Googleholic for June 3, 2008

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Googleholic for June 3, 2008

by Christina Warren Jun 3rd 2008

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

Google Finance gets real-time NASDAQ quotes
IMAP or POP? Learn the differences
Google Speaker series: Tim Ansell on open source gaming
New Google Apps book

Google Finance gets real-time NASDAQ quotes

As we reported yesterday, Google and a number of other financial reporting services are now offering free real-time NASDAQ data. Google has been working on getting free real-time quotes since early 2007 and their hard work and lobbying has finally paid off. Google Finance and other Google search properties will provide streaming real-time last sale prices for the NASDAQ index, update once per second.

[via Google Finance Blog]

IMAP or POP? Learn the differences

When it comes to accessing your Google Apps or Gmail mail from another device (say, a smartphone) or from a stand-alone e-mail program, Google offers two options: IMAP and POP. But what are the differences, and where is one better than the other? The Official Gmail blog has a great comparison table highlighting the differences between the two options and instructions on how to enable them.

[via Official Gmail blog]

Google Speaker series: Tim Ansell on open source gaming

The Open Source Developers @ Google Speaker Series is back! Tim Ansell, new Googler and founder of the Thousand Parsec project will be speaking at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California on Thursday, June 6th. Tim's presentation will focus on the world of free and open source computer games and successfully building an open source game project. If you can't make it to see his presentation in person Google will be videotaping it and publishing it along with all the other pubic Google Tech Talks.

[via Google Open Source Blog]

New Google Apps book

Coming on the heels of last months Google Apps Hacks, O'Reilly has just released another book on Google Apps, Google Apps: The Missing Manual. We're big fans of the "Missing Manual" series and looking at the Table of Contents it looks like this book covers the entire Google Apps spectrum, from signing up to using the various applications in Google Docs, to customizing e-mail, Google Sites and managing your domain.

Tony Ruscoe from Google Blogoscoped served as the technical reviewer, so the information should be pretty top-notch.

[via Google Blogoscoped]

Tags: gmail, google, google apps, google finance, GoogleApps, GoogleFinance, googleholic

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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