Improved chat for iGoogle and orkut: "Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend who's online? Now you can share pictures, documents and other files directly with your friends while chatting in iGoogle and orkut, without having to switch to email to send the file as an attachment. File transfer works directly in the browser so you don't need to install anything. Just start a conversation with a friend and click “Send a file...” in the “Actions” menu. After you select a file, your friend will be asked if they want to accept the transfer. You can learn more on the Google Talkabout Blog.
You might have noticed that we recently gave iGoogle and orkut chat a face lift. Several tools now have a new home at the top of the chat window. From the new toolbar, you can click the blue camera and phone icons to start video and voice chats with your friends or the group chat icon to add additional friends to a text chat. If you've never used video or voice chat before, all you need is a webcam and microphone attached to your computer and a small plugin application available for free at www.google.com/chat/video.
We're working to bring file transfer and the new toolbar to Gmail too. In the meantime, you can continue to access voice, video and group chat in Gmail from the “Video and More” menu in a chat window.
For Novell Pulse, it was a pretty easy decision to adopt the Google Wave Federation Protocol. For many months before Google Wave was announced to the world, we had been working on solving exactly the same problems: how to collaborate instantly and on‑demand; how to make collaboration easier for groups; how to expedite document workflow; and how to do it all in real‑time. We had also come to many of the same conclusions, and if you look at the products side‑by‑side you can see this reflected through the interfaces. Not exactly, but certainly the big decisions.
The Google Wave Federation Protocol excited us, because for the first time since email, it provided a way for collaboration systems to cooperate in a non‑silo'dway . The promise is that each organization can choose what product to use and the communication will flow unimpeded between the different systems, in the same way that people on different email systems can send and receive messages to each other today. This is a collaboration revolution we wanted to be a part of.
From a technical perspective we've leveraged the code Google has open sourced by integrating Google Wave's operational transformation algorithm and the federation parts of the FedOne implementation into Novell Pulse. This allowed us to quickly get the core federation protocol features working. We have developed our own editor, which provides compatibility with a large number of browsers, and provided a mapping from the Google Wave Conversation Model to our own internal structure. Along with the Google Wave Federation Protocol, we also support the Wave Gadgets API and are working to support the Wave Robots API. This allows extensions built by 3rd parties to work seamlessly with a mix of users on Novell Pulse and Google Wave.
Check out this video to see a business use-case of federation between Novell Pulse and Google Wave.
We're excited about the opportunities for open collaboration that utilizing the Google Wave Federation Protocol will bring to both the users of Novell Pulse and Google Wave, as well as a growing ecosystem of extension developers that now have broader distribution opportunities. For more information on Novell Pulse, visit www.novell.com/pulse.
Collaborative bookmarking with lists: "Earlier this month we added stars in search so that you can easily mark and rediscover your favorite websites. Today we’re debuting lists in Google Bookmarks, an experimental new feature that helps you easily share those sites with friends.
Bookmarks are a great way to keep track of your favorite content across the web and we want to help you share them with your friends. To use lists, visit Google Bookmarks at google.com/bookmarks or by clicking “Manage all” in your Google Toolbar. From there, select the links you want to share and click “Copy to list.” Lists are private by default, but once you’ve created one you can share it with specific friends or even publish it to the web. For example, if a friend of yours is visiting Seattle for the first time and you have some local attractions bookmarked, you might want to create a new list for “Seattle attractions” and share it with your friend.
Sharing lists can help you collaborate with your friends on common interests or activities. Let’s say you’re planning a group trip to Paris. With a list, everyone can contribute useful links and resources, such as packing lists, hotel links, flight information and attractions. You could also create lists for your favorite hobbies, and then share them with friends who share your interests. Lists dynamically generate previews for many pages so you can get a sense of the site before clicking.
Lists also help you discover new web content. For example, once you’ve created your list of favorite Seattle attractions, Google will algorithmically analyze your list to identify other potentially relevant links, such as the Seattle Aquarium. Similarly, when we detect that a list is relevant to a specific region, we provide a map of those places and relevant info for each place, such as addresses, hours and reviews.
