Google Docs - Universal File Viewer

Designers, for both web and print media, mostly use tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for doing the creatives of a project. They'll do the prototypes in PSD format but, for approval, the designs are delivered as PDFs since their clients may not have the software (Photoshop in this case) that is required to view PSD files.

Read Photoshop (PSD), Fonts (TTF) and other files in the browser.

That said, if you have any Photoshop (PSD) files on your desktop that you want to view but without having to install Photoshop, here’s a tip for you – just go to your Google Docs account and upload the file.

Google has recently added support for new file formats in Google Docs that are commonly used to exchange design prototypes between clients and designers. That mean you can open and quickly read Photoshop and other  files in the browser itself without requiring the application.

The file formats that can be natively viewed inside Google Docs, without conversion, include Photoshop (PSD), Illustrator (AI), Fonts (TTF), AutoCAD drawings (DXF) and Office 2010 documents (like DOCX, XLSX and PPTX).

And if the file that you are trying to open is already on the web, you don’t even have to bother uploading it to your Google Docs account. Copy the  public URL of that file and pass it to Google's online viewer at docs.google.com/viewer.

View Contents of a Zip File Online with Google Docs

Consider this. Your friend sends you a 10 MB zip files as an email attachment and you are not too sure what files are inside that archive. It could be a slideshow with pictures of cute cats, that you would definitely not like to open, or maybe something more important.

Earlier you would have to download that entire 10 MB files to your computer just to see whether it is of any use but not anymore. The Google Docs viewer, the standalone app and the version that comes integrated with Gmail, can now handle both .zip and .rar formats in the browser itself.

That means you can browse the contents of an attached zip file online without having to download it. If there any Office documents or Photoshop files or even another zip file contained inside, you can view their content as well in the same Google Docs viewer window.

There’s another scenario where this feature will come handy.

Say you want to download a zip or rar file from a website but before doing so, you would like to confirm what’s inside the file. In that case, just copy the URL of the zip files and paste it into the Google Docs viewer like in this example.

Google Docs can handle ZIP and RAR formats but for extracting other archive formats like gzip or for opening password-protected ZIPs in the browser, check this tool.

How to Easily Transfer Files Across Cloud Services

Cloud storage services like Google Docs, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc. have made it easy for you keep your important files and documents online. These services are mostly free and you can have multiple accounts on them as long as you use separate email addresses.

This leads to another problem though. When you have files spread across multiple cloud services, managing them can be challenge. You may have stored one group of files on Dropbox, the other on Google Docs while some of the older files could be hosted on your old Google Docs account that you abandoned long ago.

Would it be nice if there were an easy to way to manage / search all your online files from one place without having to download them to the computer first?

Meet Otixo – an impressive web-app that lets you access files stored across different cloud service from a central location. To get started, you associate your Dropbox, Google Docs, Picasa, Amazon S3 and other online accounts with Otixo and then you can easily move or copy files between any of your accounts via simple drag-n-drop.

Otixo supports FTP so it can also be used to directly transfer files from any FTP server to Google Docs or Amazon S3 without having to write complicated scripts. You can even add multiple accounts from the same cloud service - like your old and new Google Docs accounts – and transfer file across these accounts easily.

Otixo offers unified search to help you quickly find all your files that are otherwise spread across multiple cloud services. You can delete files, create new folders, or upload files from the desktop to any of the associated cloud services. Everything just works.

Send fax from Google Docs – Google docs as Fax machine

 

While there are dozens of web-based services that let you send and receive faxes from the computer without requiring a fax machine, Interfax goes one step further – it turns your Google Docs into a complete fax machine.

You just have to connect your Google Docs account with Interfax and once the link is enabled, you can fax any of your existing Google Docs documents, or spreadsheets, to any fax number in the world right from the browser. You may even send the same Google Docs file to multiple fax machines in one go – remember to separate the different fax numbers / Google Contact names by commas.

The cost for sending faxes from Google Docs varies according to the destination country and the length of the document. For instance, if you are to send a fax to US, the cost would be 13¢ per page, 15¢ for UK while a single page fax to an Indian number would cost you 60¢. There’s no monthly fee for sending faxes though you’ll have to buy minimum credits for $10.

GinzaFax is another online fax service that is built around Google Docs. It is slightly more expensive to send faxes through GinzaFax – the cost 40¢ per page for US numbers and 60¢ for other countries – but here you get a $5 free credit for sending faxes the first time you sign up for an account.

Other than sending faxes, you may also use both Interfax and Ginza Fax to receive faxes from anywhere in the world directly into your Google Docs account. The incoming faxes are automatically converted to PDF format and they get saved in a separate folder thus making it easier for you to locate them later.

How to Check Multiple Gmail Accounts in one Log in ?

When I heard the news that Gmail was offering "Multiple Inboxes" as part of Labs, the first thing that popped into my head was "finally--now I can check multiple accounts from the same place!" Unfortunately, that's not how it works.

