York that lies over the river.

To measure distances using Google Maps, click the “My Maps” tab on Google Maps website and select the “Distance Measurement Tool” - now select any two points on the map with your mouse and the distance will appear in miles (or kilometers).

Google Maps uses straight lines to calculate the shortest distance but if you are looking for more accurate numbers, trace the complete route by clicking at all the curves and deviations as below:

In this example we measured the distance between the car parking of Taj Mahal and the actual monument - one has to cover 1.4 km on foot before he gets in.

Use Issuu To Embed PDFs in Web Pages

2008-02-05T20:07:00.000-06:00

With Issuu (pronounced “issue”) you can now embed PDF files in web pages and view them in a very nice viewer, if you have a need for displaying reports or other static documents in your website or blog it might be worth taking a good hard look at what Issuu has to offer.

For a more on Issuu check out Digital Inspiration - Convert PDF Files Into 3D Magazines, Embed in Web Pages - Issuu:

Issuu (prononced “issue”) is an impressive service where you upload PDF documents and they are instantly converted into 3D flip magazines which you can embed in blogs or websites.

Your visitors can turn the pages of the PDF with their mouse or jump to any specific page by clicking the thumbnail image of the page. In other words, Issuu makes your PDF files look almost the same as a physical publication but in a browser.

While Scribd and Slideshare also support PDF files (See “How to Embed PDF Documents in Web Pages“), Issuu offers two main advantages - they allow you to upload large PDF files (upto 100 MB) and their inline PDF player looks absolutely amazing. You even get to decide the colors and the PDF player dimensions.
Issuu is free and a perfect place for sharing PDF files especially the ones that contain photos, illustrations, PowerPoint slides or your design portfolio. Spend five minutes and you’ll love this PDF service for sure.

Google Gears Enabled Google Docs Being Tested

2008-01-29T21:20:00.000-06:00

According to reliable sources including Google Blogscoped, a Gears Enabled version of Google Doc is currently being tested. So soon we will have one less reason to use Office, we'll be able to do all the same things we do today on Google Docs online, offline and then when we have online access, we will be able to sync our changes back to the online versions...

For more on on on going testing check out Google Blogscoped - Google Docs Offline Access:

In a post Philipp made last week about writing a book in Google Docs, he said:
Working with Google Docs requires an internet connection. In my case, I need this internet connection anyway [...] your mileage may vary (and who knows, Google may also release Gears-support for Google Docs in the future).
After playing around with one of Google’s not-so-private experimental sites, I can confirm that offline access is currently being tested.

...

After enabling offline access and confirming the security warning for Google Gears, my documents started to synchronize, just the same as feed items synchronize in Google Reader. (In case you encounter any error messages, Google allows you to reset and disable offline access through the offline access"

Google Groups Becoming Bigger Malware Target

2008-01-29T14:58:00.000-06:00

The Spammers are getting more and more creative lately and Google Group is definitely not immune. Techcrunch has nearly a full page of links to Google group based Malware, check out their post TechCrunch - Go To Google Groups. Get Tricked Into Downloading Malware. Do Not Pass Go:

Spammers have always targeted Google products, and services such as Blogger have always been a favorite destination for spammers. Google Groups isn’t as well known as a spam platform, but after some investigation I found that it has become a leading destination for those seeking Google search results for various offers.
There is varying forms of spam across Google’s platform. Most spam sites usually serve as gateways to various affiliate programs (particularly porn and meds), and although they’re not welcome by most, they’re fairly harmless in the scale of things. The links above however are in a different category.
...
The problem of spam on Google Groups isn’t new, I found articles going back two years discussing spam pages on Google Groups, so the question then becomes: if this has been going on for years, why hasn’t Google acted? Surely if Google can track down and punish users of services such as PayPerPost or those running text link ads it could find spammers using its own services to direct users to download malware? or is it that it’s easier to target others than look after your own backyard?

They're Free, They're, Thank God Almighty Music Downloads Are Free

2008-01-27T13:24:00.000-06:00

It's almost fitting that on this weekend following MLK day music downloads have been set free. Thats right thanks to Qtrax music downloads are now free. And we aren't talking about some tracks by people we have never heard of were are talking about the tracks from the libraries of all four major labels (EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group), launched yesterday with 25 million songs (compared to around 3 m for Amazon and 6 m for iTunes)

It not the slickest interface right now and I betting that once the word gets out it will be busier that just about any other site on the net.