We’re launching lists as an experimental feature so that we can quickly test it out and get feedback. Visit Google Bookmarks on google.com in English to try it out and let us know what you think. You can also learn more about lists in our Help Center.
Domain registration is generally the starting point for many businesses. In many cases, a company is named based on the availability of a domain - atleast that was the case with Zoho. After a domain is registered, you find a hosting provider to host your email, Calendar etc and then find other vendors to host different set of applications you need to run your business on.
Now, this work-flow became much simpler with the introduction of Domains module in Zoho Business. You can now start registering your domain @ http://domains.zoho.com - a domain registration module, powered by Go Daddy.
If you register the domain with Zoho, we host your Email, Calendar, Documents etc. We automatically create sub-domains and point them to the respective Zoho Applications as you see below.
We also provide an option to add your custom sub-domain and point it to your favorite application. For example, you can manually point crm.<your domain name>.com to Zoho CRM.
Domain registration costs $10/year/domain. We offer options to include private registration, auto-renewal and more. We also provide details on how to access and manage details of your domain through Go Daddy's control panel.
If you want to run your business online, Zoho Business is the application you'll need. It includes and integrates most of Zoho Apps. You can start using Zoho Business even without a domain. If you have an existing domain, you can use it within Zoho Business after validation, and of course, you can now register domains too. After your domain is registered, you can login to your account @ http://business.zoho.com or http ://business.<yourdomain name>.com
The idea is simple, but the result is powerful. Imagine the scenario where you register the domain, we automatically host your Email, Calendar, Documents, CRM, Project Management, Discussion Forum, Web Conferencing and a lot more for your business. This is where we want to get to and we are taking our first step towards that.
You can now create bookmark lists and share them with other people. Google says that 'lists make it easy to organize and share stuff you find on the web', but the new feature adds what was already available in Google Notebook, a great service that allowed you to create collections of interesting content from the web. Google stopped developing the service, but Google Notebook is still available for the existing users.
'We're working hard to improve Bookmarks and make saving and sharing stuff on the web easier than ever. That's why we've created lists. Like labels, lists let you organize your stuff into categories. But they can do so much more! For example, lists have the smarts to pull the most important information (like maps and reviews) from the sites you care about, and put it in a single place. You can easily see when a site in your list has been updated. Sharing and collaboration is easy, making lists an ideal way to plan a trip, research a purchase, or organize an event,' suggests Google.
The nice thing about Google Bookmarks lists is that you can convert labels to lists. It's easy to add new web pages to a list thanks to the integration with Google Search, Google adds relevant thumbnails and monitors web pages for new content. And if you invite other people to your list, they can add new web pages, reorder the list, add comments and more.
Ming Yong, CEO of Socialwok, the social layer for Google Apps, dropped us a line to announce that his product was getting Buzz — Google Buzz, that is, along with Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feed support. Here’s the scoop on the new feature.
Yong demonstrated the business value of Twitter integration to me by showing how a user can set a search term – say, The VAR Guy – and have any mentions of our resident blogger in the public feed appear on your Socialwok landing page. This makes brand management a relative snap, and there’s nothing stopping you from adding Conan O’Brien to your Socialwok homepage while you’re at it.
The rest of the social networks integrate in much the same way. Socialwok’s new integration with Buzz is noteworthy, though, since it’s currently the only way for users of Google Apps Premier Edition to interact with Google’s own social network until it gets rolled out later this year.
Google Apps are sometimes called "just toys," especially Spreadsheet when compared to Excel. There are some things that Spreadsheets does extremely well, though. I show off the GoogleLookup and GoogleFinance functions.
