One of the neatest features in the discontinued-but-alive Google Wave was its collection of gadgets and extensions. Many of those gadgets live on in Google’s new Shared Spaces, where you can invite others to contribute, vote, and collaborate on the web. More »
Services like Gazelle and ecoNew are great, because you can sell them your old, unwanted gadgets for a decent price, and they’ll be recycled, which is better than just throwing them in the trash. Ecosquid makes this process easy. More »
It’s arguably Apple’s greatest skill: Making your previous gear look obsolete next to their new releases. So what do you do with your devices after they’ve been made redundant? Here’s a handful of ways to reuse that spare, older-gen iPhone. More »
iPhone – Handhelds – Smartphone – Apple – Wallpapers and Themes
Google released a tool today—called Browser Size—designed to show web developers what parts of a site users can see without scrolling. It's not exclusively tied to screen resolution (you don't have to maximize your browser), but it got us wondering.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
We want a better idea of what kind of screen resolution our readers are rocking on their gear. If you’re not sure how to figure it out, Windows users can just fire up your Display Properties from the Control Panel and find the Settings tab; Mac users, launch the Displays preference pane from System Preferences. Then let us know:
What’s Your Screen Resolution?(polls)
I did my best to come up with as many common resolutions as possible based on the results of a screen resolution survey posted on Wikipedia, so hopefully we don’t have too many of you in the Other category. As we said, your screen resolution doesn’t necessarily reflect your browser window’s resolution (unless you’re always browsing maximized, and even then you won’t take up the whole height or width of the screen unless you put your browser in fullscreen mode), but we’re still curious. So give it a look and give us more details on your setup in the comments.
In the meantime, web developers may be interested in checking out Browser Size for a better idea of what segment of their userbase may not be able to see important parts of their sites.
So you’ve snagged an invitation to Google Wave—or a pal is sending one your way—and you've already taken a look at what to expect. Let’s dive deeper into Wave features, etiquette, and extensions.
Every good webapp has a full set of keyboard shortcuts for getting around and performing the most common actions, and happily Google Wave is no exception. While Wave is still missing common shortcuts (j/k, please?), there are a few you must know now. Here are the ones to learn first:
Here’s the full list of keyboard shortcuts. Alternately, you can click on the image below to see them all.
Wave is a very Googly product, so searching is simply a matter of typing a keyword into the search box. But like Gmail, Google Wave also offers several advanced search operators that let you find waves based on who they're with, what they're tagged, and other attributes. For example, to see all the public waves—that is, waves in which anyone using Wave can see—use the with: operator. In fact, if you’re feeling lonely in Wave, the first Wave search you should try is with:public.
To save a search for reuse, click on the “Save Search” button on the bottom right of your Wave inbox. When you save a search you can also specify filter actions for all the waves that match it. Right now the only choices are “Archive” and “Mark as read.” Once you run that with:public search, every public wave you read will end up in your inbox, which becomes overwhelming almost immediately. So save your with:public search and check off “Archive” so they don’t clutter up your inbox. (You can also “Mute” chatty public waves that did make it into your inbox if you’re not interested in every new update.)
The opposite of with:public, the with:me search is very useful for just seeing waves that are explicitly with you (not with the public group). To limit your results to only waves you’ve updated, use by:me.
Other search operators include tag: for tags, and has: for attachments like images, files, and gadgets. For example, has:gadget returns waves with gadgets; has:image returns waves with images in them, and has:attachment returns waves with gadgets, images, or files. You can combine search operators, like with:public has:gadget, and use the minus sign to exclude waves as well, like -has:image. Here’s the full list of Wave’s advanced search operators.
Now that you know how to find public waves, you probably want to make one of your own waves public. Problem is, there’s no one-click button to make a wave public. The trick is to add public@a.gwave.com to your contacts list. To do so, click the + button on the bottom right of your Contacts module. Type public@a.gwave.com into the Address field, and even when Wave says “User does not have a Google Wave account”, press Enter. The public group will appear in your contacts list, as shown. Add public to any wave you want to make public, but be prepared: Public waves often get destroyed by newbs and bots who haven’t been in Wave long enough to grok the etiquette (see below). Also note that if you switch computers, you may have to add public@a.gwave.com to your contacts list again.
One of the biggest problems with public waves is that anyone can edit them or add recipients to them: including content-changing, and sometimes busted, bots. When you do your with:public search, you’ll find dozens of waves that have been destroyed by newbs adding bots to them that delete or mangle the existing content so bad that even playback is broken. Good Wave etiquette dictates that you don’t add bots to public waves. If you want to mess with a public wave, from its menu choose “Copy to New Wave” and go to town with your private copy.