But I don't care, the downloads are free.

Check out what Techcrunch had to say about it in TechCrunch - Free (legal) P2P Music Downloads? Told You So.

Update !!, looks like it was just to good to be true, according to Gizmoto and other major news sites Qtrax don't have a deal with records labels yet, but soon...

Check out Major Labels Deny Signing Deals With Qtrax, Downloading Music Via P2P Still Illegal:

Qtrax's promise, that it would launch a free and legal P2P music network with 25 million songs from the four major record labels, sounded too good to be true. It turns out, that's because it wasn't true. At least not yet. The BBC reports that three of the four major labels have denied making agreements with the company, and the link promising a midnight software download is still inactive. Qtrax president Allan Klepfisz is doing damage control now, claiming that the terms are in place and the contracts are just waiting for a signature. Whether this will happen or not is anyone's guess, but in the meantime, while Klepfisz either kisses major ass or takes a refresher course at B-school, you'll have to get your music fix through alternate methods.

Use Google Reader To Make A Mobile Version Of Your Website

2008-01-27T00:32:00.000-06:00

The Digital Inspiration blog has a neat way of using Google Reader to create a mobile friendly version of your blog or other website. All you need is a RSS feed and you can turn Google Reader into a mobile-sizing tool for any web site. You don't even have to be a Google Reader user, or even have a Google account, to use it.

First copy the site's feed address. Then paste it at the end of a Google Reader mobile address, like so: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/[feed_address]

You'll get each of the site's RSS feed items, in mobile version of Google Reader.

For more check out Digital Inspiration Blog - Make a Mobile Friendly Version of your Blog using Google Reader for more on this neat trick. I for one will be setting up my blogs with it tomorrow.

The Widget Kings

2008-01-27T00:27:00.000-06:00

I love Widgets and I'm not alone, looks like over 148 million people in just the U.S. saw a widget in just one month, November. And I'm betting that isn't a one time occurrence, those number grow each and every month. So what Widgets are the most popular, that's a harder question, as widgets come from many places and run on many platforms. So how do we find out, well comScore is taking a stab at figuring it out with their Widget Metrix.

Though not perfect, they are making more than adaquate stab at it, check out The Widget Kings:

Who rules the world of widgets? It is difficult to measure, but comScore takes a stab at it with a new ranking of widget providers as measured by viewing audience. The Widget Metrix data is from November 2007 and “measures independent objects that can be embedded or downloaded onto another site and can be used as a tool, have automatic content updates, or are interactive.”
In November, 148 million people in the U.S. saw a widget somewhere on the Web (compared to a total Web audience of 182 million, so 81 percent of all Web surfers in the U.S. saw a widget). Of that, MySpace widgets ruled the roost with a 32 percent penetration of the U.S. Internet audience, followed by Slide and Clearspring (at 22 percent each) and RockYou (at 18 percent). if you add Photobucket (16 percent) to MySpace, both are owned by News Corp., that brings the total reach of MySpace-owned widgets up to 46 percent. It seems like Meebo should be in there, with a reach of about 19 million, which would put it right after iGoogle. Who else is missing?

Update: WidgetBox claims 25 million monthly uniques for their widgets, but says they don’t all get counted by comScore because they use Javascript. Another problem with this list is that there might be double-counting. Clearspring, for instance, puts a tracking embed code in RockYou’s widgets. Like I said, these things are difficult to measure.

Update 2: Gigya chimes in, claiming 35 million uniques. And NewsGator says it has 23 million

BeInSync Offers Online Backup Via The Cloud

2008-01-27T00:13:00.000-06:00

How can you participate in the coming "Cloud Computing" revolution? BeInSync and other similar services that I have no doubt will be cropping up very, very soon is the obvious answer. BeInSync syncs your local files to a online version. You pick the directories so only the files you want are synced. And you can log into BeInSync at anytime to make sure the copies are making it from anywhere.

So if you need one of those important office files on your laptop while on your trip to the Bahammas, just go out to BeInSync and get it, and you know for a fact it is the most recent version.

Web Worker Daily has more in Archive BeInSync Offers Flexible Data Management:

We’ve written quite a bit about backups, from swapping backup strategies to protecting data in the cloud. We’ve also looked at a variety of file sharing and remote access solutions. But wouldn’t it be nice to just run one program to take care of all the ways you want to move around and manage your data? That’s the premise of BeInSync, who provide a sort of universal transport layer for your files.
After signing up for the BeInSync service and installing their client software on your computers, four different aspects of data management all flow through this single application: synchronization, sharing, remote access, and backup. You can choose folders on any two of your hard drives to keep in sync (so long as both devices are connected to the internet). You can set up file sharing via web links for your friends or co-workers. You can log in to your own account at the BeInSync site and browse through the files on your own computers. And you can backup your files to Amazon S3 storage.

