Ref Tech Rob

I'm always on the lookout for good note-taking or organizational apps, and I must say, I've been intrigued by the development of Google Keep. At first, I thought that there was little to recommend it - it was just a way of keeping lists or notes on my Google account. I thought that the color coding was pretty neat, but it lacked quite a bit in comparison to other note or organizational apps. I went ahead and began using it as a quick way of recording notes and keeping them handy. I really  liked the speech to text angle on my tablet. It worked fairly well, and allowed me to take my notes hands-free while I was walking around. Since that initial impression, Google has quietly added updates and features, getting it to the point now where it has become extremely useful for me. In no particular order, Google has added: Reminders. The ability to capture and add photos to notes. The ability to export the notes in a variety of formats (on an Android device). The ability to ...

I was about to throw a fit at the news of Google Reader's impending demise, but then I saw this announcement from Feedly:  http://blog.feedly.com/2013/03/14/google-reader/ ...which is good news. I do think that Google is being short-sighted in this decision, though. I know that there has been declining use of Reader, and that many people depend on social sharing instead, but I really believe that most of the social discovery process is driven by a select few "super-sharers" who get their information from services like Google Reader. It's like getting rid of farms because most people get their food at grocery stores.  My commitment to the Google/Android ecosystem has been, in part, because of the investment I have in Google Reader as the backbone of my research/continuing education/professional development process. I'm not as committed to that now.

The holidays have somewhat interrupted my weekly tool overview, so I've decided to focus this week on a tool I was hoping  to get over the holidays, plus one I have been promoting to my wife as she looks to replace her laptop soon. The irony is that both tools are unavailable, and have been for some time. I'm speaking of Google's Samsung Chromebook, and the Nexus 10. My wife uses her laptop mainly for internet searching and word processing, and she's looking for a way to automatically back up everything she writes, so she can access it from multiple locations. She uses many Google products, so there's no desire to move to Apple's eco-system. The Chromebook would be perfect for her, but the Samsung model got better reviews than the cheaper Acer model. It has been sold out for a while, though, with no indication that it will be available soon. It can't really be "For Everyone" if it's not available, right? She is still thinking about her ...

I ran across an article this morning on Google's Android project. Android is Google's attempt to create an open source operating system for mobile phone technology. The idea is that Android would serve as an open source operating system and companies would develop hardware around it. Recently, T-Mobile announced that they would be releasing the G1--the first handset designed to operate with Android. In his article, Chris O'Brien points to a number of Google's recent projects, including OpenSocial , which is designed to create an open API standard for social networking sites. O'Brien points to a lack of promotion and development for past initiatives and emphasizes their failure to gain significant market share. If you are just evaluating these initiatives on their individual merit, O'Brien has a point. I'm not certain that I would buy shares in T-Mobile based on the G1, and I wouldn't purchase one of the phones at the moment, either. I think, however,...

As many of you know, MPOW has a very active filtering system. They haven't blocked sites totally, but trying to use services like IM, Google services and anything else that's AJAXy can be a real pain in the butt. I find myself instructing patrons and saying things like, "on a regular computer this would work," or, "what you should have seen at this point is...." Needless to say, that gets old. I cannot teach classes where I just show the patrons how to do something--they have to use their imaginations. Anyway, I'm trying to build a collection of portable apps on a thumb drive that will allow me to show our patrons how to do things without some of the network restrictions on downloads. So far, I have Portable Firefox with The following add-ons: ScribeFire , Zotero , Meebo , del.icio.us , FireShot , a MindMeister shortcut, and the Google Toolbar. I have made my iGoogle page the homepage for this experiment and added gadgets for todo lists, Gmail, Google...

Google has finally re-released JotSpot as Google Sites . I've given it a quick look over the last couple of days, and I'm still not sure what to think. It seems slanted toward organizational use, so I don't believe that I, as an individual, can give it a complete test. It is being rolled out as a feature in the Google Apps category, but I think that they would be better off billing it as the feature-not that it's so great, mind you. When you tie a domain name to Google Apps, it starts you off at that stupid Google 'Start' page, which is basically just an iGoogle page with your logo at the top (if you add it). I haven't figured out how to change the default to my Sites page, which would be much more functional. My biggest gripe with Google, to this point, is their inability to really connect all of their features. Google's suite of applications still has the feel of a Frankenstein's monster assembly of parts which sometimes give an appearance o...

Well, nobody showed up for the demonstration, but that's okay--another patron asked for an impromptu demonstration of advanced Google search techniques. It went well. I showed him a number of shortcuts that he didn't know were available, so, one program, one attendee. Perfect balance! Afterwards, I prepared a notebook to keep the handouts so our staff could refer to them, too. Then I created a stealth blog , in order to keep a number of the documents readily available to anyone who may want to see them again. Finally, I created a display of the books and handouts that went with the program in a prominent location, with a sign that reminded the patrons about what they were missing. Next time, I hope to include photos.

For anyone who has an interest in the short message communication pioneered by Twitter , Google has acquired Jaiku .

Yesterday, Google added presentation software to their web based office suite. After an initial review, it seems that the focus of the software is web collaboration, as you can see in this short example . I'm not sure what happens if the presentation is left online with no moderation, though. The format is very basic so far, with limited export options and no ability to integrate sound. The most surprising thing to me was that I didn't see any evidence of the ability to integrate the presentations with other Google products, namely Picasa. The ability to subscribe to RSS feeds of presentation changes is a definite plus, however All in all, It's an interesting start and I am sure that they will add more features soon.

For anyone who is interested in looking at topics in map or timeline form, try a couple of new features at Google by typing in'view:map' or 'view:timeline' at the end of your search terms:) Examples: http://www.google.com/views?hl=en&q=atom+bomb+view%3Amap http://www.google.com/views?hl=en&q=atom+bomb+view:timeline&sa=N&ct=timeline

In her Librarian in Black blog, Sarah Houghton-Jan reviews Spresent's web presentation application. I worked with it for a few minutes yesterday and found it to be extremely easy to use. If Google can come close to Spresent's ease of use and functionality with their upcomingaccomplished something. In about three minutes, I was able to produce and embed this silly presentation:

Google just announced through their official Google Blog that they will be adding presentation software to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. This nearly completes their web based assault on Microsoft Office.

Hello everyone! I'm back after a long hiatus. My wife and I have been travelling and running paperwork here and there for the purpose of adopting our new daughter, Aly (see photo.) We have a little more work to do, but we're nearing the end (or beginning) of our journey. Anyway, I'm going to have a little time in the next few weeks to catch up on my reading and web experimentation. In the meantime, I've been looking at Google's combination of JotSpot, Google Docs, Google Pages, Blogger, Gmail, Google Calendar, Notebook, Picasa, and Google Base. I have been wondering how far they are from combining these items into a centralized screen and if they will allow users to create faceted displays. There may also be a way to combine these items into one Personalized Google page using widgets, but I am most interested in the ability to set up separate displays. For example, if someone had an interest in computers, libraries, chess, Superman, Chuck Berry, and the Baltimore...

Now I'm really starting to get annoyed. I have not been able to put my AdSense ads back on my blog. Now I know that this doesn't particularly bother the rest of you--I mean, who really wants to see the ads on my blog, anyway? It just detracts from the high quality content, right? But that's just my point! I have all of this great stuff on my blog today, but I won't get a red cent--in spite of the millions of people who are reading this blog right now! There's nothing to click. How are the people going to know that Google provides blogs through Blogger if there are no links to click? How can the economy survive if Madison Avenue can't reach the consumer hoards through my high quality blog? I'm not sure I can handle all of this stress. I need a drink.