Category: Network

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Design Education Google Innovation Network OpenSource Technology

Google puts Wave tutorials on YouTube

Imagine that!  In the “what took so long” category Google has finally released a series of good video training session all about their real-time communication and collaboration tool Google Wave.  I posted last month (read it here) Google is missing a real opportunity surrounding Wave acceptance due to limited access to Wave in groups.

As many have shared on twitter — a lot of people with Google Wave accounts simply “don’t get it” and the new channel on YouTube will provide a great single repository for Wave fans to learn about their real-time collaboration solution.  Wave is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking.

wave_youtube

As many have accomplished, Waves around the world have proved to be excellent communication opportunities for individuals.  If Google wants to reach out to small groups and large organizations, they must provide mass accounts to really kick the tires and integrate this promising tool into their infrastructure…..BTW it can help revolutionize a number of outdated ‘workflows’ that are in use today in non-profits, education and business.

Tags: Google Wave, beta software, Collaboration, real-time, communication, test audience, limited preview, trends

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Education Google Innovation Network

Google providing migration tools for Microsoft Exchange

Google is making it easy to switch from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps for email.  Google is providing a migration tool for business and K12 Districts to move from Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007 to Google’s Apps suite.  This follows their migration solution for Lotus Notes last summer.

switchfromexchange

Google migration from Exchange:

The process to migrate looks relatively simple. Through Google Apps, a customer enters their Microsoft Exchange user name and what it calls “two-legged OAuth,” consisting of a consumer user key and a consumer “secret”. They then upload a .CSV file consisting of the email addresses, calendar and contact information. It is optional what to migrate. For example, an IT administrator may upload email addresses and contact data but not the calendar. Email service does not get interrupted during the migration.

Coupled with Google’s offer to provide free anti-spam and anti-virus filtering (Postini) for K12 schools until July 2010 — its getting more and more difficult for Districts to continue using expensive, power hungry ($$$$) and outdated email services like Novell and FirstClass.

Why?  Check out Google’s simple cost calculator to see how much your School District (Tax Payers) can save by switching.  The Oregon School District in Wisconsin left Novell for Google and saved over $11,000 annually.  In tight economic times this makes a lot of sense (and lots of cents)

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Design Education Globalization Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: Bursts

I found Albert-Laszlo Barabasi‘s Book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means a wonderful read (review here) in March of 2008.  It was a wonderful read about the science of networks….both computing and non-computing networks.

bursts

Laszlo Barabasi will be releasing a new book Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do at the end of April and if its anything like Linked it will become another best seller.

At the same time Laszlo Barabasi has released a social networking exercise (cool) called BuRSTS “that is a performance in human dynamics, a game of cooperation and prediction, that will gradually unveil the full text of Bursts.”  Talk about hitting a social networking home run!  Now if everyone will start grabbing text…

Linked demonstrated that patterns in space (How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life) while Bursts will focus on patterns in time.

A couple of quotes about this upcoming release:

“In Linked, Barabasi showed us how complex networks unfold in space. In Bursts, he shows us how they unfold in time. Your life may look random to you, but everything from your visits to a web page to your visits to the doctor are predictable, and happen in bursts.”
-Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody

“Barabasi is one of the few people in the world who understand the deep structure of empirical reality.”
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan

I think Bursts is going to take us on a new ride.  I’m looking forward to the journey.

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Design Education Innovation Network Rich media Tablet Technology

The Future Of Magazines ?

As long as magazine budgets can afford them, simply put…. most do not have these types of inflated budgets for regional/local monthly publications.

Enjoy the ride – its the new era of print….as long as its done right.

Tags: iPad, publishing, design, trends,

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Design Education Globalization Google Innovation Network OpenSource Technology

Impressive update to Google Docs

Google’s impressive tool just received a nice upgrade.  For most users the new updates further justify migrating away from Office.  When you consider Google gives this away for free (especially to schools)….well a good thing just got even better.

From Google:

A better document editor
We’ve brought the responsive, real-time editing experience you’ve come to expect from our spreadsheets over to documents, which means you can now see character-by-character changes as other collaborators make edits. We also added another popular feature from spreadsheets: sidebar chat, so you can discuss documents as you work on them with colleagues.

The new technical foundation also helped us improve document formatting, which means better import/export fidelity, a revamped comment system, real margins and tab stops, and improved image layout within documents. These improvements have been highly requested, but previously impossible to create with the older documents editor on older browsers.

A faster spreadsheet editor
With the new spreadsheets editor, you’ll see significant speed and performance improvements — spreadsheets load faster, are more responsive and scroll more seamlessly. We’ve also added a host of often requested features, like a formula bar for cell editing, auto-complete, drag and drop columns, and simpler navigation between sheets. And as always, real-time collaboration in spreadsheets is easy with sidebar chat and the ability to see which cell each person is editing.

A new collaborative drawing editor
In the year since we launched the Insert drawing tool, we’ve received many requests for the ability to collaborate on drawings and make them accessible directly from the docs list. The new standalone drawings editor lets you collaborate in real time on flow charts, designs, diagrams and other fun or business graphics. Copy these drawings into documents, spreadsheets and presentations using the web clipboard, or share and publish drawings just like other Google Docs.

Tags: Google Docs, performance improvements, Network, trends,