Tag Archives: blog

Google Dashboard is Cool !

Are you using Gmail ?  How many mails have you sent, or received so far ?  How many chat conversations you had in Gmail ?

Find out more  interesting stuff/stats like this using google’s new “dashboard“. The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location. Login to Google.com/dashboard, and you can manage all your google  accounts from a single page.

The Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. Hmm … I couldn’t see Google Wave in the list  … :( You can change security and other settings of any of these google products from dashboard. Watch the video for more info !

Liked it ?

Source : Google Blog

Live Blogging With Google Wave, iDEA

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.

The Solution in Simple Words

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.

Now, Those Simple Steps

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

WordPress 2.9 will have an Image Editor

WordPress is getting it’s own image editor, (  not a plugin,  added to core of wordpress ) . Do not get over excited, it’s not something like photoshop or gimp. But, most of the things you need to do to make an image ready for your blog can be done using this new editor. This includes rotating, resizing and scaling the image.  Have a look at the screenshot, to know what it is, and how it looks like.

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How to Embed Youtube videos in a 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.

HTML Gadget, the Plugin

Youtube Video on Google 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.

Future of Google Wave : Themes and then Wave Desktop Clients

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.

Google Wave Themes

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 !! )

Google Wave Desktop Clients

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 !!

Sign Up for Free Wave Experience

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

Is Orkut trying to Imitate Twitter ?

Orkut has always been different. It was about friendship, not about link sharing or the typical social media networking.  Now orkut has announced a new feature that lets you promote your content. And yes, its called “Orkut Promote”

You can share links, photos and videos to your friends using this new feature. If your friends like it, they can “spread” it among their friends. Plus, you can track your promotions, how many people shared it with their friends, how many people clicked on your links etc. Simple ?

Is Orkut trying to Imitate twitter ?

If orkut has made it this simple, why should I confuse you explaining things in words ? Here is a video  ….

I think it’s really cool ! and I am going to use this to promote my blog on Orkut. I know you guys are also going to do the same :D . And yes … not just my blog ok ? I will share your blogs too, whenever I find something interesting from you people !!

Are you still active on Orkut ?

Yes. I am still active on orkut. It is ( still ) a good way to stay connected with old school and college friends. However, when you compare it with other social networking sites like friendfeed or twitter, this is not really about sharing links and content online. This is little different, and I like it.

Is Orkut as good as friendfeed or facebook ?  I don’t know the answer for that question ( do you ? ) .. but I know that orkut is really simple, and that’s why it is still my favorite.  Here is a new feature that helps you promote your content on orkut.  Well, this is simple too.

source : Orkut Blog

Tweetbacks : Steal your comments from Twitter !

Tweetbacks

Tweetbacks

Ready for some action ? Okay, we are going to steal some comments for your blog posts from twitter. Don’t worry, they took our comments first, now we are stealing them back, so you will not be punished ( if you get caught, I don’t know you, ok ? )

Check out some blogs, with loads of twitter love. They get hundreds of RTs about theirs posts, and we envy their Tweetme counts. But most of these blog posts with 100+ tweets about them, do not get many comments. People tweet about them but ignore the comment form. But, they still love your those blog posts.

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