Because I've spent most of my working life writing about technology, people expect me to be among the first to adopt every new device and application that hits the market. It's because I follow tech trends closely that I'm seldom an early adopter. I know, for instance, that the first generation of any tech product is likely to be followed very soon by a new version with more features, fewer flaws and a lower price tag. Most people understand my views on adopting new technology. Still, I get puzzled looks when I tell someone that I'm not one of the 500-million-plus members of Facebook.
2. 3 Free Personal Finance Apps You Can Take to the Bank
The Linux platform has several really good financial applications that are more than capable of handling both personal and small-business accounting operations. GnuCash, HomeBank and Skrooge are among the best financial apps I've found for Linux. In terns of features and performance, all three are as good as or better than the well-known Microsoft Windows equivalents -- MSMoney and Quicken. But features and performance aside, these three Linux apps have a striking advantage over their proprietary kindred.
3. Facebook Goes Wile E. Coyote on Google
Facebook has found a way around a Google blockade originally set up to prevent users from uploading their Gmail contact data to the social networking site. The latest development in the playground spat between the online behemoths reportedly has Facebook exploiting a Google feature that lets users download their contacts' data for their own use. Facebook apparently has provided members a direct deep link to the download feature that lets them upload the data directly to the social networking site, effectively restoring the feature for users despite Google's efforts.
The Linux platform has several really good financial applications that are more than capable of handling both personal and small-business accounting operations. GnuCash, HomeBank and Skrooge are among the best financial apps I've found for Linux. In terns of features and performance, all three are as good as or better than the well-known Microsoft Windows equivalents -- MSMoney and Quicken. But features and performance aside, these three Linux apps have a striking advantage over their proprietary kindred.
3. Facebook Goes Wile E. Coyote on Google
Facebook has found a way around a Google blockade originally set up to prevent users from uploading their Gmail contact data to the social networking site. The latest development in the playground spat between the online behemoths reportedly has Facebook exploiting a Google feature that lets users download their contacts' data for their own use. Facebook apparently has provided members a direct deep link to the download feature that lets them upload the data directly to the social networking site, effectively restoring the feature for users despite Google's efforts.
4. App Tuesday: Eight new apps for your business
The Google Apps Marketplace helps your business discover and deploy the right web-apps that integrate with Google Apps, reduce IT costs, and eliminate redundant log-ins and data entry. Every App Tuesday, we welcome even more apps that expand the range of solutions available to businesses.
Today, eight more apps join the Apps Marketplace, all with single sign-on convenience and hassle-free access through the universal navigation bar. Most apps have even deeper integrations—read below to learn more.
Embed this presentation on your own site to spread the word about our newest apps
Read more about the apps launching this App Tuesday on the Google Enterprise blog, or go shop the Google Apps Marketplace to find the perfect solutions to help you move further into the cloud.
The Google Apps Marketplace helps your business discover and deploy the right web-apps that integrate with Google Apps, reduce IT costs, and eliminate redundant log-ins and data entry. Every App Tuesday, we welcome even more apps that expand the range of solutions available to businesses.
Today, eight more apps join the Apps Marketplace, all with single sign-on convenience and hassle-free access through the universal navigation bar. Most apps have even deeper integrations—read below to learn more.
Embed this presentation on your own site to spread the word about our newest apps
Read more about the apps launching this App Tuesday on the Google Enterprise blog, or go shop the Google Apps Marketplace to find the perfect solutions to help you move further into the cloud.
5. Beyond Instant results: Instant Previews
With Google Instant you get results as fast as you type, but your search doesn’t stop there. Once you get results back, you choose a site to visit based on the information in each result—like the title, a snippet of text and the URL. Over time we’ve made steady improvements to our search results and snippets to help you pick agreat page. Now we’re making a leap to image-based snapshots—a new kind of visual search result we call “Instant Previews” which makes it even faster to choose the right result.
Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine. To use it, click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any search result and a visual overview of the page will appear on the right. From there, hover your cursor over any other result to see a preview. For those of you who’ve recently stopped using your mouse to search, now you can navigate to a result, hit the right arrow key to see the preview, and hit the down arrow key to keep browsing. Here’s a video showing Instant Previews in action:
In our testing, we’ve found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. The previews provide new ways to evaluate search results, making you more likely to find what you’re looking for on the pages you visit. Here are some of the things you can do to get the most out of Instant Previews:
Quickly compare results - A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.
Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you're looking for.
Interact with the results page - Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.Instant Previews can be helpful for many kinds of tasks. For example, say you looked at a page before and need to find it again—with a preview, you can tell if any of the results look familiar. Or perhaps you’re looking for an official website—look for a logo and formal style and you’ll probably be able to identify it. Or maybe you’re looking for a how-to guide—it’s easy to spot a page with clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions.
We realized early on that this kind of experience would only make sense if it was lightning fast. Not long ago simply downloading an image could take 20 or 30 seconds, and even today many websites take four or five seconds to load. With Instant Previews, we match your query with an index of the entire web, identify the relevant parts of each webpage, stitch them together and serve the resulting preview completely customized to your search—usually in under one-tenth of a second. Once you click the magnifying glass, we load previews for the other results in the background so you can flip through them without waiting.
Well, I think that’s enough of a preview—soon you can try out the real thing for yourself! The new feature is rolling out now and should be available in more than 40 languages in the next few days.
6. Google Soups Up Apache With New Speed Module
With Google Instant you get results as fast as you type, but your search doesn’t stop there. Once you get results back, you choose a site to visit based on the information in each result—like the title, a snippet of text and the URL. Over time we’ve made steady improvements to our search results and snippets to help you pick agreat page. Now we’re making a leap to image-based snapshots—a new kind of visual search result we call “Instant Previews” which makes it even faster to choose the right result.
Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine. To use it, click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any search result and a visual overview of the page will appear on the right. From there, hover your cursor over any other result to see a preview. For those of you who’ve recently stopped using your mouse to search, now you can navigate to a result, hit the right arrow key to see the preview, and hit the down arrow key to keep browsing. Here’s a video showing Instant Previews in action:
In our testing, we’ve found that people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. The previews provide new ways to evaluate search results, making you more likely to find what you’re looking for on the pages you visit. Here are some of the things you can do to get the most out of Instant Previews:
Quickly compare results - A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.
Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you're looking for.
Interact with the results page - Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.Instant Previews can be helpful for many kinds of tasks. For example, say you looked at a page before and need to find it again—with a preview, you can tell if any of the results look familiar. Or perhaps you’re looking for an official website—look for a logo and formal style and you’ll probably be able to identify it. Or maybe you’re looking for a how-to guide—it’s easy to spot a page with clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions.
We realized early on that this kind of experience would only make sense if it was lightning fast. Not long ago simply downloading an image could take 20 or 30 seconds, and even today many websites take four or five seconds to load. With Instant Previews, we match your query with an index of the entire web, identify the relevant parts of each webpage, stitch them together and serve the resulting preview completely customized to your search—usually in under one-tenth of a second. Once you click the magnifying glass, we load previews for the other results in the background so you can flip through them without waiting.
Well, I think that’s enough of a preview—soon you can try out the real thing for yourself! The new feature is rolling out now and should be available in more than 40 languages in the next few days.
6. Google Soups Up Apache With New Speed Module
Google on Wednesday released mod_pagespeed, a module for the Apache HTTP Server that will automatically perform various website speed optimization tasks. This includes 15 or so on-the-fly optimizations. Google claims mod_pagespeed reduces average page load times by up to 50 percent. However, mod_pagespeed works only on Apache servers and is complex to deploy, according to Omri Iluz, strategic partnerships manager at Cotendo, which provides site acceleration services to website owners. Google has released the mod_pagespeed module as open source for Apache for many Linux distributions.
7. 5 Security Hurdles to Clear Before Choosing a Cloud Provider
Over the past year, the IT world has seemingly fallen head over heels for the cloud. Cloud computing has great potential in terms of collaboration and efficiency, and it's already delivering strong results for organizations that have leveraged the cloud model. For all the hype, though, it's important not to overlook one of the most basic yet crucial aspects of the cloud: setting up a reliable SLA that ensures your organization's data is as secure in the cloud as it is in your own data center.
7. 5 Security Hurdles to Clear Before Choosing a Cloud Provider
Over the past year, the IT world has seemingly fallen head over heels for the cloud. Cloud computing has great potential in terms of collaboration and efficiency, and it's already delivering strong results for organizations that have leveraged the cloud model. For all the hype, though, it's important not to overlook one of the most basic yet crucial aspects of the cloud: setting up a reliable SLA that ensures your organization's data is as secure in the cloud as it is in your own data center.
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