Most of BeInSync’s operations are done directly between the computers involved, so the only practical limit on the amount of data you can synchronize is set by your connection speed. Additionally, transfers are at the byte level and compressed for additional efficiency. For backups, you get 5GB of S3 space, with an option to purchase more. 256-bit SSL encryption is used for all operations, with an additional level of encryption for backups.

Using just one vendor and having just one piece of software running for these different data-related tasks is an obvious benefit compared to setting up a whole suite of diverse applications. On the flip side, of course, it isn’t free: a year of service will cost you $59.95, with options for two-year or perpetual licenses. And right now this is a Windows-only application; the company has not shipped or announced Mac or Linux support. If you’re in their target market and interested, you can sign up for a 14-day trial via their web site.

ReadBurner Displays The Hottest Google Reader Has To Offer

2008-01-26T22:58:00.000-06:00

The Read Write Web blog has an interesting post this week on a very innovative new web app called ReadBurner. ReadBurner displays the hottest URLs at any given time according to the Google Reader "shared items" feeds users have submitted for tracking.

I feel like knocking myself in the head for not thinking about it first, kudos to the app's author.

It's an example of taking what Google gives us an making something more valuable from it, I'll be watching what the next steps are for the app. Check out Read Write Web - ReadBurner and the Future of Leveraged User Data:

ReadBurner is a great example of one of the cool things you can do with feeds. Here's some next steps I'd love to see from the app.
Recommended users. Let me sign up for an account with ReadBurner (using or tied to OpenID please) and recommend other users' feeds to me that have a lot of overlap with mine. Something like the recommendations at ShareYourOPML (site down) but dynamic so people will keep using it. I'd love to get a feed of newly recommended users too, and perhaps the ability to add recommended users' feeds to a spliced feed just for me.

Hot users. I'm guessing that ReadBurner could show me a LeaderBoard of the contributors who most often share items early that end up being hot later. I would subscribe to those peoples' feeds in a heartbeat. The site has some interesting stats now, specifically the most shared-from sources and authors, but a lot more is possible I'm sure.

It's exciting to think about. This is the kind of innovation that gets the mind spinning. I hope ReadBurner will continue developing, will see continued adoption and won't be shut down by Google. Goodness knows someone outside has to keep the pressure to innovate on Google Reader - remember how long it took GReader to add a search box? Google Reader is very good, but so much more can be done.

Getting Help On Gmail Try The Gmail Help Discussion

2008-01-26T22:49:00.000-06:00

Ever has a problem with Gmail? Who hasn't might be a more accurate question. If you have, are you aware of the Gmail Help Discussion group. The next time you have a problem it is well worth checking out what they have to say. Needless to say, if your having the problem, chance are that thousands of others, amongst the millions of other Gmail users out there have had similar if not the exact problem, and again more than likely someone has posted it on the Gmail Help Discussion.

Check out Official Gmail Blog - Gmail Help Discussion to the rescue:

Here's the scenario: you decide to try out a new Gmail feature and suddenly you have some questions. What do you do? Come on down to the Gmail Help Discussion Group.

The Gmail Help Discussion Group is an interactive user forum where Gmail users communicate with one another. You can get quick and easy access to information for troubleshooting technical problems, share your wealth of experience with other users, get a fellow user's perspective on something that is confusing you, or just stay up to date with Gmail -- all through this community forum.

Here are some tips to help you along:

Tip #1: Someone may have already posted about your topic or question, so search or browse for previous threads before posting a new one.

Tip #2: If you're troubleshooting, try to provide as many details as possible. Specific error messages and specific actions that you took can help others understand what you're experiencing and what you've already tried. For instance, if you're having problems sending messages, specify exactly what occurs, any error messages that you receive, and your computing specifications (such as browser type and operating system) to help the group identify if your problem can be easily remedied or if it will require direct assistance from the Gmail team.

Tip #3: Keep an eye out for the "Gmail Groupies," a particularly active and helpful bunch of Gmail users who really enjoy sharing their knowledge and expertise. You can recognize them by scanning previous posts and looking for frequent contributors.

