beta @ amanzi

A new beta version of Google’s toolbar for the Firefox browser has brought integration of Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets service to your desktop. What this means is that you can double-click on an Excel or Word document and have it open directly in your Google Docs site. In my brief testing the service was far from perfect, and didn’t really work at all actually. I could only open documents that had already been uploaded and even then only after I had re-entered my password. Also, any online changes made to the documents are not reflected in the local copy of that document. But it’s still interesting to see the potential this has for the future.

These are the options as displayed in the toolbar settings:

The error message received when attempting to open a document that hadn’t previously been uploaded:

Once you’ve set the options above, the relevant icons change in Windows Explorer to look like this:

The Google Desktop blog reports that version 4.5 has been released with the main, new feature being the transparent sidebar. This looks a lot better than previous versions and the widgets have also been given an overhaul to fit in nicely.

Google Desktop Download

The first signs of Google’s GDrive have been uncovered by Corsin Camichel after some creative URL hacking. Details are still scarce but bloggers are very excited by this news. The features hinted at in the source code do sound interesting and it appears as if there will be a client application which seamlessly keeps all of you files synchronised with Google’s servers. The code-name of the project is Platypus, so keep your eyes open for a beta soon!

For those Gmail lovers out there, you’ll be pleased to hear of a couple of new features that will make your life just that little bit easier while managing your emails. There is now a ‘Delete all spam’ button which will please those anal people who like to keep everything neat and tidy, as it allows you to delete all your spams with one click. I actually like leaving my spams in the spam folder as it’s good to keep track of how well Google is catching spams. The second new feature is great for those of you who use the filters feature to organise their mail. In the past when you create a filter it only applys to future emails, whereas with the new feature you can create your filter and apply the actions to all past matching emails.

» New Gmail features on the way | Googling Google | ZDNet.com
http://www.techmeme.com/060708/p45#a060708p45

Google have just released a Firefox only extension that automatically synchronises your bookmarks, cookies and passwords between browsers on different machines. Sorry for the continued Google love, but this is awesome! I just recently rebuilt a couple of computers I work on and I had to go through the process of setting up Firefox on each one. This tool would have made that task a lot easier.

Unfortunately, it can’t yet synchronise Firefox settings such as home pages, tabs, privacy, or other settings, but it looks like they are working on these for a future release. So for now you can synchronise bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and tabs and windows. Cookies and passwords are encrypted on the server and you are forced to set a PIN number (shouldn’t this be a password?) You can also encrypt your bookmarks and history too using the same PIN. The PIN seems to only be required when first installing the extension, once it’s installed it will keep everything synchronised automatically. So there may be some security problems if you’re using a shared computer, but I’m not sure how serious these are yet.

One of the best features is the ability to save your open tabs as a session. A typical usage for this is browsing the web on my work computer and then going home for the day – I’ll be able to just pick up where I left off at work, all my open tabs will be there.

For all the Google-love haters out there – here’s another Google product that has nothing to do with search but has everything to do with being a cool product that makes everyone’s life just a little bit easier. And that for me is what Google is all about – making my life easier with simple, easy-to-use products.

Links:

• Google Browser Sync
• Google Browser Sync FAQ’s

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