Here’s the video of Michael’s Google Secrets presentation from last week’s NLA/NEMA conference.
Before today, if you “turned off” Google Buzz it wasn’t really gone, it was just hidden from your account. If you really want to completely get rid of it, turn it back on (if you previously turned it off), then click the “turn off buzz” link again. You’ll then be taken to the buzz settings screen which will provide you with a new “Disable Google Buzz” option. Be warned, this will also delete your Google profile if you’ve previously created one.
You may not have noticed recently, but when you access your contacts in Google you have a new button to search for duplicate contacts.
Here’s my results:
The first one was for two different Barnes & Noble stores so they weren’t really duplicates. But the other two were. So, a quick click of the Merge button and two become one.
It’s always been possible to download individual Google Docs or select a few to download at a time, but what if you’ve got dozens or even hundreds of documents and you want to backup all of them off-line. Now you can.
Log in to your Google Docs account, check at least one file, then select Export under the More actions tab. Look to the bottom of the Convert and Download File that opens up. There you’ll find a checkbox labeled Export all your files (up to 2GB). As long as you’re within that limit, you’ll get all of it.
Yesterday Google announced the Google Public DNS. They claim that using their DNS will make your surfing faster. I tested it on my office laptop yesterday and I think I noticed a speed difference but I’m telling myself that if could be all psychological at this point. It doesn’t offer all the services that OpenDNS does but it is another alternative to your ISP’s crummy DNS. If you’d like more information read this post on the Google blog.
Last week Google held a meeting in which they introduced a very early version of their Chrome OS. Here’s a video that explains just what it is supposed to be.
Ever wish you could search Google for something and find out what others in your social network though about that topic? You now can by trying Google Social Search.
First head on over to Google Labs and click “Join this experiment” next to Google Social Search. Once joined, head back on over to Google.com and perform a search. On the results page click on “Show options” then click “Social” on the new menu on the left.
Here’s the results of my search for “ebooks” limiting to social results:
Here’s what Google says Social Search indexes:
From this you might have figured out that the more social “stuff” you do using Google-based tools, the better your results will be.
Officially, Google Docs files are compatible with Microsoft Word. Yeah, there are some limitations but if you want online access to a document or want to collaborate on a document with others, Google Docs is a great tool.
Because of this compatibility you’ve always been able to edit a Google Doc in Office. The problem was, you had to log in to Google Docs, download the file, open it in Word (or Excel), edit it, save it, and upload it back to Google Docs. That’s hardly an efficient use of your time.
But what if you could access your Google Docs transparently via Office? Now you can when you download and install OffiSync! Once installed in either Office 2007 or 2010 (I’ve not tested it in Office 2003 yet) you’ll get an additional ribbon which allows you to directly access your Google Docs files.
Ok, technically it does the downloading and uploading for you, so you’re technically not live editing as you can with others when logged into Google Docs directly, but if you just need to edit a doc, and you’re more comfortable in Office, this is the tool for you.
