Cloud Printing thru Gmail

Dear Readers,

I am extreamly sorry that i am late to inform on this, but the delay was to make sure if it works good for me, so that i can explain you better.

Yes, a week before Google has kicked out it's next feature to us with Cloud printing. When apple folks raise their voice stating iPhone 4 has a great feature to do wifi printing thru air print which is compatible only with iPhone4 or above. Google was quite for some time until clound print was announced and now the voice of google on this cloud printing is unreachable / unbeatable by apple.

Cloud printing is nothing but you configure your home printer thru your google account and you will be able to print from any part of the world to your printer. All you need to do is activate your google account with this clound print that's it. You are done, you can now print from your gmail account thru any computer or mobile app to your configured printer.

Simple Requirement:

1. Should have printer configured to your computer.

2. Install Google Chrome Browser Ver 9.0 or higher. Click here to download and install.

Steps to activate your clound printing.

1. Once chrome new version is installed, open "Options"  from tools menu.

2. Click on "Under the Hood" tab, scroll down till end you would be seeing "Google Cloud Print" option.

3. Click on "Sign in to Google Cloud Print" and enter your google credential.  Your account will be enabled in no time. That's it. You can click on "Print Test Page" if required to make sure everyting is fine.

4. From now you can print documents from your google account to your printer irrespective to your location. Wow!!! We love you Google!!!!



Google phone call period extended till 2011 EOY

Dear readers,

It's been a while that we talk about google voice. Recently I read it from google that google voice free calls to US and Canada is been extended until 2011 end of year. Earlier it was until DEC 2010.

We love you google.

How to know who blocked me in Gtalk

Dear All,

Often we wonder when our friends who appeared online more frequently suddenly appearing offline. Did you try to ping them and got frustrated with no response? There will be only three reasons for that can happen in this scenario.

• Didn't get chance to login to their account.
• Trying to avoid you.
• Cleverly blocked you in their chat list.

How can we find out the exact root cause it's very simple. Follow me i am sure you will get to know the exact reason.

1. Click here to download Pidgin
2. After successful installation you can directly click on "Add" in the main window or you can click on Add button by going into Accounts--> Manage Accounts (Ctrl+A).
3. In the Add Account window choose Gtalk under protocol. You have most of the messengers to choose Eg: Yahoo,AIM etc.,
4. Give gtalk user name and password in the appropriate text box.
5. Enter "Home" in Resource box.
6. Click on Add
7. Now your account has been added. In the Buddy list window click on Buddies --> Show --> Offline Buddies.
8. Once you get the list of offline buddies just right click on the user name whom you think they have blocked you and choose "Get Info".
9. If they have blocked you then you will get the result as Offline else you will see their picture & profile information.  That's it. You can take a deep breath and relax. 

I am sure you are clever now as you have found out the fool who has blocked you thinking you will not be knowing whether he/she has blocked or not. 

Can we hijack their credential? Follow my posts we shall play with them just note down their id.

Stop Auto Invite to Google Chat

Dear Readers,

I am sure this happens to every gmail users. Gmail has an inbuilt feature which will automatically invite your frequent gmail friends. I am sure it's a cool feature but what happens is it's not recommended to send some invitation from our end without our knowledge. So let's see how does this goes automatically and stop if we don't want.

Login to Gmail --> goto Settings

Under Chat tab --> If you have "Automatically allow people I communicate with often to chat with me and see when I'm online." Selected then the invitation is going automatically. 

If you want to stop this then select the alternate option ie.,  Only allow people that I've explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I'm online.

Different Time Zone in Google Calendar

Dear Readers,

I am not sure about how often you use Google Calendar, but I am mad about it. Without calendar event my day will not pass. I have all remainders and events for the day in my calendar. I use outlook calendar only for official purpose but for all my personal reason I have my Google calendar handy.

When we come to create event in Google calendar then we have big headache especially dealing with different time zone people. For example if you are scheduling a call with a friend in France/India and you are in USA then you are not aware of what time zone they are in L. So as a one stop solution Google has now introduced having events created with respect to the time zone.