Whether you want to provide other users with help or have a question of your own, you can join the growing community of more than 200,000 members.

SetYourRate.com is Priceline for Local Services - ReadWriteWeb

2008-01-26T22:13:00.000-06:00

In another source of a "Why Didn't I Think Of That" moment, I read this week about SetYourRate.com in Read Write Web. SetYourRate.com follows the Priceline model, allowing you to advertise for services on the website, naming a price your willing to pay and allowing service providers to either accept your price or ignore your business.

Now all it needs is a celebrity willing to take up it's cause for stock options just like William Shatner did with Priceline. Not sure that the Internet has reached the critical mass needed to make this work but I'm sure the said the same thing about Priceline a few years ago.

Read SetYourRate.com is Priceline for Local Services:

Buyers can browse the site's yellow pages-like listings of service providers, or they can enter a description of the service they're looking for and the price they're willing to pay. Service sellers can then browse those want ads and bid on jobs.
"The inspiration behind SetYourRate.com was that everyone has a marketable skill or service they can offer," said SetYourRate.com co-founder Luke Aviet in a press release. "The Internet has proved a great medium for buying and selling products. We are simply using the same principles to help buyers and sellers of services efficiently connect as well."

I'm not sure that professionals will buy into the name your own price idea, and from some scanning the web site it seems that most of the people offering services are amateurs or moonlighters. Indeed, according to the press release, "the most common reason people offer services through SetYourRate.com is to provide a second income." Certainly you can find reliable help that way, but for many people, I suspect the phonebook or broader local search sites that include user reviews will offer greater utility.

Remember For Milk For Gmail Fixed

2008-01-26T21:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't checked in with my favorite web based task manager Remember The Milk, but I plan on making amends. For starters, evidently when Gmail introduced several underling changes to their code last week, it broke Remember The Milk for Gmail (A Firefox Extention that integrates Remember the Milk into Gmail) and Bob jumped right on the problem and has worked out a fix. To take advantage of it, in Firefox, go to "Tools" then "Add-ons", and click on "Find Updates".

For more on the fix check out the Remember The Milk Blog:

Some of you may have experienced problems with our Remember The Milk for Gmail Firefox extension this week -- it turned out that Google made some significant coding architecture changes to Gmail, and unfortunately our extension wasn't compatible with these changes.
We know just how much many of you were missing this feature (as one forum poster said, "I feel like I'm missing a limb.") and we got Bob to work as quickly as he could to fix this (with minimal stops for banana breaks).
A new version of the extension that works with Gmail's code changes is now available. Firefox should update the extension automatically, but you can also manually tell your browser to update by going to "Tools" then "Add-ons", and clicking on "Find Updates".
Thanks for your patience while we worked on this! As always, if you experience any problems with this or any other RTM feature, please let us know.

With Google And Yahoo Supporting Open ID, Has Data PortablitiesTime Come?

2008-01-21T21:06:00.000-06:00

Long a dream within the Development Community, true Data portability has been today just that, a dream. But with both Google and Yahoo jumping on to the OpenID bandwagon, I thought it might be a good idea to take a look around and see what is new in Data Portability and low and behold I found this in PC World - Data Portability: Reasonable Goal or Impossible Dream?:

It's hard to argue against data portability. After all, who could oppose giving people control over the data they load, publish and store on Web sites?
This is particularly timely now that average users have started feeling the "network fatigue" that comes from maintaining multiple social-networking profiles, e-mail accounts, blogs, address book applications, social-news-sites memberships and the like.
And yet, while it is an important and unquestionably worthy endeavor, data portability faces thorny challenges in areas such as technology, privacy, security, business, and regulation and legislation.
...
Despite the magnitude of the endeavor, participants interviewed feel optimistic that the workgroup will yield concrete results that will bring about industry-wide implementations of data portability solutions.
"Where there is a will, there's a way. And so far it seems like everyone has thrown their will behind the project. Now they need to find a way," said Chris Saad, cofounder of the DataPortability Workgroup, in an e-mail interview.
The DataPortability Workgroup positions itself at a higher conceptual level than the groups working to develop specific technical standards for data portability.
"Our goal is to highlight, not compete [with], the work of other groups, and to encourage the adoption of their work with vendors and users," Saad said.
The workgroup's main accomplishment so far, Saad said, is that it brought people to the table and started to outline the documents it plans to deliver, chief among which will be the DataPortability Technical Blueprint, envisioned as a key reference document for a complete implementation architecture for the data portability stack of standards.
---
Ultimately, the problem represents an opportunity for Internet companies. "In the end, whoever moves first to be truly open will have the advantage," Saad said.
J. Trent Adams, founder and chief innovator at Matchmine, another vendor pushing for data portability, concurs. A stealthy startup could develop a clever application or service built on data portability standards and force other vendors to respond. "All of a sudden it's the right idea, and the big boys will have to react," Adams said.
In other words, Internet companies who insist on locking up their users' data to protect their businesses might soon find themselves instead stuck in the mud.

