small things to help you live a better life ONLINE
September 30th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
Because a picture is worth 1000 words …
wave.google.com redesigned
click on the image to zoom in
wave.google.com has been redesigned, adding login window, since they are giving access to more beta testers today. Don’t forget to check out our google wave plugins, if you already have an account !
September 29th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
Emoticons for Google Wave
Can you imagine emails and chat messages without emitocons or smileys ? I can’t .. I even use them while chatting with customers and clients. When Google wave is released, we will start searching for cool smiles and emoticons for Wave conversations too. I started that search early and found a nice plugin for all of us !!
Emoticony is a robot for Google Wave which replaces text representations of emoticons with the relevant image. There are currently over 50 different emoticons available, with this number continuing to grow. They are planning to release emoticons focused around specific events (Halloween, Christmas etc.)
In order to enable the plugin, all you need to do is, add emoticonbot@appspot.com to your wave. Enjoy ! For More Plugins, click here
September 25th, 2009 — google, Google Wave, Twitter
Want to cover an event through Live Blogging ? Google Wave is all you need for Live blogging using WordPress (or any other blogging or CMS platform like Drupal and Joomla ). Read on, to know how this can be done.
Install a WordPress Plugin that embeds Google Wave in to your Blogpost, and then publish your wave on your blog, and you are ready for the show ! Now all you need to do is updating the wave, which will automatically update your blog post, real time.
Find the right Google Wave Plugin for you. If you are using WordPress, there are three plugins, wp-wave-shortcode, and wavepressthis. But the best wordpress plugin for Wave is, Wavr. It provides one click integration of Wave to WordPress.
If you are using Drupal on your website, “Drupal Waves” plugin will help you embed waves to your webpages. Find the details about Drupal wave and 7 more useful google wave plugins here. If you are using Joomla, you can download the Joomla Wave Plugin from here.
After the plugin is installed and activated, all you need to do is embed a wave in your blog post, and start updating the wave, which will be updated on the blog as well, real time. People can read things while you are typing those words, you can share images, videos, etc, by simply adding them to wave. Your blog post or webpage with the wave will work like a charm, providing live streaming of the session you are covering !!
What do you think ? 
ps: photo by Ben30
September 5th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
Update: Embedding video in a wave is easier than I thought. Just paste the video URL, and it will show a small icon at the end of the URL, asking if you want to embed the video. Click that, and you are done.
And check out the Google Wave Extension for Google Chrome too !!
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Google wave is not just for communication and collaboration. It’s for fun and entertainment too. Can you imagine entertainment on the web without Youtube videos ? … here is sweet plugin that lets you embed youtube videos in to a WAVE.
Youtube Video on Google Wave
This wave addon lets you add HTML, CSS and Javascript codes to your WAVE. To embed a Youtube video, you need enable this plugin, and then copy paste the youtube video’s embed code as you do on normal webpages and blog posts. Simple ? You will get more details about this plugin from this page.
I will be updating this post with more information and screenshots when Google Wave is out. Stay tuned.
September 4th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
If you are waiting for Google Wave, or if you already have an account to the Wave Sandbox, these google wave wallpapers are for you !! Remember to try these Google Wave plugins too, when you are done downloading these images.
Google Wave Cute Wallpaper
Google Wave Dark Wallpaper
Google Wave Logo Wallpaper
Google Wave Wallpaper
August 25th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
Google Wave will be released later this year. The world is waiting ( just like you and me !! ) … but, lets take a moment to think about how Google Wave will be evolving.
First simple thing that I am thinking about it Google Wave themes. Not everyone likes the googly blue everywhere they go. So, when Google Wave is out, people will be looking for options to change looks and feel of Google Wave. Their prayers will be answered when themes are released.
Looking at the speed at which google wave plugins are being developed, I have no doubt about google wave themes being released very soon. Don’t worry about looking for them around the wide wide web .. I will search and find them for you .. just stay tuned .. ( rss rss … ding dong !! )
If you are wondering what a Google Wave desktop client is, I have an idea to make it really really easy to understand. If you are using twitter, you are probably not using twitter.com to tweet and retweet right ? You might be using tweetdeck or twitterfox of something similar.
