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H: Language limitation when organizing a meeting with Doodle.com
I'm organizing an international meeting. I prepare the Doodle in Dutch, but the Doodle link doesn't allow me to tweak the language setting, see example URL:
doodle.com/agqrgrgrg (arbitrarily chosen letters)
How do I present the people, to whom I send the URL, the English language?
AI: People will see your poll in the language that they configured in their browsers as their preferred language (provided that Doodle supports that language). Furthermore, users can always switch to a different language using the appropriate link in the footer: |
H: Does Google Drive store files locally on your machine?
We've use Google Apps for Business, more specifically Google Drive extensively at work.
So much so if it went down / our data went missing, we would be stuck.
We've already turned on 2 set authentication on all accounts, but to be doubly sure we want to take regular backups. We're looking at Backupify and a couple of others who offer automated backups.
But I was looking at my "Google Drive" folder (bellow) on my machine (Mac); it seems as if these files are sitting on my machine, but looking at the file sizes, plus opening them when not connected to the internet they seem to just be hyperlinks to the files online.
Is there a way to get Google Drive to actually sync a full copy of each document back to your local machine? As this would be an alternative to backing up the docs account.
AI: The gdoc and gsheet files are, as you've discovered, simply pointers to the online version(s) of the file(s). (This only happens if you have the Google Docs app on your PC or Mac, of course.)
The only way to make local backups of the files so that they contain your actual data would be to convert them to a different format. Converting a gdoc to a Word file and keeping it in the same directory would give you what you want, but converting files certainly isn't automatic.
Is it necessary, though? Google Drive/Docs is already keeping revision information, plus anything you delete goes to the "Trash" and doesn't get really deleted for 30 days (at least).
Of course, things might be a bit different for Google Apps. Certainly part of your agreement with Google is the ability to get to backups of your data in cases of vandalism/hacking/etc., no?
You might also look into the Data Liberation Front to see what data you can extract, although I don't know if that would be useful in your case. |
H: Why is Twitter not shortening my URL; which share functionality should I use?
I am currently using the share functionality of Twitter, but for some reason it's not shortening my URL. Why? And how can I fix this?
For example, if you click the link below you will see that my URL is not being shortened:
https://twitter.com/share?url=http://example.com/really-long-url-that-does-not-get-shortened&text=Random text here for sure..
How do I get Twitter to shorten it automatically?
AI: It is doing it just fine - after you post it. You can tell by seeing that the left over character count does not reflect the length of the full URL. |
H: How do I publicly share a folder in Owncloud 4.5?
I want to create a public folder (like Dropbox) in my owncloud installation where I can put files that others can access without having to create an account.
Is this possible with owncloud 4.5.x?
AI: It is quite simple though, just do the following:
Login to your owncloud account at your server
Navigate your mouse to the folder that you wanted to share
You will see that Rename, Share and Download will appear
Tick Share with Link and share that link with anyone that you want to or you can use the mailing feature to email the link to those who you want. |
H: Can I post to a Google+ community and to my circles at one time?
If I post content to a private Google+ community to which I belong, is there a way to simultaneously post the content to my circles?
I know there are two setting for private G+ communities (community content is sharable or not), but is there a way to designate where my own posts end up, without having to post the same content twice (once to the community and once to my circles)?
AI: In short: no.
At the moment, you cannot post a message to your circles and to a community (public or private) at the same time. There are some legitimate concerns that if you do so you're exposing the community (or comments from members in the community) to people who are not in the community, and may not even be aware of its existence. While this may be ok for some private communities, it is probably not what most expect, which is a truly private place to talk.
Combining the two is a very tricky thing to navigate when it comes to private communities, and I don't expect them to address this issue further. But if you want to provide your input, and provide specific use cases where you think it makes sense and how you would like the privacy issues handled, make sure you use the Send feedback feature available under the gear icon. |
H: Reordering todo lists in trello cards
is there a way to reorder todo lists within a card? If not, I would like to see such a feature implemented.
AI: Update: Trello now has checklist reordering. (source)
Since the lists sort alphabetically/numerically, a simple workaround is to number them. E.g.:
1 - My first feature
2 - Another feature
etc. |
H: Canceling a Mega account
I just made an account on Mega that I want to cancel, but I can’t find any option for doing this. So, how do you cancel a Mega account?
AI: From their terms of service:
Suspension and Termination
21) You can terminate your access to the website and our services at any time by sending an email to support@mega.co.nz requesting termination. However, we will not provide any part- refund for any time not used on any subscription you may have. |
H: Is there a web site offering to browse a cloud of semantically related words?
Is there a web site offering to browse a cloud of semantically related words?
For example to enter "coffee" and get "drink", "aroma", "stimulation", "brown", "latte", "cappuccino", "arabica", "starbucks" "milk", "cup", "liquid", "morning", "cafeteria", "caffeine", etc...
