‘Hangouts on air’: Get ready to go live on Google plus

Google’s social networking site, Google Plus, which the search engine has pitched against Facebook is getting big big makeover. The company today announced in an official blogpost, that Hangouts On Air feature was now available for all users.

The feature which was showcased last September, makes Google plus’ Hangouts a little than just a video-chat between two people or a group of people, it now gives users the option to ‘broadcast their chats’ live on the Google plus and later put up recorded versions on their YouTube channel or website.

While some might not be enthused by this idea, for celebrities and well-known personalities, this could be a great mode to connect with larger audiences.

Screengrab of Google Hangouts on air.

On the blogpost, Google spells out how and where you can use Hangouts on Air,

Broadcast publicly. By checking “Enable Hangouts On Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout—from the Google+ stream, your YouTube channel or your website—to the entire world.

See how many viewers you’ve got. During your broadcast, you can look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live.

Record and re-share. Once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a public recording to your YouTube channel, and to your original Google+ post. This way it’s easy to share and discuss your broadcast after it’s over.

Google’s move could change the way videos are used on the Internet. Avid YouTube users can now see their chats loaded on the website.This could end up starting a whole range ‘chat’ memes for both Google and YouTube.

It also needs to be remembered that Google has been trying hard to monetise videos onYouTube by starting web-channels in a bid to get more audience. With Google Hangouts on Air, this will mean a bunch of new type of chat videos, absolutely free of cost to Google. Also celebrities on Google Plus would try and use the feature to connect with fans in a way that Facebook or Twitter can’t really offer.

Hangouts on Air looks like a very smart move on part of Google which will take social media into a different direction. Don't forget to leave your comments below. Subscribe and like :D PEACE.

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Now, translate your Gmail messages into your language

Gmail users will now be able to translate e-mails in foreign languages into the their own, with Google introducing a new feature.

Google on its official Blog has said a new 'Translate message' header will be soon introduced in Gmail.

"Over the next few days, everyone who uses Gmail will be getting the convenience of translation added to their email. The next time you receive a message in a language other than your own, just click on Translate message in the header at the top of the message," Jeff Chin, Product Manager, Google Translate, said.

The idea mooted after Google introduced automatic message translation in Gmail Labs and prompted the labs team to go for a survey in which the teams found the necessity of Gmail message translation.

"Since message translation was one of the most popular labs, we decided it was time to graduate from Gmail Labs and move into the real world. Over the next few days, everyone who uses Gmail will be getting the convenience of translation added to their email," Chin added.

The feature also automatic translation feature. Google had recently announced that it is increasing everyone's free storage in Gmail from 7.5 GB to 10 GB.(see this post to know how to utilize that much free space). Subscibe and Like:) PEACE.

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Gmail Drive: An efficient way to utilize your Gmail space

If you need extra storage space to store files, the Gmail Drive utility* is your answer. And it’s not just for email, either. Here’s how to create a virtual Gmail drive, which lets you store files and acts just like a physical drive connected to your local machine.

First download GMail Drive.

Unzip the file and run setup.exe.

You’ll have to restart to complete the install.

After the restart, log back into your system and head to My Computer. There you’ll see the Gmail Drive.

Double-click on Gmail Drive. Enter your Google username and password. Check auto login so you don’t have to sign in each time.

Your Gmail Drive will be empty–just waiting for you to load your files on it.

Just drag and drop files into Gmail Drive. Treat it just as you would a physical drive on your system.

Now wait while the file uploads to your Gmail account. Once it’s uploaded, you view the files in the GMail Drive.

When you log into your Gmail account, you’ll see the files you’ve uploaded listed in your inbox–they will look just as if they were messages. The subject head will be GMAILFS. Filter them as you wish or put your documents into folders.

You see? There’s no reason to let all your Gmail space go to waste. The Gmail Drive utility is an efficient way to get your data off your local system and into the cloud and with the new Google Drive you can store all the more Data in the cloud and that to free of cost.(Read this announcement by Google)

*NOTE: Gmail Drive is not a Google Product and is a Third Party Utility.

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Google Drive: How using it can be 'dangerous'

Search giant Google's new consumer service that allows users to store photos, videos, and other digital files in the Internet 'cloud', could allow US law enforcement agencies to access your data, without your knowledge and without the need for a warrant, an expert has claimed

David Asprey, the inventor of one of the first cloud computing services TrendMicro cloud evangelist, said that the terms of use of Google Drive "destroys any expectation of privacy because you license your data to a third party".

"You give Google full right to do whatever they want to do with your data and of course one of those things is to give your information to law enforcement without a subpoena," news.com.au quoted Asprey, as saying.

"By signing up to Google Drive, users give the tech giant a global license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify or create derivative works and to publish, publicly perform and distribute that content," he added.

Asprey said the new terms of service extended the reach and power of the Patriot Act - which was passed shortly after September 11, 2001, giving the US Government permission to look at people's documents without their knowledge or permission.

Meanwhile, Google said they comply with US laws and legal processes 'just like any law-abiding company'.