Instead, Google's solution is simply to place the results from various filters and search queries off to the side of your main in-box. By default it sets you up with messages you've starred, and unsent messages from your drafts folder. This is nice and all, but you can hop to those two places from links in the left-hand navigation.

What I really wanted to do was to get in-boxes from two of my other Gmail accounts into my main Gmail account, and I managed to get it to work with a little tweaking. Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Enable Multiple Inboxes in labs. It looks like this:

Step 2: Log in to the additional account you want to view from your primary Gmail account and open up the settings menu.

Step 3: Go into Forwarding and POP/IMAP and set forwarding to on, and have it send a copy to your primary Gmail address. Repeat this with any accounts you want to forward.

Step 4: Go back into the settings menu of your primary Gmail account and open the Multiple Inboxes menu. In each of the panes simply type in "to:" followed by the e-mail address of one of the forwarding accounts. So it should look like "to:YourAccount@gmail.com" minus the quotation marks of course.

Step 5: At this point your multiple in-boxes are up and running, but you're still going to get these messages in your primary in-box too. To keep this from happening we're going to create a filter. Head back to settings in your master account, then click on filters. Create a new one. In the "to" field enter the e-mail address you're forwarding from, click next, then pick the "skip the in-box" option. Repeat with any additional forwarding e-mails and be sure to run it on messages that are already in your in-box to keep things nice and clean.

This system results in a few caveats that keep it from being a true "multiple in-box" experience. For one you'll need to actively set the right "send from" e-mail address when replying to a message from one of your other in-boxes. If you haven't done so already, this needs to be set up from the accounts menu in Gmail's settings.

Also it doesn't carry over any organizational goodness back to the source account, so if for example you star a forwarded message it's not going to have a star when you view it from the original account. The same thing goes for reading messages. So if you want to avoid an avalanche of unread mail back at the source accounts, one option is to set forwarded mail to be automatically archived. However, this might wreck havoc with your e-mail enjoyment on mobile devices and back at the source accounts. I recommend not turning it on, but if you're planning to only access your Gmail from the Web, and from your primary account this won't be an issue.

I'm hoping future versions of Multiple Inboxes will make this whole process a little easier to manage and simply let you plug in additional accounts. In the meantime this is a foolproof way to keep an eye on all three in the same place short of using a third-party Web mail aggregator like Fuser or Orgoo.

Update: As a few folks have pointed out there's another way to do this that avoids relying on forwarding and is smart enough to set the correct account when replying to a message. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Add your extra Gmail accounts to the "send e-mail as" option found in the accounts section in Gmail's settings. As mentioned before you'll need to confirm each account before you can start using it.

Step 2: Pull in the extra accounts you want to keep track of by adding them in the "get mail from other accounts" option in the accounts menu. When you're plugging in your account information be sure to select the "skip inbox" option as well as setting it to automatically label each piece of incoming mail. It should look like this:

Step 3: Go into the Multiple Inboxes settings menu and plug in "label:" then whatever label you selected in step 2.

Like the first method, there are a few hang-ups with this one. For one, slurping in additional accounts takes awhile after you first set it up. More importantly, it takes space in your primary Gmail account. If you're doing this with several large and active accounts you're going to start running out of space more quickly, which for most I'm guessing won't be a problem. Nonetheless it's worth keeping in mind.

New Gmail with all new prominent features

 

Gmail has undergone a design refresh and it's available as an optional switch before it gets rolled out.

Explore Gmail’s 6 new features.

Inbox view customizations

Gmail has worked on providing a more comfortable view for the inbox. You can now adjust how dense the inbox looks in Settings >Display density. There are three options to choose from - Comfortable, Cozy and Compact to choose from.
Comfortable gives you the largest font size - great if you have a large display (20 inches or more). Cozy reduces size for medium sized devices - notebooks with 13.3 to 17-inch displays. Compact view compresses the view further and is best suited for smaller displays such as those on netbooks (12-inch or smaller).

 

 

 

 

Intuitive new toolbar

Gone is the plain toolbar that had simple grey buttons. It is now replaced by a new intutive toolbar that shows neat, space-saving icons. while viewing the inbox, the toolbar will only show a selection box, refresh icon and a 'more' button that offers the option to 'mark all as read'.
When you select or open a mail, the toolbar changes to show icons for archive, delete, report spam, move or assign a label. For a smoother transition from old to new styles, the placement order of the icons has not been changed.

 

 

 

Streamlined conversations

Reading mails is much easier with the new interface. Email conversations now indicate the total number of messages sent and received between the first and the last mail. Each mail in the conversation displays a profile picture of the sender - for easier identification.
Icons have replaced most of the text buttons and other than the reply/reply to all icon on the right side, all the other icons are hidden and can only be accessed via a drop-down menu.
The quick reply box at the bottom now has shortcuts to reply, reply to all or forward. 'Show quoted text' has been removed and in its place is a small icon - click it to show trimmed content.

