Google Rolls Out Updates to Docs, Sites

Preview your docs in thumbnails, upload up to 1GB of files at a time, and other updates enhance your experience when using Docs and Sites.

On their blog earlier this week Google announced some exciting new features in Google Docs and Google Sites. New features released to both platforms are aimed at improving the overall user experience.

Updates to Docs:

• Users may now choose to view their documents in the standard detail list, or in a thumbnail view that lets the user preview the document before opening it.
• The document search function now includes spelling suggestions; this works just like the spelling corrections in Google Search. When you enter a misspelled word in the search box, Docs will prompt you with a different spelling.
  
• Upload documents up to 1GB in size. This is an increase from the current 250MB limit.

These updates affect all editions of Google Docs, including Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions.

To access the new features:

• Thumbnail view can be opened by clicking the new thumbnail icon located in the view options at the top right of the documents list panel.
  
• Google Docs search automatically offers a suggestion for the correct spelling of a word if you make a mistake entering it into the search field.
  
• Any document that is not being converted to a Google Doc has a file size limit of 1GB.

For more information about new features in docs, visit Google's Docs blog: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/thumbnail-is-worth-about-one-hundred.html

Updates to the Sites API:

• Copy sites and site templates using the site feed. It also now allows you to list, update, and create sites.
• Permissions can now be managed through the Access Control List (ACL). This means that sharing settings can be configured through the API.

To take advantage of updates to the API update the code at http://code.google.com/apis/sites.

For more information about new features in Sites, visit Google's Sites blog: http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/01/create-and-share-google-sites-with-new.html

For more information on getting started with Google Apps, please click here or call 866-997-0000, option 3.

Google Apps Updates: Translate a site, preview PDFs and page templates location released in Google Sites

In Google Sites you can now:

- Translate a site you visit that's not in your default language for Google Sites. This could be used by international co-workers to view the project site of a remote office if that project site is in the local language of that office.
- PDF files attached to pages and file cabinets can now be previewed with the Google Docs viewer so no need to download the file.
- You can now set a default location in your site for page templates.

Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages included:
All languages supported by Google Sites

How to access what's new:
- If you visit a site that's not in your chosen language for Sites, there is now a 'Translate' link at the bottom right of the page which will translate the site for you using Google Translate.
- For a PDF file in Sites, clicking on 'View' instead of 'Download' now previews that PDF in Google Docs viewer.
- When saving or modifying a page template, choose 'Default location' to specify a location in your site structure. If a page is then created using this template, then the default location will be what you've specified.

For more information:
http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/12/just-in-time-for-holidays-weve-added.html

For more information on getting started with Google Apps, please click here or call 866-997-0000, option 3.

MORE Great New Features in Google Apps!

If you get a message in your Gmail inbox from your cousin in Germany, a business associate in Mexico or a pen pal in Japan and it's written in their native language, the Labs folks at Google have another innovation for you. Using Google Translate technology, Gmail will offer to translate the message from the original language to your own default language (or any other language you choose).

To enable this feature, within Gmail click on Gmail Labs (either the tab or the green beaker icon) and click "enable" under Translation. When Gmail detects one of your messages is in a language other than your default language, you'll see a header at the top of the message. Click the link that says Translate message to.... Your message will be translated inline (no need to open a new tab or window).

In other Apps related news, Google has made some big updates to Google Sites including allowing for hierarchical navigation of your Site's pages, refreshing the edit menu to be more consistent with Google Docs and switched the site settings area to vertical navigation to prepare for upcoming features, one of which, according to Jens Alfke of Google, is Google AdSense integration.

(Hat tip to Google Operating System  and The Official Google Apps Blog )

Yahoo Shutters Geocities After 15 Year Run

The year was 1994. A fragment of the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter. Award winning actress Dakota Fanning was born in Conyers, Georgia. And an upstart dotcom - Beverly Hills Internet - later to be better known as Geocities was founded in Southern California.

Founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner Geocities offered users the opportunity to build and host webpages, chat boards and discussion forums, essentially social media before anyone knew what that meant. Yahoo bought Geocities for $2.9 billion in 1999 and announced Friday it would be shuttering the service by the end of the year. Tech writer Steven Shankland, posting at cnet News noted that while what Geocities offered is now a mainstay of the web - with sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter - "GeoCities turned out to be a backwater, not the mainstream. "

Geocities is no longer taking new sign-ups and is promising for now to continue to host existing sites until the end of the year, though there is no clear answer what will happen to users' sites after that.

Users of the service may want to consider migrating to Google Sites, a far more robust and highly collaborative offering that is integrated with Google Apps. Coincidentally, Google has announced that it is rolling up it's own page creation/hosting service - Google Page Creator - into Google Sites, offering users many additional features and much richer functionality.

Automatic transition of Page Creator pages to Google Sites

To make the transition to Google Sites as easy as possible for Page Creator users, we will be doing an automatic transition of Page Creator pages to Google Sites, which will include moving pages to Google Sites and redirecting visits to content in Page Creator to the new location on Google Sites.

Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages included:
All languages supported by Google Sites

How to access what's new:
The transition of Page Creator pages to Google Sites will happen automatically. From now until this transition begins on June 1, 2009, Page Creator users who don't want to be moved to Google Sites have the option to download their content, host it on another service, and redirect their existing Page Creator URLs. These options are available via the 'Learn more' link at the top of your Site Manager in Page Creator.

For more information:
http://googleappsposts.blogspot.com/2009/04/now-moving-to-google-sites.html

SADA Launches New Website Built Entirely on Google Sites

January 7, 2009-North Hollywood, CA:SADA Systems, Inc. is pleased to announce the beta release of the first major revision to their website in three years. The new website was in development for most of the last half of 2008. To streamline the website and make the content as immediately available to clients and website visitors as possible SADA elected to develop it entirely in Google Sites. Google Sites is a rich website creation solution that is part of the Google Apps suite of "software-as-service" products. Google Sites is a powerful, cloud-based communication and collaboration platform.

Building the site on the Google Sites platform provides SADA with the opportunity to explore the development of unique Google Gadgets some of which can currently be experienced on the website. It is SADA's intention that especially useful or practical gadgets developed for the website will be made available to the public in the future.

“Why would a company who has web designers and developers on staff use Google Sites for their own website," says Tony Safoian, president and CEO of SADA, "Simply because their time is better spent doing custom client work, and this new platform allows our marketing team to update our own website instantly and, without burning very expensive development hours." Safoian's comment refers to making the ability to update the website accessible to anybody within SADA's organization. Updates to content, images, even videos no longer have to go through a web designer to be applied. There is no code to edit, and no special knowledge is required. SADA hopes this will ultimately mean the website is constantly being updated with fresh content, and there will always be something new on the website that will keep website visitors coming back.

Google Sites provides a search box for all of their pages. This means that all content, on every page of SADA's new site is a searchable term. Visitors to SADA's website who are unsure how to find an article, or page, or specific content may enter search terms in the search box provided on the website. Google's own search engine then crawls the website and returns pages with content matching the visitor’s request. SADA hopes this will help make the new site easier to navigate, and more meaningful to website visitors.