"We have a track record of advocating on behalf of user privacy in the face of law enforcement requests (including but not limited to US Dept of Justice subpoenas)," Google said in a statement.

"We look at each request to be sure they adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying. We do our best to notify the subject named in any such requests in order to give them the opportunity to object," it added.

Subscribe and Like:D and Dont't forget to comment below.PEACE.

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Google Drive : Get 5GB of free cloud storage

Google Drive is a file storage and sync service by Google that was released on April 24, 2012. Google Drive is an extension of Google Docs once activated, and replaces the URL docs.google.com with drive.google.com.

Rumors about Google Drive began circulating as early as March 2006.

"Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist." That's how Google introduced the long-awaited Google Drive.

It was first rumoured way back in 2006 as a complimentary service to Gmail - then two years old - and it was even suggested the two may share storage. Now, we've seen numerous tools launch that fill this gap - SugarSync and Dropbox to name a couple of players, while there's also Apple's iCloud and Microsoft's SkyDrive of course.

But Google has now taken the plunge and announced the 5GB service along with apps for Android devices as well as Mac and PC. The Google Drive Sync tools for Mac or PC put a folder on your PC or Mac that acts like a, er, dropbox.

iOS apps are coming soon according to Google.

Google Drive vs Microsoft SkyDrive

You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB. If you're a Picasa Web Albums convert, you'll be rather pleased to know that the storage is shared.

It certainly seems that Google has changed its tune about adding subscriptions to services such as Drive. Would it have asked for payment for going over 5GB of storage in an era before iCloud, for example? Has Apple made it acceptable to pay?

When you first sign up, you'll see the below message introducing you to the service.





Then you're thrown into Drive, which at first glance, looks rather like Google Docs. That's because once you sign up for Google Drive, you no longer see Google Docs. Your documents are in your drive. This can seem a bit confusing for those of us who - like all of us on TechRadar - use Google Docs to collaborate on numerous documents.

That's because it's only your OWN documents that appear in the 'root' of your drive (called My Drive) - the rest are consigned to a Shared with me window.

However, the key thing is that you can also drag files or folders shared with you to My Drive for easy access.

The initial screen also has a banner inviting you to download the Google Drive Sync software for Mac or PC - more on that shortly.





Here's the Shared with me folder. Note you can easily create folders at will to sort your documents and files.





We think the UI needs a lot more work. It's like a retread of Google Docs at the moment and Google surely needs to do work here. It is possible to see mini previews of your documents but, while the file name information is displayed when you mouse over, it doesn't quite go far enough for our liking.
Uploading to Google Drive

Getting files into your Google Drive is fairly easy, just like in Docs. You can also see your quota within this menu. You'll also note that you can upload a folder if you're in Chrome..





...but in other browsers you just get a menu link telling you to use Chrome to upload folders. Thanks for that.





The first time you perform an upload (and on subsequent occasions if you choose that option), Drive will ask if you would like to convert documents to the corresponding Google Docs format (we said no).

Annoyingly, you can't natively edit Office documents within Google Drive; you will need to convert them first.

However, thanks to a third-party app from nivio, it is possible to edit them within your drive. Google has built Drive as an open platform, so expect a whole bunch of third-party apps in the Chrome Web Store - some have appeared already and we'll be compiling a full list of these for you very soon.





It will also ask you if you want to convert images and PDFs to text - it uses OCR to extract this detail from your files. Thereafter you can search for a word from the text of the actual article.

Uploading articles shows the following dialog box - if you've ever dealt with files on a Chromebook, it's a bit like that. Oh, you haven't?





You also get more detail on who has modified documents shared with you.





You can reorder your Drive documents however you want - we find last modified suits our needs best.




Google Drive Sync app for Mac and PC

The app installer works like just about any other - there's no Google Magic at work here - and it installs itself to the system tray on a PC.





Essentially, Google Drive installs a Google Drive folder within your user folder. This will all be very familiar to you if you use Dropbox. And, like Dropbox, synced files have a tick on the icon.





The system tray icon (gives you access to key Google Drive information such as your quota as well as a quick link to your Drive on the web.





The Preferences dialog box is the most interesting thing about the Google Drive Sync app - you can choose to sync selected folders if you wish - powerful. You can also choose whether or not you want the app to sync your Google Docs files.





So that's it. Google Sync is a great addition to Google armoury of apps and everything does work seamlessly. However, the Docs-style interface is a bit old hat and can be confusing; it's just a file list and needs a bit more thought we think. There's a reason that PCs and Macs use icons. The mini previews are good, but they're not quite intuitive enough.

However, if you already use a file synchronisation service there's no reason to switch - unless you don't get enough data for free. SkyDrive now provides 7GB, which is obviously more than the 5GB Google does. But while SugarSync now gives away 5GB for free, Dropbox is stuck on just 2GB. This needs to be increased. And soon.
Google Drive app for Android

Google Drive is coming to iOS - Google says it is working "hard" on the new app - but it has already released one for Android through Google Play.



