Hasta La Gadget!

Google is bringing the enterprise-friendly elements of its Apps platform into Google+ in order to help businesses collaborate on projects online. The company’s been using the service internally, but feels it’s time to launch, in Google tradition, a “full preview” with a free and open beta that’ll run until the end of 2013. The feature set includes private sharing, admin tools and, most impressively, hangouts directly integrated into Calendar, Gmail and Docs — letting you video chat with multiple colleagues while you draft that project proposal, or resignation letter. Apps chief Clay Bavor hasn’t mentioned how much the service will cost when the preview period finishes, but we’d be surprised if it was much more than what it currently charges if it’s trying to snare the Yammer and Salesforce crowds.

Filed under: Internet

Google offering Google+ for businesses, free until the end of 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Making edits with other folks in a collaborative effort over a document stored on the cloud is ideal in keeping track of different edits made by various folks with their respective timestamps, but sometimes, as the old proverb says, “too many cooks spoil the soup”. With Google Spreadsheets in Google Docs, the Internet search giant has decided to introduce the idea of Protected Ranges, making it possible to modify a section which a collaborator did not intend to be edited. This is the reason why the Named Ranges feature in spreadsheets has been updated so that you are able to protect them.

In order to access the Protected Ranges in a shared spreadsheet, all you need to do is highlight the cells which you would like to protect, right-click, and select Name and protect range from the menu. Apart from protected ranges, you are also able to add colors and patterns whenever you apply cell borders in Google spreadsheets. It is also now possible to find and replace by searching for pattern. Do expect more features and updates to arrive in the coming weeks.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Drive for iOS and PC offline editing introduced, Google Docs graduates from Google+ Hangouts,

If you’re a Chrome OS user who doesn’t live on the bleeding edge, it’s finally time to experience the latest version 20, which most notably adds support for its Drive cloud storage. Also mentioned as included in the upgrade is offline support of Google Docs, Pepper Flash upgrade, access to the new Aura UI on Cr-48 systems and other tweaks. Tighter integration with Drive and Docs may address a few of the issues noted in our review of v19, Chromebook and Chromebox owners can check it out as it arrives on their machines over the next several days and let us know if that’s the case.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Chrome OS version 20 hits stable release channel, brings Google Drive and Aura UI for Cr-48s along originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google has added offline editing to Google Docs, allowing users to open and edit their text, spreadsheet and other documents even when they don’t have an internet connection. Announced today at the second Google IO keynote, the new offline Google Docs system uses local caching to save the latest copy of any documents changed, automatically synchronizing whenever a connection is restored.

Offline functionality has been something of a theme at IO this week. Google Maps has been updated to support selective offline use, allowing Android device owners to select a portion of the map to locally cache. Meanwhile, Jelly Bean supports offline voice typing for Android phones and tablets.

The connection-free editing should also improve the user-experience of Chromebooks, which so far have only been fully functional when they’re online. Google added the ability to locally cache documents for reading on Chromebooks several months ago, but not editing.

Offline Google Docs will be available today, the search company says. You can sign up for a free account here, as part of Google Drive.

Google Docs offline editing added today is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Virtually every corner of the Google universe is being touched at Google I/O, and that now includes Google Drive. A version 2 update to the Drive SDK gives Android and iOS developers the option of building the cloud storage into their mobile apps, whether it’s downloads, uploads or on-the-spot edits. The programming interface has likewise been expanded as a whole to handle everyday file duties, such as conversions, copying and revision handling. Web-only users are taken care of with support for embedded shares and opening Google documents in any given software that will take the exportable formats. The updated Drive SDK is ready to go, with a flood of apps either coming or already here — if you want to hop on the bandwagon, just take a peek at the source link.

Google Drive SDK version 2 supports Android and iOS apps, common file tasks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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