Make Tech Easier» Google

Search Images Safely and Quickly With Google Image Ripper

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:58:17 +0000

Finding images for articles and presentations can be a nuisance. Unless you’re an expert in creating your own images, you probably use Google Images to find pictures that will fit the theme of your project or article. Most people use Google Images because there’s a huge selection of high quality images there, but visiting unknown sites to open full size images is risky. You could get yourself a nasty virus, and what about when you are looking for images with children? Do you cringe as much as I do at what might pop up? When searching for pictures, half the time, you find the image wasn’t even what you were looking for, or it was a broken image and you have to start over again. There has to be a better way!

Going through that process wastes a lot of time, time that you could be using more productively. If this sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. A company called Dear Computer has recognized the need for a more streamlined process, creating a viable alternative to Google Images. It’s Google Image Ripper, a tool to be used in conjunction with Google Images, and it’s not a Google product.

1. Search

This simple tool allows you to search Google’s image database safely and easily as thumbnails or full size images, with download ready links so you don’t have to open the source site to retrieve it. Just right click on the image for easy storing and saving. The simple and clear layout of the images displayed, enables you to pick the perfect image for your needs.

2. Settings

For those of us that guard our eyes and the eyes of the young ones around us, the tool bar allows you to browse images in “Safe Mode” to avoid any inappropriate pictures from being displayed.

You can also customize the size the images are displayed, by selecting from Large, Medium, or Icon.

The last setting in the toolbar allows you to decide if the URL of the image should be displayed. Even if you decide to display it, you don’t have to open it to retrieve the image but It’s an option if you wanted to view the source site.

3. Viewing

As you see above, you can view the images in several different sizes but you can also view full size pictures in a slide show mode. To do this, click on the image you would like to see in full size and either use your arrow keys to see the rest of the images or click the “Next” button.

Of course, there are a few image galleries like Flickr and Photbucket that are gaining in popularity, but you need to sign up for an account and sign in every time you want to search the database. Again, wasted time. If you need something quick, easy and safe to use on a daily basis, Google Image Ripper is a great option. If you like Google Image Ripper but don’t have good luck with it due to your Internet speed, a Firefox plugin called Greasemonkey provides more of an image selection and faster download times for Google Image Ripper.

Which image gallery is your favorite?

Search Images Safely and Quickly With Google Image Ripper originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Create A Google+ Page For Your Business

Damien — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:00:07 +0000

Facebook Page has been insanely popular with web owners that if you didn’t have a Facebook page for your business/website, you are not participating in the social game at all. In order to get a piece of the big pie, it is not surprising that Google has also come out with the Google+ page (for their Google+ social network) that allows anyone to create a page for their website/business. Here’s how you can create a Google+ page for your business.

1. Go to https://plus.google.com/pages/create. Depending on your business type, choose the appropriate category from the left sidebar. For MakeTechEasier, since we don’t carry any product, I will be going with “Others”. Enter your business name, website and other miscellaneous information. Once done, click Next.

2. On the next page, enter your tagline and upload your business logo.

3. While uploading your business logo, make sure you adjust the border markers so that it doesn’t crop the necessary region.

4. Next, on your own Google+ account, you can send an update to your stream to get the word out about your newly created page. Click Finish when done.

Congratulation. You have successfully created a Google+ page for your business. You can now proceed on to setup your page (post content, get the words out, add new friends etc.) If you are already familiar with Google+, using the Google+ page will not be any different from your personal account.

Just below your business logo is a link for you to switch between your own Google+ account or the Google+ page. This allows you to manage your personal account and G+ page easily.

Vanity URL

Google has not introduced a vanity url yet, so your Google+ page URL will be of the form https://plus.google.com/105912493009262034063, which is kind of ugly and hard to remember. One alternative is to use a URL shortener (such as bit.ly) to create a personalised short URL for your Gplus page. For example, the URL shortener http://mte.gs/mte-gplus will lead to Make Tech Easier Google+ page. This is of course a temporary solution till Google introduces the vanity URL.

Promoting your Google+ Page

To promote your newly created Google+ page, you can insert a badge on your site to inform your readers about its existence.

To create a badge:

1. go to https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config.

2. Enter your Google+ page ID (the string of numbers behind the “https://plus.google.com“). Choose the size of the icon that you want to appear on your site. Lastly, enter your badge name.

3. Copy the code and paste it to the position where you want the badge to appear on your site.

Done.

Linking your website to your Google+ Page

If you have followed the instructions above to add the badge to your site, your site is already linked to your Google+ page. If not, just paste the following code to your site, between the tag

<link href="https://your-gplus-page-url" rel="publisher" />

Replace the “https://your-gplus-page-url” with your Google+ page URL.

The benefit of linking your website to Google+ page is that your linked site is now eligible for Google Direct Connect, which allows people to search for you using the “+” sign.

Last but not least, while you are busy setting up your Google+ page, don’t forget to add Make Tech Easier to your circle.

How to Create A Google+ Page For Your Business originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Get Google To Show Your Profile Picture In Search Results

Damien — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:58:15 +0000

If you have noticed recently, when you perform a search in Google, some of the search results have a profile picture (of the author) displayed beneath the link. There are no special privilege for these authors, nor did they pay Google to do it. If you are a blogger or content creator, you can get your picture in the search result as well, for free. Here is how to do it.

Setup Google Profile

Obviously, if you want to display your Google Profile picture, you need to have a Google Profile. If you already have a Google account (or Gmail address), you already have a Google Profile. Log into your Google account and setup your Google Profile. Remember to upload a photo of you (not any other thing) as it will be used in the search result.

2. Before Google can display your profile picture, you need to establish authorship of your site. This is to let Google knows that you are the original author of your content. To do that, you just have to insert a link to your Google Profile with the parameter “?rel=author” in every single page of your site. For example, you can insert a link at the end of your content.

Follow me at Google+

Or insert an empty link if you don’t want anything to show up.

To use Google+ image instead of text, go to this site and enter your Google Profile URL. Grab the generated code and embed it into your content.

3. Next, go to your Google Profile and click “Edit Profile”. At the About tab, click “Contributor to” and enter the name and URL of your website. Save the changes and click “Finished Editing”.

4. Lastly, complete this form so Google can contact you for any implementation issue.

That’s it.