Getting Started On Web Based Money Management

2008-01-21T16:22:00.000-06:00

Over at Freelance Switch, Collis Ta'eed has done a fantastic job of pulling together all of the pieces that can help you manage your Money Online. Collis has put together blogs, news, reviews, advice and even video clips, to help you get your feet wet in Online Money Management. Well worth the trip take a look.

Here is just part of FreelanceSwitch - Everything You Need to Manage Your Money Online:

Money Management Tools

Wesabe

Wesabe thankfully couldn’t care less what country you are in. This is presumably because they don’t actually connect to your bank account. Instead they provide you a series of uploader tools (including a Firefox extension) that let you upload an account export from your bank account. Once you have your accounts in there, you tag and organise your spending and you can do the usual things like graph and analyse.

The kicker is that Wesabe is money management meets web 2.0 and has a large community of other struggling and mastering people just like me (hopefully not too much like me). Using this shared knowledge base you can get tips on savings tailored to your spending patterns, make goals and generally interact with other people. I’ve only just arrived at Wesabe, but this looks to me like a pretty neat aspect to it all and I’m looking forward to exploring it more.

You can read LifeHacker’s review of Wesabe or Wired’s comparison of Mint and Wesabe and you can see their introductory video here:

Mint Money Management

Mint was released near the end of 2007 and by all accounts is a fantastic product (sadly for me it’s made for a US audience). It connects with your bank and card providers to auto-balance and auto-categorize your transactions, it charts your spending trends and patterns and recommends everything from credit cards to bank accounts to cable providers. You can read two fairly thorough reviews of Mint here and here.

If I was an American I would seriously consider Mint, but as it is, I’m sticking with Wesabe!

Geezeo

Geezeo is a product that looks quite similar to Wesabe in many ways. It’s got the usual money management tools and a bit of the social power of Wesabe mixed in for good measure. The interface is very web 2.0 which I don’t mind and I like their tag ‘educated financial decisions’, but alas I came to Wesabe first and now I’m a convert. Still Geezeo looks like it’s worth checking out if you’re still deciding.

Other Products

GnuCash - If you like your accounts mixed up open-source style, then you’ll love GnuCash. From all accounts it’s quite powerful, though personally - and you can call me shallow - I just can’t get past the open source homepage to find out for myself.

QuickenOnline - Quicken is a major player offline and have taken their product on to the web to make sure they don’t leave people like me behind. Their product has the benefit of a familiar face to it as well as a brand you probably already trust. You can read a good review at GetRichSlowly

Remember The Milk From A Freelancers Point Of View

2008-01-20T22:29:00.000-06:00

Robert Janelle has a new review of my favorite online task manager, and I wanted to pass it along. Robert does a good job hitting RTM's highlights, basics, updates and yes even criticisms, but in the end the article concludes:

Out of all the web-apps I’ve tinkered with in the past year, Remember the Milk is the only one that’s really stuck (assuming you don’t count web-based e-mail.) It’s also the only method of task management that’s really become ingrained in my routine.
Admittedly, when I first signed-up, I used it off and on but now that it’s in my face all the time thanks to the Gmail extension, it gets used pretty much everyday…even if it the daily use is only postponing actions.

For more on Remember the Milk from a Freelancer viewpoint check out, The Freelance Blog - Review: Remember the Milk.

