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People Making Good Sees the Good in Google Apps

3:34 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Enterprise Blog
Posted by: Nicole Ravlin, Co-founder of People Making Good

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Nicole Ravlin, Co-founder of People Making Good, a public relations company based in Burlington, Vermont.

People Making Good is a public relations and social media marketing firm focused on promoting healthy, socially responsible brands. In six years we’ve grown to ten employees and have a wide range of clients across the country and around the globe.

Over the past several years, we’ve been limited by our IT solutions, particularly since our clients are in multiple time zones and our staff travels frequently. Important tasks like scheduling meetings or tracking product launches often were made more difficult than they needed to be. About 18 months ago, our IT consultants recommended we try Google Apps for Business to help simplify our work processes. Not only has it kept us organized as a company, it’s also helped us stay in line with our core values, one of which is to be as paperless as possible.

Google Calendar has completely transformed the way we schedule meetings with clients, book trade shows, and schedule launch events. For one client we set up a shared calendar to manage events in multiple cities for the launch of a new product – everything from tracking industry events to meetings with retailers and press. Our client could see their schedule come together in real time, and it automatically synced with their mobile device. They knew exactly where to be and when, no matter what time zone they were in.

With Google Docs, we’re able to work with clients all over the world. Before, we’d email back and forth, and critical information got buried in people’s inboxes or lost for good. Now, we share documents directly with our clients and quickly work through things like media lists, press releases and blog posts. We often make comments and chat directly in a doc so we can avoid the hassle of multiple phone calls and emails.

Google Apps has helped us streamline our processes, even while we’re on the go. This gives us more time to continue our quest to help socially responsible companies tell their stories.
 

AdWhirl v3.2 Released!

2:33 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Ads Developer Blog

We're very happy to announce the release of AdWhirl v3.2! This version brings us support for the latest and greatest from several ad networks. In particular:

Android:

  • Support for AdMob v6.0.1
  • Support for Millennial v4.5.1
  • Support for InMobi v350

iOS:

  • Support for AdMob v6.0.4
  • Support for Millennial v4.5.5
  • Support for InMobi v350

As always, you can find the latest SDKs available on our download page. Or, feel free to snag the source: (Android | iOS). If you encounter any issues, don't hesitate to contact us on our forum or during Office Hours--times to be announced on our blog.


 

Reminder: Migrate to the new Core Reporting API

12:13 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Analytics Blog

At the end of 2011 we announced the Google Analytics Core Reporting API as a replacement for the Data Export API. We also announced a 6 month deprecation period for the Data Export API version 2.3, after which all v2.3 queries will return a v2.4 response. Well, it's almost been 6 months since the announcement was made. If you haven't already moved to our shiny new APIs, and we know there are quite a few of you out there who haven't, we urge you to get movin' or risk your application not working come June.

The good news is that we published a new, easy to follow migration guide to help you make the transition and ensure your application continues to work after we shut down the Data Export API sometime in June.

If you are building a new application, we highly recommend using the Core Reporting API v3.0. For existing applications, we also recommend moving to v3.0 but it may be easier for you to migrate to v2.4 as an intermediary step, since it is backwards compatible with the Data Export API v2.3.

The great news is that if you make the move to v3.0, you'll be able to take advantage of any new features, and the compact JSON format that reduces response size by 10x!

To get started, check out the Migration Guide: Moving from v2.3 APIs to v2.4 & v3.0.

Additional details and support:


 

Updates to our AdMob SDK

12:06 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Ads Developer Blog

Editor’s note: We’d like to share this post from Chrix Finne which announces updates to the Google AdMob Ads SDK. -- Eric Leichtenschlag, Ads Developer Relations Team

Today we are posting an update to the AdMob SDKs for iOS and Android. This SDK update features several minor bug fixes and improvements.

