Google Sites example: www.tenismesalazubia.com

Our readers are sending more examples of Google sites. This is another example of an excellent site created using Google Site. This is the site (in Spanish Language) for a Tennis Club:

http://www.tenismesalazubia.com/

Now you can view PDF documents in Gmail without downloading

Earlier a to view a PDF file received in Gmail will have to be downloaded and opened in Acrobat reader. But now you can view PDF file in Gmail itself.

Now opening up a PDF in Gmail will not open your native PDF viewer (which is relatively slow-to-load), and instead will send you to the document reader built into Google Docs. Clicking “View” quickly opens the PDF inside your browser, complete with the graphics and formatting you expect to see in a PDF. You may have seen this feature before, in Google Docs. It’s the way that we did uploading and viewing of PDFs online.

The Gmail implementation is very useful as it lets you check the PDF file in different zoom views. Users can also search for content in the file in addition to download it for saving.

Of course you can also use the Adobe Acrobat tool which opens the PDF file into the web browser but that usually makes the browser unresponsive for seconds.

Google Sites Case Study: Global Alliance for Self Management Support

Global Alliance for Self Management Support (www.globalalliancesms.org) is using Google Sites for their website and collaboration. Global Alliance for Self Management Support is an international non-profit project promoting patient empowerment and self management support worldwide.

This is a case in point about how Google Apps can be used for Not for profit organizations. That too cutting across the geographical borders and collaborating with people worldwide. This Google site has used Google docs forms, Google docs presentations. The site also has Google Apps Knowledge base for those who are creating sites within community.

Manuel Serrano Director of Global Alliance for Self Management Support indicates that they are looking for cyber volunteers to work collaboratively on the development of this collective intelligence platform. He can be reached at manuel [dot] serrano [at] globalalliancesms [dot] org

Google Chrome has been moved out of Beta

Google after releasing the 15th update for its Google Chrome Web browser and officially ended the beta testing phase for the application Thursday. It already has some 10 million active users. With the 15 updates under its belt, the browser has improved its stability and performance.

"Google Chrome is a better browser today thanks to the many users who sent their feedback and the many more who enabled automatic crash reports, helping us rapidly diagnose and fix issues," they wrote in a Google blog post.

Shortest of Beta Period at Google: The Chrome seems to have spent the shortest period of time in beta status. Considering the previous record of Google which is known for taking its time with beta projects, even in its most popular offerings - this is a healthy development. Launched in September 2008 Chrome was in beta for just three months. If you compare this with Google's Gmail e-mail which began beta testing in April 2004, and more than four years later, the e-mail app is still there.

However Google says that it applies a different time frame and standard to its client software than other offerings. Google also indicated that Chrome was fairly advanced when it was released in beta.

What is new in Google Chrome

• Google Chrome is built on the Chromium open source project, anyone can see features being developed by Google's team and the developer community.
• Chrome now offers users better stability and plug-in performance. Video and audio issues and other common bugs have been fixed.
• Speed has also been a focus and now the javaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster.
• It is now easier to switch between another browser and Chrome with bookmark import and export features. Google also worked to give users greater control of their data. To that end, all features in Chrome that affect user privacy are grouped in one place with an explanation regarding what each one actually does.

I am using both Firefox and Google Chrome as some of the sites are still not designed from Chrome and show display errors. So the users who were shying away till now can download from here and start using Google Chrome.