Thursday, February 4, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Create Pages in Blogger

Posted: 03 Feb 2010 11:57 PM PST

Blogger Buzz: Create Pages in Blogger

By Sean McCullough, Software Engineer

Another top user-requested feature has just graduated from Blogger In Draft! Blogger now makes it easy to create Pages linked from your blog. 

This feature lets you easily publish static information on stand-alone pages. For example, you can create an About This Blog page that discusses the evolution of your blog, or a Contact Me page that provides directions, a phone number, and a map to your location.

You create a page similar to how you write a blog post. From Blogger click the Posting | Edit Pages tab, then click New Page. (Note: you can create up to 10 pages.)




Once your page is published, you can link to it from the new Pages widget. The Pages widget lets you add links to your pages as tabs at the top of your blog, or as links in your blog's sidebar.



In the Pages widget, you can decide which pages will be linked and in what order they will appear. You can also choose whether you want new pages to appear automatically in the Pages widget by checking or unchecking the box to the left of Add new Pages by default.

Finally, for those of you that have custom templates, your custom template may not automatically support Pages as horizontal "tabs". If you are familiar with HTML, follow these instructions on how to add Pages to your custom template.

Looking forward to seeing all of the Pages that bloggers create!

URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/02/create-pages-in-blogger.html

[G] Google Apps adds enterprise admin policies for iPhone, Nokia, and Windows Mobile devices

Posted: 03 Feb 2010 05:57 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps adds enterprise admin policies for iPhone, Nokia, and Windows Mobile devices

In a world focused on improving business productivity, companies look to solutions like Google Apps to provide employees with seamless access to information regardless of location or device. With the rising adoption of Internet-enabled devices, employees increasingly seek access to their email, documents, and other corporate data from their mobile phone.

Last year, we addressed this need with a number of enhancements focused on mobile productivity. For BlackBerry users, we launched the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. For Android phones, we announced new web versions of Gmail and Google Calendar, as well as updates to Google Docs. We also launched Google Sync for iPhone, Nokia E series, and Windows Mobile devices, enabling Google Apps users to access and sync mail, calendar, and contacts from their mobile device to the Google cloud.

Tomorrow, we're expanding these capabilities further by launching new controls that enable administrators to help ensure corporate policy enforcement across a range of mobile devices.

With this change, Google Apps Premier and Education Edition administrators will be able to manage their users' iPhone, Nokia E series and Windows Mobile devices right from the Google Apps administrative control panel, without deploying any additional software or having to manage dedicated enterprise mobile servers.

These new mobile device management capabilities will allow administrators to:
  • Remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen mobile devices
  • Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity
  • Require a device password on each phone
  • Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords
  • Require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation

    These features will be accessible from the 'Mobile' tab under 'Service Settings' in the Google Apps control panel. Once a user starts syncing their devices with Google Apps, the domain administrator will be able to remotely wipe device data, right from the user settings page.



    These policies will let employees access their data from their phone while helping IT administrators easily control access to corporate data on mobile devices.

    Stay tuned for similar features for Android devices like the Nexus One and Droid, and if you have any questions, please check out our help page.

    Posted by Bryan Mawhinney, Google Mobile Software Engineer

    Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.
    • URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-apps-adds-enterprise-admin_03.html

    [G] Bringing more administrative controls to Google Apps for mobile

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 05:07 PM PST

    Official Google Mobile Blog: Bringing more administrative controls to Google Apps for mobile

    Last September we announced Google Sync with push Gmail support and 2-way sync for calendar and contacts for iPhone, Nokia E series, and Windows Mobile devices.

    Tomorrow we are taking the next step towards access from any location, on any device by launching new administrative controls that give these devices mobile access to Google Apps. Without having to deploy any additional software or manage enterprise mobile services, Google Apps Premier and Education customers will be able to manage their employees' mobile devices right from the Google Apps administration control panel.

    These controls will enable new administrative policies for employees using iPhones, Windows Mobile devices, and Nokia E series phones including:
    • Remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen mobile devices
    • Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity
    • Require device passwords on each phone
    • Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords
    • Require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation



    For more information on how businesses can take advantage of this new functionality, check out our post on the Enterprise blog.

    Posted by Bryan Mawhinney, Software Engineer, Google Mobile
    URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/02/bringing-more-administrative-controls.html

    [G] How the Google Page Creator shutdown may affect your blog

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 05:07 PM PST

    Blogger Buzz: How the Google Page Creator shutdown may affect your blog

    By Wiktor Gworek, Software Engineer (Krakow, Poland) 

    A while back, Google announced that they were shutting down Google Page Creator and offered users the option to upgrade to Google Sites. In the past, some custom template designers used Page Creator to host javascript, a file type that Google Sites does not support. Since a number of bloggers use templates that rely on files hosted on Page Creator, we realized that links to those files would break once the migration from Page Creator to Sites was complete.

