3 Reasons Why I Wouldn't Use Google Wave Yet

Google took a jab at redefining email when they opened Google Wave to the public earlier this year. Tomes and tomes of, well... webpages, were filled with how awesome a product Google Wave is. The entire Internet seemed to be waving and blipping with excitement. This was about redefining email. About changing how you and I interact. About being awesome as always, the Google way.

Don't get me wrong. It's still an awesome product. But I still don't and won't use Google Wave. At least not yet. And here's why:

• It's a void out there: Sure, it's just a selective Beta and there's always the option to use the "with:public" search term to get to the public waves, but do you seriously see yourself talking to a bunch of strangers? Wouldn't you rather just get on and Wave with a friend, or a colleague? The fact that invitations are not being rolled out quickly enough doesn't make the situation any better.

• If I wanted to crawl, I'd have been a snail: I mean seriously, what happened to all the gigahertz goodness I paid for? The moment you get 30 or above wavers onto a Wave, you start noticing a lag. And the system specs don't help (yours truly ran it on a pret-ty powerfuly rig). The best you can do at the moment is use Google Gears alongside your browser. But that only helps a little bit.

• It's for collaboration, not one-to-one communication: The idea was to reinvent email. While that was achieved in more ways than one (and you can call me a conformist for what I say next), I still feel that email exchanges are better off in their current state. I mean, I really don't want real-time messages on my screen when I'm writing to just one person, right? In its present state, Wave is best used when there are minutes to be exchanged between teams, technical documents to be written, or maybe even as live counselling rooms. But the bottom line remains that most of us won't move to a different platform just for dropping a line on our loved ones.

Google Wave has still got a lot of distance to traverse before it's ready for mass-market use. And maybe that's the point of the invitation-only Beta. But somewhere, I do feel Google could have tweaked it some more before unleashing it upon us. That could've been done by means of extra features, or maybe even by expanding the invitation queue to accommodate more people.

---

Like this post? Don't forget to share it. Click the button below and push it to friends. If you have your own Wave quirks, we would love to listen. Just drop  a line by clicking the post headline.

Read more...

Extensions Come To Chrome

Everyone knows that Chrome is an awesome browser. It's fast, it's free and it's Google! But the one advantage Firefox always had over Chrome was extensions. In fact, that's the only reason why a lot of users (including yours truly) didn't make a permanent switch from Firefox to Chrome. But all that is set to change. Google recently made extensions live in Chrome's developer version, and today, theextension gallery went online.

As of this morning, the extension gallery already has 411 extensions.

And here's how you can get them:

1. First, upgrade to the latest developer build. This involves opening your current Chrome installation, and going to the Chrome Beta page.
2. Once you've downloaded and installed the Chrome developer build, you are all set to go.
3. Just fire up Chrome and visit the Chrome Extension Gallery, and check out all the extension fun available online.

And that's all there is to it. Go ahead and take the new souped up Chrome for a spin! And to help you start out, here's my 3 favorite Chrome Extensions:

1. Chromed Bird (Twitter Client)
2. Aviary Screen Capture (Screen Capture)
3. Stumble Upon (Social Media)

---

Liked this post? Don't forget to share it with your friends, click on the button below. Leave your favorite Chrome extensions in the comments by clicking on the post headline.

Read more...

Setup Google DNS For Your Computers

Update 2: Conclusive results that Google DNS is blazing fast.
Update 1: OpenDNS responds to Google's latest offering

---

Holiday season seems to be a time of festivity even amongst Google engineers. Last year, they unleashed a slew of Google Labs features upon the world, each more innovative than the other. It seems like they are upto it again with some useful as well as fun ideas coming through. This year we've already seen the Default Text Styling Labs Feature, Google's initiative to send your holiday card for you (US only), and now they've come up with Google DNS.

I can hear you swearing under your breath. Fear not comrades, for DNS isn't the devil. It's not even half as complex as it sounds abbreviated. I'll delve into DNS today and also show you just how to go about configuring Google DNS for your computers.