We are also releasing an optional version of our SDK for iOS that includes the UDID parameter, which is used to improve ad performance and relevance. Apps utilizing this version must obtain appropriate user consent for sending device identifier information in compliance with relevant iOS policies.

Posted by Chrix Finne, Product Manager

 

Pricing plan announced for Google Cloud SQL

12:00 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Developers Blog
Author Photo
By Joe Faith, Product Manager

Google Cloud SQL provides a fully managed database service for Google App Engine applications. Hosted on Google's infrastructure and based on the familiar MySQL database, Google Cloud SQL automatically provisions and maintains your databases, allowing you to focus on your applications and services.

In March, we were delighted to welcome our 10,000th developer on Google Cloud SQL, joining businesses like Daffodil, who halved their development time by building on Google's platform.

Since the preview launch in October 2011, we’ve been busy working on improving the performance, adding features like scheduled backups, and multihoming to increase availability and improve performance. We are also now offering more powerful instances with up to 4GB of RAM. Today, we are announcing our pricing, with two options to choose from:
  • For developers who want to try out the service, or who have lightweight applications, we offer a flexible "per use" pricing scheme. For example, you can get started with a cloud hosted MySQL database for around a dollar per month. You pay for just what you use.
  • For developers with more traffic, there are package plans that are more economical and help you predict your costs in advance.
We will not start charging for the service until June 12th. Full details of the pricing plans are available here: https://developers.google.com/cloud-sql/docs/billing

Google Cloud SQL is currently in limited preview. If you want to give us a try, start here: https://developers.google.com/cloud-sql/.


Joe Faith is a Product Manager on the Google Cloud Team. In a previous life he was a researcher in machine learning, bioinformatics, and information visualization, and was founder of charity fundraising site Fundraising Skills.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor
 

Turn on your cloud databases, Google Cloud SQL has a new pricing plan

12:00 pm - May 10, 2012 in Google Enterprise Blog


Google Cloud SQL frees you from the chores of managing, maintaining and administering relational databases. It powers your App Engine applications with a familiar relational database (MySQL) in a fully-managed cloud environment.

Since we launched preview last October, Cloud SQL has improved performance and added features like scheduled backups, multihoming to increase availability and to improve application performance, and more powerful instances. Many businesses and developers have also started using Cloud SQL to administer their databases in the cloud.

For example, Daffodil, a global software firm, wanted to build and scale cloud applications with an easy-to-use database management system. After trying different solutions, they migrated to Google App Engine and Google Cloud SQL last year. After the migration, the engineers at Daffodil saved 100 hours of engineering work, allowing them to focus on their app and worry less about infrastructure.

Today, we’re announcing a two-tier pricing plan to Cloud SQL that will be enabled on June 12th:
  • If you’re a business building lightweight applications or just want to try out the service, the flexible pricing option is for you. You pay for what you use.
  • If you’re a business building heavy-traffic applications, we offer pricing packages, which are more economical and help you predict costs in advance.
We hope the new Cloud SQL pricing plans help you build App Engine applications tailored to your business’s needs. Post your questions in our user forums or comments on our Enterprise Google+ page.
 

Celebrating our super-mom users

10:06 am - May 10, 2012 in The Official Google Blog
These days, moms use technology in a ton of creative and resourceful ways to keep their families running smoothly. As a working mom myself, I use Google Calendar to keep track of our three busy kids and all their different activities, sports and schools. Technology also keeps us connected—I’m always amazed at how a Google+ Hangout between my kids in California and their grandparents in France can make the distance between them feel so small.

In celebration of Mother’s Day this weekend, we thought we’d applaud the many tech-savvy super-moms out there by sharing a few of their stories.

