What is Google Music

Consider Google Music as an iTunes in the cloud.  Using Google Music, you will be able to:

1. Upload all your music files to a centralized online repository.

2. Access your music collection from anywhere; through a web browser or any enabled mobile device using the Google Music Android application.

3. Access your music even when you are offline – the recently played songs are available without Internet connection.  Google Music also allows for selecting specific albums, artists, playlists that you want to have available offline.

4. Sync everything; your music files, playlists and even your iTunes library.

5. Create custom playlists easily and have them available everywhere.

To know more about Google Music, watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrNhKcxBbZo

This is a great news for publishers who use Adsense on their sites as it can potentially increase their earnings considerably.  Because the third-party ad networks can only show display ads, the publisher stands to earn even if the site visitor doesn’t click on the ads.  The current advertisers are from the United States and Europe only and that’s why only those sites which have visitors from these two locations may only benefit from this change currently.

As an Adsense publisher you will have full control over the ad categories and ad networks that you want to use for your site.  You will be able to change the ads and ad network preferences by visiting the “Ad Review Center” in your Adsense account.  However, you cannot currently add any network on your own to show up ads using Adsense.  Google has kept this authority to itself to be able to review and certify ad networks that can show ads.  Currently, there are about 90 Google certified ad networks that are showing up in the Ad Review Center and Google intends to add more in the coming days.  The number of ad networks that show up for your account may vary based on your location, account type and placement targeting for your account.

To be able to show ads from third-party ad networks, you should have opted in to show Image ads because these ad networks can only show display ads.  You can find more help about this topic in the Adsense help section.

Google seems to have realized this and that is the primary reason behind the launch of a cool feature, the Blogger Template Designer.  Now anyone can easily create a custom template for a blog hosted on Blogspot.

The Blogger Template Designer offers customization in terms of templates, layout, background images and color themes.  Traditionally blogger templates were single column but now you can choose between 1-column, 2-column and 3-column layouts with adjustable blog and sidebar width.  There is also an option to choose from three different footer layouts.

There are 15 templates to choose from with hundreds of premium background images and patterns from iStockPhoto available for use without any charges.

To access the Blogger Template Designer:

1. Log onto your Blogger account

2. From Dashboard, click “Layout” under the blog that you want to  customize

3. Click “Template Designer” from the secondary navigation menu on the the top.

Watch this video about the Blogger Template Designer from the Blogspot team.

[youtube]r6haqZoivBQ[/youtube]

1. Firebug for Google Chrome – The great Firefox plugin’s counterpart for Google Chrome.  It is still an early version and not all features of Firebug are available; for example, the current version, Firebug Lite 1.3.0 beta, does not have the JavaScript debugger.

2. Pendule – Set of developer tools for Chrome built on the lines of Firefox Developer toolbar.  Allows working with Stylesheets, Forms, Images, HTML etc.

3. HTML Validator – Validates the code of the web page using W3C validator.  It works with the pages stored locally also.

4. JavaScript Console – As the name suggests, it is a JavaScript console for Google Chrome that allows for simple JS prototyping.

5. JavaScript Tester – Lets you run and test JavaScript code’s performance with just one click or keyboard shortcut.

6. Speed Tracer – A tool from the Google team that visualizes several metrics while the application runs.  It helps in identifying and fixing performance issues caused by several factors such as JavaScript execution, XMLHttpRequest callbacks etc.

7. View Selection Source – Does what its name says; lets you view the selection source in a popup.

8. Live Editor – A live HTML editor that allows for editing right within Chrome.

9. Lorem Ipsum Generator – An extension for Chrome that generates the lovely Lorem Ipsum text.

10. BuiltWith Technology Profiler – BuiltWith profiles a website and provides some fantastic information such as what platform, analytics service, ad network, framework the website is using.  The Chrome extension brings all that information without the need to visit their site.

11. Resolution Test – Lets you test web pages in different preset screen resolutions and also allows for setting custom resolution.

12. Eye Dropper – An eye dropper and color picker tool available as Chrome extension.

13. PHP Documentation – One-click PHP documentation search from the documentation and manuals available on PHP.net.

14. Ruby Documentation – Provides quick access to Ruby 1.9 documentation.

15. Umbraco Developer Extension – A Chrome extension for Umbraco Developers.

Just a note, all these extensions are still under heavy development.  Please go through the details before using.

