Google Wave

Google Wave is a new communication service previewed today at Google I/O. "A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

The service seems to combine Gmail and Google Docs into an interesting free-form workspace that could be used to write documents collaboratively, plan events, play games or discuss a recent news.


Google Wave has been designed by the founders of Where 2 Tech, a start-up acquired by Google to create a cutting-edge mapping service, which later became Google Maps.

"Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps. As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point.

"In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content -- it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave to see how it evolved."

Gmail Tips And Tricks

Trick #1
Let's say my email address is gtutor@gmail.com (which it is!). Gmail allows you to use dots in between the characters of the user name portion (that's the part to the left of the @ sign). So - any email that gets sent to:

g.tutor@gmail.com
g.tutor@gmail.com
or even
g.u.t.o.r@gmail.com


would still end up at my regular email account, gtutor@gmail.com. Even though you only signed up for one Gmail account, you effectively have several accounts by using this feature. You can use one configuration for work, one for home, one for school, etc. and you still only have to check that one email account to receive all of them.

Trick #2
This one is really cool. You can use the "+" sign after your user name and enter anything you want after that, and the email will still get to your original account. So, next time you are at a website that requires you to put in an email address to register, you don't have to worry about them spamming you because you can enter your email address like this:

gtutor+flakywebsite@gmail.com

If you wanted to get really fancy, you can use a different word or number (or combination) every time you give out your email address, then track which site or company sold your email to some spammer. Then, just tell Gmail to automatically delete any emails that contain that code.



Tips #1

Google Mail introduced a new feature recently that can be helpful in finding out if someone else has or had access to your Gmail account. The function is a bit hidden in the footer area of Gmail after you log in. Just scroll down to the bottom until you reach the line at the bottom starting with Last account activity.

Gmail provides information about the time of the last login and which IP has been used to login to the account. A Details link is available at the end of the line which opens a popup window with further information.

Activity on this account is the name of the window and it displays the last five activities in a table with information about the access type (pop, mobile, browser), IP of the computer that logged into Gmail and the time.

Tips #2

Use Gmail like an external hard drive
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/E-mail/Mail-Utilities/GMail-Drive-shell-extension.shtml
Use up any vegetating space in your Gmail account with this Windows drive shell extension. Your Gmail space appears in My Computer/Windows Explorer as an external drive, and when you drag and drop a file to the drive, it sends an email to your Gmail account with the file as an attachment. Note that this is a fairly old program but seems to have been updated for the latest Gmail version. Mac users can try gDisk and Linux users can check out GmailFS.



Tips #3

1. Add "(EOM)" to the subject of one-liner messages.
   

   If you ever want to send a quick note where the subject is the entire message (like "Want to grab lunch at 12:30?"), but are annoyed when Gmail prompts you to add body text, just type "EOM" or "(EOM)" at the end of the subject line (short for End Of Message), and Gmail will politely send the message without the extra prompt.

   Learn more »

   

Tips #4
Recover your password via text message

Even the best of us forget our passwords from time to time. In fact, recovering passwords is one of the top reasons people visit the Gmail Help Center. To help with these situations, google recently added the ability to recover your password via text message.

To turn this on for your account, just sign in, select 'Change Password Recovery Options,' enter your cell phone number and click 'Save.'

Next time you forget your password, enter your username on the password-assistance page, and Google will text you a recovery code. No need to check another email account or even leave the page.

In general, it's a good idea to add as many password recovery options to your Google Account as possible, like a secondary email address and security question. And don't forget to keep them up-to-date.



Tips #5

Advanced Search - 'Query Words'

Operator	Definition	Example(s)
from:	Used to specify the sender	Example - from:amy Meaning - Messages from Amy
to:	Used to specify a recipient	Example - to:david Meaning - All messages that were sent to David (by you or someone else)
subject:	Search for words in the subject line	Example - subject:dinner Meaning - Messages that have the word "dinner" in the subject
OR	Search for messages matching term A or term B* *OR must be in all caps	Example - from:amy OR from:david Meaning - Messages from Amy or from David
- (hyphen)	Used to exclude messages from your search	Example - dinner -movie Meaning - Messages that contain the word "dinner" but do not contain the word "movie"
label:	Search for messages by label* *There isn't a search operator for unlabeled messages	Example - from:amy label:friends Meaning - Messages from Amy that have the label "friends"
has:attachment	Search for messages with an attachment	Example - from:david has:attachment Meaning - Messages from David that have an attachment
filename:	Search for an attachment by name or type	Example - filename:physicshomework.txt Meaning - Messages with an attachment named "physicshomework.txt" Example - label:work filename:pdf Meaning - Messages labeled "work" that also have a PDF file as an attachment
" " (quotes)	Used to search for an exact phrase* *Capitalization isn't taken into consideration	Example - "i'm feeling lucky" Meaning - Messages containing the phrase "i'm feeling lucky" or "I'm feeling lucky" Example - subject:"dinner and a movie" Meaning - Messages containing the phrase "dinner and a movie" in the subject
( )	Used to group words Used specify terms that shouldn't be excluded	Example - from:amy (dinner OR movie) Meaning - Messages from Amy that contain either the word "dinner" or the word "movie" Example - subject:(dinner movie) Meaning - Messages in which the subject contains both the word "dinner" and the word "movie"
in:anywhere	Search for messages anywhere in your account* *Messages in 'Spam' and 'Trash' are excluded from searches by default	Example - in:anywhere subject:movie Meaning - Messages in 'All Mail', 'Spam', and 'Trash' that contain the word "movie"
in:inbox in:trash in:spam	Search for messages in 'Inbox', 'Trash', or 'Spam'	Example - in:trash from:amy Meaning - Messages from Amy that are in the trash
is:starred is:unread is:read	Search for messages that are starred, unread or read	Example - is:read is:starred from:David Meaning - Message from David that have been read and are marked with a star
cc: bcc:	Used to specify recipients in the 'cc' or 'bcc' fields	Example - cc:david Meaning - Messages that were cc-ed to David
after: before:	Search for messages after or before a certain date* *Date must be in yyyy/mm/dd format.	Example - after:2004/4/17 before:2004/4/18 Meaning - Messages sent on April 17, 2004.* *More precisely: Messages sent on or after April 17, 2004, but before April 18, 2004.

