Google Apps Status Dashboard

Yesterday Google released a special page called Apps Status Dashboard that will provide the updated information on the status of the operations of its main products like Gmail, Calendar, GTalk, Docs and many more.

According to Google the information status shown in the dashboard also reflects the current conditions of the services that organization through the use of Google Apps

So next time if Gmail account goes for a hitch then you can check up with Google Apps Status Dashboard to see if it’s only you or else it’s a problem with Google server.

[via: Apps Status Dashboard]

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Gmail Update: Multi-Select and Progress Bars for Attachments

Today one more update has been made by Google in Gmail with its attachments. There are two new features introduced with Gmail attachments:

1. Multi-select files.
2. Progress or Status bar for the uploaded files.

Multi-select files:

This works when you want to attach few files from the same folder in Gmail. You can select multiple files at one go or else earlier we had to select one file each time. This can be done simply by holding the “Ctrl” key (Cmd in case of OS X) and click on each file you want to attach. You can also use the “Shift” key by holding it and select a continuous list of files.

Progress bar:

Before you never knew how long a file will take to upload, now it will also show you the status on the progress bars on each file as it uploads.

Note: At the time of selecting multiple files you should not exceed Gmail attachment limit which is 20MB.

[via: Official Gmail Blog]

New in Gmail Labs: Title Tweaks

This is a tiny new feature in Gmail Labs: Title Tweaks. It will change the order of the elements in the browser title bar to put the more important things first as shown in the snap-shots.

Steps to enable Location in Signature:

1. Login to Gmail.
2. Go to the following path Setting –> Labs tab and scroll down to locate “Title Tweaks”.

3. Select “Enable” and then click “Save Changes”.
4. You are done.

After enabling this tiny new feature you will be able (most of the time) to see if a new mail has arrived even if Gmail window is minimized. For example it will change the order of elements in the browser title bar from "Gmail - Inbox (20) - ravishmody@gmail.com" to "Inbox (20) - ravishmody@gmail.com - Gmail".

[via – Offical Gmail Blog]

Orkut is now available with WebPage VoiceMail Inbox Gadget

After Friendster and Ning now its turn for Orkut to have VoiceMail Inbox Gadget which is brought by MeterNet's WebPage VoiceMail (WPVM).

Features of WPVM Services:

1. WPVM subscribers on Orkut can easily receive voice messages on their profile.
2. They will not reveal your email id or contact numbers.
3. As it’s an online voice mail system that allows subscribers to receive free message calls from anyone, anywhere, thru any Internet browser on PC or Mac computers.
4. You can also enjoy automated 24x7 email notification.
5. You will get online retrieval of your voice mail messages anytime thru the WPVM Inbox Gadget.
6. It has a low flat rate pricing...as low as $5.00 per month on Annual Plan.
7. Subscribers can also enjoy freedom from any per-minute charges or advertisement clutter.
8. WPVM service runs on VM1, the Internet VoiceMail Network.

To add WPVM into your Orkut page follow these steps:

1. Subscribe to WPVM via PayPal (Annual or Quarterly Plan).
2. Log-in to your Orkut
3. Go to Orkut's Application Directory and look for "Meternet" using the search box.
4. Click Add Application.

Other then Orkut, WPVM subscribers can also use there Internet voicemail accounts on other social networks, blogs, emails and company website.

[via: 1888PressRelease]

New Update: - 3 New Themes of Carnaval in Orkut

Now you can also join the revelry of Carnaval with 3 new themes in Orkut which has been launched.

Check out the snap-shot shown below of the 3 new themes of Carnaval in your Orkut profile.

1. Carnaval in Rio!

2. Elements of Carnaval

3. Characters of Carnaval

Steps to get these themes in your Orkut profile:

1. Login in Orkut
2. On top of your orkut profile click Carnaval
   
3. You will see these 3 themes
   
4. Click on the theme you like
5. Press update button.
6. You are done.

What is Carnaval?