Heather Fay, using Google+ to make her dream a reality
Heather, from New Haven, Conn., is a stay-at-home mom of two who has always had a passion for music and performing. Until recently, her music career took a backseat to her responsibilities at home, but when she signed up for Google+ in 2011, she realized she could find an audience using Hangouts—without stepping foot outside of her home. Now Heather can sing and play her guitar for people, no matter where they live in the world. Between changing diapers and cleaning up spilled cereal, she’s on Google+ engaging with more than 13,000 fans, collaborating with other musicians on an epic live concert and sharing the occasional mommy woes. You can find out more about her music on Google Play, where you can also hear a tribute to her daughter called “Ruby’s Song.”


Sarah Stocker, bringing robots to life with Chrome
Sarah, from San Francisco, is the co-founder of My Robot Nation, a Chrome web app that lets you create a unique robot online, then have it printed in full-color 3D and mailed to your door. When developing My Robot Nation, Sarah employed some of the most advanced web technologies, such as WebGL, to bring the 3D experience to the browser; however, making the app easy for people to use was paramount. Enter Sarah’s 10-year-old son Max. He designed the first robot and was My Robot Nation’s first “customer.” The fact that Max could create something online and then hold it in his hands made Sarah feel like the coolest mom ever—and he’s already told her that he wants to be an inventor, just like her.


Carol Galland Wildey and Danielle Yates, founders of Headcovers Unlimited
Almost 25 years ago, at the age of 40, Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer. After losing her hair due to chemotherapy treatments, she and her daughter Danielle realized how few options there were to help cancer patients look and feel like themselves throughout their treatment. In 1994, she and Danielle started Headcovers Unlimited, selling hats, wigs and scarves for patients with hair loss. Danielle helped take the business online in 1995, launching www.headcovers.com. Based in League City, Tex., the Internet helps them reach women in more than 60 countries; and more than half their customers have come through online advertising with AdWords.


Betty Givan, preserving family recipes with YouTube
For years, Betty has been cataloguing and saving family recipes to pass along to her own daughter. At first, she used a scrapbook of recipe cards, but one day, while making nachos for a football game, she decided to make a video of the process and asked her daughter to film it. Soon, she was filming and posting her favorites on a YouTube channel and today, it’s become her full-time business from her Richmond, Ky. home. With more than 1,100 videos of her southern cooking recipes and 16 million video views, Betty has become a mom to people all around the world.



Karen Castelletti, Googler reunited with her birth mother using Google Search
Not only can search help you find what you’re looking for, it can also help you reconnect with the people you care about. Karen grew up knowing she was adopted, and always thought it would be too difficult to find and connect with her birth parents. Then, when she was 22, she received a message from her birth mom, Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen found Karen's name through public birth records, and used Google Search to find one of Karen's social networking profiles. They reconnected in time for Mary Ellen to watch Karen graduate from college alongside her adoptive parents, and today they speak regularly.

I hope the stories of these super-moms have inspired you to use technology in ways that keep you connected, organized and creative, so you can spend more time doing the things that matter—having fun with your kids!

 

Supporting Innovation in African News

7:04 am - May 10, 2012 in The Official Google Blog
Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog

We’re eager to see journalism flourish in the digital age, in all forms and on all continents. Today, with half a dozen other generous sponsors, we’re taking a big step forward with a new $1 million African News Innovation Challenge.

This initiative is the latest in a series of projects to spur innovation in African journalism. Since 2010 we’ve been working with newsrooms across the continent to show journalists how the Internet can help them be better reporter. In Ghana we’re helping journalists produce evidence-based reporting on the country’s new oil wealth; in Senegal we gave journalists training on election reporting, and in Kenya we helped pioneer Africa’s first data journalism boot camp. Participants produced eight separate data-driven stories or news apps, including a TV documentary that exposed the plight of rural schools and an analysis of government spending at county level that has been nominated for an international award.

Now, we’re looking for even more innovations aimed at strengthening and transforming African news media. The News Innovation Challenge will provide grants ranging from $12,500 to $100,000 for project proposals falling into four categories: news gathering, storytelling, audience engagement and the business of news. Proposals can include ideas that improve everything from data-based investigative journalism and crowdsourced citizen reporting, to new ways of distributing news on mobile platforms, or new revenue models that help wean media off a reliance on advertising. In addition to cash grants, winners will receive technical, business development and marketing advice.