How to Get Google To Show Your Profile Picture In Search Results originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

7 Useful Chrome About Pages You Didn’t Know Exist

JJ — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:58:15 +0000

Back in 2008, Damien wrote an article going through various Firefox about page tricks. Well, Chrome has similar functions behind the scenes, whereby accessing various about pages lets you turn on and off features that you might not otherwise have access to. They can also provide a window into information that might be useful in debugging a problem you might be having, or useful for some other purpose.

Backtracking for a second, you might be wondering what exactly these “about pages” are that I keep speaking of. You may notice that when you open a new tab in chrome, the address bar contains the text “about:blank”. That code simply tells Google Chrome to display a blank page. Varying the text after “about:” allows you to access special pages. I outline some of the most interesting and useful of these below.

1. about:about

This page lists most (but not all) available about pages that you can access. In my testing, however, the links on this page are not functional despite being clickable, and you need to manually type them into the address bar.

2. about:flags

One of the most interesting about pages, this allows you to turn on what Google terms “experiments”, modifying various functions of the Chrome browser. Some examples are an FPS counter that displays when hardware acceleration is in use, the option to disable VSync, and the ability to enable an in-tab preview of print. I tested a couple of the experiments and found some working, while others didn’t seem to do anything. Please report your findings here.

3. about:plugins

This gives you direct access to the options page where you can enable and disable any plugins that you may have installed for Google Chrome.

4. about:net-internals

A very useful backend tool that gives you access to a list of currently open connections, the ability to check what current proxy settings are in effect, and even a test tool that will try and identify why a certain page is not loading properly. Be careful with what you do here, as I could not find any documentation for it.

5. about:memory

This shows you the memory in use by Chrome as well as any other browsers you may have open. Furthermore, it shows you the memory in use by specific tabs and other processes running under Chrome. This allows you to get a better idea of the resource load of the browser, and to perhaps compare it to other browsers you may use. The memory use summary is currently buggy on OSX.

6. about:cache

This allows you to view everything currently in the browser’s cache. The only catch here is that if you click on a link, it does not actually load the image or the file in a normal way. It will display a hexadecimal & ascii form of the file. You could likely copy and paste this into a hex editor if you wanted to retrieve the contents in a usable format.

7. about:version

This displays the current version of Google Chrome that you have installed, along with the version of JavaScript, Flash and the User Agent that it will be giving to pages that it accesses. It also shows you the currently installed directory as well as the location of your profile. The latter might be useful if you want to back it up.

What other about pages did I miss out?

7 Useful Chrome About Pages You Didn’t Know Exist originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

Google Docs Tips For Beginners

Trevor Dobrygoski — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:58:59 +0000

Google Docs is Google’s online document creation and management application. If you haven’t used Google Docs and you have a Google account, it is really worth checking out. It could easily save you from purchasing MS Office or upgrading.

Like many Google applications, Google Docs has been doing some testing behind the scenes. Being able to use and manage your documents well can save lots of time. Here are a few tips to help you be more versed with Google Docs.

Starting from scratch

If you are just starting with Google Docs, here are a few things you will want to start with. Note there are features you can add via web apps and extensions if you are using Google Chrome browser. The newest is offline support.

Collections

These are folders where you can organize your documents. I cannot stress enough how much easier it is to organize from the start. If you need to go back and sort through all of your documents and files, it will be a daunting task.

To create a collection, click on the Create button in the top left of the Google Docs homepage. In the drop down, you should see Collection as an option. Name the collection and you are ready to go.

By default, you will be taken into the new collection. If you want a sub-folder, this is a good time to make one. If you need to add a sub-folder, you can always do it later.

Importing

To move your current documents to the Google cloud, there are a couple of methods. If you have a lot of them to import to the cloud, you may want to consider an application like Gladinet. What Gladinet can do for you is upload all of the files from a certain folder or set of folders. You will need to sort them after they are all uploaded.

The other option is to upload them individually or by the folder. If you choose this method, you can import the files into collections you have already created.

Spreadsheets

If you are an Excel user, this may be slightly different for you. However, many of the same features and settings will be in Google Docs. If you are a hard-core Excel user, you may not have everything you need. Also look at used for Google Forms. These export to a spreadsheet and stored in Google Docs.

Keyboard shortcuts

These are a few of the many keyboard shortcuts when you are using spreadsheets.

Show all formulas Ctrl + ~
Make a copy Ctrl + Up arrow + S
Add new sheet Up arrow + F11
Select column Up arrow + Space
Select row Ctrl + Up arrow + Space
Strikethrough Alt + Up arrow + 5
Redo Ctrl + Y
Move to next sheet Ctrl + Up arrow + PageDown

Conclusion

Google Docs is a fantastic replacement for most desktop If you an everyday user, you will do great. It is an easy transition from Microsoft Office. Having the flexibility to access your documents from anywhere with an internet connection including your phone, outweighs the small features that are lost.

What did you find useful when you first switched to Google Docs?

Image credit: Kinologik

Google Docs Tips For Beginners originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

6 Tips To Make Google Reader Easier To Use

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:58:04 +0000

RSS readers are immensely useful tools for more than just keeping up with your favorite sites. In the past we have talked about different tools to use your Google reader. Some were about bettering your reading experience with Google Reader.

I know I use Google Reader to catch up on my favorite sites. The hard part is making your experience easier. Usually easier means you will use it more. Here are a few ways to make Google Reader easier to use.

Folders

Using folders to sort similar sites together will be the first step in making Google Reader easier to use. Just like in your email, folders help you easily find what you are looking for. By sorting sites into categories that make sense to you, you will be able to pick out posts from sites that are your flavor of the moment.

Eliminate sites

Many blogs simply stop posting new content. If this happens, you can eliminate them from your reader. It is better to bookmark the site as a resource than leave a dead feed in your reader.

You may even lose interest in a topic over time. When this happens, there is no need to keep these sites in your reader. They will take up space and make you feel guilty for not having read the 500 recent posts in that folder.

Use tags

Using tags in Google Reader can make finding a certain articles easier. I have a read later tag for posts that I find the title interesting but can’t read at just that moment. Another good way to use tags is as a sub category. Sometimes you may want to create a folder with an obscure name, but it will not really apply to more than just the one site or article. This is where tagging will come into play.

