Google Docs allows us to quickly view documents online without leaving your browser. You can also upload and share these files in Google Docs, so that anyone can view the content using their browser.

Now the Google Docs Viewer launch support for 12 new file types.

• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• TrueType (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

In Gmail, these types of attachments will now show a “View” link, and clicking on this link will bring up the Google Docs Viewer.

Goto Google Docs Viewer

Gmail desktop notifications let you know when you have a new email or Chat message. When you enable these notifications, you’ll see a pop-up when new messages arrive so that even if you’re not looking at your Gmail, you’ll still know when someone wants to talk to you. For now, these notifications are available only if you use Google Chrome as your browser.

Chat notifications are enabled by default. You can disable them in your Gmail settings. To enable or disable email or Chat notifications, follow these steps:

1. Click the Settings link in the upper-right corner of Gmail.
2. On the General tab, select the option you’d like in the Desktop Notifications section. You’ll be able to turn Chat notifications on or off, and can also choose to turn email notifications off, receive notifications for all incoming email, or only those Gmail marks ‘important’.
3. Click Save.

If you are not yet allowed Chrome to show desktop notifications, you will get a message to allow to show notifications.

Enable Desktop Notification For Google Calendar

1. Go to the Labs tab under Calendar Settings
2. Turn on "Gentle Reminders"
3. Click Save

Currently These desktop notifications work only in Google Chrome for Windows and Google Chrome beta for Linux.

Disable Notifications

You can disable in Gmail/Calendar settings or we can disable all the notifications by

1. Go to Chrome Options
2. Select “Under the Hood” tab
3. Click on “Content Settings”
4. Select “Notifications”
5. Change the Desktop Notifications Settings

Book : http://www.20thingsilearned.com/

The book contains the following 20 articles

1. What is the Internet? (or, “You Say Tomato, I Say TCP/IP”)
2. Cloud Computing (or, why it’s ok for a truck to crush your laptop)
3. Web Apps (or, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Appiness”)
4. HTML, JavaScript, CSS and more (or, this is not your mom’s AJAX)
5. HTML5 (or, in the beginning there was no <video>)
6. 3D in the Browser (or, browsing with more depth)
7. A Browser Madrigal (or, old vs. modern browsers)
8. Plug-ins (or, pepperoni for your cheese pizza)
9. Browser Extensions (or, superpowers for your browser)
10. Synchronizing the Browser (or, why it’s ok for a truck to crush your laptop, part II)
11. Browser Cookies (or, thanks for the memories)
12. Browsers and Privacy (or, giving you choices to protect your privacy in the browser)
13. Malware, Phishing, and Security Risks (or, if it quacks like a duck but isn’t a duck)
14. How Modern Browsers Help Protect You From Malware and Phishing (or, beware the ne’er-do-wells!)
15. Using Web Addresses to Stay Safe (or, “my name is URL”)
16. IP Addresses and DNS (or, the phantom phone booth)
17. Validating Identities Online (or, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”)
18. Evolving to a Faster Web (or, speeding up images, video, and JavaScript on the web)
19. Open Source and Browsers (or, standing on the shoulders of giants)
20. 19 Things Later… (or, a day in the clouds)

You are here because you use internet/web and so I recommend you read this even if you are not a tech guy.

This illustrated book is designed for HTML5-compliant browsers and will not work with Internet Explorer or the other older browsers.

I think most of the nontechnical users are not aware of the features available in gmail. Most of the uers inbox are full of unread/uncategorized mails. Even if you are a techi how many gmail features you are using? Most of the peoples are using only basic mail and chat.

Forgot about all the technical stuffs and don’t worry even if you are not a tech guy, I will help you to set enable some cool features of gmail. Try these features and I bet you will switch to gmail

1) Can I able to create a folder and move my mails to that folder in Gmail?

Yes you can, with the help of Labels and archive function you can move your mails to a folder (virtually) and it is better than the basic folder functionality in other mails. To help you to organize your mail more effectively, Gmail uses labels instead.

The main advantage of using labels instead of folder is a conversation/mail can have more than one label where as you can only put a message in one folder. That is labels do all the work that folders do and give you an extra bonus: you can add more than one to a conversation. Once you’ve created a label, you can view all the messages with that label by searching, or by clicking the label name along the left side of any Gmail page just like viewing mails in a folder.

