Umair's Blog: 27/09/2009

Saturday 3 October 2009

Helping the victims of Tropical Storm Ketsana

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Last weekend, Tropical Storm Ketsana (local name "Ondoy") pounded Manila and nearby areas of the Philippines with a month's worth of rain in just a few hours, resulting in floods that covered 80% of the city with as much as 20 feet of water. The typhoon left in its wake nearly 300 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

We're very saddened by the losses the Filipino people have sustained during this calamity. To help you stay up to date on the disaster and contribute to the relief efforts, we've put up a Help for Typhoon Ondoy Victims in the Philippines page that contains the latest news from local media outlets, lists of verified donation sites and emergency hotlines, and a volunteer-maintained map of persons needing rescue.

Filipinos have been posting videos of the flooding and its aftermath on YouTube. You can also visualize the overflows along main rivers and bays in Google Earth with this kmz file.

If you're familiar with Google Maps and would like to get involved in the effort to map missing persons, relief centers and road conditions, you can email the volunteer team at typhoonondoy@googlegroups.com. We will continue to update the page with the latest information and imagery, as well as provide any relevant updates on this blog.

Posted by Therese Lim, Google Southeast Asia Team

Friday 2 October 2009

Tip: Dragging to the tabstrip

We've already seen how to open links in new tabs or windows using keyboard modifiers. But what if you want to open a link in some existing place?

Click and hold on the link, and then drag it onto or between any of the tabs in the tabstrip.

You should see a small arrow appear showing where the link will open. When you release the mouse button, the link will load right at that arrow. If you drop it in the empty space after the last tab, you'll open a new tab at the end of the strip.

Rather than needing to copy and paste links, you can also just drag links from other programs, such as word processors or other browsers, and drop them on the Chrome tabstrip in the same way.

Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Translation functions in spreadsheets

Earlier this week, we added two functions to Google spreadsheets that add translation and language detection capabilities.

=GoogleTranslate("Hola, ¿cómo estás?","es","en") gives "Hi, how are you"
=DetectLanguage("Hola, ¿cómo estás?") gives "es"

Breaking down the first function, =GoogleTranslate("field one", "field two," field three"), the first field should be the text you want to translate -- in this case "Hola, ¿cómo estás?". The second field should be the two letter language code of the text you want to translate -- "es" is the two letter code for Spanish. Lastly, the final field indicates which language you want want the text to be translated into -- "en" is the two letter code for English. If you leave out the last field, the function will automatically translate the text into the language of the spreadsheet. The second function, =DetectLanguage("field one") works similarly and outputs the two letter language code of the text.

These functions open up some fun and interesting ways to use forms. For example, you could collect comments in many languages and use the two functions together to automatically translate responses into your native language.

If you hover over a cell with translated text, the original text is displayed.

If you want to try it out for yourself, check out this template. We're excited about the possibilities this opens up and we hope you enjoy translating your spreadsheets.

Posted by: Frank Tang, Software Engineer

Translation functions in spreadsheets

Earlier this week, we added two functions to Google spreadsheets that add translation and language detection capabilities.

=GoogleTranslate("Hola, ¿cómo estás?","es","en") gives "Hi, how are you"
=DetectLanguage("Hola, ¿cómo estás?") gives "es"

If you hover over a cell with translated text, the original text is displayed.

Just released: new version of Google SketchUp

Students, educators and fans of SketchUp, rejoice: we just released Google SketchUp Pro 7.1! This new version is available as a free upgrade to your existing student, instructor or lab license. If you're new to SketchUp 3D modeling software, Google offers great pricing for the education community. Students pay just $49 for a year-long Pro license, lab licenses are between $15-$30 per seat, depending whether you choose a 1, 2 or 3 year license; and, instructors can get themselves a Pro license at no charge. Learn more on our Education program on the SketchUp website.

SketchUp Pro 7.1 has been our most quickly adopted update because it adds a bunch of new features while providing enhanced performance and fixes for a lot of known issues. Of particular interest for Education is the new feature called Get Photo Texture, which allows you to quickly model buildings using Google Maps Street View imagery.

A popular K-12 activity guides students through the process of modeling a local building (such as their school building) using Google Earth and Google SketchUp. With the release of 7.1, the activity gets even more compelling because students can immediately access Street View imagery to apply to their model. Students can also access and edit existing buildings in the Google 3D Warehouse using the new "Nearby Buildings" feature.

For industrial design, mechanical design and architecture/landscape courses, LayOut 2.1 is bundled with the release. LayOut 2.1 improves on its rich 2D presentation features by adding Dimensioning. Now any of models can be annotated or dimensioned directly in LayOut without having to go back to the original model. Scaled printing, simple construction documentation, woodworking and even site planning is a snap. That's right, you heard the pun, the new dimensioning allows you to snap and measure from points in the embedded model!

