Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

It’s always fun to get a sneak peek at what Google has in store for its users, and Tony Ruscoe managed to get a glimpse at a future Google Docs feature. He said that “after playing around with one of Google’s not-so-private experimental sites, I can confirm that offline access is currently being tested.“

The offline access works with Google’s very own Google Gears, and handles itself similarly to Google Reader’s offline access. Tony was only able to view the documents in the document list right now, and got an error message whenever he tried to open one of them for viewing or editing. He was, however, able to successfully rename and star documents which were then synchronized once he reconnected.

Here’s a screenshot from his endeavor:

While it is still pretty rough around the edges it is nice to know that offline access is in the future plans for Google Docs. Assuming that the offline access also provides editing capabilities this could give Google the edge they need to compete with desktop applications.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Google is adding handwriting input to Gmail and Docs. Starting today, you can use your trackpad or mouse to hand-draw characters in a variety of languages. [Gmail Blog via 9to5Google]

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It’s hardly worthy of any presses being halted, but those interested in minor Google Drive updates should take notice. Google has just updated Docs and Slides to let users select text, click on said text, and have Google search results pop up in addition to users’ own Drive documents. The point? Easy hyperlinking for related websites, which ought to be a boon for budding students or digital bookworms who prefer to annotate just about everything. As Google puts it:

“Starting today, the link tool now offers you suggestions based on the text you are hyperlinking just in case you don’t have the URL you need offhand. To try it out, select the text you want and click the “Insert link” icon from the menu bar (or use Ctrl K).”

Filed under: Software, Google

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google Drive (Google+)

Google Drive for Android received a big update today with “a clean, simple card-style” layout, as well as the ability to scan documents, receipts, bills, etc. The new feature also comes with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that will allow you to easily search for said documents later, thanks to the ability for Google Drive to recognize text in a scanned document.

This is a huge boost for Google Drive, in a way that the service can now be used as a digital file cabinet of sorts, whereas before it was merely just a cloud storage system to stash all of your Google Docs and other various files. With document scanning, Google Drive takes Evernote and other note-taking apps head on.

The feature is pretty self-explanatory, in that you simply tap the “+” sign to add a file and tap on “Scan.” From there, you take a snapshot of a physical document and Google Drive will automatically save it as a PDF file and upload it to your Drive account. You can also crop and rotate the snapshot before you upload it to your Drive.

Currently, Evernote remains one of the top note-taking and document-archiving services around, and its scanning abilities, as well as its OCR text recognition is one of Evernote’s most popular features. Google Drive can certainly give Evernote a run for its money, especially since it automatically saves docs as a PDF and you can download them easily — Evernote can do the same, but it’s a bit tricky to figure out at first.

Of course, we can’t forget about Google Keep, which is the search giant’s new note-taking app that also competes with Evernote. Keep allows users to scan business cards, although it hasn’t been touted as one of the bigger features of the app. In any case, this changes the game for Google Drive, and makes archiving physical documents a whole lot easier — a process that we would never think about using Google Drive for in the past.

As for other new features in this Android update, there’s a new grid view that shows thumbnails of your various files. The app also now includes the ability to download files locally to your phone, but it requires Android 3.0 Honeycomb and higher. Furthermore, the Spreadsheet editor now supports changing fonts, colors, and cell alignment. And as always, there are a handful of bugfixes and general performance improvements. The update is available now.

VIA: Google Drive Blog

Google Drive for Android updates with document scanning is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you can’t access your Gmail this morning, don’t worry, since it’s not just you. Google has reported that some of its services are experiencing a partial outage, meaning that some users can’t access certain Google Apps like Gmail, Drive, and Docs. The Admin control panel and API are also partially down.

It appears to have been a snowball effect, with the Admin control panel and API going down at around 8:20 AM, with Gmail following at 8:58 AM. Google Drive then shut down at 9:01 AM, with Google Docs biting the dust at 9:11 AM. Google News also seems to be experiencing some issues on the back-end, but users are able to access the section just fine.

However, the “service disruption,” as Google is calling it, isn’t affecting everyone, and some users are reporting that all systems are nominal on their end, including yours truly, but we can’t help but feel slightly bad for those who can’t check their morning email when they got to their desks at the start of the work day.

There’s no word on when Google is planning to have these services back up and running for everyone, but we’re positive the company has top men and women on the job to get your Gmail back up and running, because we all know you can’t function without your daily feed of comical email forwards.

Google Apps hit with partial outage for some users is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.