Instead of creating a folder to house one site or interesting post, make a tag for it. The tags show up at the bottom of same list as folders so you wont forget what tags you have used.

Star your favorites

Another way to keep your favorites easy to find is to star them. Using a star can serve what ever purpose you’d like it to. The star can be used as a read later option or to recall what you started to read and need to finish.

Use Trends to see where your interests are

People change their interests very quickly these days. Trends will tell you what you have been reading lately so you can possibly eliminate sites or topics you no longer read.

Search for bundles

Bundles are a bunch of sites that someone likes and wants to share with others. If you own or write for several sites, you could create a bundle for other people to subscribe to your work.

Conclusion

Google Reader is like many other web applications. It is made for a specific task, but by using a little imagination, you can make it work the way YOU want it to. Whether that is through browser extensions, the way you organize it or by using third-party applications.There is always a different possible use than originally intended.

6 Tips To Make Google Reader Easier To Use originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

Blekko Review: A Worthy Google Challenger

JJ — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:58:12 +0000

The vast majority of people online, nerds and non-nerds alike, use Google for all of their search needs. Statistics place their market share between 80-90% depending on your geographical area. In Australia, where I’m from, their market domination is closer to 95%. That raises the question – is Google really the best offering out there? Are there any up-and-coming challengers that are worth checking out? Bing practically throws out the same results as Google, which might have something to do with the fact that they were caught out copying Google’s results.

A search engine I’ve been hearing mentioned more and more lately is Blekko, so I decided to take a closer look to see if it actually offers anything different to El Goog’s algorithm. I don’t know if many of you have noticed, but Google’s search results have been looking more and more “gamed” lately, with spam becoming pervasive.

So What’s on Offer?

Blekko pitches itself as a search engine with a difference. Through its use of “slashtags”, it allows you to specify what section of the web you are trying to pull results from. Basically if you want to search for something health-related, for example, you would type “/health keyword” and so on. Blekko claims to filter out content farms, spam and malware. Google’s become quite good at filtering out malware, however as I mentioned earlier, its record on spam and content farms is not looking so great right now. Of course, it’s one thing to claim great features like these, but the proof should be in the proverbial pudding. So, does Blekko deliver?

The Results

Let me preface this by saying that this is a highly subjective analysis, and you are best trying it out for yourself. Anyway, I decided to try a bunch of searches in a variety of niches in both Blekko and Google, to test which search engine delivered more relevant results. I used google.com/ncr in order to ensure that Google was showing non-geographically determined results. For some queries, I ran two searches in Google to compare the results adequately, one using the Blekko slashtag as an extra keyword and one without.

Search 1:
Blekko search: “/health weight loss”
Google search 1: “weight loss”
Google search 2: “health weight loss”

Results: Again, highly subjective, but I found the second set of Google search results to be the most relevant. The first result in Blekko was headed “Vinegar may aid in Fat Loss”, second was “Yoga – Prevention” and third was “Sleep loss limits Fat Loss”, whereas the Google search results #2 were “Healthy Weight Loss and Dieting Tips”, “Healthy Eating and Diet Center” and “Weight Loss – Mayo Clinic”.

Search 2:
Blekko search: “/recipes chocolate cake”
Google search: “chocolate cake recipes”

Results: To be honest, I could not discern a quality or relevance different between these results. A tie.

Search 3:
Blekko search: “/smallbusiness accounting”
Google search: “small business accounting”

Results: Blekko wins this one. It linked to a number of pages that talk about how to select software for accounting, as well as a guide from the IRS. The Google results, on the other hand, were purely commercial – with software companies taking the top two places.

Search 4:
Blekko search: “/travel new york”
Google search: “new york travel”

Results: This one’s a tie. They both showed official NY tourism websites, with the only difference in the top 3 being a Yahoo travel link from Blekko and a NY Times link from Google

Wrap-up

This limited testing of mine suggests that, at the very least, Blekko is worth a look. Especially if you aren’t finding what you want on Google. While there is some overlap in the results, there are also some situations where Blekko shows markedly different results. Please comment on your experiences with Blekko below.

Blekko Review: A Worthy Google Challenger originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Integrate Google Reader and Google+

Joshua Price — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:58:35 +0000

Like many of you, I use a lot of Google products. It’s hard not to – they’re usually useful and free. To date, nearly everything Google has released has been a game-changer in its field. Earth, Maps, Gmail, Android, and countless other tools have each raised the bar for what we expect out of software, particularly on the web. When Google released Google+ a short while ago, that left many of us “power users” wondering if/when it would be integrated with Google Reader, the fantastic RSS feed reader. There have been a few plugins/extensions/etc released by third parties with the aim to fill this gap until Google makes it official, but so far the best of the bunch seems to be RSS Share for Google+ and Google Reader. It connects the two services so seamlessly that it’s easy to forget that it’s an addon.

Installation

RSS Share for Google+ and Google Reader (henceforth referred to as RSS Share) is a Chrome/Chromium extension, so yes, you will need to be running Google’s browser. If you haven’t already tried Chrome, you may be surprised by the speed and simplicity of the UI.

The extension can be installed from this page. It’s a simple one-click install that should operate like any other Chrome extension.

What it Does

The features, as described by the developer, are as follows:

“Share on Google+” button in Google Reader
(Optional) Add Google Reader section to Google+
Show read and unread RSS items on Google Plus
Choose if read items are shown
Instantly share any link
Google Reader unread count on Google Plus
j/k key bindings for scrolling through RSS items on Google Plus
Infinite scrolling for RSS items
Click on title to refresh unread count
Tree view of feeds

Usage

First, if you have any Google+ or Reader tabs open, you’ll want to fully refresh them after the extension is installed to make sure the page is rendered with the new bits included. In Reader, you’ll now see a Share with Google+ option at the bottom of each post.

which will bring up the sharing interface familiar to any Google+ user.

That’s nice and all, but RSS Share actually has another trick up it’s sleeve, and it’s a good one. If you open up your Google+, you’ll see that you’ve now got a list of your feeds in the sidebar, under your stream options.

Clicking on any of the titles will bring up the feed in Google+.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way to post entries from Google+ to Reader, but I suppose when you consider that those items are in an entirely different format from RSS and have security and other considerations applied, it makes some technical sense.