All you need to do is just to click on the Time Zone link which is near to date and time and select the country where your friends are then you are done.  The remainder is buzz’d up automatically with your current time zone.

The best part is you have start & End time zone separation. For example if you are starting an event starting in USA and ending @ India then you can separate it. Use it you will hate other calendars. It’s Google what else.

Watermark in picasa

I believe couple of weeks before i was reading on web about adding water mark to pictures. I don't remember the software name exactly as i was not impressed by it's functionality.

I was thinking if Google has a software to import/export photo's using Picasa why it doesn't have any function to add watermark of it's own? With no doubt my research was done and finally i found the answer. It's YES, picasa has the function to perform this task by it's own. Let's see how.

We can easily add watermark to all photo's that we upload to web. Follow the simple steps.

1. Open Picasa and goto Tools --> Options

2. Click on "Web Albums" tab and look for "Watermarks"

3. Check the option "Add a watermark for all photo uploads" and enter the text that you want to appear on the text box then click on "OK".

Now from when on you upload any images to picasa web albums you will get the watermark to your photo's. This way you can own your rights to your photo's :). I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Meet you again.

Stop Chat Status in Buzz

Dear Readers,

I am sorry to say this, many of my buzz buddies does this mistake either knowingly or unknowingly which makes other followers in dis-comfortable state :(. I know you may wonder what was that? Mmmm nothing much but buzzing your gtalk/google chat status to buzz.

I am not saying you are doing intensionally but it's Google, which has made this option as default to all your buzz accounts. I am sure you might have seen the same in buzz and you might have tried to stopped it. If you really don't know how to do the same then this post is fully dedicated for those unknowns folks.

To avoid this from your buzz status all you need to do is to follow below 4 steps.

1. Goto Settings
2. Click on “Buzz” tab and look for “Your connected sites:” verbiage
3. Now click on “View and Edit” link and you can see “Google Chat Status” in that window.
4. Click on “Edit” and again click “Remove Site”.

This way your google chat status will not be buzzed anymore :). You should always understand one point, Buzz and Tweeters are to share your thoughts and feels not your fullstops and commas :) Keep buzzing buddies.

Please share this in your buzz if you are dis-comfortable with your followers.

HD video uploads in Picasa

All,

It’s Google againJ. Those who frequently read my pages should have known by now how love Google. I follow each and every new steps of Google as they are the one whom I am admiring every day.

Let’s see what’s new today. If you are introduced to internet for the first time I am sure that within a week you should have known 3 things
1. Google
2. Gmail
3. YouTube

If you know are familiar with Google then in day by day you will be learning everything which is in WWW. Point#3 is YouTube, Yes when we say video clips on internet the first site which smack everyone’s wits is YouTube. The #1 video uploading and sharing portal up to my knowledge. The best part of YouTube is allowing us to upload HD videos for free up to 2GB with 15 mins length. Now Google has announced that we will be able to upload HD videos in Picasa.

As you might be known about Picasa, the application by Google which allows you to upload and share photos + videos up to 1 GB of your account. Now they have introduced an option to Picasa users to upload HD videos which can be up to 720p. We need Picasa software to be installed in our machine and we cannot upload directly from Picasa web albums. It’s a known fact that HD videos occupies more space and a total of 1GB space for every Picasa account is really not enough.

If you want to upload it in Picasa with various accounts then it would be okay. Commit to memory that you cannot share the video alone to your friends instead your complete album will be sharedL. I hope Google will give some more room to us and sharing options comparable to YouTube.

I still say YouTube is the best for video uploads and sharing’s.

Record calls thru Google Voice#

As I have said in my earlier posts stating we have an option to record calls that we receive or dial from Google voice just by pressing button “4” in your dial pad.

Now Google has given you an option on screen just to click on the record button to press it. Test is going on. Soon we may have it in our screens. As we know it won’t take much time for Google to implement.