Archiving moves messages out of your inbox and into All Mail, letting you tidy up your inbox without deleting anything. Any message you’ve archived can be found in All Mail, in any labels you’ve applied to it, and in Gmail search results. That is when you archive a mail, it moves from the inbox into “All mail” and it is also available in the corresponding label if you have applied any label.

To archive messages:

1. Select a message by checking the box next to the sender’s name.
2. Click Archive.

So the Folder functionality can be achieved by using this Labels and Archive. “Move to” functionality is just like moving a message from inbox to other folder.

If you still believe that this Labels and Archive system is complicated, forgot all those, imagine labels are Folders and “Move to” moves all the mails to the corresponding folder.

Labels

Labels like folders

Move to Folder

View a brief demo by google (requires Macromedia Flash). http://services.google.com/tutorial/gmail_labels/

Gmail Archive

Filters

This is one of the coolest feature(Yahoo and Hotmail also have this feature. But in gmail you can easily careate a filter from the mail itslef). Gmail’s filters allow you to manage the flow of incoming messages. Using filters, you can automatically label, archive, delete, star, or forward your mail, even keep it out of Spam — all based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more. I have crated many filters, for example: all the forwarded mails will be applied by the “Forwards” messags so I can easliy move them to archive. Mails from the orkut are labeled and Archived so it will not be shown in the inbox. Some mails will be automatically forwared to some other email accounts, some will be deleted etc. Also this is very helpfull for managing multiple mail boxes(I will write abot multiple inboxes in the next part)..

To create a filter

1. Click Create a filter (next to the Search the Web button at the top of any Gmail page).
2. Enter your filter criteria in the appropriate field(s).
3. Click Test Search to see which messages currently in Gmail match your filter terms. You can update your criteria and run another test search, or click Next Step.
4. Select one or more actions from the list. These actions will be applied to messages matching your filter criteria in the order in which the actions are listed — for example, you could choose to Forward matching messages to a specific email address, and then delete the messages.
5. If you’d like to apply this filter to messages already in Gmail, select the Also apply filter to x conversations below checkbox.
6. Click Create Filter.

To create a filter from within a message:

1. Click the drop-down menu next to Reply.
2. Select Filter messages like this.
3. Enter your filter criteria in the appropriate field(s).

Create a new filter

View a brief demo by google (requires Macromedia Flash). http://services.google.com/tutorial/gmail_labels/

1st I tried to get directions from my home to my office at Technopark, Trivandrum.

From Google map

Other routes

We have 3 main routes to reach there.

1. Thiruvalla -> Kottarakkara -> Kilimanoor -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map
2. Podiyadi -> Mavelikkara -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map
3. Harippad -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is not listed in the map

Only 2 routes are listed in the map.

One is Thiruvalla -> Chaganachery -> Alappy -> Harippad -> Kayamkulam -> Aatigal -> Kazhakkutam – This route is listed in the map.

They are correct but very long.  Via NH47 is 177KM if we follow the directions in google maps but we have other route, via NH47 which is less than 120KM.  In this route I can directly goto Harippad(14kms from home), but if i follow google’s direction, I have to travel more than 60km to reach Harippad.

So first your search the direction to get a small idea about the routes and then search in between places for another short routes or ask someone else . But I am sure this service is very helpfull to get an initial route and then process the route to get the shortest route.

Dude.. don’t think about Travelling Salesman problem

I tried Mac OS X version of Chromium. Download the zip file, unzip it and run Chromium.  

The first site I tried is google.com. But got the error message “The webpage is not available”. So i thought it is not working and then after some time I tried my site and it loaded without any problem . Then I tried many other sites and all those loaded, probelm is only with google sites, Google, Gmail, orkut.. all showed “The webpage is not available” message. 

Downloaded the linux version, want to try it after some time.

For detailed review check: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10237981-2.html

Download Chromium from: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

Chromium

Chromium

To send IM to your friend, go to contacts, click on the person you would like to talk to and click on “Send an Instant Message (Available), IM window will appear in a pop up window.

Check out the screen shoots. I also added screen shoots of Yahoo and Gmail. I wonder how boring is MSN/Hotmail’s interface. Yahoo/Gmail interface is simple and our friends are just one click away. AOL webmail has the same interface as yahoo and Gmail.

If we compare desktop application, Windows live messenger is in the top. Google talk is far beyond MSN and Yahoo. But I think Google is not much worried about the desktop messenger, they want us to do everything on the web interface.

To customize your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings. They will be rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don’t see them yet, check back soon.