The African Media Initiative, Africa’s largest association of media owners and operators, is running the Challenge. Other partners include Omidyar Network, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the U.S. State Department, the Konrad Adenhauer Stiftung and the World Association of Newspapers & News Producers.

Entries must be submitted to this website by midnight Central African Time on July 10, 2012. While news pioneers from anywhere in the world are welcome, all entries must have an African partner that will help develop and test the innovation. Entries will be judged by an international jury, and finalists will get a chance to refine their proposals during one-on-one mentoring sessions at a “tech camp” in Zanzibar in August 2012.

The winners will be announced at the Africa’s largest gathering of media owners and executives, at the Africa Media Leaders Forum, in Ivory Coast in November 2012.

We’re also active in promoting digital journalism outside of Africa, such as supporting the Nordic News Hacker, the Global Editor Network’s data journalism prize and International Press Institute media innovation prizes. As media organizations continue to adapt to the new digital world, we’re committed to working with journalists to help them use technologies to gather and tell important stories.

 

A Google guide to summer vacation

4:45 pm - May 9, 2012 in The Official Google Blog
In the northern hemisphere, summer is just around the corner and U.S. National Travel & Tourism Week, recognized every year in May, officially marks the start of the biggest travel season of the year in the United States. Here are a few quick tips from us to make planning, traveling and sharing your summer adventures a bit easier.

Plan flights and hotels with just a few clicks: Flight Search & Hotel Finder

Left: Flight Search, Right: Hotel Finder

Begin your trip by finding, comparing and booking domestic or international flights from the U.S with Flight Search. Search for airports or cities, e.g., [flights to JFK] or [flights to New York City], at google.com and flight results will immediately appear below. Select the time and price that work best for you or click "more results" to further filter your search.

You can use our Hotel Finder experiment to find your perfect hotel based on price, time, proximity to landmarks and user images and reviews. As you glance over specific hotels, add the ones you might be interested in to your own personal shortlist. Click the red “Book” button to go ahead and make the reservation.

Live like the locals: Maps, Translate and Goggles

Left and center: Know where you are and find offers near you with Google Maps, Right: Know how to ask with Google Translate

If you’re in need of a local guide, Google Maps for Android can help. Find driving, transit, walking and biking directions, voice-guided navigation and nearby places to eat, shop and play. We just added a few more improvements to the app, including walking directions for indoor maps (U.S. and Japan) and Google Offers near you (U.S. only) so you can discover great deals on the go. Street View technology is also taking you indoors on your mobile—view interiors of participating businesses and museums so you know what to expect before your visit. And of course, you can always use the Street View feature in Google Maps to preview vacations spots around the world, from public landmarks and gardens to amusement parks, zoos and other popular attractions that have partnered with us to get their locations online.

If you’re traveling to a region where you don’t speak the language, use the Google Translate app to bargain with a local vendor or tell a taxi driver where you need to go. You’ve also got Google Goggles at your disposal—one click and you’ll know exactly what you are ordering on a menu. Get it for both your Android and iOS devices.

Keep your memories, even if you lose your device: Google+ Instant Upload

Your photos from your phone get uploaded instantly to Google+, ready to share.

The Instant Upload feature, part of the Google+ app on Android and iOS, ensures that any photo snapped along the way will be instantly saved to the cloud for safekeeping in a private album, no matter what happens to your phone. Once uploaded it's easy to go into your Google+ photos via the mobile app or your computer, view photos “From Phone” and then easily choose to share to the circles you want. In the case above, I took some sunrise pictures, sorted them on my computer when I got back from my trip and then shared them with my family (if you’re wondering how I shot that panorama above, here’s a tip—if you have the latest Android operating system you can take beautiful panorama pictures by clicking panoramic mode).

