Here comes Google Spreadsheet

The news is out there that Google Spreadsheet is coming out soon (they say that it will be put out to limited public testing on 6th June, US Time). The link http://spreadsheet.google.com/ gives us a "Not found" error, so probably it might the URL that new service will be located. The service will support a row of features including import and export of spreadsheets in .xls and .csv format. It is said that it will be made available on Google Labs page. Below are some links where Google Spreadsheet is mentioned: - News.com.com Techmeme If you have any more links to add, please do so in the comments area.

Post launch account of a photo recognition company Riya

Munjal Shah of Riya has written an account of events after their launch of their service Riya which is a photo recognition system and it will be much more in the coming future. Great account of events and one can get an insight into the things going behind the scenes of a company. This reminds me to write about my own account of how I have been using Riya lately. I was very much excited about this technology and I still am, but I am not using it as much as I thought. As Munjal puts it in his write up, I don't think there is enough stickiness in the site or it is just me making not enough use of the features of the site. You upload pictures, help system to recognise the faces, share what you need to, then what? I like privacy and have very few pictures that are shared with public. There should be things that would bring the users back to Riya again and again and not just when they particularly want to search for a photo or share a photo with somebody. There should be ways which will allow users to do more with their photos. For users like me, who don't watch their photos day in and day out, there has to be something that will excite them about the photos and to make best use of them. Here is a photo I uploaded to Riya seeing which makes me happy. Well I am getting started with using my pictures more now ;).
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Sync. your Google Calendar with your desktop and mobiles

Finally I hear of a product that can sync. Google Calendar with Outlook and other mobile devices and vice versa. The product is from CompanionLink. Looks like a nice tool with the initial needed features. You can make changes to your Google Calendar or on the calendar on mobile or desktop system and that will get synchronised with each other. It can synchronize Google Calendar with all the latest Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Palm, and BlackBerry devices in addition to Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, and Groupwise applications. The only bad thing and very much important is it did not work on my desktop at all. The application kept on crashing on me numerous times before I uninstalled it. So will have to wait for better version of this application or just an application from some different developer.

Sync. your Google Calendar with your desktop and mobiles

Finally I hear of a product that can sync. Google Calendar with Outlook and other mobile devices and vice versa. The product is from CompanionLink. Looks like a nice tool with the initial needed features. You can make changes to your Google Calendar or on the calendar on mobile or desktop system and that will get synchronised with each other. It can synchronize Google Calendar with all the latest Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Palm, and BlackBerry devices in addition to Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, and Groupwise applications. The only bad thing and very much important is it did not work on my desktop at all. The application kept on crashing on me numerous times before I uninstalled it. So will have to wait for better version of this application or just an application from some different developer.

Find Aussie maps on Windows Live Local

Michael Kleef links me to the news that Windows Live Local can now help us navigate Australian road. Good news indeed. Here is an example. I have never used Windows Local Live too much before as it was mainly all USA only, but now I have a good reason to give it a try again and again :). The only main problem is I cannot see the detailed view with all street names, and I many times have to visit areas where there are no main streets, but will keep my eyes as to how it evolves in the future.

Google Notebook is Live

While one of my friends forwarded me a link to Google Notebook which did not have any links to Google Notebook, I went to Google website to see if Google Notebook service was live, and to my good surprise it was.
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What is Google Notebook? Google Notebook is a note taking online tool, where one can paste clips from websites, write and edit notes and view these notes from any computer on the Internet. A person can make more then one notebook and can keep it either public or private I am sure the above sentences will change as Google Notebook evolve. To start with, looks like a good service and I know I will make use of it. -->It integrates well with Firefox browser
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-->It has the feature of private notebooks and public notebooks. So I can have my notes private and can make it public. Some extended functionality here would be very much handy, as just making a single note private or public. --> One has the ability to make sections within a notebook, so this is handy for organising ones notes --> One can add and edit notes from any page on the browser as long as Google Notebook extension is installed --> One can search in public notebooks (when I wrote this, I could not find any public notebook) --> Here is my public testing notebook This tool has many potentials in my view. I am sure in the coming days more features will be released. I will be writing more on this tool sometime soon.

Yahoo! Tech, more ads less content

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Yahoo! Tech, wow another tech site. It's more colorful and all but if I am not really impressed. On the first looks it looks like a product review site (there are hundreds of them out there). Then there is 'Tech Advisors' section where non technos are supposed to write about technical stuff, gadgets etc. etc. So blogs from advisors is what we see there. They have pitched the site as it is for non techos. Although I don't think there is much in the site to offer me, one thing I hate about the site is too much use of Flash and too many ads. (note that there are not many ads, but it seems as if they are all ads.). I also wish that when we write reviews, it allows us to directly link it back to our blogs/Yahoo 360 as compared to our profile page (it's been years since I have updated my profile). While I am complaining let me complain about their login page! They could have made that as a AJAX page and make logging onto the site easy and fun. Overall rating at this stage is 1.5 out of 5. See check this site from time to time and see if I feel the need to update my rating at that stage.

Yahoo! Tech, more ads less content

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Yahoo! Tech, wow another tech site. It's more colorful and all but if I am not really impressed. On the first looks it looks like a product review site (there are hundreds of them out there). Then there is 'Tech Advisors' section where non technos are supposed to write about technical stuff, gadgets etc. etc. So blogs from advisors is what we see there. They have pitched the site as it is for non techos. Although I don't think there is much in the site to offer me, one thing I hate about the site is too much use of Flash and too many ads. (note that there are not many ads, but it seems as if they are all ads.). I also wish that when we write reviews, it allows us to directly link it back to our blogs/Yahoo 360 as compared to our profile page (it's been years since I have updated my profile). While I am complaining let me complain about their login page! They could have made that as a AJAX page and make logging onto the site easy and fun. Overall rating at this stage is 1.5 out of 5. See check this site from time to time and see if I feel the need to update my rating at that stage.

Google and IE 7

There is lot of buzz going on the blogosphere about Google raising issues with IE 7 having a default search engine as MSN Search. You will be able to read a lot more about it on Memeorandum. My view, no big deal Google. It is easily changeable and if users really are search engine fanatic they will be able to change it by looking around. It is very intuitive as well as easy to change the preferences. Jeez, you guys are sounding to being on the path to evil now!!

Direct Digg Feeds --> One Step less in getting onto Digged sites

When a news gets Digged and if we are subscribed to the Digg feed, then first we have to go onto the Digg site and then click on the Digged link. Now you can get onto the digged site with a single click by subsribing to the feeds as mentioned on Notes,links and Conversations blog. Although I like Digg, I am not a huge fan of visiting Digg site and commenting on it nor digging links, so links to direct sites come handy to me.