>> GreenByte.info By Nick Tong (quiksilv) | Supported by: TalkWebSolutions.co.uk

Google and outlook calendars

I got told by a colleague the other day that they received an email from Google reminding them of a meeting we had. Not knowing how this happened I looked into it. It appears that because my email is hosted with Google apps, that any events that I send out form outlook are automatically added to my Google Calendar, this then emails them with reminders.

I actually thought this was rather cool.

REF: https://www.google.com/a/


Ask Gmail: "What emails have I had today?"

I have several filters in my Gmail account, which helps me control my email lists etc. The problem though is sometimes it can take a while to click on my filter folders (labels) to check my mail. Sometimes I just want to say, 'Show me mail I've got today'

Well it's as simple as this:

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Google data center search tool

Have you ever had a problem where a client can't see any changes to there placement in Googles ranking. Apart from clients possibly being logged into there personalised Google search account, the most likely cause is because Google have yet to push out to the latest index to the data centre your clients searching against (Google have lots of different data centers and indexes). To help you see any difference you can use this website http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php which will allow you to check all of the data centers for comparison.

Thanks to Mark NG for pointing this out.


Google tabs up

No Google hasn't started smoking (a tab is slang for a cigarette here in the UK) but they have put tabs on the personalised homepage.

What this enables you to do is organize you home content more effectively.

You can add up to six tabs, drag and drop modules to and form them and edit their names. Each tab has a different color but as yet your can't change that.

I think this is a smart move by Google; what are peoples thoughts?

Using Google Reader and RSS.cfc to aggregate feeds

I'm not sure how others aggregate blog/news feeds etc but I've found an easy (and somewhat simple) way to aggregate feeds using Google reader and Ray Camdens rss.cfc.

All you do is create an account with Google reader and then start adding the feeds you want to aggregate. Add your tags to the feeds i.e. cfEclipse, FuseBox etc and make your feed public. The public feed that you create here will be what we need to grab the data in Ray rss.cfc.

Once you're happy with all your feeds in Google create a page called feeds.cfm - make sure that rss.cfc is in the same folder as this page [or invoke the cfc some other way (recommended)].

Then use this code in feeds.cfm

<cfset myRssFeed = "YourGoogleFeedURL" />
<cfhttp method="get" url="#myRssFeed#" />
<cfset rssObj = createObject("component", "rss");
<cfset request.feed = rssObj.getEntries(cfhttp.FileContent) />

<h1>My Feed</h1>
<cfoutput query="request.feed">
   <h2><a href="#request.feed.link#" title="#request.feed.title#">#request.feed.title#</a></h2>
   <cfif len(request.feed.description)>
      <p>#request.feed.description#</p>
   <cfelse>
      <p>No description available</p>
   </cfif>
</cfoutput>

One thing you will have to do is update line 537 in rss.cfc to this:

<cfif structKeyExists(arguments.xmlData.feed.xmlAttributes,"version")>
         <cfset result.type = "Atom">
         <cfset result.version = arguments.xmlData.feed.xmlAttributes.version>
      <cfelseif structKeyExists(arguments.xmlData.feed.xmlAttributes,"xmlns:gr")>
         <cfset result.type = "Atom">
         <cfset result.version = 2.0>
      </cfif>
This is a bit of a hack but the Google feeds don't have a version number in the returned XML.

Cool huh?

Check out the feed page on cfFrameworks.com to see it in action.

Google Groups has been pimped - beta

If you take a look at groups.google.com you'll see the same old website - it's not your rich google experance you get with Google reader, Gmail etc. Well it looks like changes are ahead.

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Google reader gets a face lift

Google reader is great - i use it on a lot of my sites to aggregate feeds - as you can see from the feeds page on this site. That aside the new interface that google has come up with has:

* Expanded view and list view

* Simplified sharing functionality

* Improved read-state management

* Infinite scrolling

* Unread counts

* Mark all as read

* and a bunch more...

Check it out at http://google.com/reader/

The new interface takes a little while to get used around but once you do (30 seconds later) it's nice.

A quick tutorial:

Google move into the music arena

Google have had out for a little while now a music trends website which is part of their trends web presence. I think it's a smart move by Google, not that they need more currency but its an industry well doused in cash.

They collect the data from their talk app. When you opt-in to Music Trends from Google Talk's Settings you pass Google your track information. Anytime you share your music status using iTunes ® , Winamp, Windows Media ® Player, or Yahoo Music Engine ™ , you'll be voting on Google Music Trends.

What's nice about the site is that you can search for the lyrics from the song details area as well as purchase from iTunes, Napster and AOL (using google music search).

You can narrow your search by genre and country; although the trends are currently only working in a few counties.

Google launches CPA network

Google has launched its new money making network which works through cost-per-action, or CPA. This network will pay its members only if users perform actions such as purchasing or leaving details for sales leads etc. This has a big push away from adsence model which if very susceptible to click fraud.

Members of adsense have been asked to use the trail of this new product. Peoples thoughts of the product so far are mixed but I believe that it's a good thing allowing advertisers a better rate for investing in the advertising space, which can only lead to better advert placements - right??

Google spreadsheet - a quick review

So it's a spreadsheet editor like most others, maybe not as powerful in parts but a spreadsheet editor. I can add rows, columns, functions etc but I think the major benefit with this OLA (online application) comes when you need to work others on the same spreadsheet. I tested these features this morning and it worked a treat, changing the data in one browser changed the data in the other browser in 'virtual' real-time; adding columns, deleting values etc.

You can also chat via the browsers, similar to how you can in Gmail - neither of these features (I don't think) are possible with say MSoffice/openoffice etc.

I don't think people should think about this as an alternative for 'excel' but as an collaborative real-time spreadsheet editor.

Andy Jarret has a good post about some of the features.

BlogCFC was created by Raymond Camden. This blog is running version 5.5.1.