It is an annual celebration of life found in many countries of the world. And in fact, by learning more about carnival we can learn more about ourselves and a lot about accepting and understanding other cultures.

Carnival (Carnaval in Portuguese) is celebrated in towns and villages throughout Brazil and other Catholic countries. Rio de Janeiro has long been regarded as the Carnival Capital of the World.

We all non Brazil Orkut users should thank Google and Orkut team for letting us join the great festive season.

Have a great time at Carnival!

Tenha um ótimo tempo no Carnaval!

(In Portuguese)

Create your own theme colors in Gmail

From the day Google has launched themes in Gmail and Orkut everyone is trying to create there own themes and use there own colors in the theme. So Google has worked on it and today they have launched with a new option “Choose your own colors” in Gmail theme.

You can see this option in the following path:

Setting -> Theme tab and scroll down to locate “Choose your own colors”

Click on it and you'll get a pop-up in which you will be able to select colors for everything from background of your inbox to the link of the text.

Now you can play with your favorite colors and create your own theme everyday by mix- matching the colors. If you get carried out with lot of mix - matching and lost the track of colors then you can always use the “Reset” button at the bottom, which would revert to the default colors.

Note: Companies that use Google Apps would not be able to see this option for themes yet, but don't worry Google is working on it.

Hope Google gets this option with Orkut themes also !!

via: Official Gmail Blog

Can’t send scraps to your friends in Orkut?

These days lot of people are facing one error massage which comes up saying ”You are temporarily unable to perform this action. Try again later." when they are trying to send scraps to your friends in Orkut.

What went wrong?

This message is displayed because sending scraps or adding friends can be performed only for certain number of times within a day. If you have exceed a certain limits you’ll see this error message:

“You are temporarily unable to perform this action. Try again later.”

Why do Orkut have this limit?

The reason behind Orkut have to use this certain number of limits are because of spam’s and viruses which targets your profile. To avoid this Orkut has a limit on how many action you can perform in a certain amount of time.

How long do you have to wait?

If you are getting this error displayed in your profile then you are temporarily have been blocked to send scrap to your friends. You have wait approximately 7-8 hours, after that it should work normally.

Link: Orkut Help

New in Gmail Labs: Location in Signature

Google has added one more new feature in Gmail Labs: Location in Signature. This time it is for those who love to travel, now you do not have to write every time where you are. After enabling this feature it will use your public IP address to determine your location and will append your location to your signature.

Steps to enable Location in Signature:

1. Login to Gmail.
2. Go to the following path Setting –> Labs tab and scroll down to locate “Location in Signature”.
3. Select “Enable” and then click “Save Changes”.
4. Now in Setting –> General tab and scroll down to locate”Signature”.
5. Check “Append your location to the signature” and then click “Save Changes”.
6. After enabling this feature when you click Compose Mail you might get a pop-up.
7. You are done, now whenever you want to write a mail you will see that your location is appended to your signature.

Note:

1. The location may not always be that accurate.
2. Make sure your browser has a version of Gears that supports the location module

via: Official Gmail Blog

New in Gmail Labs: Multiple Inboxes

Today Google added one more new feature in Gmail Labs: Multiple Inboxes. This allows you to implement multiple input boxes, making it possible to organize and highlight the new arrival messages displayed under setting. So now you can have a better customized view of your mails which is very easy to handle them at a glance.

You can enable this feature from the following path:
Settings -> Labs tab: Multiple Inboxes

To organize the multiple inboxes from the below path:
Settings-> Multiple Inboxes

After activating the new feature you can customize new messages with these lists

1. Drafts
2. Markers
3. Starred
4. Archived drafts
5. Special filters.

Through the "Multiple Inbox" within the settings page, you can also configure the number of conversations to display and positioning of the panels. This is one of the Labs features which is loved my most of the Gmail users. You can also give your feedback to improve this feature.

via: Official Gmail Blog

Google Phone Search is now in Mumbai & Bangalore

Yesterday Google Phone Search was launched for Mumbai and Bangalore users. Last year this service was available for Hyderabad and Delhi users. You can call a toll free number and search for local businesses like restaurants, movie timings and real time flight status from any phone number (landline or mobile).

