Sivaraman’s Column-7: "Google Notebook"

Google Notebook is a very useful free tool to collect information while surfing the web. Usually we do the following to take notes from the web.

· We select the information.
· Copy it.
· Open any text editor like MS-Word, Notepad etc.
· Paste it.

When you want to add another page, you will have to do all the steps again.

When we save the downloaded matter on the hard disk of your PC, we cannot access it from other places. So, we transfer it to a CD or DVD or Pendrive so that we can take it wherever we go.

Google Notebook obviates this and helps us to access the matter from anywhere in a new way.

First you need to download the Google Notebook browser extension from the Google Welcome page or in your Google Notebook window. After downloading and installing the Google toolbar, The Notebook icon along with a few other Google service icons will be in your browser.

You can use the Google Notebook by clicking on the Google Notebook icon and sign in with your gmail account.

If you want to record any matter from the web, just select and click the clip button in the Google Notebook window. Or select the information and right click and select “Note this (Google Notebook)” option. Then it is automatically saved into your Notebook.

You can view your notes from anywhere by logging into your Google Notebook window.

You can open the note and view in full page.

You can invite someone to edit your notes.

You can publish your note as web page.

You can take it to Google Docs for further editing.

Limitations

The space restriction for each note is 64 KB.

Presently this feature is supported in Internet Explorer and Firebox browsers only.

Kindly try Google Notebook and tell me what you feel about it. Bye – Sivaraman.

For more details, Wikipedia article on “Google Notebook”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Notebook

Sivaraman’s Column-6: "Google Reader"

Hi, Today I am taking up another Google product, “Google Reader”. These Google guys are simply great. All the time they are coming up with new ideas, excellent ones at that.

Google Reader is another favourite of mine. Some of the salient features of it:

• Using Google Reader you can simply subscribe to your favourite websites and blogs and read all your news and blogs in one place.
• Google Reader constantly checks your favourite news sites and blogs for new contents. Whenever a website or blog is updated google reader brings the news to you. So you won’t miss any thing.
• Keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email.
• Google Reader shows you all of your favourite sites in one convenient place. It’s like a personalized inbox for the entire web.
• It saves your time and you read all news and blogs in one place.
• Another important feature is you can share the interesting items very easily.
• Google Reader is totally free and you can use it with any browser. You don’t need any additional software.

To use Google Reader

• Visit http://www.google.com/reader

Sign in with your gmail account.

• You will be taken to the home page of Google Reader.
• Click the Add subscription button or press ‘A’ key in the keyboard.
• A search box will be displayed. Type a word to find its feeds or type a URL.
• Press Enter key or Add button.
• It will show the relevant information feeds and no of subscribers subscribed to it.
• You can subscribe to any feed by simply clicking the Subscribe button.
• Immediately it will show the new items in the feed. You can view all the items by clicking the ‘All Items’ option.
• You can read the items and send the item by email to your friends from Google Reader.
• You don’t need to sign in to your mail account, or send as attachments no cut, copy, paste anything.

This will be a weekly column. So see you next week. All the best and bye! – Sivaraman.

Sivaraman’s Column-5: "Picasa Web Albums’

Hello, Good Morning! It has been decided now that this will be a weekly column. Okay? Today I am dealing with Picasa Web Albums. Some of you may already know and may have used it. It is for those who are new to Picasa.

First of all, what is Picasa Web Albums?

Picasa Web Albums is one of the services from the Google family and is designed to help users post and share their photos quickly and easily on the web.

It is available to anyone and offers the following:

1GB of free storage space to post and share approximately 4,000 photos, with the option to upgrade to more space

High-quality photos, automatically resized and optimized to fill available screen space
End-to-end photo management that makes it easy to download uploaded photos back to your computer

To sign up for your own Web Albums, please visit http://picasaweb.google.com/
1. Sign up with your google account.
2. Accept the agreement.
3. You can upload photos in two ways.

Direct upload
Click the upload button provided in your picasa photo page.
Give album title, date, description about the image, place taken and select public or unlisted. If public any one views the image. If you choose unlisted people invited by you only view it.

You can upload five pictures at a time. After selecting the pictures click the start upload button.
Create more new albums by clicking the ‘New Album’ Button.

Using Picasa software
You can use picasa software when you install and open picasa software it searches for pictures in your system and displays pictures as organised. You click any picture and click web album button

It will ask you to enter your username and password of web album account. Enter username and password and click the sign up button.

Give album title, date, description about the image, place taken and select public or unlisted.
You can click the view online button to view the albums when it completes uploading. You will be directly taken to your webalbum page.

4. The uploading is very very fast.
5. Single image upto 20 MB could be uploaded.
6. The quality of the picture is very good.
7. You can embed the slideshow in your blog or web page.
8. The users can view your public albums by visiting
http://picasaweb.google.com/your username

You can invite your friends and family members to visit your private albums by clicking the share album button. Enter the email id’s of your friends and then email albums to your friends.
You can also search for images from there.

See you next! Bye!

