Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!
In this edition:
- Get the Google Toolbar for Firefox 3
- Improve efficiency with Google Docs
- Google Code Jam '08
- Googolopoly, the game
- Gmail and Google Reader tips
Posts with tag GoogleReader
Googleholic for June 17, 2008
Google joins Bloglines with iPhone version of Reader
Monday Google unveiled yet another beta site. Google Reader is now formatted for the iPhone. iPhone users tired of pinching and stretching and tapping text only links in the normal version of Reader or dealing with the plain Classic mobile version of Reader can head over to http://www.google.com/reader/i/ to check out the new beta site.
With the iPhone-enabled web-app, Google joins Ask.com in the web-based RSS reader marketplace. Ask.com's Bloglines has had an iPhone version available to users since July 19, 2007. iBloglines was created with less than a 1000 lines of code on a lark by an internal developer who bought an iPhone and wanted better access to the site.
Continue reading Google joins Bloglines with iPhone version of Reader
Googleholic for May 9, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!
In this edition:
- Hello says 'goodbye'
- Protect roaming users with Google Web Security for Enterprise
- New features added to Custom Search Engine
- Cannes comes to YouTube
- Selective magnification added to Google Reader
Googleholic for March 18, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!
This edition covers:
This edition covers:
- Google Maps allows user edits
- Google launches Google for Non-Profits
- See semi-hidden Google Reader interaction statistics
- DoubleClick employees to apply to Google to keep their job
Googleholic for February 1, 2008
Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!
This edition covers:
- See GoogleReader stats for any site with an RSS feed
- View recent edits to Google Maps
- Urchin 6 beta now open to the public
- Windows Mobile IMAP support improved for GMail
- An overview of the other Google stories we've covered this week
Enhance Google Reader with the Better GReader Firefox add-on
Lifehacker has set out to do just that. A while back they released Better GReader, a Firefox add-on that collect some of the best Greasemonkey scripts for Google Reader. And this week they've update Better GReader with a few new skins and other tweaks. The add-on basically does three things:
- Institutes keyboard shortcuts
- Maximizes the viewing area
- Bypasses the Google's annoying default subscription mechanism
To get the Better GReader Firefox add-in, head over to Lifehacker's site and install it. After installing the add-in, you'll see the above preference pane in your add-ons menu allowing you to customize Better GReader to your hearts content.
Google Reader adds timestamp
Google Reader, the preferred news reader of many Download Squaders and our readers, has added a little nugget of a feature that will allow you to finally see how long it took Google Reader to show you a post from your favorite blog or news source. You see, one criticism of Google Reader has been the lag between when an item is posted in an RSS feed and how long Google Reader shows it to it's users. Now with the timestamp, you can see for yourself exactly when the RSS item was posted.In more minor news, it appears Google has changed the favicon of Google Reader. The new version is a tad more colorful than the last.
[via Google Operating System]
5 things missing from your mobile life in 2008: Google Mobile and more
Life's getting mobile, and it seems that's the way it's always going to be. Humans don't come off as the traveling type, yet we do. From horse carriages to cell phones, we're always looking for ways to do more on the move, so what's missing from your mobile life in 2008 and how can you fix it? The following list may help.
1. Full access to YouTube in Windows Mobile: Everyone's got a solution for playing YouTube Mobile videos on a Windows Mobile phone, but it seems no one's giving Windows Mobile users a way to access YouTube.com's full, flash video library. Oh wait, there is a solution. It only requires users to install a specific version of TCPMP and the Flash Video Bundle, an add-on to TCPMP to give it the ability to play flash video. Use Pocket IE to navigate to YouTube (a few other flash video sites are also supported). Clicking on a video will open TCPMP to play it. Easy, right?
You could also install Orb on your PC and use the Orb mobile client to find YouTube videos on the go, but that solution requires you to leave your home PC on all the time.
Continue reading 5 things missing from your mobile life in 2008: Google Mobile and more
Should Google add comment feature to Reader link blogs?
If you believe the claims in an apparently "leaked" video from Google, there are a few updates headed Google Reader's way. More social features are coming, there will be a way for Reader to recommend feeds to users, and Google might add the ability to comment on shared items.That last one caught the attention of Duncan Riley over at TechCrunch. The way he sees it, allowing users to share articles in a link blog style format already violates the copyright of blog and web site publishers by reproducing their work out of context (and devoid of any original advertising).
Of course, most web publishers have looked the other way so far, because nobody's making any money off of these link blogs, and while entire articles are being reprinted, there's clear attribution explaining where they came from and no way for users to add original content, thus making a link blog something less than a regular blog.
If Google adds the ability to comment on shared items, Riley suggests, then it will essentially be granting users the ability to publish their own blogs using content from others without permission.
Another way of looking at it is that few link blogs (Robert Scoble's included) have the readership of a popular web site like Engadget. If anything, when someone like Robert Scoble shares an occasional item from your feed, he's popularizing your brand and perhaps driving traffic back to your site. After all, he doesn't publish every article you've written, does he? And really, how different is a link blog from an feed reader? In both situations people are reading your content outside of the context of your blog -- because of the RSS feed you have provided them with.
What do you think? Is link blogging stealing? And should Google add a comment feature to Google Reader?
