ITS Technology Tips

Google Voice is a unique phone managing and messaging system that allows you to unite all of your phones under a single number.  Once you set up an account, you get a Google Voice phone number that you can route all your calls through—home, work, and cell— so that they ring on a single device. With Google Voice, you get free SMS text messaging, as long as you have a data plan, and you can also make cheap international calls.

When you receive a call through Google Voice, all your phones (or a subset) will ring, allowing you to answer whichever phone is most accessible. You can set certain callers to automatically always go to your cell phone, directly to voicemail or only to your house phone. Additionally, Google Voice allows you to listen in on a voicemail that is in the process of being recorded so you can decide whether or not to answer the call.

Perhaps one of the coolest features of Google Voice is its transcription capabilities—Google Voice can transcribe a voicemail into a text format that can be read like an email, and even be forwarded to your email account. You can then easily respond with a call or a text message.  You can also search through voicemail transcriptions as you would your email inbox. Making things even simpler, Google Voice can integrate with your mobile device’s native address book and  you can set up different greetings for different contacts.  Google Voice is currently available for Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone devices.

To learn more, visit the Google Voice Help Page.

Cooliris is an app for iPhone and iPad users that provides an interactive slideshow view of images and videos you find online.   The Cooliris plugin is currently compatible with:  Flickr, Facebook, Instagram,  and more.  Once you install Cooliris, all you need to do is mouse over  images and videos on many supported sites, then click the Cooliris icon to launch a full-screen slideshow photo viewer.   With this tool, you can quickly and effortlessly browse through hundreds of images in a Google search.

Check the Features page to learn about browser compatibility.

If you are working on a project or planning a trip, Google’s Bookmark Lists offer an easy way to organize and share the links you find. To use Google Bookmarks, you must have a Google account or create one. Once you log into Google, start searching through Google and click on the star next to any links, maps or videos that you find interesting.

To access your starred links, go to your Google Bookmarks homepage. To organize your bookmarks into a list, just click on the Create New List button.

From here, you can select bookmarks to add to lists and share them with friends. The lists are defaulted to the private setting but if you want to share, here are your options:

Private – Nobody can see it
Public – Anybody can find it and view it
Share with select people – Those people can now add links and comments to your list

Trimble’s SketchUp (formerly a part of Google) is free three-dimensional imaging software. It features simple tools that help you design 3D content. You can create shapes, buildings, machines or models.  SketchUp allows you to share your creations on its website’s gallery or export them into TIFF, JPEG and PNG files.

With the increasing amount of information available on the Internet, means for consuming online resources are constantly evolving and becoming more image driven.  Many sites use images to represent news from around the world. Seeing an interesting picture  may expose you to a topic that you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.  

BBC News posts a daily slideshow in the Day in Pictures section. 

Google News offers the option to put the top news stories into an image view.

Visit the  News in Pictures website to see a comprehensive  listing of websites that feature pictorial news.

Google Wave is a new online tool that provides a platform for real-time collaboration and communication. Google has combined features of instant messaging, wikis, email and word processing so that users can work together to create and edit documents called “waves.”  These waves allow any participant to edit any part of the document and there is an option to add pictures, maps or graphics to the document. This tool could be useful for collaborating on group projects, brainstorming, class notes or even planning an event.

Initially Google Wave only released in a limited preview to a select number of participants, but now you can follow this  link to request an invite from Google. It still may take a few days to get a confirmation email though. For more information about Google Wave visit their website or watch a short video from some of the Google developers.

As of August 2010, Google Wave has been shut down.

If you use Gmail, there is a handy new feature that will enable you to add Google Gadgets to your Gmail page.  Google Gadgets are interactive mini-applications that you can display on your Web page, such as weather, personalized news and more.  When you add a Gadget, it will always appear on the sidebar of your email. Even though the sidebar is small, it is a convenient way to have resources readily available.  

How to Insert Gadgets:

• 1. In your Gmail account, click on Settings.
• 2. Under the Labs tab, you can find different features to add to your Gmail. To add custom gadgets, go to Add any Gadget by URL and click Enable.

