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Working with your documents and spreadsheets at Google Docs just got a whole lot easier, thanks to the introduction of contextual menus. Now, right clicking a doc provides most of the popular options that you typically need to use the navigation toolbar for. Google Operating System has some good ideas for where this feature can go next, such as searching the web for selected text and even exporting documents as MP3s using a text-to-speech engine.

This feature works of course in Firefox and we assume Internet Explorer as well, and while Google Docs doesn't work in the current v2.0 of Safari on Mac OS X, Safari 3 beta handles Google Docs and this new contextual menu like a champ.

Fire up Software Update, Mac OS X users, for iPhoto 7.0.2 has just been released. This update addresses "issues associated with publishing to .Mac Web Gallery, rebuilding thumbnails, and editing books. It also addresses a number of other minor issues." Thanks for clearing up those 'other minor issues', Apple.

All we know is: this better fix the renegade Spotlight "mds" process that peaks our CPUs for a few minutes every time we start iPhoto '08. There's nothin' like shiny new software draining our batteries dry to get us out of bed in the morning.

Someone apparently thought there was plenty of room for innovation in the "Flash-driven creepy talking head ad" space, and Motion Portrait has certainly picked up the reigns. Since our screencap really can't do the video justice, check out the real deal at Motion Portrait's site, and be sure to move your mouse over her and ring the bell.

The obvious advantage here is a stunning aesthetic boost; this digital secretary moves in a way no other talking head presentation has, even while talking. Still, we hope to see this far more advanced tool used with restraint when it comes to advertising on the web (and let's face it: it will come to that). No matter how real or natural presentations like this may seem, they can still be a thorn in a site's experience and drive visitors away if they start blabbing immediately or simply won't shut up.

Motion Portrait, we tip our hat to the impressive work you've done in the creepy talking head space. Let's just hope you can recommend some equally impressive advice on restraining the use of these to the marketers who come a'knockin'.

Twitter and Gmail - some would say they're two great tastes that could taste great together. While these two services haven't quite melded into a cutting-edge new way to communicate and micro-blog at the same time, Twitter has just made it a little easier to find your Gmail friends who also have Twitter accounts. Like so many other services (Plaxo, Facebook, etc.), Twitter now has a twitter.com/invitations/gmail page that allows you to securely enter your Gmail credentials to see if any of your friends' and coworkers cross paths between the two services. After a brief waiting period (depending on how large your Gmail address book is; ours is around 500 or so), you'll be presented with a grid layout of boxes containing the names and images of Gmail friends who are also on Twitter. You can click each box to immediately begin following these friends, and you can specify whether you receive their updates via SMS as well. Links to each member's Twitter profile are also provided in case you need to double check just to be sure who you're following. All in all, we're pretty impressed with this integrated lookup between the two services, especially since Twitter can't seem to stop blazin' up the social popularity charts. This was a great idea, and it'll be nice to see Twitter hook into more email, contact and social services to help users tweet with even more of their friends and coworkers.

Highrise, the popular web-based contact and correspondence app from 37signals, has a new dedicated Tags tab in the dashboard. This will help users filter and sift through their contacts and notes much more quickly, especially since the company built in the slick ability to select multiple tags with which to filter. Clicking one tag in the cloud begins the process, while clicking another will switch to filtering by just that tag. After clicking a tag, however, the upper right of the tag cloud (pictured) will offer a 'Multiple tags' option. Once clicked, each subsequent tag you select will add to the filter, not replace it. This is a very smart way to offer the best of both worlds for everyone, no matter how they work and use tags to sort their correspondence.