Google | Nerdlets

More Gmail IMAP Options

Oct 092008

For those of you who use gmail, and have IMAP enabled (IMAP allows you to keep your email client–such as Thunderbird, Outlook, iPhone, or Blackberry–perfectly in-sync with all your other email clients, including Google’s web client, so you only have to check your email once), now there are even more options available to you. Read about them here.

For those of you who don’t use gmail, you should. Seriously, even if you want to keep your main email, a Gmail account can be useful as a backup or spam filter.

Google Audio Indexing and the Church

Webapps and Websites No Responses »

Sep 302008

Here is a nice little snippet about Google’s new audio indexing technology from Justin Taylor’s blog, complete with a couple of ideas about how it might be useful for pastors and churches.

Google Takes a Stand

Culture 1 Response »

Sep 262008

Google makes a rare (for Google or any other publicly-owned corporation) stand on a California legislative initiative that does not affect Google’s core business, Proposition 8:

While there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

Read the whole thing.

An Open-Source Alternative to Apple’s iPhone

Tech/Gadgets No Responses »

Sep 232008

No one can dispute it: the iPhone is cool. But Apple maintains absolute control over the software you can install and the services you can use, so the iPhone is still tethered to your home computer. The problem with the iPhone is that it is not open-source.

Google has been working on an alternative platform for some time now, dubbed Android (for a summary and overview, go here, for more technical details, start here). Its not a phone; its a platform, that is, a collection of tools and software that runs a phone. Think of it as an operating system for your cell, and in this case that operating system is free and open-source (for the most part).

The Android platform has been in development for over a year, and today marks the official announcement of the first phone to utilize that platform: the T-Mobile G1, otherwise known as the HTC Dream, and includes a full slide out keyboard and a touch screen interface. Like the iPhone, it will play music (purchases are through Amazon’s DRM-free music store), support podcasts, and include an application store for community-produced software.

Ars Technica reports:

In addition to being chock full of Google’s open source goodness, the
companies have worked to ensure that the Android-enabled Dream is chock
full of familiar features and apps. Users will have one-click access to
all of Google’s mobile apps, such as Gmail, Google Maps (including
street view, a feature that is infuriatingly missing from the iPhone),
Google talk, Google Calendar, and more.

Check out the full story here.

Update: Read The New York Times’s take, complete with pretty pictures.

Web 2.0 and Teaching

Webapps and Websites No Responses »

Sep 092008

I have been thinking more and more lately about harnessing online tools for education and the classroom. I have grown disillusioned by “traditional” software; its usually cumbersome, has little if any social emphasis, and is expensive and not open-source.

In the course of searching for alternatives I came across this pos t, which has sparked my interest. Some of their recommendations can be implemented on the individual level–setting up a class blog, for example, or a google page. Others require institution support (I tried out Moodle on my server tonight, and while I was impressed, it was overkill for hosting one or two courses).

A Temporary Solution

My classroom needs are actually fairly limited; email announcements, reminders, a document repository, all easily accessible. It would be nice if it was cross-platform. It would be nice if it would provide email notifications. It would be nice if privacy could be easily managed. RSS feeds are probably a pipe-dream, but would be an excellent feature. Oh, and hosted on someone else’s server.

Turns out, drop.io (mentioned here) provides all of these features. It really is amazing how something so simple could be so incredibly powerful and versatile.

So here is my wish-list for drop.io. (1) Slightly more (free) space. (2) Sync to a local folder. (3) File overwrites (if you add a file that is already there, it overwrites that file).

The Second “Preview” Release of Zotero 1.5

Software No Responses »

Sep 052008

Zotero is releasing a second beta version of their upcoming 1.5 edition. The biggest enhancement for 1.5, introduced in the first preview release, is the ability to sync Zotero information between computers.

The second preview adds attached files to that functionality, but only if you have a WebDAV account (or server).Unless someone is providing you with a WebDAV service (iDisk, online storage, etc), WebDAV is not the easiest of protocols to set up.

Another, perhaps more important, new feature is the ability to automatically download (from Google Scholar, I think) PDF metadata. This is yet another way Zotero makes organizing and locating files easier. If you have a stack of PDFs on your computer, many of which probably have non-descriptive filenames, this feature is for you. You can see this feature in action here.

A more thorough list of features, and a download link, can be found here.

The Power of Firefox Extensions

Software No Responses »

Sep 042008

Not too long ago I posted about features available in Google’s Chrome that are not available in Firefox.

I stand corrected. All of the aforementioned features are available through Firefox’s extension system. This is another great example of the power of Firefox extensions, a power that is only possible through Open Source (API’s are just too limiting).

Chrome (which is also open source) will be getting extensions too, eventually.

After trying Chrome (which lacks Mac and Linux versions at the moment), I’m going to stick with Firefox (big surprise). Obviously this is primarily because Firefox is mature, and its extensions cannot be beat. But privacy concerns are also becoming something of an issue with Google, and I’d like to see how things settle out before tying even more of my online life to one company.

More on Google Chrome

Software 1 Response »

Sep 032008

Here is a nice little post with some important details: what Google Chrome has that Firefox doesn’t.

On to Something

Software No Responses »

Sep 012008

Here are some links regarding the aforementioned Google Chrome, in no particular order, and with no attempt at explanation.

Classic in-depth (tech) reporting from ars technica
Can Google Build a Better Browser
Dilbert-esque Introduction
Webware’s Take
Some Screenshots
Remaining Questions
Will it affect Windows?
Some other issues.

Enjoy. And remember: I got there first.

Google enters the Browser Wars with “Chrome”

Software 6 Responses »

Sep 012008

Google is entering the browser wars.

But true to its “Don’t be evil” slogan, Google is not really waging a war. In fact, just last week Google announced that they would continue their support of Mozilla’s Firefox browser until at least 2011.

So why launch a new web browser?

Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

What, more specifically, does Google think it can contribute?

Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

In other words, Google’s browser will apparently focus on web applications, rather than on the comparatively “simple” matter of web browsing. This reflects a more general trend towards “Web 2.0/3.0″ and, to bring in another buzz word, “Cloud Computing.” In short: Google anticipates that more and more of your interaction with the computer will actually be interaction with the web. The software you use, the files you store, and the Operating System you run will increasingly be web-based, not hardware-based (Microsoft agrees, by the way). To put the matter even more succinctly, in 10 years Google expects that your web browser will be your OS. I suspect that their release of this new browser is intended to reflect this prophecy, while at the same time assisting Google (in its real war against Microsoft) to fulfill its own prediction. A self-fulfilling prophecy, in browser form.

Will it work? We will see (I personally would like to see a hybrid system—I hope the “cloud” will be grounded in open-source-supported home-hardware). In the meantime, it is encouraging to again reiterate: Google is still supporting Mozilla, and in addition to this continued Firefox support, which serves Google’s own interest (for the time being), they have committed to an open-source model for their own offering:

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

This is a good move (and the only legal one available to them, since Mozilla publishes Firefox ‘s code under an open-source license that requires open-source reciprocation).

So how can you get your hands on this technology?

Check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We’ll post an update here as soon as it’s ready.

The only hurdle I can foresee here is the recent controversy Google has had over privacy issues (regarding ad-targetting in Gmail, the Viacom/YouTube controversy, and, of course, Google street-view concerns). But Google makes such good “products,” it’s hard not to trust them.

Read the whole story here.