Conclusion

It’s been this author’s experience that many similar extensions tend to feel clunky and tacked-on. RSS Share for Google+ and Google Reader is the first I’ve found that integrates seamlessly, and feels like it belongs in the base applications. There are times when such things seem useful at first but quickly get forgotten, but RSS Share is something I’ll be keeping around for a while.

How to Integrate Google Reader and Google+ originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

Google Catalog App Made Shopping On the Internet Much Easier

Laura Tucker — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:58:28 +0000

Have you noticed that you aren’t receiving as many catalogs in the mail these days? Most likely it isn’t because the stores are going green. Instead, look to the Internet as the likely culprit. Shoppers are less likely to open a paper catalog when they can do the same shopping on the Internet at any store imaginable, rather than just the ones they receive mailed catalogs from. The Google Catalog App just made that whole process even more easy.

Google Catalogs offers a selection of the same catalogs you receive in the mail via this handy app for the iPad. Every catalog isn’t included, but it’s a growing resource that does have some great favorites included such as Crate & Barrel.

The catalogs that are included are broken down into the categories such as Kids and Baby, Women’s Fashion and Apparel, Beauty, Home, etc.

Browsing a category shows all of the catalogs that are available for that current month. Just like the paper catalogs, they have months where they are releasing a new catalog and some where they aren’t. It allows you to see easily all the catalogs for any given month.

The pages of these online versions of the catalogs are displayed in much the same way as a paper catalog. There is a bar at the bottom that shows progression through the pages, as well as an icon that allows you to switch back and forth between a pages view and an overall view of all the pages.

Items that are for sale have a price tag icon on them. Clicking on a price tag icon brings up a product page. The item is shown in a larger view, along with a description and a price.

If you choose to buy the item online, it takes you to a the store website within the app, yet there’s an option to view the page in Safari as well. If available, the product page also has an option for buying the item locally. Clicking this option brings up a map with all the stores in the area highlighted where that item is available.

One great shopping tool is the option to create “collages” from different catalogs. It allows you to put together the perfect outfit or refurnish a room, and see all the items together before you buy them. Collage pages are already provided for you to view and use, or you can put together your own. Clicking on the item from the collage then takes you back to the catalog it came from.

Again, this app could never hold all the catalogs that are available, but it does have a great high-end selection, allowing for a good starting point for your shopping. The one thing it’s missing is a sharing function. To be able to share your shopping finds in an email with your friends and family would be a great addition.

Google Catalog App Made Shopping On the Internet Much Easier originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

5 Ways To Make Good Use Of Google Forms

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 14:58:45 +0000

Google Documents is a very popular application for many web workers. You can create a document in the cloud and access it from anywhere as long as there is Internet access. Many applications like Google Docs for Android also allow you to access your Docs account from anywhere you are.

One of the options within Google Docs is Forms. The most common use for Forms is as a survey. There are articles galore on how set them up and incorporate them into a page or email; here is one to get you started.

If you are looking for more ways to make use of the Google Forms, here are some useful means to spark your creativity.

1. Contact Form

I recently replaced the contact form on my website with a Google Form. The reason for the switch was for a couple reasons.

To eliminate emails.
To ask specific questions to better help the person requesting correspondence.
WordPress wasn’t always sending me the emails from the contact forms I tried, even with some troubleshooting and code work.

2. Checkbook registry

Most of the families I know don’t write checks, but carry debit cards. These same people do not save receipts or use any real method to track their spending. Using a form as your checkbook registry would be a great way for a business or household to keep track of money. If you have a smart phone, all you would need to do is save the link to your form in your bookmark.

How to make a registry form

Add in the fields you’d like such as deposit, expense and item purchased.

Using the formulas in the spreadsheet produced by the Form, you can have it automatically update your balance.

3. Wedding RSVP

Weddings are stressful enough. Why make more work for yourself or spend more money than you need to? Create an RSVP Form and email people the link. You could also send it via Facebook or Google+ or shorten the link and DM people on Twitter.

4. Employment application

Sifting through potential employees is a pain. You need to filter through people who have filled out all of the information and filled it out correctly. Then you need to compare and keep whittling down the potential candidates. If you are doing this the old school way with paper applications, you are wasting a lot of time.

By creating a Form with all of the instructions, input boxes and text fields you need, you can easily sort through all of the applicants in the generated spreadsheet. You can sort the whole lot of them by a certain column.

5. Easy expense reporting form

For those of you that travel, either for your own business or your employer, you know how much filling out your expense report sucks. Try making a Form with all of the fields you need. That way you can stay on top of your expenses much easier while on the road.

The entries are all time and date stamped so you can match up the receipt with the expense more easily.

Add fields to correspond with the fields your employer needs. Then, depending on how you need to turn in your expense report, you can simply copy and paste the information from the Google generated spreadsheet.

Those are a few uses for Google Forms other than a survey. Don’t forget to look at the different pre-made themes or even create your own.

What unique way do you use Google Forms?

image Kinologik

5 Ways To Make Good Use Of Google Forms originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Login To Multiple Google Accounts

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:58:18 +0000

There are many reasons to have multiple Google accounts. You may have multiple websites for personal and business accounts. Whatever the reason, it is inconvenient to have several browsers running or keep logging out of one to check another account.

Aside from forwarding your email to a single Gmail account, you can use browser extensions or manage the settings in Gmail to allow multiple account access without the inconveniences you are currently experiencing.

The following methods are mostly meant for accessing several Google accounts for email. Some of the other apps accessed when you are logged into your Google Account may not work.

Quick Login for Google Accounts

For this first fix, you will need to use Google Chrome (browser). The Quick Login for Google Accounts extension will allow you to access several different Google Accounts. This is ideal because you can have a browser window open and have a tab for each Google account.

Setup

1. After adding the extension to Chrome, click the new icon in the top right corner of the browser window, then on options.

2. In the name column, enter something to help you differentiate the account from the others. I chose personal, maketecheasier and untetheredoffice as the names for mine.

3. In the next box over, you will need to put your login user name. You do not need the @gmail.com or @yourgoogleappname

4. Add your login password in the next box to the right.

5. If you are using Google Apps for a business, you will need to tell the extension where the login page is. To do this, you need to click show advanced options. Another row will appear. In this row, you can paste or type the page you visit to log into your business email.