• 3. Then go to the Gadgets tab (within Settings) and you can enter any Gadgets’ URL, which is an XML page.  To get the URL, click on the gadget you want from the Gadgets page.  Click on the View Source link on the bottom of the page, then copy the URL from the URL window. 

Here a few URLs for popular Gadgets (copy and paste in the Gadget URL box to activate):

• Twitter: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml
• Google Maps: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/mapsearch.xml
• Facebook: http://www.brianngo.net/ig/facebook.xml
• Digg News: http://digg.com/goog/ig.xml
• World Clock: http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml
• Ask a Word (Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia): http://www.openinventions.com/spellcheck/openinventions_spellcheck.xml

Not only can Google Calendar help you manage your own schedule, you can also create a calendar to share with your students, co-workers or an organization.  This is a useful tool because there are several options for sharing your calendar.  Some of the sharing features in Google Calendar include:

*  Share only available/busy times on your schedule (no details). This is helpful if you need to schedule a lot of meetings but do not want to share the details with everyone.

*  Show all event details but you are the only person able to edit. This way you can continually keep your course schedule and assignments up to date.

*  Show all details and also allow users to add or change the events. If you want to share the calendar with a T.A. or even let students add events, this is a helpful option.

Getting Started

If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to create a Google account. From your Google account, you will see a calendar tab at the top of the screen.  This brings you to the main calendar page where you can add events, create multiple calendars and adjust your settings. Follow these steps to create and share your new calendar:

Create

1. On the left-hand side of the screen, under My Calendars, click Create.

2.  Add relevant information such as a title, description
and location.
3.  Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Share your Calendar

1. Back on the main calendar page, click on the drop-down arrow next to the calendar you would like to share.
2. Click on Share this Calendar.

3.  Enter the email address of each person you would
like to share your calendar with.
4.  Adjust permission settings for each calendar user.
5.  Once you save your settings, an email will be sent
inviting each person to view the calendar.

You may already be using the online word processor Google Docs to create and store documents online for free, publish them in multiple formats and access them anywhere and anytime you can connect to the Internet. If you are unfamiliar with Google Docs, you can check out a previous Loyola Tech Tip to learn about the benefits of using this fabulous tool. The greatest advantage of using Google Docs is that you can login from any computer to edit your documents. However, if you lose your internet connection and need access to a crucial file, you will be out of luck. That is unless you install Google’s Gears, an open source browser extension that enables Web applications to run offline.

Enabling Google Docs Offline

Once you download and follow the installation instructions from the Gears Home Page , you will be prompted to restart your Web browser. When you reopen your browser, sign into Google Docs and click on the Offline link.

You will be prompted with instructions to synchronize your documents. Once your documents are synched, you will notice a green checkmark status indicator next to your user name in the upper right hand corner. The status indicator will turn gray when you are working offline. If you login to Google Docs without an internet connection you will be able to edit any of your word processing documents or view your spreadsheets. At this time, you cannot create new documents when you are working offline. Keep in mind that you’ll need to install Gears on each computer that you would like to sync your Google Docs with (i.e. your laptop and your desktop). You should only enable the Google Docs offline feature on your personal computer, not a shared computer. Gears is also compatible with Google Reader, which enables you to access your Web feeds offline as well.

Further Reading:

Google Gears Help Center

If you have favorite news sites or blogs that you like to visit every day, you may already be already using a feed reader to manage your subscriptions.  Web-based feed readers such as Google Reader, enable users to subscribe to and read multiple weblogs and news feeds all in one place, from any computer or mobile device.  If you are just getting started with using a tool like Google Reader or if you are just interested in finding new sites then you should check out Google’s compilation of reading lists.  Google’s second edition of Power Readers features top picks from prominent journalists, techies, fashion critics and foodies.  Visit www.google.com/powerreaders to explore and subscribe to any of their reading lists, or to any individual Web sites that they recommend. 

Read more on The Official Google Blog.