Blogger Joins Yahoo As A OpenID Provider

2008-01-20T22:10:00.000-06:00

Looks like one of the trends in the new year is that OpenID is really catching on, Techcrunch is reporting that hot on the heals of allowing OpenID's to be used to sign comments made to Blogger's blogs, Blogger itself will become a OpenID provider. For more check out Techcrunch - Google Offers OpenID Logins Via Blogger:

After testing OpenID’s as logins to Google’s Blogger in Draft program in November, Google has become an OpenID provider itself. The news confirms TechCrunch UK’s story of January 9, which also predicted that IBM and VeriSign would soon be joining the OpenID train.
Effective immediately, Blogger users are able to use their blogs URL as an OpenID login, after toggling the option via the draft.blogger.com admin menu. Google’s baby steps follow the announcement last week that over 250 million Yahoo users would be able to use their Yahoo logins as OpenID. Reports have put users of Blogger at somewhere between 10 million and 50 million, although the service is renowned as a haven for spam so how many legitimate bloggers will take up this service is unclear. It also isn’t being provided as yet via the regular Blogger quite yet, only via the Blogger in Draft service (although this is available to those who wish to use it), however this is the regular first step for new features in Blogger so it could be expected to become a standard option sometime later this year.

For more on OpenID I found this story on OpenID and Yahoo scheduled implementation, hopefully this will give you a good idea of how it works and what it's advantages are.

Check out PC World - Yahoo to Support OpenID Single Sign-On:

People with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.
Millions Participate
Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.
Yahoo's move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.
OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don't have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.
Yet other initiatives, like Google's OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.
For all of these initiatives, it's critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.
Unsurprisingly, in Thursday's statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation's chairman, hailed Yahoo's support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.
Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell and Microsoft.
How it Works
Yahoo users will be able to take advantage of OpenID in two ways, Raj Mata, Yahoo's membership director, said in an interview.
The first is through the traditional OpenID authentication method: a unique URL string in the format http://me.yahoo.com that will be assigned to each Yahoo member and which they can enter into the log-in prompt in OpenID-supporting sites. That URL string will start with http://me.yahoo.com and be followed by a unique identifying word, Mata said.
On Jan. 30, Yahoo members will be able to retrieve their OpenID URL by going to the Yahoo/OpenID site. The OpenID URL will be assigned by Yahoo, but users will be able to change the unique part of the string to a word of their choice, Mata said.
The other way in which Yahoo users will be able to take advantage of OpenID is in sites that, in addition to the URL string, will also embed a conventional Yahoo log-in prompt on their site. In those cases, Yahoo users will simply need to enter their Yahoo user name and password to log in. The information will be verified on Yahoo servers and, once authenticated, Yahoo will inform the external site that the person is a Yahoo user. The external site doesn't see any log-in information, Mata said.
Launching January 30
On January 30, the Yahoo/OpenID URL will work with all OpenID-supporting sites, while the more conventional log-in prompt is expected to be operational on a few sites, such as Plaxo's, that are collaborating with Yahoo to implement it, Mata said. Yahoo hopes that as OpenID matures and gets refined, the authentication method will move away from the URL method and toward the conventional log-in prompt, he said. Yahoo will put instructions and code on its Web site so that third-party developers can embed its log-in prompt on their sites.
Yahoo's announcement doesn't come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.
Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn't reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.

How Would You Improve Google Reader?

2008-01-20T18:41:00.000-06:00

The Google System Blog has an interesting post going on recommendations for Google Reader Improvements. I really like the one for creating filtering mechanisms like Google Mail which would allow you to label posts by content.

Other recommendations include, adding support for conversations, colored labels, thread mute feature and more. If you have any other ideas, take the time to submit your ideas on Google System Blog - Making Google Reader More Like Gmail

Protect Your Google Account By Creating Alternate Email Addresses

2008-01-20T18:18:00.000-06:00

You've heard of the scams that the bad guys have been using to steal your Google Identity and then hold it hostage. Well now Google has taken steps to fight back against this kind of interruption by allowing you to assign multiple email addresses to your Google account. It isn't automatic, you have to set it up, but it does allow you to create alternate ways into your account and if your worried about it happening, I suggest you take the time and make the effort.

The idea being, if you have multiple ways into your account, the effect of stealing and changing the password of your primary email address cannot keep you from accessing your account.

For instructions on how to do it check into Google System Blog - Associate Email Addresses with a Google Account:

Alternate email addresses are useful if you forget the password of your Google Account and now you can add more than one. In your account, click on Edit next to "Personal information" and associate additional email addresses with your Google Account. Note that you can't add email addresses already associated with another Google Account or Gmail addresses.

After you associate an email address with your account, Google sends a confirmation message to authenticate that the address is actually yours. An added benefit is that your other email addresses are connected to your account and Google can use this information: for example, Google Calendar shows you the invitations sent to any of the associated email addresses. You can also log in by using any of the additional email addresses.