6. After all the information is entered and saved, you can try it out. Click on the Quick login icon again and choose an account to log into.

Multiple Account Sign in

Another option to enable the multiple account login option in your Google Account settings. This way will not tie you to a single browser or even computer. Remember, you will need to sign out of these accounts as well. So if you are one of those people who ticks the remember me or keep me logged in buttons, make sure you actually log out. If you don’t, you will have a lot of email accounts accessible to anyone else using that computer.

Setup

The setup is pretty easy for this one. Sign into your Gmail or Google Docs or some other Google application. In the top right you will see your name. Click on it to show a drop down.

1. In this drop down, there will be an option to access your Account settings.

2. Once in the settings, you will see the option to edit the Multiple sign-in.

3. You will need to log into each Google Account you’d like to access and enable this option.

4. When you have all of the accounts enabled, you can sign into multiple accounts by clicking on your name in the top right again then switch accounts.

5. you will see an option to sign into another account.

You should have access to a good number of the Google application for the other accounts you are accessing.

Conclusion

The whole point of doing this is to make accessing your multiple accounts easier. If you can reply to emails or access your documents with ease, it will shave time off of your tasks. These two options may help you save a little time while freeing up resources on your computer by not having so many browsers running at the same time.

Do you have a preferred method for accessing your multiple accounts?

image o5com

How to Login To Multiple Google Accounts originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

4 Essential Google Helper Apps For Website Owners

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:58:36 +0000

When you have a website of any kind, there are certain things you will need to do and know. Part of what is good to know is what tools are available. As you can imagine, Google has been working on some great new apps for helping you to do everything for free.

There are many applications available to help you on your never ending quest for rankings and traffic, you know Google will have solid web apps to help you out. Here are 4 different Google Labs web apps you can use to in some way if you are a website owner.

1. Scribe

If you have a blog or a site that is frequently updated, there are a few things you need. One of the main things you need is content. Having a clutter free place to write the content is a very helpful. Different people have different preferences on which application they like to use when they write. I have tried several different apps and have settled on Google Docs as my word processor app. That was until I found Google Scribe.

Google Scribe is a simple place to lay your words on a page. What really drew me to it was the word completion. When you start to type a word, it will give you the most likely possibility. You can select the word by pressing the spacebar. You will then see that Google will guess the next word in the sentence.

Google Scribe is pretty limited right now. For example, you cannot save the document you write. I think it will be an amazing add-on to Google Docs, but right now, it is a stand alone writing app.

2. Correlate

While writing, you may want to test keywords or Google search trends. A while ago we mentioned Google Trends. Well, Google Correlate is somewhat similar in that it shows trends for words and phrases being searched for on Google.

What’s different is the way you can search for things. You can search for something like record snowfall. You will see your search results and other searches similar to yours. Using this might help spark ideas of how and what people are searching for in relation to your topic. It is kind of like the wonder wheel and a keyword tool and google trends all wrapped into one.

3. Page Speed

One of the factors in page rank is how fast the pages on your site load. If your pages have long load times, your site will not rank as high as a site with similar information and fast loading pages.

By testing your page speed after you make changes or every-so-often, you will be able to make everyone happy when they find your page. When you run a test, Google will let you know what they see as a problem on your site.

4. Followers

The last of the bunch is getting people to your site. If you have good content and good search engine rankings, this may not be any troubles for you. Other people may choose to expand their reach and look for traffic on social sites like Twitter.

Follow finder is a cool little tool to help you find people to follow on Twitter. As an example, if you follow Make Tech Easier, you may also like LifeHacker’s updates. Follow finder will pull up 4 people you may like because they follow similar people and 4 people who have similar followers.

These may be very simple web apps, but all have a purpose when it comes to adding value to your site.

What unique apps do you use?

image Carlos Luna

4 Essential Google Helper Apps For Website Owners originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Add Social Tracking For Google Analytics In Your Site

Damien — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

For all of you who have implemented the social sharing buttons on your blog/website, don’t you wish that you can track the traffic generated from the clicks of these buttons? You can’t do that in the past, but with the new social tracking feature in Google Analytics, you can do it now. By adding a few lines of code to your existing Google Analytics code, you can quickly get GA to track the number of clicks on your social sharing buttons and the effectiveness of your social media campaign.

At the moment, the social tracking feature in GA only supports Facebook, Twitter and Google +1. The Google +1 tracking is already integrated to GA, so you don’t have to add any extra code. This article will show you how to implement the tracking code for Facebook and Twitter.

Assumption

Before we start, I have to assume that you are using the newer asynchronous Google Analytics code on your site. It should look something like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
script>

If not, go to your Google Analytics account, grab the new code and add it to your site.

Adding the tracking script

Download this minify javascript and upload to your server (the original script can be found here).

Add the following code to your header file, just before the tag:


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://url-to-script/ga_social_tracking_min.js">script>

Replace “url-to-script” to the actual URL where you upload the javascript file.

Adding Facebook Like button tracking code

In your web page, locate the section where you display the Facebook Like button code. It should look something like this:

<div id="fb-root">div>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=222584734419298&xfbml=1">script>
<fb:like href="" send="true" width="450" show_faces="true" font="">fb:like>

Just below this code, add the following:

<script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();script>

The complete code should look like this:




<script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();script>

Adding Twitter button tracking code

For Twitter’s Tweet button, we need to add a callback function to activate the tracking. All you have to do is to copy/paste the code to your tag.

<script>
(function(){
var twitterWidgets = document.createElement('script');
twitterWidgets.type = 'text/javascript';
twitterWidgets.async = true;
twitterWidgets.src = 'http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';
// Setup a callback to track once the script loads.
twitterWidgets.onload = _ga.trackTwitter;
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(twitterWidgets);
})();
script>

Implementing Social Tracking in WordPress

If you are using WordPress, one plugin that you can use to implement the tracking code is Social Media Tracking.

Viewing the Analytics

Log into your Google Analytics account. If you have not switched to the new version, do it now.

Under the “Visitor” section, you should see a “social” link. click the “Engagement” link and you should be able to view your social engagement statistics.

That’s it.

How to Add Social Tracking For Google Analytics In Your Site originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

Backup Your Online Data With Google Takeout

Scott Nesbitt — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:58:07 +0000

What’s one of the most frustrating things about using any online service? Getting your data out of a service.

