2009 readings...

During the salad days of blogging, i thought of sharing one of my Google docs in blog. Today, i made that thought into action. I shared a spreadsheet, that embodies the volumes i read in the year 2009. I am planning to read more volumes in the year 2010.





P.S.:  Yep, I do read with sluggish speed. I am planning to improve it.

Waving.....

I have been anticipating the Google Wave invitation from September 30^th (ever since the day it’s launched). Finally I got the invitation from a twitter friend couple of days ago. I tried to encapsulate few features of Wave in this article.

Google Wave is a web application that lets you easily communicate and collaborate with others. By Google Wave we can use the web to have conversations, share photos and files, work with others on documents, chat in real time, organize our information, post to blogs and more. It features tagging waves, dockable labels, personalized folders, Map gadgets, Yes/No/Maybe gadgets, Doctor Wave and many more.

Extension Gallery:  A Google Wave extension (gadget) lets you add rich content and integrate with other systems. There is a provision to install few extensions namely Wave Sudoku, Conference, Video Chat Experience, Trippy, AccuWeather.com, and etc.

Trippy: is an itinerary, where we can create and scheduled our trips, dates and share them friends. A sample trip to New Delhi in February is given below.

Sudoku Gadget:

There are many features, which I need to reconnoiter in Wave. I am willing to post more articles about the features of Wave in future. Meanwhile I would like to finish this article by a coinage often used by my friend. i.e., “Google is the best thing that has happened to us in this 21^st century”. :) 

P.S.: I will invite my friends to Wave, as soon as I get the credentials.

Google Street View

Of late two of my friends have been to US. One has been to Philadelphia \fi-lə-ˈdel-fyə, -fē-ə\ (derived from Greek philein, to love, plus Greek adelphos, brother, i.e., the city of “Brotherly Love”). And the other one has been to Phoenix \fē'nĭks\ (A mythological bird, said to be the only one of its kind, which lives for 500 years and then dies by burning to ashes on a pyre of its own making, ignited by the sun. It then arises anew from the ashes).

Being inquisitive, I checked, how their respective flats/apartments looks like, in Google street view (GSV). GSV gives the omniscient feeling of any place in US, UK, NZ etc; especially if you are anticipated to visit the place. Though Google has launched this feature long time ago, this article is intended to let you know how to use GSV (if you are not familiar beforehand) and to show my friends’ apartments in U.S. :)

How to Use:

Step 1: Login to your Google account and click on "Maps" tab. If you don’t have Google account, you can use GSV from here. Give your desired address in the textbox displayed. Then it gives the destined location with a balloon mark (approximate location) as shown in the below screen shot.

Step 2: Double clicking on the navigation lines (white/green/yellow in color) leads you to the street view of that particular location as shown below screen shot.

Step 3: Drag and drop the stickman in the bird eye view map given at the extreme right hand corner, to navigate directly.GSV allows you to have 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic views from a row of positions along the street, and 2X to 4X zoom of the ambience depending on the availability.

There are many buttons and tabs, privileged to be reconnoitered by you. Enjoy the panorama of the streets.

NOTE: Street View is not available in INDIA and many other countries till date.