This is a great service which gives you the power of Google search on the go and the best part is at completely free of cost.

Google Phone Search is a combination of advance speech recognition technology. By this technology you can get the information quickly and efficiently. You will get the information sent to you via free SMS.

Note:
1. Google Phone Search is still in its pilot stage and is available to users in Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, India only.
2. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users.
3. We're fine-tuning the service to serve you better.
4. It is currently only available in English, Hindi and Telugu.

Via: Official Google India Blog

Google Rolls in Internet Bus Project in India

Few days back Google Launched an unusual but a unique project in India which is Internet Bus Project. The reason behind this project is to show the benefits of the internet to the people across the cities of India.

This bus will cover numerous cities of Tamil Nadu over the next month and a half and will be busy to show most of the internet benefits with a focus on the four themes

1. Education
2. Information
3. Communication and
4. Entertainment

Internet Bus will show useful and informative content in English and Tamil. They will be showcasing how internet can make everyday life simple through services like search, email, social networking, maps etc.

Google is trying to reach those people who have limited exposure to the internet and to directly engage with the offline population of India. To see when this Internet Bus will visit your city and to get regular updates, view photos, videos as they travel around Tamil Nadu visit http://www.google.co.in/internetbus

Via: Official Google India Blog | Official Google Blog

New “Move to” and “Labels” buttons in Gmail

Labels are used to sort out the mails in Gmail, for example - mails from friends, from work, some important mail, etc which helps us to find them easily next time we want to. Most of us follow this process which is very common, but for it we had to do complicated steps. For an instance if you wished to move an email from your inbox to a label you had to first apply a label to it. To label an email you had to go to “More actions” menu button and then you had to click “Archive” button.

Now after introducing these to buttons “Move to” and “Labels” Google has made things easier for us. Usages of the new buttons are given bellow:

“Move to” button- You can label and archive an email in a single step.
“Labels” button - To add or remove a label.

These buttons would be more helpful for those people who have lot of labels, as it uses auto-complete. It looks as they also have a search bar which will help to select the label just by typing the first couple of characters.

Google will be adding keyboard shortcuts for them, “v” for “Move to” and “l” (lowercase L) for “Labels”. For using these shortcuts you should have keyboard shortcuts turned on.

Note: These changes are for everyone and as it has been launched today so it is in process that might be the reason you may not see these buttons right away.

Via | Image Credit: Official Gmail
Credit: Emil A Eklund, Gmail engineer

Orkut Sharing Completes 1 Year

One year back on this day I had posted my first post for Orkut Sharing. I started blogging to share my ideas, knowledge, information for orkut and keeping Orkut in mind I started this blog. But over the time I started sharing information about Gmail, Google, Firefox. I eventually gained knowledge about them and this will grow on because Orkut Sharing is now more about sharing everything.

When I started Orkut Sharing it was a slow growth and recently it has started to gain its popularity because of all you readers and subscribers of Orkut Sharing. I would like to thank you guys for making a fabulous year for me as well for our Orkut Sharing.

Everyday I use to sit and see how far Orkut sharing has reached, what all have been searched, who all have visited. This helped me to understand what reader’s liked about Orkut Sharing and how to increase the popularity.

Talking about popularity which has increased because of some of the best blogger’s and blog’s. I would like to thank

1. Darnell Clayton from InsideOrkut
2. Bhavya Siddappa from Bhavyavoice
3. Swashata from Blakut

There are many other great blogger’s and blog’s I follow which are doing great in there domains:

1. Gaurav Dua from OrkutPlus
2. Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration
3. Vishal Gaikar from Orkutting-tricks
4. Pavan Kumar from TechPavan

I know above graph still does not have good numbers but I believe in Orkut Sharing and will try my best to share more information. For this I would like your precious feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. to improve Orkut Sharing.