» Smart Phones, Web Design, Google or whatever
All stuff Google, except for Gmail which you will find in the ‘Email and Gmail’ category
Google Trims Privacy Policy
Sep 4th
Google has just released slimmed down privacy policies, putting an umbrella privacy policy over all Google products, specific privacy policies for specific Google applications, and has simplified their language to be more clear according to their recent post.
The Google Privacy Center says:
We are updating our privacy policies to make them more user-friendly and to better reflect how our products work together.
Also, you can visit the Google Privacy Tools page to do things like see what information is in your Google account, choose Ad Preferences and more. Google has given more control over privacy on their information while viewing websites, at least those connected somehow with Google, like Google sites, services and websites using Google Services such as Google Analytics.
The post also says:
So we’re simplifying and updating Google’s privacy policies. To be clear, we aren’t changing any of our privacy practices; we want to make our policies more transparent and understandable.
… so we don’t have to worry about the search giant becoming evil and changing their privacy policies and giving away or selling our personally identifiable information. To the contrary the pages mentioned above (Google Privacy Center and Google Privacy Tool) give web surfers more control over their info.
GOOGLE’S 5 PRIVACY PRINCIPLES
Outlook 2010 users get Google Calendar Sync (32-bit only)
Aug 17th
For Outlook 2010 users out there (with 32-bit systems) who want to sync with Google Calendar your prayers have been answered…
FROM THE” GMAIL BLOG:
Google Calendar works with a number of desktop applications and mobile devices including iCal, iPhone and iPad, Blackberry, Android, Nokia/Symbian, and Windows Mobile phones. Google Calendar Sync for Outlook is also available, but one thing was missing — until now.
Now take the power of Outlook’s Calendar and sync with Google Calendar to get maximum flexibility and usability by extending yourself to the web – easily.
Share Your Calendar (GCalendar)
MORE
HTML5 Gmail Video Game
Aug 16th
Play Galactic Inbox, a free, keyboard-based fun game by Creative Technologist Paul Truong. No sound, and its not going to replace your favorite video game, but its a fun play, blast-from-the-past for those old enough to remember Space Invaders or Asteroids.
As the post says “make sure you’re using a modern browser that supports HTML5 first”. Not sure if your browser supports HTML5? Try this test:
http://www.html5test.com/
I’m using Firefox 3.6.8 which scored 139 of 300 points and it plays the game.
‘Google Cloud Print’ Replacing Print Drivers?
Apr 16th
So the Google fan that I am I see ZDnet article today called Printer drivers: A thing of the past? Google, HP seem to think so and start reading, then start getting concerned – concerned enough about the future of my files to go searching for the original Google post on the Chromium blog. So let’s get started with a visual of how Google Cloud Print would work.
To understand where Google is coming from, let’s grab this bit of text from their post explaining the WHY of cloud printing…
While the emergence of cloud and mobile computing has provided users with access to information and personal documents from virtually any device, today’s printers still require installing drivers which makes printing impossible from most of these new devices. Developing and maintaining print subsystems for every combination of hardware and operating system– from desktops to netbooks to mobile devices — simply isn’t feasible.
- Chromium blog, A New Approach to Printing
April 15, 2010
So the main point Google is emphasizing is that due to the fact that all Chrome OS application are web-based, and they evidently don’t feel like porting like a million different print drivers and thus bloating the OS, and since everything else is web-based anyway – why not run printing jobs through the web.
Well, here are my concerns…
- about to print an important document on your Chrome OS computer and Comcast (or whatever ISP) goes out, no printing!
- printing first thing in the AM when “everyone” is on the Internet
- printing @ lunch when “everyone” is on the Internet
- printing @ the end of the work day when “everyone” is on the Internet
- privacy concerns
I love Google, and I think Chrome OS would be pretty cool, but I just don’t know about this cloud printing thing. What do you think, please drop a comment.
MORE ON CHROME OS
Video: What is Chrome OS?
Video: Chrome OS Demo
About Chrome OS (Chrome OS website)
Google and China, New Approach No Censoring
Mar 22nd
Today, 3/22/2010, Google stopped censoring Chinese search results as a result of continued hacking/phishing attacks and intrusions against Google and other companies as also noted in their earlier post from January, 2010 – A New Approach to China.
The search engine & web applications giant has redirected visits at Google.cn (Google China) to Google.hk (Google Hong Kong). Google has tried it the Chinese government’s way, now they are taking their new approach. Google says:
So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.
- A new approach to China: an update (Google Blog)
Concerning the increased traffic at Google Hong Kong, Google says:
Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.
- A new approach to China: an update (Google Blog)
Smart Rescheduler in Google Calendar
Mar 22nd
GCalendar Smart Rescheduler
Google has added another new feature in Google Calendar labs called Smart Rescheduler. If you are a heavy user of Google Calendar and schedule your meetings with others who also use GCalendar than this nifty feature might be right up your alley.
Instead of spending time researching everyone’s schedule manually Google says this new feature will:
apply some of Google’s search experience to the problem of scheduling… Just like Google search ranks the web, our scheduling search algorithm returns a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times… You’ll see ranked list of possible times for your meeting. By investigating the calendars others have shared with you, Google Calendar can make some educated guesses about how easy it might be to reschedule a conflicting meeting…
Sound worth a try? Go ahead and turn on Smart Rescheduler now!
GCalendar Gets 3 New Labs Features
Mar 18th
Google Calendar got 3 new features via labs recently, as mentioned in their 3 new Calendar Labs post from 3/10/2010. The new features are Event Flair, Gentle Reminders and Automatically declining events.
Event Flair lets you assign an icon to events. At-a-glance you can see which events are more important than others, or other things limited only by your mind. Gentle Reminders pops up less obtrusive reminders of your meetings, Automatically declining events and lets you automatically decline things at times like Vacation, or other times when they would conflict with your schedule.
Buzz off! Outta my inbox!
Mar 18th
One Google product I’ve not gotten into, nor even shown any interest in is Google Buzz. Because I can drag-n-drop my labels to hide them, I hid the new Buzz label the first day I noticed it. Considering Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo and other social timesuckers, errr social networks last thing I needed was another.
In their “Better Buzz Controls” post Google posted this:
“When you participate in a conversation in Google Buzz, we bring that post to your inbox to make it easy to keep up with the discussion. But we’ve heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy — we feel it too…“