Sivaraman’s Column-4: "Google Analytics"

Good Morning! Hope you had nice weekend. Now let me discus about Google Analytics. (A friend has asked me why you always write about Google technologies only. I am a great admirer of Google. Having started a Google topic, I thought I should cover at least some important technologies, before going to other topics. It is virtually impossible to cover all the Google topics. They are daily coming up with new items and to keep pace with them will be rather difficult. Okay!)

Google Analytics is yet another fascinating, free service from Google intended for bloggers, webmasters and online marketers. In short, if you are a blogger like me and want to know how many people visited your blog, where are they from, how much time they spend at your blog, what posting drew them to your blog or what interests them in your blog and such information you can easily get from Google Analytics.

1. Google Analytics has all the features one would expect from a high-end analytics offering. It also provides tightly integrated AdWords support, so one can view AdWords ROI metrics without having to import cost data or add keyword tracking codes.
2. Google Analytics is easy to use for novice marketers, while delivering all of the capabilities that experienced web analytics professionals expect.
3. It is a hosted service that runs on the same servers that power Google. From large, high-traffic corporate sites to small sites, Google Analytics delivers consistent service.
4. If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics also calculates ROI metrics from automatically imported cost and keyword tracking data, saving you time.
5. It tracks all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, regardless of search engine or referral source.
6. Google takes the trust people place in them very seriously, and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of the user’s corporate data. Google understands well that web analytics data is sensitive information, so they accord ironclad protection it deserves.

How to Use Google Analytics:

1. Go to www.google.com/analytics.
2. Sign up with your gmail account. You will be taken to the secured page of Google Analytics.
3. Give your website/blog URL into Accounts Signup Page.
4. Also give your first name, last name, phone number and country and timezone.
5. Click continue button.
6. Read and Accept the Agreement.
7. Tracking code will be provided to you.
8. Copy and paste the tracking code into your website/blog.
9. Click the continue button.
10. You will be taken to Analytics Page.
11. In the homepage, you will be provided with the main details like:
(a) Site Usage: Visits; (ii) Page Views; (iii) AveragePages/Visits; (iv) Bounce rate; (v) Average Time spent at site; (vi) New visits.
(b) Visitors Overview : Number of Visitors
(c) Map Overlay: Countries of Visitors
(d) Traffic Sources: (i) Direct Traffic; (ii) Search Engine; (iii) Referring Site
In Visitors Menu, you can know the following details:
(a) How many people visited your site/blog
(b) How many visits each visitors makes
(c) The browser from which they are viewing
(d) Their Connection Speed
(e) Detailed Map of Countries/Visitors
(f) Time spent on site
(g) New visits
(h) How much time each visitor spends at your site/blog
(i) A comparison of Returning Visitors and New Visitors
(j) Language of visitors
(k) Visitors browser’s OS: Flash version/JavaSupport

In the Traffic Sources Menu, you find how the traffic comes to your site like (a) Percentage of Direct Traffic; (b) Percentage of Referring Sites; and (c) Percentage of Search Engines.

In the Content Menu, you can find out which of your pages are attracting most users. This will give you an idea of what the visitors like or want, which in turn helps the webmaster/blogger to pay more attention to such topics/type of presentations.
Google Analytics uses graphs, pie charts and geo maps to present data which makes it easier to understand and appreciate the data.

This is only a gist. For fully realizing the potential of Google Analytics, I suggest you personally visit it and see for yourself the various interesting features it presents. I might have some of the things that may of interest to you. I have given the URL above. That is all for today. See you tomorrow. Bye!

Sivaraman’s Column-3: "Google Web Accelerator’

Good Morning to all of you! Today I am writing about ‘Google Web Accelerator’’. Needless to say, this is another technology from Google which I found to be very useful. You can also try it.

Tomorrow is a Sunday and hence will be a holiday. See you on Monday! Wish you a happy weekend and all the best!

Google Web Accelerator (GWA)

Google Web Accelerator is one of the Google’s Lab products. It uses the power of Google’s global network to make webpages load faster. GWA uses the following strategies:

Sending your page through Google machines dedicated to handling GWA traffic.

Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.

Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.

Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.

Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.

Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

Broadband users only can feel the difference more than dial-up users. Because currently GWA is optimized to speed up webpage loading for broadband connections. But it does not accelerate HTTPS Protocol and large data downloads.

For availing this facility, you will have to download and install it from: http://webaccelerator.google.com. Installation and usage are very easy.

You can see how much time GWA has saved for you in the performance statistics page. Right click on the GWA icon in the system-tray and choose the option performance data. There you can see how much time has been taken for loading the pages with and without GWA.

Grateful thanks to Google and Googlers.