If you’ve created a public wave and someone added a bot to it that you want out, add the Bouncy bot to your contacts (bouncy-wave@appspot.com). Then, add Bouncy to the wave, and reply to it adding the command bounce:botaddress, replacing botaddress with the email address of the bot to bounce. Bouncy will oust the unwanted bot from your wave. This only works on bots. After Bouncy’s done his job, you can delete the wave with the command and Bouncy’s response. Update: The Google Wave team has enabled the “Remove” button for bots only, obviating the need for Bouncy. To remove an unwanted bot from a wave, click on its icon at the top o the wave and lean on the “Remove” button. This only works on bots, not humans.
Like a wiki, useful and popular waves require oversight and gardening, or else they fall in to disrepair or go out of date or get vandalized (especially if they’re public). You can oversee, clean up, edit, and update any wave you’re a participant in, and everyone will appreciate it if you do.
First, empty “blips” or replies are a common occurrence around Wave, which is still kind of twitchy in different browsers and new to a lot of folks who might accidentally hit Enter when they didn’t mean to reply. Delete empty blips when you come across them by clicking on the wave action drop-down on the top right of it, and choosing “Delete.”
To automate this process on waves you create, add the Sweepy bot (sweepy-wave@appspot.com) to your contacts and to the wave itself. Sweepy will not delete existing empty blips, but it will delete any newly-added empty replies automatically. (Sweepy is one of the very few bots that may supersede the “never add bots to public waves” rule, as Sweepy’s functionality cleans up the wave. For more on bots and gadgets, see this Google Wave Extensions list.)
If a wave becomes totally destroyed and you want to restore it to a former useful state, use its playback feature. Pause at the revision you want, and use the “Copy to a new wave” menu item to fork it into a new copy.
Netbook owners or those who keep Wave open in a small window appreciate the ability to minimize unneeded Wave modules and maximize the reading or writing area on the wave you’re working on at the moment. To load Wave with certain modules minimized by default, you can use a custom Wave URL with the #minimized parameter. For example, wave.google.com/wave/#minimized:nav,minimized:contact launches Wave with the Navigation and Contacts modules minimized. The wave.google.com/wave/#minimized:nav,minimized:contact,minimized:search URL minimizes Navigation, Contacts, and Search panes as shown here.
URL-observers will also notice that every individual wave has an ID that appears in the URL when you click on it. This means you could bookmark or IM a link to a public wave to anyone on Wave.
The Wave Preview is a pre-beta webapp, and lots of things aren’t working or just simply aren’t implemented yet. From the “it’s not just you” department, here are some notes on what’s not working:
Overall, Wave is a rich platform with a huge community of people discovering more of its ins and outs and quirks and workarounds every day. Wave users, what are your favorite tricks and tips for getting more out of Wave? Post up your comments below or in this public wave.
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, really hopes to meet Dr. Wave someday to tell him just how shiny everything is. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
Discounted hard drives, cheap DVDs, and deals on speakers and headphones abound in today’s deal roundup.
Thanks Slickdeals, Fatwallet, TechDealDigger, TechBargains, CheapStingyBargains, CheapCollegeGamers, and GamerHotline!
We’ve got discounted monitors, big screen HDTVs, noise-canceling headphones and even a limited edition Dremel tool. Not one to part with your hard-earned cash? Get some free mouthwash, tacos, and MP3s.
Thanks Slickdeals, Fatwallet, TechDealDigger, TechBargains, CheapStingyBargains, CheapCollegeGames, and GamerHotline!
Discounted computers, monitors, mice and more are but a few of the deals you’ll find today. Free coffee and cheap cameras, anyone?
Thanks Slickdeals, Fatwallet, TechDealDigger, TechBargains, CheapStinkyBargains, and GamerHotline!
Windows/Linux: Google Desktop users can keep an eye on important feeds with the Google Reader Gadget, a clever but not quite perfect desktop implementation of Google’s RSS reader.
We say “clever” because when you’ve got a subscription or folder selected in the gadget, new posts will pop in automatically, letting you presumably watch any collection of feeds in semi-real time. And we say “not quite perfect” because, as with other Google Desktop gadgets, Google Reader’s box can’t load full HTML feeds, so posts with substantial text, pictures, or videos need to be clicked open in a browser for viewing. And some of the major shortcuts that power Reader users love, like Shift+A for marking all as read, aren’t present here either.
Still, if you're a feed fiend or just want to keep the news in sight or just behind a gadget wall, you'll probably dig this gadget. If you can get it to load and install, that is—myself and a few of the gadget's commenters saw a perpetual "Loading" notice on the gadget, without getting through to the actual feeds (hence the Google-official screenshot), while others had seemingly no trouble at all. The Reader gadget is a free download, requires Google Desktop for Windows or Google Gadgets for Linux.