With some, that can be fairly easy. With many others, it can be difficult, if not impossible. But you should be able to get your information – no matter what the information is – out of any online service easily and in a format that other services or software can read. After all, it’s your data!

Thanks to the work of the Data Liberation Front project, Google has been making the process of getting your data out of its various products easier. The result is Google Takeout. While not complete and not perfect, Google Takeout looks like it’s a step in the right direction.

Let’s take a look at how to use Google Takeout and see where it falls flat.

Using Takeout

Obviously, you won’t be using Google Takeout unless you have a Google account. Just go to the Google Takeout site and log in.

Takeout only supports the following services at the moment:

+1 (web content that you’ve rated)
Buzz (short updates and conversations)
Picasa Web Albums
Google Profiles
Google+

With Google+, you can back up your circles (your groups of friends), your contacts, and your stream (any posts you’ve made to Google+).

On the main screen, click Create Archive. Takeout collects your data into a zip file and downloads it.

By default, Takeout creates an archive of everything. You might not want to do that too often. If you have a lot of data, especially a lot of photos in Picasa Web Albums, the zip file that Takeout creates can be large – several hundred megabytes.

Instead, click Choose services. You can select the data that you want to download, and Takeout will give you an estimate of the size of the archive.

Once you’ve selected the services, click Create Archive. Takeout collects your data into a zip file and downloads it.

The Backups Themselves

What you get in the archives the Takeout creates depends on the product. Takeout uses different file formats to backup your data.

Like what? Picasa Web Albums backups are, obviously, image files. Buzz, +1, and Google+ streams are HTML files. Your contacts are vCard files. And your Google Profile data is a JSON file.

While you might not be able to easily read some of those formats, other software and web services should be able to. It’s just a matter of importing the files.

What About My Other Data?

Takeout only lets you back up a small set of your data in Google’s services. But what about your other data? Well, there are some options for that. They’re not centralized, and force you to do a bit more work, but those options can be effective.

You can back up Google Docs using the information in this MakeTechEasier post. The Data Liberation Front website offers suggestions for other Google products.

If you’re willing to part with some money, then you might want to give Backupify a look. It can backup your Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts. Mac users can take advantage of CloudPull to backup their data from Google Docs,
Google Reader, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts.

Google’s products and services aren’t a black hole for your data. With Google Takeout, it’s gotten a lot easier to get your data out.

Google Takeout

Backup Your Online Data With Google Takeout originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

15 Useful Google Chrome Extensions To Get The Best Out Of Google+

Damien — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:58:22 +0000

It has only been several weeks since Google+ opened its door to limited users and it has already created plenty of buzz. While many people still have not gotten their invites, there are already 10 million users on the platform and a billion items shared per day. If you find yourself terribly addicted to Google+, Here are 15 Google Chrome extensions that make using Google+ a better experience.

1. Google+ Ultimate

Is the Google+ design too bland for your taste? You can now customize the color and style of Google+ with Googlt+ Ultimate. Things that you can customize include the background, scrollbars, left and top panel, navigation bar, image size in stream, side-by-side view (for large monitor).

2. GTools+

GTools+ is developed by the same developer as Google+ Ultimate. It acts as a complement to Google+ Ultimate and allows you to customize the Google bar as well as integrating the chat feature to the Google bar.

3. Google+ Tweaks

The Google+ Tweaks extension is a wrapper for a series of userscripts to customize the usability of Google+. Features include

Preview images when you mouse-over them
Favicon badge shows the number of new notices
Make Google+ use your browser’s full width
Force all images in posts to thumbnails
Pin the Google bar and other navigational elements
Yellow “Post muted” notices automatically fade out
View post actions as buttons instead of as a drop-down menu
Hide various elements of Google+ you don’t use

4. Google+Facebook

If you are not ready to give up your Facebook yet, this extension can show your Facebook news feed in Google+ stream so you can manage both in one place.

Note: While you can post to and view your Facebook feed, you won’t be able to comment on other’s update.

5. Surplus

Surplus integrates Google+ deep into your Chrome browser, allowing you to read notification and post to Streams right from the Google taskbar. It also supports desktop notification and notification sounds.

6. Extended Share for Google Plus

If you are using other social network platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr, this Extended Share add-on will add a “Share on” button below each post in Google+, allowing you to share to other social networks.

Similar extension: Share+ Social Buttons for Google Plus

7. Favorite G+ Stream

By default, when you log in to your Google+ account, it will show you the posts from all your circles. However, there will be times where you just want to follow the streams from a particular circle of friends. Favorite G+ Stream allows you to set a particular stream as the default. When you load your Google+ page, your favorite stream will appear.

8. Move Your Photos

Do you have a lot of photos in Facebook and wanted to migrate them to Picasa (so you can share in Google+)? Move Your Photos can do just that. All you have to do is to connect it with Facebook and it will immediately export your photos from Facebook to Picasa.

9. Goo Plus Manager

Goo Plus Manager adds a shortcut menu so you can quickly access the various part of Google+. In addition, Goo Plus Manager also comes with a series of keyboard shortcuts that you can use, for example:

g + h : go home
g + p : go to profile
i + i : go to photos
i + p : go to photos > phone
i + m : go to photos of me
i + a : go to my photo albums
g + i : go to incoming
g + n : go to notifications

For more keyboard shortcuts, check out the list here.

10. G+ Extended

G+ Extended adds a different set of keyboard shortcuts to your Google+. The shortcuts are:

Press “+” for +1′ing a post.
Press “-” for removing your +1 on a post.
Press “p” to toggle your +1 on a post.
Press “s” to share a post.
Press “e” to expand older comments on a post.

11. Helper for Google+

As its name implies, Helper for Google+ is indeed a very good helper for Google+. Once installed, you will be able to share posts via Twitter, translate posts with Google Translate, bookmarks individual post (locally or to delicious.com), linked #hashtags, search Google+ posts and profiles directly from your omnibox.

12. +Comment Toggle

A simple extension to allow you to hide/show comments on Google+

13. G+ Count in Title

Another simple extension to show notification count at the document title in the page tab.

14. Usability Boost for Google Plus

The Usability Boost for Google Plus extension adds several CSS rule to make Google Plus more pleasant to use. Once installed, it sets the background to gray color, the post area white and the comments section light blue.