As you can see it's a pretty simple app that enables you to access your files on the move and save some for offline access should you wish.

This is what the main My Drive view looks like:



And here's the Shared with me view.



It's easy to create new Google Docs directly from the app as well as take photos to upload to your Google Drive.



And the best thing is that everything is easily searchable.

 Which service are you using? We would love to hear from you, comment in the comment form below.Subscribe and Like:D PEACE.

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Everything you need to know about Google search: Search Tips and Tricks

Do you think you know how to make a search on the search engine giant Google? If yes, then you are certainly mistaken. Let me prove it you all who just said yes in their minds.
What do you type in the search box when you want to find the meaning of a word, say 'confident'? I bet 95% of you who are reading this would type, "meaning of confident ". This search would just show you pages which might contain the meaning of the word, but if you want to find the meaning of the word, the moment you hit enter, then you should type, "define:confident". It will give you meaning of the word instantly. It is just one tiny example that can change the way you search for things on the web through Google. There are numerous more ways which can change the way you search on Google. And this is just the boring part , there are numerous ways in which you can have fun with the search engine giant. For example type find chuck norris and hit the I'm feeling lucky button and see what happens. Now, below is a list of ways in which you can improve your search or have fun with Google.

define:

Provide definitions for words, phrases, and acronyms  from the Web.

define:kerning (Find definitions for kerning from the Web.)

define, what is,what are

Show a definition for a word or phrase.

define monopsony, what is podcast (Show a definition for the words monopsony and podcast. Note: No colon after define,what is, or what are.)

movie:

Find reviews and   showtimes.

movie: traffic (Search for information about this movie, including reviews, showtimes, etc.)

city1 city2

Book flights.

sfo bos (Book flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Boston (BOS).)

site:

Search only one website or domain.

Halloween site:www.census.gov (Search for information on Halloween  gathered by the US Census Bureau.)

filetype: (or ext:)

Find documents of the specified type.

Form 1098-T IRS filetype:pdf (Find the US tax form 1098-T in PDF format.)

[#]..[#]

Search within a  range of numbers.

Dave Barry pirate 2002..2006 (Search for Dave Barry articles  mentioning  pirates written in these years.)

book (or books)

Search full-text  of books.

book Ender's Game (Show book-related  information. Note: No colon needed after book.)

link:

Find linked pages,  i.e., show pages    that point to the URL.

link:warriorlibrarian.com (Find pages that  link to  Warrior Librarian's website.)

location:

Find News articles from sources  located in the specified location.

queen location:uk (Find British news  articles on the Queen.)

source:

Find News articles from specified sources.

peace source:ha_aretz (Show articles on peace from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.)

store:

Find Froogle products  from the specified store.

jeans store:gap (Find Gap jeans.)

For more operators like these follow the link :

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html

HOW TO USE GOOGLE SEARCH BOX AS CALCULATOR :

Calculator
Operators		Meaning		Type Into Search Box (& Results)
+ – * /		basic arithmetic		12 + 34 - 56 * 7 / 8
% of		percentage of		45% of 39
^ or **		raise to a power		2^5 or 2**5
old units in new units		convert units		300 Euros in USD, 130 lbs in kg, or 31 in hex

For information on how to use Google search box for complex calculations follow the link(Google has so much to offer that it can't be contained in one post):

http://www.googleguide.com/help/calculator.html

NOW FOR THE FUN SEEKERS, HERE ARE SOME GOOGLE GAGS, EASTER EGGS AND PRANKS:

Just type any of the following in Google search box and press I'm feeling lucky button.

1. do a barrel roll
2. Turn page right a bit
3. askew
4. loneliest number
5. Google sphere
6. Google Gravity
7. Epic Google
8. Google Guitar
9. Google pacman
10. Google reverse
11. Google raimbow
12. Google loco
13. Google pirate
14. Google gothic
15. Google mentalplex
16. Google Easter
17. Google scholar
18. Google Germany
19. Google ninja
20. Google Linux
21. Google goth
22. Google l33t
23. Google pirate
24. Google heart
25. Google emo
26. Google Cambodian
27. Google mac
28. Google us government
29. foogle
30. Google ultimate
31. cqgoogle
32. Google Kat tun
33. xx-Klingon
34. xx-piglatin
35. elgoog
36. goglogo
37. gizoogle
38. ewmew fudd
39. Google bearshare
40. Google god
41. g56ogle
42. Google piratre
43. Google 42
44. Google bsd
45. Google Microsoft
46. Google Chuck Norris
47. Google osx
48. Google names
49. Google mothers day
50. Google brain
51. Google doodle 4
52. Google Santa
53. Google purple
54. Google loco
55. Google svedish chef
56. Google moon
57. Google watch
58. Google black
59. Google holiday
60. Google 2004 Olympics
61. search in colour
62. igoogle
63. Google my way
64. 666gle
65. truegle
66. woogle
67. boogle
68. doogle
69. bluegle
70. bio google
71. joogle
72. toogle
73. google rose
74. google blackr
75. elgoogle

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