 

Upfront inbox type

Hovering the mouse pointer over the 'inbox' label shows a drop down arrow with the option to choose an inbox 'style'. There are five inbox types including 'Classic' (the conventional Gmail), 'Important first' (all mail from contacts marked as important will show first), 'Unread first' and 'Starred first'.
The last style, 'Priority inbox', splits your mails into various heads. Unread, important and starred mails are shown with relevant headers while the rest are placed under a single header that says 'Everything else'. More options to customise inbox styles (items per page, unread mail count, visibility of unread markers) is available in account settings.

 

 

The reworked sidebar

Mail, Contacts and Tasks are now in a drop down box on top instead of as separate text links. The chat window can be resized by simply dragging the adjustment bar up/down. However, your labels remain intact and as soon as you hover the mouse pointer over them, it automatically brings up all the labels, pushing the chat window down.
To provide a more concise view, additional widgets such as calendar, 'invite a friend' and so on are no longer below the chat window. Instead there is a small button below the chat window to switch between chat and widgets - there's no need to scroll up/down to view the widgets.

 

 

Powerful search features

A single magnifying glass icon replaces both 'Search Mail' and 'Search the Web' buttons. As you type in the search box, you get the option to search mail or the web - quite like Google's instant search. The advanced search box can be accessed by clicking on the drop down arrow visible at the end of the search box.
You can now search mail with various pre-defined criteria including labels, keywords, with/without attachment and within a date range -without leaving the inbox. You can also create a filter from within the advanced search box with these criteria and apply it to all the matching email conversations in your mailbox.

Galaxy Nexus, Ice Cream Sandwich OS launched

 

 

Google and Samsung today made a gaint leap into the next version of the Google experience phone - Galaxy Nexus and the OS - Ice Cream Sandwich or Android 4.0. The launch comes within days of the launch of the iPhone 4S by Apple.

The Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65 inch display with 1260x720p resolution, one of the biggest in mobile phones and comes with LTE and HSPA plus versions.

The phone has a contoured display with buttonless design and is more sleek than the Nexus S. The bezel is just 4.2 mm, leaving a much larger area for display.

The Galaxy Nexus also features a ‘hyperskin’ battery cover that prevents slipping.

It comes with a 5 mp camera, with zero shutter lag and can record full HD video.

The Galaxy Nexus will be the first phone to have the new Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) operating system.

The main feature of the new OS is the brand new Roboto typeface.

The ICS has, apart from the apps tab, a widgets tab. Widgets and apps can be selected and pushed to the home screen with just a single press. Widgets are also resizeable.

Creating folders has also been made easier. Apps can just be dragged one over the other. They combine to create a folder. Apps can also be moved anywhere within a folder. The added functionality is that folders can also be created with contacts with speed dial functionality.

The ICS brings one feature missing from most Android phones, and especially the Nexus range of phones - screen capture. Pressing the power and the volume down buttons simultaneously creates a screenshot of the screen.

Notifications have also received a makeover. The notifications also contain contacts. Unwanted notifications can be swiped away.

The ICS also has major changes to the way the user inputs text. It has an in-line spell checker and talk to text where the user can type anything by speaking.

The new OS features a brand new security feature — face unlock. Once you ‘register’ your face, the phone will open only if it recognises your face, obviating the need for passwords or gestures.

Google has made major improvements to the browser. It supports multiple tabs, and the bookmarks can be synchronised with the Chrome browser in your desktop. The browser opens, by default, the mobile site, but if you wish to see the full desktop version of the site, a single click will bring it to you. Web pages can also be saved for offline use.

The new Gmail app has a two-line display and action buttons at the bottom, that change with what you wish to do with the emails. For example, if you are inside an e-mail, the action buttons will display reply, forward and other buttons that you would use while inside an email. In the preview screen, you can also select multiple buttons and use the action buttons, apart from other things, to delete or archive emails.

Tapping of the contact info on top of the email will show you other ways to get in touch with the contact such as phone number, Twitter or Facebook info.

The new Gmail app also has offline search functionality.

As said earlier, the camera app can take photos with zero lag. Photos taken can be shared with a single click to any network.

The ICS also has photo editing tools. Photos can be edited and effects added. The new edited photo will be saved separately and can also be shared.

The camera also comes with a easy panorama feature, and the ability to take time-lapse videos. While recording a video, the user can also take high resolution snapshots.

The contacts app has received a major overhaul. Called the ‘People’ app, tapping any contact in the list of contacts displayed in a photo grid will bring the full details of the contacts - a high resolution photo, contact details and other social media details. for example, clicking on the contact’s Twitter icon will bring his tweets.

The Beam feature allows transfer of photos, maps, contacts or even apps to another ICS phone through NFC (near field communication) technology by simply bringing both the phones together and with a single tap.

Last but not the least, the ICS allows full control of your data usage. You can narrow down your data usage to specific time-frame and see what has been draining your bandwidth. You can choose to stop the app or prevent the app from using specified actions that drain bandwidth. The app also projects the future data usage based on your present usage. You can set threshold levels for data. Once the data usage reaches the threshold level, the data usage will automatically get cut.