DNS (or Domain Name System for those who love it long) is actually one of the cleverest innovations of the Internet. DNS is what enables you to sit your ass in a chair, type a website into the browser, and whistle happily as the browser serves up your page.

This is how it works. When you enter a website into the Address Bar of your browser, the browser is initially clueless about what you want to see. This is because computers are nasty, arrogant dudes who simply fail to understand the finer nuances of human lingual abilities. All they understand are numbers. So when you hit the Enter/Return key on your keyboard, something called a Resolver kicks in and takes the text from the browser. Then, it compares that text to a huge, collosal database that contains numbers associated with the entered text. These numbers, called IP Addresses (Internet Protocol Addresses), make the Internet (or in fact any network) work. This database of IP Addresses is called a DNS Cache, which is stored at with your local ISP (the company that gives you your Internet connection). A website is displayed if the IP Address corresponding to a particular text is found. If it isn't found, the resolver broadens its search and looks for the IP Addresses in nearby DNS Caches until the website is found (now you know what they mean by "Website Found. Waiting for Reply..." in your browser status bars).

So what Google has done, is made a consolidated database of websites, which they've deemed safe (read malware free) and stored it across various datacentres across the world. They have also implemented certain mechanisms that enable the browser to redirect to the nearest DNS when you request a page. What this does is reduce latency and brings up your webpages quicker. So, with a bit of work on their part, Google has made the Web safer and faster.

Now that you have the background, I'll show you how to configure your computer(s) for Google DNS in Windows Vista/7:

1. Go to the Network and Sharing Center (Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center)
2. In the sidebar, click on "Change Adapter Settings" or something similar. This will show you a list of network adapters configured on your PC.
3. Right click the adapter you are using (say Local Area Connection, or Wireless Network Connection) and select "Properties". This opens the Property sheet for that adapter.
4. In the Networking tab, double-click the "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" entry. This makes another window pop-up.
5. In this new window, select the General tab and then click the option that says "Use the following DNS server addresses". This enables the two boxes below the option.
6. In the first box "Preferred DNS Server", enter the value 8.8.8.8 (look at the screenshot left above).
   
7. In the second box "Alternate DNS Server", enter the value 8.8.4.4 (look at the screenshot right above).
8. Click OK for all the windows.
9. For optimal performance, go to a command prompt (Start > Run > cmd.exe) and type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes) and press Enter.
10. That's it! Welcome to the safer, quicker web!

For people who think Google is just a big company trying to get into each of your lives with every product, use OpenDNS. You can also configure Google DNS to work for your entire network of devices by entering the above settings in your router configuration page (usually 192.168.1.1).

---

If you love the quicker, faster web experience, Digg this article above, tweet it to others, or post it to social networks using the Share button below. You can also discuss this article by clicking on the the article headline to get to the commenting system. Additional reading below.

Related articles:

• Introducing Google Public DNS (googleblog.blogspot.com)

Read more...

Pimp Out Your Email

Last week, I did a post on making your Desktop look good. If you missed it, read Trick Out Your Desktop To Make It roductive. On a similar, but more vain note, today I am going to talk about making Gmail look good for you. These tweaks, though more of a cosmetic kind, will make your Gmail experience nicer, and more worthwhile.

First of all, switch to Firefox. It's one of the safest browsers around, and some of the tweaks mentioned here work best on it.

• Use a theme for your Gmail inbox: If you haven't done so yet, head over to the Settings  > Themes tab and select one of the many themes available for Gmail. You can also choose your own colors by clicking Choose Your Own Colors at the bottom. If a fixed theme is not your taste, select Random.
• Install the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension: Better Gmail 2 adds a lot of handy features to your Gmail tab in Firefox. It ad various features such as Row Highlights, Attachment Icons, Unread Count on Favicon, etc. Hit the link above to read the whole list and install it.
• Install Stylish for Firefox: Stylish is a really neat addon for Firefox. It lets you reconfigure the appearance of most websites, and theme it to appear differently. Themes can be installed from Userstyles or just right-click the Stylish icon in the status bar and select "Find Styles for this site". If you are good with CSS and Javascript, you can even code and upload it to the website (in case you do, mention it in the comments below). Mac fans can use the Snow Leopard theme here. Check out the screenshot below.
  