Shorten any lengthy URL

Dear All,

I am sure that everyone is aware of Google maps and Picasa web albums. I am saying these two Google products as an example here. So when you use this maps/photo apps the only thing you will hate is when you share your findings with your friends is nothing but the two/three lines of URLL.

You all hate as I hate it, because if we give too lengthy URL’s then no one likes to click on that thinking it may be spam or if the click doesn’t work then it’s hard time for our friends to copy paste/type it. So Google itself has an app to shorten these lengthy URL’s into small.

Click http://goo.gl/ to open the web app and give the lengthy URL then click on the “Shorten” button. It will give you the best result as Google always gives for us.

Google Googles

Dear All,

It's google which always makes me and pulls me to think beyond my limits. I truly don't understand how things are thought far behind our imagination.

Google Googles is a cool application for Android and iPhone. Earlier it use to open and do things with respect our voice. Now they have moved behind our imagination yes, now we can just take photos to know about things. Photos will be scanned pixel by pixels finally the search result will be displayed for you.

You can scan a business card to save that to your contacts or you can just call to the contacts from that business card. Wow! Interesting.

One more cool feature is once you scan different language text using this application it prompts you to translate the text into different language.

I have tried this application in my office to see how it works. I just scanned my note book , it was awesome. Just have a look.

See my demo:


To know how it works Watch this

Show comments & your likes in Google Buzz

All,

There are scenarios that we will like to share our comments and likes with respect to other external sites and blogs with our friends.  Google buzz makes this job very easy.

Goto Settings--> Buzz and enable the below color'd option.

Google Keyboard ShortCuts

I often recommend my friends to use keyboard instead of mouse. Using keyboard helps you not only to learn some new things in computer but it's a time consumption option for frequent computer operators.

The time it takes to press Ctrl+c & Ctrl+v is 65% lesser than right click on mouse to copy and paste any text or image. I never goto mouse unless until it's hardly required. This way i learnt many short cut keys in computer. My Friends often wonder when i operate my computer without mouse. Also remember though you buy a #1 brand mouse once it falls ill then until you give vaccination you need to depend on keyboard only. 

Here is the list of Google keyboard shortcut commands listed by Google. Have a look and try to use this instead of mouse. Learning an alternate way of operation always helps us.

Version History in Google Docs

Dear Readers,

I am not sure how many of you are using Google Docs, but i use it often to share some documents with my friends. It has many great features which i will try to cover in my blog if i get time. As i always say Google's long time goal is to use only internet as like your Personal PC. You no need to carry anything, everything will be in your account online.

Taking "U" turn to our topic, Google doc team has recently introduced this feature. We can now view the saved previous version of our documents and jump into it if we need to goto previous version. We can also compare the difference b/w various versions. Let's see how.

1. Login to Google Doc

2. Open any saved document and click on File-->See Version history (As shown below)

3. You will be taken to new screen where you can see the various version of your documents. You can see what changes you have made either by clicking on the hyper link or by comparing with different versions.

4. To compare the content b/w various versions, select any two or more versions and click on the Compare button below. It will give you the changes that are made with respect to the selected versions.

Halloween Effects in Picasa Webalbum

Dear Readers,

As i said in my earlier post Google had an agreement with Picnik online photo editing tool on which all our picasa web album images can be edited. Picnik is a great online tool for editing your photos. As Halloween is nearing picnik has added a new effects thru which we can make our pictures more scary and funny.

Let's see how to do it. 

1. Login to Picasa web album and select any of your favorite photo to add this effect. I recommend you to select  any image which has the close up image of you or your friends.

2. Once the picnic tool is loaded (It will take 10-15 seconds to load) click on Create Tab at the top.

3. Once you select create tab click on Featured option below that. It will give list of effects that we can add to our photos. I have chosen couple of effects. Try with your own to make the photo's more scary.