All users will see faster performance when it comes to large, complex or heavily textured models. Google SketchUp Pro 7.1 continues the tradition of SketchUp's rich feature set, intuitive interface and our commitment to offering great pricing for Educators and Students. Learn more on our SketchUp website for Education.

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Thursday 1 October 2009

Privacy TIPS

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

For Password <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

For Emails <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

And I don't know what is this for ....

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new_fun_and_fun_only>

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Hasbro, maker of 'Monopoly' game, launches the Design your own Building Competition

[Cross-Posted from the Official SketchUp Blog]

Hasbro, the makers of the Monopoly game, have officially announced a competition that gives Monopoly-lovers the chance to design a building that will be included in the new interactive game Monopoly City Streets.

To enter this competition, you need to design a 3D building using Google SketchUp and upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse. The deadline to submit entries is Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm, EST. Visit the Monopoly City Streets blog for the Official Rules, prizes, and more information.

Here's how it works:

Download Google SketchUp for free.
Learn to build 3D models with SketchUp by watching video tutorials and related YouTube videos. Download and work through a few examples using these self-paced tutorials: Introduction to SketchUp, Starting a Drawing Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
From SketchUp, choose "Share Model" and upload your 3D building to the Google 3D Warehouse (you must have a Google account to sign in).
In the upload window, add the tag "monopolycompetition09" and make sure that you've checked "Allow 3D Warehouse users to contact me about this model" so we can contact you if you win!
Within 48 hours, your model/entry will appear in the Competition Collection in the Google 3D Warehouse.

Technical Guidelines:

Buildings can be any size and any shape
Buildings must not have photo-textures; they must be painted with solid colors
The file size limit is 2 MB
The file format should be .SKP

A few quick tips:

Keep it simple. Or not. The judges will be looking at all designs – simple and complex.
Go crazy. Remember, the MONOPOLY world is a fun place. Make your building the same! Go wild and have oodles of fun doing it.
Upload as many designs as you want. The more you submit, the greater the chance of your design winning!
For some inspiration, check out some sample creations already in the Google 3D Warehouse Competition Collection.

Check out the Monopoly City Streets blog for the Official Rules and more information. Good luck!

Posted by Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Team

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Introducing the Google Merchant Center

Today, we're excited to announce that we're launching the Google Merchant Center, which will replace Google Base for those of you submitting Product-type items to Google. If you submit products to Google, Google Merchant Center is now the place to upload your feeds, check on the status of your items, and get information on the performance of your listings.

Google Base is still available for other types of structured content, but the Merchant Center provides a better, optimized experience specifically for product listings. The Merchant Center is where we'll continue adding features and improving the tools for uploading and managing product listings.

In general, the Merchant Center interface is very similar to the Google Base interface, so we hope it's easy to transition. Sign in to the Merchant Center using the same Google Account information you did for Google Base. Your existing data feeds, items, FTP settings, etc. will be there for you.

For any non-product items you've submitted to Google Base, those will remain there and you can continue using Google Base to manage those items and settings. If you used the same account to submit both product and non-product items, you'll need to go into Google Base and reset your FTP settings. There's more info in the FAQs about this and other questions you may have.

As part of the launch of Google Merchant Center, this blog will be replacing the Google Base Blog. Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions, and visit us often!

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Call to participate in the National Day on Writing

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has established October 20, 2009 as the National Day on Writing. For the National Day on Writing, the NCTE is collecting thousands of writing samples to be unveiled on that day and showcased online. The Google Docs team has partnered with the NCTE to curate a gallery and we're looking for contributions from you that speak to our theme: "The Internet and its impact on our lives."

Interesting in contributing? Go to the National Gallery on Writing and submit your writing piece as a published Google document.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager

Add page break and go to page in forms

Have you ever wanted to create a form that changes which questions to show next based on an answer received earlier in the form? The two features we launched today make that easy. First, we've added one of the most requested features for forms: page breaks. Now it is easy to create a form with multiple pages by going to "Add item" and selecting "Page break."

We've also added another highly requested feature, logic branching. Once you've created a form with multiple pages, you can select "Go to page based on answer" to control the flow of your form based on the user's answers. For example, you can create a form asking the person to select their language and then direct them to a form in the correct language.

If you want to see both of these new features in action, let us know what your favorite holiday is.

Page breaks and go to page open up a whole new realm of possibilities. For example, you can create a product survey that asks a different set of questions based on whether someone has used the product before or a conference feedback form that branches off based on the session someone attended. You can even create your own interactive murder mystery or adventure using a Google form, share it with your friends and publish it in the public templates gallery. We hope you enjoy these new additions to forms!

Posted by: Dan Ferrara & Jackie Tsay, Bold Practicum Interns