Google Reader adds more new features
In all our excitement about the long-overdue search bar in Google Reader, we forgot to tell you about some of the other awesome updates to Google's RSS reader.Increased unread items counts
If you subscribe to 2 or 3 RSS feeds, you might not have noticed. But Google Reader used to have this annoying habit of capping the number of unread posts that it would notify you about at 100. If you had 87 unread posts in a category, you could tell at a glance. If you had 874, you were in the dark.
Google has raised the cap to 1000. But as you can see from our little screengrab, even that's not enough for some people (who we won't name).
Back and forth and back and forth again
Don't like having to look at just how many unread message you have? Just click the arrow that separates the side navigation from your reader window and you'll be left with nothing but articles. Or you can just hit the letter U on your keyboard, like always.
And Google Reader now supports navigating with the back and forward buttons on your browser. If you switched folders and want to switch back, just hit the back button.
Google Reader - finally with search functionality
Good news! They've done a heckuva great job on it. The search field contains a drop-down list allowing you to search on all of your feeds, or within a specific folder, or even within one specific subscription. And of course you can search either your starred or shared posts.
Once you've entered a search term, a green border shows up around the main content area in Reader to signify that you are are viewing search results. There is also a tab added to the top right of the interface so that you can switch between your search results and your regular Expanded or List views.
The typical Google Reader Ajaxy goodness is there too, so you can scroll down your search results to your heart's content, and more results will continually load at the bottom.
Finally. A search feature from Google. What took you so long?
Google Reader Notifier: as if Gmail notifier didn't make you feel guilty enough
E-mail notifiers are great if you're the sort of person who doesn't like to keep a lot of unread messages in your inbox. But unless you only subscribe to a handful of RSS feeds, we're not convinced that an RSS notifier is anywhere near as useful. That's because we've never met anybody who manages to actually keep up with their RSS feeds. And what use is a notifier that constantly reminds you that there are thousands of unread items awaiting you?Well, it turns out, Google Reader Notifier actually can be kind of useful. That's because you can set it to monitor items with a particular label. So if you've got one label for general news, another for technology news, and another for silly pictures of cats, you can just check out the unread cat photos every day. We're big advocates of setting low goals to avoid disappointment.
Unfortunately, there's no way to select multiple labels. If you'd rather have your notifier as a browser plugin, check out the Google Reader Notifier add-on for Firefox.
[via gHacks]
Mobile Minute: Get some use out of web apps for the iPhone
Apple's decision to keep 3rd party apps locked out of the iPhone (for now) is still disappointing both users and developers alike, but that doesn't mean we can't get some actual functionality out of some truly unique web apps. For this week's brief Mobile Minute, I'm going to highlight some web apps, utilities and bookmarklets designed specifically for the iPhone that are rising above the rest.
1. 17 iPhone Bookmarklets
Chanpory Rith at LifeClever has published a list of 17 powerful bookmarklets for your iPhone, containing some truly useful stuff beyond the typical web app launchers that are quickly becoming a dime a dozen. At the top of my list are 'marklets like movie times and Wikipedia, which offer one-click popup access to search for local movie times or articles on Wikipedia (respectively). Other really useful ones are 'Find in this page' which is pretty straightforward, as well as 'Open links in new window,' which will reload the current page you're viewing on your iPhone and edit all the links on the page to, well, open in a new window. This is particularly useful since the iPhone doesn't seem to cache pages well (or it possibly uses a caching system that most sites simply haven't accounted for yet), but MobileSafari (the new name many are using for the iPhone's Safari browser) does tabbed browsing like a champ. In fact, it even remembers opened tabs after you power down and restart the phone, making a bookmarklet like this very handy to those like to truly explore the 6 degrees of the world wide web on their iPhone.
To get set up with these bookmarks, visit the LifeClever site in either Safari or Internet Explorer and add them to a folder of bookmarks you're synching with the iPhone. Perform a sync and you're ready to go.
Continue reading Mobile Minute: Get some use out of web apps for the iPhone
Google Reader improves video and podcast support
But wait, what's that we see at the bottom of the screenshot? Google's added a "Popout" button to Google Reader. Click it when you see an embedded podcast or video, and the media file will open in a new browser window, letting you listen to Chris Pirillo go on and on and on and on and on... while you continue to peruse your feeds.
[via Google Operating System]
Streamy wants to be your one stop shop for news, community, and chat
Ever wish you could chuck out your RSS reader, instant messenger, bookmarks, and network of social networks? Streamy wants to replace all of those services with a single web page.
Streamy's in private beta right now, but it looks promising. It doesn't require you and all of your friends to sign up for a totally new service. Rather, like Meebo, it lets you communicate with friends using services like AOL Instant Messenger without leaving the web site.
But unless there's some pretty amazing keyboard shortcuts in there, it looks like Streamy requires a lot of mouse-work to read your news, which would make it much slower to navigate than Google Reader.
[via WebWare]
Streamy's in private beta right now, but it looks promising. It doesn't require you and all of your friends to sign up for a totally new service. Rather, like Meebo, it lets you communicate with friends using services like AOL Instant Messenger without leaving the web site.
But unless there's some pretty amazing keyboard shortcuts in there, it looks like Streamy requires a lot of mouse-work to read your news, which would make it much slower to navigate than Google Reader.
[via WebWare]