To demonstrate the feature, I have picked up the most obvious topic for the day – new year celebrations and see the results in the image below:

It is a great new feature by Google and clearly shows that Google is taking the real time web seriously and also Bing!

Since the time Google launched its web browser Chrome, I have not used any other browser.  Its simplicity, speed and the ‘easy for eyes’ interface is what I love.  While MS-Windows users were a privileged lot to get the officially released versions of Chrome, it is still a one of the top items in the wish list of people working on Mac.  Chrome is still under development for extending its availability for Mac and Linux.

The Official Status for Google Chrome for Mac and Linux

Officially, Google is still working on the beta release for Mac OS X and Linux versions of the browser.  A developer version of Chrome for Mac and Linux has been made available and can be used by people who are technically strong and comfortable using unstable releases.Download developer version of Google Chrome for Mac.Download Chrome for Linux (32-bit) and Chrome for Linux (64-bit) developer version.

Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux – Unofficial Version

Codeweavers offer a Mac and Linux port for Chrome browser called CrossOver Chromium.  For Linux, CrossOver Chromium provides versions for Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, SUSE and other Linux distributions.  All of these are based on the Chromium developer build released by Google and can be unstable.Download Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux (Crossover Chromium).

Launch Splash has some handy features to manage the new launches like the ability to post Announcements which can be subscribed to by the visitors through launch page’s RSS feed.  You can also have the visitor’s submit their email addresses which you can later use to communicate with them.  Launch Splash also has in-built visitor tracking system which shows the number of people who visited the site.  It also allows for adding Google Analytics code to your launch page if you wish to have detailed statistics about your visitors.  You can even use your own stylesheet to reflect your logo and other design elements on the page.

The basic subscription is free and allows for creating launch pages for 2 domain names using the available templates.  The paid subscriptions which range from $5 to $25 allows for more creating launch pages for more domain names and also offer premium templates.

The tech preview version’s new features cover almost all parts of blog writing i.e. text editing, video publishing, image editing and publishing and enhancements in the user interface.

I am listing the features one by one without categorizing them in various sections mentioned above as they are self explanatory:

1. Word Count: A very useful feature picked up from MS Word and meant for people who want to restrict them to a certain word limit.  Especially useful for professional writers who bill their clients on the basis of number of words written.  Like MS Word, you will find this feature in the “Tools” section of the top menu bar.

2. Auto Linking: Tired of linking certain words again and again; no worries because Live Writer now allows you to auto link the words that you choose.  You will have to make this setting once for every word and then Live Writer takes care of linking the word to the set URL.  To enable this feature for any word that you want auto-linked, just check “Automatically link to this term” while inserting a hyperlink.

3. Insert Videos From Soapbox: Now you can include videos from Soapbox in your blog post directly from within Live Writer.  You need to be a registered Soapbox user to use this functionality.

4. Image Editing: This area has got a lot of new features in this preview release.  You can now crop and tilt images, center align the image, create rounded corners, add reflection effect, and border to the image.

5. Category Search: This is for people who use lots of categories in their blogs; you can now search for categories while categorizing a post.  The search feature shows filtered results as you type the category name.

6. Tabs For Changing Views:  Live Writer now allows you to easily navigate between different views like “Preview” and “Source” view using the tabs given at the bottom of editing section.

You can download Windows Live Writer technical preview version here.

There is no dearth of visualizations for services like Digg, Twitter etc.  I wrote about Twittearth which not only visualizes Twitter updates on 3D earth but also has some utility as it shows the messages as well as lets you post your updates.  MSN Live Spaces Vision neither shows messages and nor lets you post them.  All you can do is view photos of the users with recent updates.

iPaper in itself was a great feature as it allowed for converting any document to be viewed in Flash.  With the additional of email service to iPaper, it has become all the more useful and has made document sharing much easier.

To use this service, which is available for free, all you need to do is add ipaper@scribd.com in the “CC” field of email while sending a document to any number of recipients.  After this, Scribd will separately email the document in iPaper version to everyone in the “To” field.