    Fret not! Rather than see our users' templates break, we built a tool to preserve these links and host the affected files. To find out if your blog is affected, login to your Blogger Dashboard. If we've detected that your blog template contains links to Google Page Creator, you will see the following warning:


    If you see this warning, click Update and review to access the Blogger Template Fixer and correct the links on your blog. (Note: you may not notice any problems with your blog until Page Creator shuts down over the coming days). Visit our Help Center to learn more about fixing your template.

    Also, if you have issues fixing your template, let us know at the Blogger Help Group.

    URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/02/how-google-page-creator-shutdown-may.html

    [G] Calling All SaaS ISVs: Don't forget to sign up for Google I/O!

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 03:45 PM PST

    Official Google Enterprise Blog: Calling All SaaS ISVs: Don't forget to sign up for Google I/O!

    This year's Google I/O will play host to a number of sessions and events aimed specifically at helping Software as a Service companies integrate with and monetize Google Apps, including:
    Plus:
    We are planning several more sessions that we'll be announcing in the coming weeks that you won't want to miss. We'll also be hosting a mixer event just for the enterprise developer community that'll take place just before the After Hours party at I/O.

    Google I/O is our biggest developer event of the year, and it's also the best chance you'll get to learn about the technologies that can help you build a thriving business extending Google Apps. We hope you'll     register today!

    Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead
    URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/calling-all-saas-isvs-dont-forget-to.html

    [G] Troubleshooting tips part IIa: Ad relevance and targeting

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 03:45 PM PST

    Inside AdSense: Troubleshooting tips part IIa: Ad relevance and targeting

    Last week, we took a closer look at implementing your ad code, and today, we'll address some of the common issues related to ad targeting.


    If you're seeing irrelevant ads or public service ads (PSAs) on your pages after you've pasted the ad code into your HTML source code and waited the recommended 48 hrs, here are a things to check:
    • Have you placed the AdSense ad code in frames separate from the main content of your website? If so, you may experience ad targeting issues. In order for our crawlers to match the ads to the content of your website, it is important to place the ad code in the same frame as the main content of your webste. If you're familiar with HTML, and your website is talking about several different topics you could also consider implementing section targeting on your site to highlight relevant content.

    • Do you have mostly dynamic content on your site? Our crawlers currently can't derive meaning from these types of files:
      - audio and video files (.wma, .mpeg, .mov)
      - mp3 files (.mp3)
      - images (.jpeg, .bmp)
      - Macromedia Flash movies
      - Java Applets

      To receive more relevant ads, we recommend including plenty of text-based content on your site, including complete sentences and paragraphs.

    • Do your pages use session IDs? A session ID is a piece of data serves as a unique identifier for a session. If your pages use session IDs, you may not receive targeted ads on those pages. Since this session ID - and therefore the URL - changes every time a different user views a page, the URL will not be indexed and will need to be crawled from scratch. Once the URL is crawled, however, the session will most likely have expired. This means that pages seen by the users are rarely in the index. You'll need to remove the session IDs in order to show more targeted ads to your users.
    We hope these tips help you resolve any targeting issues you experience with your ads. Next week, we'll take a look at some other reasons why you may see irrelevant ads or PSAs on your site, and how you can best resolve them.

    Posted by Ulrike Jung - Inside AdSense Team
    URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/02/troubleshooting-tips-part-iia-ad.html

    [G] Free e-commerce catalogs managed with Google Docs

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 10:30 AM PST

    Official Google Docs Blog: Free e-commerce catalogs managed with Google Docs

    Guest post: Dan Salcedo is founder of the DC based international development organization OpenEntry, with the mission of helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) worldwide benefit from the exciting new opportunities opened up by global e-commerce. Working with a team of volunteer developers, he built a catalog generator that enables SMEs in developing countries to create their own free e-commerce catalogs, managed via a Google spreadsheet.

    Years ago, I noticed artisans in developing countries were selling their items to a long chain of middlemen that only paid them 10-15% of the final retail price, even through conventional fair trade channels. So I launched a non-profit organization to help artisans disintermediate all the middlemen by selling directly through e-commerce catalogs that they could create and manage themselves. We recently relaunched our OpenEntry catalog generator using a bunch of Google tools including Docs, Sites, Checkout, Picasa Web Albums, AdSense, and Apps Engine. And our User Manual, built on Google Sites, is full of YouTube videos. This enables us to offer totally free e-commerce catalogs (software, hosting, user support) to artisans and SMEs worldwide including the following:

    Nature Nepal-Herbal Care
    Nepal
    MerevilleyTrust
    India
    Pollee Unnyon Prokolpo
    Bangladesh

    Each catalog is managed by filling out a Google spreadsheet with three sheets containing information on the company, products, and additional pages (see products sheet below).