So think about using google wave from a software similar to tweetdesk, instead of using the web interface ? Like tweetdesk made it easier and interesting to manage your twitter account, we may find an app to make google wave more fun and useful on desktop .. may be an adobe air application ? anyone thinking about that ? ( hmm did anyone ask for my twitter account ? here you go .. )
I will be wrong if I say, people have started thinking about Google Wave Desktop clients. They have actually started making them. Here is a video that I found on this blog.
My Wave Web Chat Client Demo from Benjamin Nortier on Vimeo.
These things are still in the development more reformed and usable forms are yet to be developed or released. Let’s wait and watch !!
If you are looking for a way to test google wave before google releases their version, here is a test server where you can sign up for a free account. Its not quite ready yet, but you can get the feeling of what it is like to be inside google wave. Click here
ps: image credit monterd
August 21st, 2009 — google, Google Wave
If you are getting ready to use Google Wave, learn these shortcut keys and make yourself comfortable. Don’t forget to bookmark this post for future use !!
Up/Down arrows use to navigate messages.
Tab/Shift-tab same as Up/Down arrows (outside edit mode)
Home/End focus first/last message
Space go to next unread message.
Left/Right arrows to switch focus between digest panel and wave panel.
Page Up/Down go to the next page in the panel [does not currently work, known bugs]
Ctrl-Space mark all messages read (focus must be on wave panel though)
Enter replies to messages: the new message will appear just below the selected message (it will be the same indentation level if it is the first reply, but indented more if a non-first reply).
Shift-Enter replies to messages at the end of thread: the new message will appear at the same indentation level, and at the BOTTOM most position.
Shift-Enter while editing ends editing (equivalent to clicking the done button)
highlight text + Enter inline reply: the new message will appear indented and INSIDE the current message.
Ctrl-R same as enter
Ctrl-E edit message
Ctrl-Enter (while editing) insert inline reply at caret
Ctrl-B toggles bold attributes for selected text
Ctrl-I toggles italics attributes for selected text
Ctrl-G Color
Ctrl-L Links to another Wave (highlight text, hit CTRL-L and put in a URL or a Wave ID (see Debug menu for ID’s) [NOTE: we will soon change the key combo]
Ctrl-C copy the selected text.
Ctrl-X cut the selected text.
Ctrl-V paste the text from the text buffer.
Ctrl- Make the current line a heading, where n = 1..4 for different sized headings.
Ctrl-5 Bullets
Ctrl-6 Normal (removes heading/bullet style, but not bold/italic etc. current visual glitch in some browsers where text stays big – but this is not persistent.)
Ctrl-7 LTR + Left align
Ctrl-8 RTL + Right align
August 19th, 2009 — google, Google Wave
The web is getting ready for Google Wave. There are more and more wave plugins and extensions coming out almost every day for this. Latest one here is Google Wave Embed extension for Mediawiki. This is a simple article that lets you learn the basics of using Google Wave on Wikipedia or Mediawiki.
this is what their website says .. simple and easy to understand.
MediaWiki is a free software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and bymany other wikis, including this website, the home of MediaWiki.
The GoogleWave extension makes it possible to embed Google Waves in your installation of MediaWiki using the The Google Wave Embed API. So, in future we may see Google Wave in a Wikimedia entry, letting you do more on that Wiki Article. If you have your own MediaWiki installation, this is great news for you also.
Now, here is the howto part, or the technical knowhow on adding Google Wave in to a Wiki entry. This can be achieved with the wave-tag and id attribute like this:
<wave id=”wavesandbox.com!w+TwgH-jM-%B” />
Place the tag in your regular WikiML code in any page and you should be good to go (you must of course change the id to the actual id of the wave that you want to embed).
The MediaWiki wave tag now supports all the attributes that a wave can handle. That means, you can change following things on the wave, ( mainly how it looks, and its size )
Need more info ? Click Here.