With so many concept Android tablets floating around lately we were inclined to just ignore this one -- until we learned two particularly interesting aspects: it starts at $155, and it's actually shipping now. It's the zenPad from Enso, a five-inch, 800 x 480 Android 1.6 tablet with 8GB of storage (on a replaceable microSD) that, for an additional $25, comes with GPS. It's powered by a 667MHz Samsung 6410 processor, pledges six hours of battery life, and has WiFi built-in while an external 3G adapter is just another $35. That means a fully max'd out unit with GPS and 3G would set you back $210 -- plus $25 for shipping. And yes, they are shipping now, as evidenced by a number of the things popping up on eBay. Sure, it doesn't look as fancy as the Dell Mini 5, but you won't have to fly to Shenzhen to get one. Video demonstration embedded after the break, but the footage was apparently encoded using some demo software, so beware nagging audio intrusions.
Update: We were guessing this was a rebrand of something, and thanks to commenter Raikus it looks like this is a Smit MID-650, which eviGroup's Wallet was also said to be based on -- at more than twice the price. Also, we (well, you really) seem to have taken down Enso's site thanks to traffic. Oops! Hit that eBay link if you're desperate to Buy It Now(R).
Update 2: The annoying demonstration video previously embedded, which Enso had provided, has been replaced by the original, nagware-free version courtesy of ARMdevices.net.
Feature: Controlled Access in Zoho Business: "
One of the advantages of using online applications is mobility. You can access applications and your data from any location, operating system, browser or a device. In some specific cases, this 'access anywhere' may not be a good thing. Some companies requested us to provide a way to restrict user access to a pre-defined set of IP Addresses - typically their offices. We now have this feature in Zoho Business.
In Zoho Business' Control Panel, the 'Allowed IPs' option lets you configure the IP Range to which you want to provide access to your users. To configure it, enter the range of IP Addresses to which you want to provide access and save it.
While we expect a small percentage of businesses to use this option, it is important that we offer this flexibility. One of the sub-options available in this section is the ability to restrict Admin access to a certain set of IP addresses. This means, you can restrict the IP Addresses from which the administrator can configure the system. It's basically saying something like - you have to be in the office to make any changes to the system.
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Check out this great video that shows you how you can edit images in a Haiku Class using Aviary.
According to Brian Falcon Executive Vice President of Haiku, 'with Aviary, we take one step closer to our end goal of a download-free world. Teachers and students will now be able to create, edit, submit, and assess images and drawings without ever uploading a file from their desktop. This is exciting stuff!'
Committed to educating young people through design, media, and technology, Sweat Equity Enterprises (SEE) is the first organization to take advantage of this exciting integration.
'By embedding the Aviary suite into the Haiku LMS, Sweat Equity can now offer schools and after-school programs an eLearning environment where students learn 21st century skills,' said Leonardo Bullaro Director of Sweat Equity Enterprises. 'Haiku and Aviary have been vital in scaling our project-based learning and professional development offerings.'
We look forward to more integrations of this kind, and can't wait to see Aviary tools being used in classes around the world.
Let us know how you are using Aviary in your classes. How are you using it? How is it working? How can we make it easier for you? We want to make Aviary awesome for education!!!
Looking for a good time? New scheduling tool in Calendar: "Scheduling meetings is tough, but rescheduling is even harder. We all know how frustrating it can be to try to find just the right time that accommodates everyone's availability and preferred working hours. Throw in different time zones and conference rooms and it goes from painful to excruciating. We'd rather schedule dental appointments.
On the Google Calendar team, we've noticed that when people talk about scheduling they say things like 'I'm trying to find a time' or 'let's search for a new date.' We wondered what would happen if we treated calendaring more like a search problem. Just as Google search applies ranking algorithms to return the most relevant results from the web, we hoped we could rank meeting times based on criteria important to the person scheduling the meeting.
Today we're launching the result of that experiment, a gadget called Smart Rescheduler, in Google Calendar Labs. Once you enable the Lab, you can find a new time for an event simply by clicking on a link. Our schedule search algorithm will return a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times based on the calendars others have shared with you. You can read more about it on the Gmail Blog.
So next time your boss says 'We need to reschedule,' just smile and say 'I'm feeling lucky.'
and phone icons 
to start video and voice chats with your friends or the group chat icon 
to add additional friends to a text chat. If you've never used video or voice chat before, all you need is a webcam and microphone attached to your computer and a small plugin application available for free at www.google.com/chat/video.
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