For a live, firsthand look at how you can use Google to plan your summer vacation, join us for a Hangout on Air at 10:30am PT tomorrow, Thursday, May 10, on the Google +page. We'll have some in-house experts on hand to show you how to use Google to take your dream vacation.

Of course, we don’t want to make it too easy on you. Part of the joy of traveling is being adventurous and encountering the unexpected. We hope these tools help make your travels more informed and enjoyable, without losing the thrill of spontaneity or that hidden gem you may find when you take a wrong turn. Bon voyage!

 

YUIDoc 0.3.0 is Official!

4:05 pm - May 9, 2012 in Yahoo! User Interface Blog

Today we are pleased to announce the official release of the new YUIDoc, our JavaScript documentation generator. YUIDoc is a Node.js application that generates API documentation from comments in source, using a syntax similar to tools like Javadoc and Doxygen. YUIDoc is currently powering the API documentation for YUI and has been actively updated over the last year.


Click for a larger image

[View Larger Image]

YUIDoc provides:

  • Live previews. YUIDoc includes a standalone doc server, making it trivial to preview your docs as you write.
  • Modern markup. YUIDoc’s generated documentation is an attractive, functional web application with real URLs and graceful fallbacks for spiders and other agents that can’t run JavaScript.
  • Wide language support. YUIDoc was originally designed for the YUI project, but it is not tied to any particular library or programming language. You can use it with any language that supports /* */ comment blocks.

Some of the new features added to this version are:

  • Markdown support in code comments
  • Support for many more tags out of the box
  • Logic separated to allow for easy extensibility
  • Better theming support
  • Server mode for development time previews
  • External data mixing
  • Easy cross platform installation
  • Cross-linking inside and out of current project
  • JSON based configuration

Let’s get into a little more detail on some of these:

Simple Installation

If you have Node.js and NPM installed, installation is easy:

npm -g install yuidocjs

Markdown support in code comments

YUIDoc will parse your comment with Markdown before it applies the Handlebars template giving you great flexibility when writing your docs.

Logic separated to allow for easy extensibility

YUIDoc uses YUI’s class infrastructure internally and exports all of these modules when you require the yuidocjs module. This allows end users to hook into YUIDoc’s internals and change the way it does things. You can extend classes, augment them or just flat out change methods to suite your needs.

Better theming support

In this release we use the built-in Y.Handlebars helper to handle all template generation. We have also taken development into consideration when building this feature. YUIDoc will first search it’s built in theme directory for partials, then it will search your local theme directory. This allows you to only have to maintain the files you wish to change in your theme and not have to copy every partial even if you are not modifying it.

Server mode for development time previews

This is my favorite new feature! You can fire up YUIDoc in server mode and it will give you live previews of your documentation as you edit it. Simply save your file and reload the page from the built in server and see your changes live. Including external data and cross-linking. You no longer have to generate the docs for your entire project just to see a documentation change!

External data mixing

YUIDoc now allows you to link your documentation to the rendered output from another YUIDoc instance. For example, if your project is using YUI and extending some of our core classes, you can link to our exported data.json file (from our YUIDoc build) and when YUIDoc parses your documentation it will fetch our data and cross-link all of your extended classes back to ours. This way you don’t have to document another projects code, you simply point over to their docs like it was part of yours.

Project Changes

All future YUIDoc development will be fully conducted on Github. We will be tracking the project on their wiki and using their issues to manage our tickets. It will be run like a native Node.js project completely in the open. We will also be using a Google Group for support requests, so sign up today!

We are also happy to report that YUIDoc’s unit tests are hosted on Travis-CI and will run per Github push!

What about the old version of YUIDoc?

The old Python source for YUIDoc is in a branch on the current Github repo where it will remain indefinately. There are no plans on accepting any pull requests or making any updates to that code base.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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2012.05.2123:46
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