    The images are stored on Picasa Web Albums and sellers use Google Checkout (as well as PayPal and 2Checkout) to accept credit card payments. Google Sites helps users generate attractive HTML that can be added to some of the spreadsheet fields to improve aesthetics. Google App Engine reads the spreadsheet, then generates the catalog hosted on Google servers. These tools also made it surprisingly easy to enable OpenEntry catalogs to be managed with a smart phone.

    Google recently added a feature enabling the ownership of their spreadsheets to be transferred to a third party, which makes it easy to transfer spreadsheets to the final SME vendor. This is very good news because it enables the OpenEntry User Support team in Nepal to set up catalogs and transfer ownership to the SME vendor who can then operate it securely. This also means we can now transfer blocks of catalog accounts to young, ambitious entrepreneurs anywhere in the developing world, enabling them to start their own legitimate enterprises. Even though the OpenEntry catalogs are free, the entrepreneurs can charge for setup, digital images, custom templates, training, maintenance, etc. And they can even do it from an Internet cafe until they can afford their own computer. This reinforces the conclusion of the United Nations Development Program evaluation of our platform (under its previous name, CatGen) that generated 4000 jobs for artisan women and "a relatively inexperienced group of young IT professionals" in Nepal.

    Because this is a non-profit initiative, OpenEntry is seeking volunteers to help with a variety of technical tasks starting with template design.

    Posted by: Dan Salcedo, Founder and CEO of www.OpenEntry.com, dsalcedo@OpenEntry.com
    URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/02/free-e-commerce-catalogs-managed-with.html

    [G] Doodle 4 Google — Tell us what you would do if you could do anything...

    Posted: 03 Feb 2010 07:57 AM PST

    Official Google Blog: Doodle 4 Google — Tell us what you would do if you could do anything...

    Today, we're excited to announce our third annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles, created by our talented team of doodlers, have helped us celebrate events and anniversaries from Van Gogh's birthday to Valentine's Day. And since 2008, Doodle 4 Google has given K-12 kids the opportunity to create their own logo and have it displayed on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions of users to enjoy for a day.

    In addition to the winner's art appearing on Google.com on May 27, 2010, they'll also receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school.

    This year's theme is "If Could Do Anything, I Would..." and it's all about pushing the limits, dreaming big, and seeing what you can accomplish in life. When coming up with inspiration for this year's contest, we turned to some of our very own Googlers, including Ed Lu, a former astronaut.

    Ed typifies this year's theme in action, and shares an inspiring anecdote:

    On my first mission STS-84, one of my crewmates and I were having dinner aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. After all our work for the day was done, we decided to eat "upside down" on the ceiling, gazing out at the Earth moving by below our feet. As we flew around the Earth, watching the continents go by, my crewmate remarked how amazingly large the Earth really is. But at that same time, it also felt small to us. There we were, flying at 18,000 miles per hour around the Earth in a machine built by humans, with a crew made up of astronauts from all over the world. Both of our observations were true at the same time. The world is indeed a big place with many challenges. But by using science, technology and the power of people working together, nearly anything is possible.

    So dream big! If you could do anything, what would you do?

    For even more inspiration, you can see last year's winner, Christin Engelberth, a sixth grader at Bernard Harris Middle School in San Antonio, Texas. She titled her doodle "A New Beginning" to express her wish that "out of the current crisis, discoveries will be found to help the Earth prosper once more."

    We're happy to let you know that this year, we've also assembled a panel of well-known "Expert Jurors," including creative directors, cartoonists and famous animators ranging from the The Sesame Street Workshop to Pixar Animation Studios. Our Expert Jurors will help us narrow down the cream of the crop to 40 regional finalists, who will come to the Google office in New York City on May 26, 2010. For the second year, we'll also be partnering with the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where the top 40 regional finalists will get to have their artwork displayed in a national exhibit. And for the first time this year, we'll give out eight Technology Booster awards to schools that submit maximum number of doodles per school by March 10th and have students in our 400 State Finalists.

    Please visit the official competition website for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements. Only students from registered schools can enter, so be sure your school is registered by March 17, 2010. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2010.

    We hope you're as excited about this year's contest as we are. Good luck!

    Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience and Ed Lu, Program Manager, Advanced Projects
    URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/doodle-4-google-tell-us-what-you-would.html
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