15. Native GMail for Google Plus – Beta

This extension allows you to check your Gmail inbox right inside your Google+ page.

What other extensions do you use to enhance your Google+ experience?

15 Useful Google Chrome Extensions To Get The Best Out Of Google+ originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Get The Best Out Of Google Calendar

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:58:47 +0000

Being productive can sometimes be as simple as getting organized. One way to get organized is to have all of your appointments in a calendar, be it paper or digital. For the sake of this article, I’ll talk about the digital version.

A common digital calendar is the Google Calendar. Many companies, ISPs, municipalities and the general public are using Google Calendar. I love it because of how it synced with my Blackberry and now is integrated with my Android phone. Your Google Calendar is a great place to start getting your life in order.

Here’s how you can get the best out of Google Calendar and start to become organized.

Labs

Like all of the other Google apps, Google Calendar has features that are not quite ready to be released, but have a lot of value. Google calls these Labs. Here are some Labs for your calendar to help you get the most of it.

1. Gentle reminders

For those of you who get distracted easily (like me) and don’t want a window popping up to tell you about your meeting in an hour. Instead you will get a notice at the bottom of your screen to tell you.

2. Event attachments

If you invite people to a meeting, you may also want them to have the agenda. With this Labs add-on, you can attach a copy of the meeting agenda to the event.

3. Smart rescheduler

The smart rescheduler is what the name implies. If you need to move a meeting, you can use this Labs feature to find the next best meeting time for the participants. Single click on the appointment you want to reschedule and it will ask you to find a new time in the smart rescheduler box on the right side of your calendar. It can scan both calendars to find the best time for the reschedule.

4. Who’s my one-on-one with?

If you have a lot going on, you may not always remember who you are meeting. When you activate this function, you will see a name next to the appointment name telling you who the invite was from.

Ways to organize your calendars

If you are a busy person, you may have more than one calendar to deal with. A lot of the single parents I know have work, kids, family and personal time to manage. Here are some ways you can manage multiple calendars in one spot.

1. Share calendars with work or family

I suggest this all the time to families. If you have two or more people who lead active lives, sharing your calendar with the others is a good idea. This way you can see what they have going on before you make plans that include them.

I use this for the soccer club trainers and also my team. I share my main training and game schedule with my team so all they need to do is look at their Google Calendar and see the most up-to-date schedule of events.

2. Different colors for different calendars or events

Google lets you change the color of an event or calendar to help it stand out. Depending on the time of year, I manage 8 calendars. All of these calendars have a different color to make the event easier to differentiate from the others.

3. Print it

As strange as it may be to some, printing your weekly or monthly calendar really works for some people. If you have people who are not tech savvy or have a spot where your family may look for information naturally (the refrigerator door or a dry erase board), you can print your calendar for all to see.

Some of these may be simple fixes. The hard part is getting into the routine of using your digital calendar. If you have an Android or other smart phone, you can sync it with your Google account and start using your digital calendar right away.

How do you keep life’s events in order?

Image credit: Alaivani

How to Get The Best Out Of Google Calendar originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How to Migrate Images from Facebook To Google Plus

Abhiroop Basu — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:58:55 +0000

Google+ (or Google Plus) is the hot new thing in social networking. Everyone and their little sister have been clamouring for invites to set up their account in this new playground. Unfortunately, users are having to start from scratch without any of their connections, posts or other media cultivated from other social media sites. For example, Facebook is one of the most popular photo sharing websites and so it is likely that users have a lot of photos on it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to quickly export these photos from Facebook to Google Plus as Facebook does not have any automated tool to do so. Fortunately, enterprising users have created a Google Chrome extension that automatically transfers your Facebook photos to Google Plus.

I am confident there are a number of different methods to transfer your photos, however as I am an ardent Google Chrome user, in this article, I have described the method of exporting all your photos using the dedicated Google Chrome extension.

Installing and using the Chrome Extension

Firstly, head over to the Move Your Photos extension page and install it.

Once the extension is installed, you will notice a small Picasa icon to the right of the Chrome address bar, near the wrench. Click on this icon and you will be presented with a link to login to your Facebook account. This will grant the extension access to the photos on your Facebook account.

After you have logged in, the extension will start fetching all your Facebook photos. If you have any empty albums on Picasa, the extension will also notify you of this and allow you to delete them.

Once the pictures have been fetched, you can select which albums or individual photos to upload to your Picasa account.

Note the guide used to indicate which photos have been uploaded (green border), which photos are in the queue (yellow border), which photos are not to be uploaded (grey border) and which images are altogether unavailable (red border).

Unfortunately, the extension appears to be limited to fetching the photos you have uploaded within specific albums. So, all your albums, mobile uploads, profile pictures, and wall photos are included. However, tagged photos are not included.

Once you have decided which photos to upload, select “Upload” from the bottom of the page. You may have to scroll down if you have a lot of photos.

The upload process will take some time depending on the number of photos you have selected.

Once all the photos have been uploaded, they will appear in segregated albums on your Web Picasa account.

The album is set to private by default and only those with a link to the album will be able to view the photos.

You can now choose which of your circles to share the photos with.

Conclusion

This app is useful if all your photos are stored on Facebook but you feel like switching your allegiance to Google+. It would be a lot more useful, however, if it was possible to upload all your photos (including tagged images) from Facebook to Google+. It is likely, that there are privacy settings that is blocking this type of functionality.

How to Migrate Images from Facebook To Google Plus originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

How To Back Up Your Google Docs

Katie Gatto — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:58:29 +0000

Cloud storage is a good thing, since it allows you to store a great deal of data without taking up all of your system’s storage space. It also allows you to share your files with your co-workers, or your friends, without having to send out mass emails or break up larger files into multiple parts. However, like all forms of storage, it can go awry and it can never be trusted 100% of the time.

Regardless is cloud or local storage, as long as the file is important to you, you know that it is necessary to create a backup of it. We have covered many local backup solution. Today, we are going to show you how to back up your Google Docs.

1. Login to your Google Documents.

2. You should see a check box next to the Actions menu icon. Check this box to select all the documents in your Google Docs. You can deselect as many as you want if you do not need older items. If you only want to back up a small list of selected items, you can choose to check only those documents manually. It will be faster than de-selecting the things that you don’t need.