Better Video Chat in Gmail

All,

Recently this new video chat enhancement is been added into gmail labs. This enables us to do a bigger chat with our pals.

To avail this feature please goto settings--> Labs --> Enable the below pictured feature.

Screening Calls in Google Voice

Dear Readers,

Google Voice has given much more features to it's users like us. Everyday new feature is Google's formula. Having Google voice# has became mandatory as like having email address. The ultimate feature in Google voice is call screening.

Initially when a call is received to your Google voice# the caller should first say their name and we can accept the call either with their name/ display#. In case if we are busy and couldn't attend/wanna ignore the call we just need to press the Screen button which is displayed on your screen/ we can just press 4 in your phone to move the call to voice mail box. 

What's new in this? I know this could be the question from you. The new thing in this feature is, when you press screen/4 the call will goto voice mail and by pressing the button 4/Screening we can hear the person's message to the voice mail box without bothering him/her. :) mmmm... Now we should say WOW :)

See you soon.

Google Calender Desktop Notification

Dear Readers,

I am sorry for the delay in my post. As my mom was going to india and i was busy with her packing. She is travelling safe now. On behalf of my readers i wish her safe & happy journey.

If you are not aware or not used Google calender till date then you really missed something which you should have not :(.

Yes, Google calender is one of the good and daily use product in our day to day life. It's an awesome application from Google. You will get a summary of your daily event on your start of the day, you can synchronize your Google calender event with any of your smart phones +++++ we can keep adding many features like this. It also has some disadvantage like we cannot snooze the event and we cannot dismiss the event as like Microsoft outlook has. But we know about Google, it always gives you the outstanding feature compared with others. We hope for the best soon.

Today i am gonnna show the recent feature which gives desktop notification about your scheduled events in your Google calender.

Please follow the below steps for the same.

Note: You should have Google chrome to enable this function.

Step1: Open Chrome and enable the notification option by choosing Tools –> Options –> Under the Hood –> Content settings --> Notifications--> "Ask me when a site wants to show desktop notifications.

Step2: Don't think you will get notification now, you just need to enable it in your Google calender. Open Google Calender and click on Settings--> Calender Settings--> Labs--> Click on Enable for "Gentle Remainders" 

Step3: Once you click on Save you will be requested with a message box stating do you want to allow or not. click on Allow.

Step4: Once you allow the notifications you will get your alerts on your desktop as shown below.

See you soon :) Have  a good day.

Missed Call Notification of Google Voice to your Email

Dear Readers,

Imagine you are away now and you have unfortunately routed your Google voice calls to your home#. Your friend is calling your Google voice# and didn't leave voice mail :(. In this scenario you will not be able to see the missed calls unless until you login to Google voice or you reach your home. 

What could be the resolution or an alternate facility that Google can do it for you? Before you put this question Google has the answer for you :). Yes, you can get all missed calls notified to your subscribed email id. All you want to do is just enable this option.

Go to settings--> Calls --> Check the option as mentioned below.

Receive incoming calls in Gmail Chat

Dear Readers,

I hope after gmail introduced a new feature to place calls to anywhere in the world, everyone might have started creating your own Google Voice#. mmmm Sounds good.

I have read / heard a statement like "Only a lazy person can find the shortest route for a complex problem", Yes that's true in all the scenario. Let me stop with these philosophy. Jumping into the point directly, today's post is on how to receive incoming calls thru gmail chat.

Yesterday i was sitting in front of my laptop and my phone in bedroom was on the charger. When i received the call by the time i answered the call it went to voice mail :(. Yes i was walking slowly unfortunately. Then i started thinking how come Google didn't introduce any new feature for this??? Google'd and found the resolution.

Yes, We can now receive and place calls thru gmail chat itself. In case if your phone is away you will be able to answer your calls thru your laptop on gmail chat to your Google voice#.

You should enable this feature by going into Settings--> Voice settings and under Phones Check the box which states forwards to Google Chat.

Now if you receive any calls both your phone and Google chat will receive your calls simultaneously.