• Use Gmail Labs Features: If you have Gmail Labs enabled, you can simply use the Default Text Styling feature by going to Settings > Labs. After you enable it, go to Settings, scroll down and select how you want your text to appear. Do note that the style you set here will also be how your emails will appear to your recipients. So go a little easy on that shade of lavender that you love.

Incorporating these tweaks will surely help to make your Gmail experience droolworthy. In case you've always stuck to the POP/IMAP interface for Gmail because of Gmail's lacklustre default interface, maybe this will convince you to make the switch.

---

Like this post? Make sure you make your opinion heard. Click the post headline above to get commenting. You can also use the Share button below to post this page to your favorite social networks.  If you really dig this post, then Digg this post :)

Read more...

Chrome OS: Unveiled

2009 will probably be remembered for major software upgrades, be it the much hyped Windows 7 launch, or the Office 2010 Beta, there's been something in it for everyone. But another area that has really taken off over the past year has been Cloud Computing (very simply put, that's living and doing most of your work online). And that's exactly what Google was hoping to exploit when they announced their Chrome OS earlier this year.

Chrome OS is going to be Google's answer to the large number of Netbooks (that's ultra-portable, low-spec laptops for the uninitiated) that are proliferating in the market. From the looks of the technical preview, which Google provided this Thursday, Chrome OS is going to be an exciting, if not outrageously awesome product. In fact, if the early response to Chrome OS is taken as a yardstick, Microsoft has a lot on its plate regarding its Netbook offerings (especially in light of the unexpected poor performance of Windows 7 on Netbooks).

What's under the hood, you ask? Well, here goes.

• The Interface: As largely speculated, the Chrome browser is going to be used as the main interface, be it for traversing the file system, or for connecting to web-apps.
• Kernel: Chrome OS will be using the Linux kernel at its heart. However, the kernel is expected to have support for a limited set of hardware initially, with support for other hardware expected as it evolves.
• Application Support: Chrome OS wants you to forget your local hard disk. Like I said, it's about the Cloud, baby! Google's own webapps (namely GMail, Calendar, Reader, Wave, etc.) will be supported out of the box. Other webapps, which want to be part of Chrome OS, will be allowed to install their links onto the OS. The trusty old hard disk will probably only be used as a temporary storage, so that if you ever lose connectivity, you have your information safe. Once back online, the apps will sync again.
• Speed: Here's the verdict. It's BLAZING fast. In the preview, Google claims a cold boot time of 7 seconds (though exact specifics of the test machine weren't made public).
• Eye-Candy: Like almost all Google products, Chrome will adopt the minimalist look.

Google also said that the Chrome OS will be released sometime in 2010. However, it is expected to be a tightly coupled OS (meaning, it will run only with certain hardware), and hence probably won't be available as a download. Google intends to provide minimum hardware specs to manufacturers for the same reason. Developers have been kept interested as the Chrome OS project has now been released as the open-source Chromium OS project.

So what's in it for the consumer?

For starters, Netbook prices are going to go down. This is because most notebooks today run Windows as their primary (and probably only OS). What this means is that manufacturers charge the end-user a licensing fee for their copy of Windows. Chrome OS is going to be open source and hence the end-user is going to be spared from huge licensing fees.

Secondly, very simply, another OS implies more choice. I mean just how long can you keep on staring at the blue XP taskbar?

Thirdly, it's going to help users seamlessly migrate to the Cloud. When you see that all it takes for you to get online is a 7-second boot time, you know what I mean.

Do I see you eagerly rubbing your palms to get some Chrome OS goodness between them? In that case, all you need to do to get down and dirty is head over to gdgt.com and download the VMWare Image they've provided. You will need VMWare running on your Windows/Linux/Mac machine. After getting it up and running, all you need to do is sign-in using your Google Account Credentials.

Download Link (gdgt)

Read more...