Once you have made your selections, click the Action menu and choose the “Download” option.

3. Now, it is going to ask you what format you want to save your files in. Select the file type for each type of document with the pull down box on the right.

For Mac users, if you have Office for Mac, you can go ahead and save in Office, the default choice. Since iWork is compatible with office, you can also use this format for the native suite. If you are planning to save this file for later storage on a flash drive, and you plan on using it on multiple devices, you may want to consider saving the files as HTML. HTML files are usually lean and allow you access to the text without a lot of memory killing frills.

4. Lastly, click the Download button. Your files will be zipped and the download will start automatically. Make sure the radio button next to Save is selected and click on OK. You may want to take note of the file name so that you can do a simple spotlight search to find the file later on. This will begin your download. This can take some time depending on the number of files you have.

There you have it, a backup that you can use on your local machine as well as store it for future use.

How To Back Up Your Google Docs originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

Google+: Circle, Streams, Sparks, Hangout and Mobile App. All You Need To Know About Google+

Damien — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 04:40:22 +0000

Google is back again with another attempt to grab a piece of the social network world, and their latest offering – Google+ – could well be the winning piece. In case you are still not aware, Google released a new social network called Google+ that promises to offer a new way of interacting and sharing online. It is currently open to limited users and is strictly by invitation only. Nevertheless, it is already creating a big buzz in the Tech world. Here’s what you need to know about Google+.

Signing up

As of this post, Google+ is by invitation only. You can go to http://plus.google.com, sign in with your Google account (Not Google apps account) and click the button “Keep me posted” to get into the queue. Alternatively, if any of your friend already have a Google+ account, you can get them to invite you in.

Creating Circles

The first thing you got to do after logging into your Google+ account is to create circles. In our social life, we have different circles of friends. They can be your family members, school mates, colleagues or even acquaintances that you met during travel. This is also what Circles in Google+ is about. Circles allows you to organize your friends in the group that they belong to. When you post a status update, you can decide which circles of friends can view your update.

By default, your Google+ account come with a few circles: Friends, Family, Acquaintance and Following. You can create your own circles by clicking the “Create Circle” link.

Once you have created your circles, you can start to drag your friends to the respective circles they belong. If you are an active Gmail user, all your Google contacts will appear in your friends list. If not, you can also pull in your contacts from Yahoo or Hotmail. At this moment, you will notice that your friends list is split into two sections, one is those who already have Google+ account and the other one is those that don’t have a Google+ account . While you can drag any of your friend to your circles, those who don’t have a Google+ account won’t be able to view your updates. You can however send them an email when you post an update. In this way, Google will send them an invitation to join Google+ (Update: Google has stopped all invitations as of this post).

Stream

This is the place where you post update and read news posted by your circle of friends. It acts like both Twitter and Facebook. You can follow friends’ update (by adding them to your circles) or post an update. Your friends/followers can read your public update only if they have added you to their circles.

As for the interface, it is very similar to Facebook, except that it is more plain and in an elegant way. I love the clean interface and the lack of clutter and noise to distract me.

While making an update, you can add photos, videos, links or even add your location to the message.

Sparks

Sparks is where you can select your interest and have Google returned all the related search results. For example, I entered “Linux” and it returned a series of Linux posts that were published over the last few days. You can then pin this topic to the sidebar (under the Spark section) for easy retrieval.

Hangout

Hangout is very useful if you have a webcam and love video chatting with your friends. Hangout allows you to create a video chatting session and invite your circles of friends to the party. Each hangout session can support up to 10 people.

Google+ Mobile App

Together with the browser-based Google+, Google also released a Google+ app for Android which integrates nicely with the phone. From the app, you can add friends to circles, update your status, read streams, view and upload photos and more.

Instant Upload

One great feature about the mobile app is the instant upload that automatically upload the photos and videos you took with your phone. The moment you snap the photos (and if you are connected to the web), it will upload your photos to your Google+ account. One thing that Google did right here is that your uploaded photos and videos are not shared by default. You have to explicitly share them with your circle of friends. You don’t have to worry that your unglamorous side get exposed, unless you purposely want it to.

Huddle

Huddle is just like the group feature in Facebook where you can send a group message to any circle.

Conclusion

The first impression of Google+ is good. I only received my invite 2 days ago and I am already spending more time on it than on Facebook.

Will this become another “great but failed to become popular” product? That will depend on whether Google can increase its stickiness and distinguish itself from Facebook. Google has a clear advantage here because of its deep integration with Google Profile, Picasa, Youtube and many other Google app. Attracting these group of people (who are already using these apps) into Google+ is generally easier than what Facebook had to do when it first started. However, as shown in the history, Google has the ability to make a great product fails too (I am talking about you, Google Wave), so it’s still too early to make any conclusion. The early reviews are mainly by tech enthusiasts and early adopters and they are mostly positive. We have to wait until Google opens the floodgate to the mass public before we can see how far it will go. At this moment, it sure looks promising.

Google+: Circle, Streams, Sparks, Hangout and Mobile App. All You Need To Know About Google+ originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter

[Quick Tips] Use Gog.is To Send Google Search Links

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:58:48 +0000

Gog.is is great for sending a Google search link to someone about a topic. Normally when you search for something like Cars on Google and simply copy the URL, you will have a mess that looks like this.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=cars&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=5014d35bb6efb157&biw=1024&bih=632

People sometimes get scared when they see all that gibberish and can’t tell what the link actually is. Gog.is simplifies this. All you need to do is type Gog.is/cars. When the link is clicked or copy and pasted into the address bar, they will see the same results.

Modifiers

There are a few options you can use as modifiers to help narrow the search. You can see them on the Gog.is site, but here are a few useful modifiers.

Separate words by a comma if there are multiple words in the search term (e.g. gog.is/race,cars ) Other options are adding a plus sign (+) or a forward slash (/) between the words.

imdb: to search IMDB gog.is/imbb:hangover,2
youtube: or y: to search Youtube. gog.is/y:soccer,tricks
shop: or s: for shopping. gog.is/s:android

Other modifiers for seeing the stats of the link and Twitter searches can be found here.

What shortcuts for searching can you share?

[Quick Tips] Use Gog.is To Send Google Search Links originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
Follow us at Facebook | Twitter