Sivaraman’s Column-2: A peep into the "Google Labs’

(Good Morning to all of you! I have been planning to write a column a day. Unfortunately, due to unavoidable circumstances, there is a time-gap of 7 days. I shall try my best to keep to my commitment of column a day. It all depends on your support and encouragement. Today I am going to write about ‘Google Labs’. As you browse the Net, you find yourself using the word ‘fascinating’ quite often. The Net is an wonderland of fascinating topics. When you start browsing, you forget everything else, especially time. No wonder people are getting addicted to the Net. Who would like to abandon the fantasy world of Net and return to the dreary world of reality? O.K. Here is one such fascinating topic. Hope you will also find it fascinating and try the various technologies. Maybe some of you will be able to come up with some bright idea, which Google may take up. All the best!).

Google Labs

Google Labs is the site where Google tests its ideas before they become fullfledged products. That is, bright ideas which are not yet ready for prime time. Visitors like us also can contribute to its development by directly offering feedback to the concerned Googler. In short, it is a testing ground for new ideas of Google.

Google calls ‘Google Labs’ its technology playground. It invites the public to visit its site and play with these prototypes and then offer its feedback directly to the Googlers who developed them.

Google also cautions us, that they may disappear without warning or perform erratically, as the technologies are still in the beginning stages of development. If something is not working on this page, Google advises us to come back and try it again later. Some of these new technologies/ideas are:

Google Talk, Labs Edition
Experimental release with new desktop notifications.

Experimental Search
Check out Google’s latest ideas

Google Code Search
Search public source code

Accessible Search
Web search for the visually impaired

Google Extensions for Firefox (Google Browser Sync now available)
Add powerful new tools to your Mozilla Firefox browser

Google Trends
See what the world is searching for

Google Mars
View some of the most detailed maps of Mars created by NASA scientists

Google Page Creator
Create your own web pages, quickly and easily

Google Dashboard Widgets for Mac
Quickly access Google products from within Dashboard

Google Ride Finder
Find a taxi, limousine or shuttle using real time position of vehicles

Google Suggest
As you type your search, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time

Google Sets
Automatically create sets of items from a few examples

When the ideas take shape and become products, they are ‘Google Graduates’. Some of the Google Graduates are:

Google Transit
Plan trips using public transportation

GOOG-411
Search for local businesses using your voice, from any phone, for free.
Dial 1-800-GOOG-411.

Google Reader
Use Google’s web-based feed reader to keep track of your favorite web sites

Google Notebook
Clip and collect information as you browse the web

Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Create, store and share documents and spreadsheets on the web

Google Video
Search TV programs and videos

Personalized Search
Get the search results most relevant to you

iGoogle
Add information you care about to your Google homepage

Google Maps
View maps, get driving directions, and search for local businesses and services.

Google Scholar
Search through journal articles, abstracts and other scholarly literature

Google SMS (US)
Get precise answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device

Google Desktop
Find all your information, whether it’s on the web or stored on your computer, from one convenient location

Google Groups 2
Create and join searchable discussion groups and mailing lists

Web Alerts
Find out about new web pages on a topic of interest

Search by Location
Restrict your search to a particular geographic area

Google Glossary
Find definitions for words, phrases and acronyms

Google News Alerts
Specify a topic and receive email updates

Links for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Labs

http://labs.google.com/

Grateful thanks to Google and Wikipeida.

Sivaraman’s Column-1: A look into Google Docs

(Good morning to all of you! This is Suri from Karaikudi. The time of 09.10 hrs IST. Here is a new column, which I hope you will enjoy and benefit, especially beginners.

My young friend, Mr.K.Sivaraman, is about to complete his M.C.A. He is a soft and kind-hearted person. Taking advantage of his helping tendency, I have been exploiting his knowledge of software and Net. I have requested him to regularly contribute a column in this blog and he has very kindly agreed to it. The first article appears below.)

Sivaraman’s Column-1:
You want to keep your files safely and access them from anywhere?

Google has come up with yet another wonderful feature, viz., “Google Docs”.

1. The first advantage is it is entirely FREE.
2. You can personalize and have your own “Google Docs”, which you alone or people who have your permission can alone access/edit.
3. You can convert any document file into PDF or RTF or HTML format.
4. You can upload every single document into your Google Docs if it does not exceed 500 KB.
5. If the document is in PDF format and you want to upload it, the size should not exceed 10 MB.
6. You can create spreadsheets and can convert them to XLS and HTML.
7. It also accepts popular file formats like ODT, ODS, CSV, PPT etc.
8. You can create folders and organize your files into various folders.
9. As it has autosaving feature, power failures and system breakdowns will not affect our work; they will remain safe.
10. As for sharing, you can share your files with anybody by directly instant mailing them from Google Docs itself.
11. For Bloggers, it is a boon. They can go to Google Docs and read for themselves the other interesting and useful features. For example, you can post directly from Google Docs.
12. You don’t have to HTML as it will convert files into HTML itself and then you can directly publish in your blog or website. Likewise, you can remove postings from your blog/s or website/s you want to delete from Google Docs itself.
13. The interface is user-friendly and anybody can easily understand without difficult and start using it right away.

Personally, I found it to be very fast, including upload and download. Conversion is also very fast. I would like go deeper into Google Docs and shall come back to you with more interesting and useful features.

Bye, see you soon again!