Google, i am loving it

History of Google

1995

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. (Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around.) According to some accounts, they disagree about most everything during this first meeting.

1996

• Larry and Sergey, now Stanford computer science grad students, begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub.
• BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year -- eventually taking up too much bandwidth to suit the university.

1997

• Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google -- a play on the word "googol," a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

More: http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Technologies i am working with

LINQ "Language Integrated QUery"

To start with, LINQ stands for “Language Integrated QUery.” LINQ fundamentally is about integrating query operations into the .NET platform in a comprehensive and open manner. It’s also about providing a unified way for you to query across any kind of data that you have in your program, whether it’s relational, objects or XML. This, we believe, will represent a tectonic shift in the way that VB programmers will work with data. The possibilities that having query capabilities always available right at your fingertips, regardless of the type of data you’re working with, are immense and will fundamentally alter the way people program.

The core of LINQ is a set of API patterns. I say “patterns” instead of “interfaces” or “classes” because we want to maintain maximum flexibility in our ability to provide querying for any kind of data, regardless of whether it has a particular object model or interface implemented. These API patterns specify how an object model can become “queryable,” and they cover all the basic query operations that we know and love: projection (select), filter (where), grouping (group by), ordering (order by), joining (join), etc. By implementing this API pattern, any data provider on .NET can become queryable. There is also a lot of flexibility as to how a data provider can become flexible — i.e., whether it wants to delegate most of the work on querying or whether it wants to do all the work itself.

(It’s also important to note that these patterns are fully compatible with .NET 2.0 and require no additional platform features. They’re totally implementable in VS 2005, so you won’t need a new CLR to use them.)

WPF

WPF is Microsoft’s strategic presentation technology for Windows smart client user experiences. Use WPF to deliver innovative user interfaces through support for UI, media, document services, hardware acceleration, vector graphics, resolution-independent DPI for different form factors, data visualization, and superior content readability. Increase developer-designer productivity and collaboration through Visual Studio, Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer, and XAML. Write code once, and deploy as stand-alone client or in a browser. Incrementally embrace WPF through interoperability with Win32 and Windows Forms. Leverage vested knowledge in .NET Framework, CLR languages and Visual Studio IDE. Derive business value through new paradigms of user experiences, business intelligence through data visualizations, brand awareness through differentiated customer experiences, and customer loyalty through higher customer satisfaction.

Windows Communication Foundation(WCF)

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly code-named "Indigo," is about to radically change the face of distributed programming for developers using the Microsoft .NET Framework. WCF unifies the existing suite of .NET distributed technologies into a single programming model that improves the overall developer experience through a consistent architecture, new levels of functionality and interoperability, and all the extensibility points you could want. This article introduces you to WCF programming and shows you how to get started.

As its name suggests, WCF provides the .NET Framework with a basis for writing code to communicate across components, applications, and systems. WCF was designed according to the tenets of service orientation. A service is a piece of code you interact with through messages. Services are passive. They wait for incoming messages before doing any work. Clients are the initiators. Clients send messages to services to request work.

Services expose one or more endpoints where messages can be sent. Each endpoint consists of an address, a binding, and a contract. The address specifies where to send messages. The binding describes how to send messages. And the contract describes what the messages contain. Clients need to know this information before they can access a service.

Services can package up endpoint descriptions to share with clients, typically by using Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Then clients can use the provided service description to generate code within their environment capable of sending and receiving the proper messages
Windows Communication Foundation provides a new library of classes found in the System. ServiceModel namespace that bring these service-oriented concepts to life. This is what's typically referred to as the WCF programming model.

http://wpf.netfx3.com

http://silverlight.net