AI: Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus seems to fit the bill as well as anything I'm aware of. It is, however, a paid service. Of course, being a thesaurus, its focus is on words related by definition, making more tangentially-related words less likely to appear (such as 'drink' and 'cream' in your example). However, it does have certain relations such as "type of" or "is similar to" which help. As an added bonus, VT uses an interactive force-directed node map to display all this. The results for 'coffee' happen to be particularly unexciting, but I encourage you to go try out the demo version on their website. |
H: Is there a web application that tracks visitors to a specific web page?
I would like a web app that tracks visitors to a certain web page of a big website. i.e. a page in TMZ or my YouTube channel. I would also like to be able to track whether they came from a link or inputted the url manually. Is there a tool like that?
Edit: I don't own the webpage so I have no access to the source code.
Edit 2: The exact reason I need it is because I'm making a puzzle with a giveaway for a forum I frequent, and it would be an extra measure to detect leakage.
AI: If you own the website then Google Analytics is the way to go.
If you don't own the website then it'll be a lot trickier. You can use something like Alexa ranks to track traffic generically, but that won't tell you anything about specific traffic.
Or if you'd rather track the traffic you are sending to that page from your link I'd suggest linking to the page from a bit.ly link which will let you track clicks on your specific link. |
H: What's the two circles on Myspace for?
When I click on it it becomes one circle, but doesn't explain what it's for.
Has anyone discovered what's it for?
AI: Two empty rings: You're not connected.
First ring full, second empty: You're connected to the person, but he is not connected to you.
First ring empty, second full: The person is connected to you, but you have not connected to him.
Single full ring: The connection is mutual, reciprocated by both parties. |
H: Automatically add values before and after a value in a Google spreadsheet
I have a library of flags online and would like to have a client-foolproof solution for adding flags.
Right now my function looks like this:
=image("http://www.website.com/flags/us.png", 3)
But I would like to just write "us" and the let the functions add this before:
=image("http://www.website.com/flags/
And this after:
.png", 3)
is this even possible?
AI: Yes, you can do it with function CONCATENATE to combine the strings. Assume the word us is in A1, you can add below forumla to B1,
=IMAGE(CONCATENATE("http://www.website.com/flags/",A1,".png"), 3)
You can also use function CONCAT too, but it is less useful as it only accepts two strings as parameters. |
H: Is there a difference between clicking "reply" and writing a new tweet with @somesone?
On Twitter web, when I click the reply button for a tweet, there's @someone inserted in front of the message automatically.
Is there any difference compared to writing a new Tweet and entering @someone manually?
AI: There is a difference. When you click "reply", your Tweet will be associated to this other Tweet and shown as "in reply to…" it.
If you simply add @username to a Tweet, this won't be linked to another tweet—only the user.
From Everything You Need To Know About Twitter Replies and Mentions:
Mentions were adopted by Twitter when people started using @replies to reference other Tweeps in their tweets. The difference between replies and mentions is that when you mention someone you might not be talking directly to them. In this case, all of your followers would see your Tweet regardless of whether they are following the person you are mentioning or not.
Mentions won’t have the “in reply to ..” text because they are not necessarily directed at anyone.
Also, IIRC, Tweets starting with an @username won't show for your followers, regardless of whether they're replies or just mentions. |
H: When will Facebook Graph Search be available for me?
I've clicked to join the beta for Facebook Graph Search, but I still cannot access the feature.
When will it be rolled out to the public? Is there any way to circumvent the "beta wall" and gain access now?
AI: From the press release:
The roll out is going to be slow so we can see how people use Graph
Search and make improvements.
and
How are you rolling this out?
Graph Search is in a limited preview, or beta. That means Graph Search will only be available to a very small number of people who use Facebook in US English.
How can I get Facebook Graph Search?
You can sign up for the waitlist at www.facebook.com/graphsearch
As the button you clicked says, you've joined a waiting list for the beta. Facebook will be very slow and cautious rolling this out, the world is watching. |
H: How do I see all of my Facebook "Likes" and, if necessary, remove them?
With the imminent release of Graph Search, I am a little concerned about what Graph Search results in which I may be found.
Where can I go to see all of the pages/links/etc. I have "Liked"? How can I remove these in bulk?
AI: Go to your profile page and check your Activity Log. You can filter the activity by type and that should help you. |
H: How do I use "incremental reveal" with the new Google Drive Presentation creator?
I am using Google Drive to create a presentation in which I have four square objects. I want one to be revealed each time I click (I think the old phrasing was: "incremental reveal").
Is there any way to do this other than creating four separate slides with each keyframe?
AI: You'll have to set them up as animations to show when you actually present the slides.
To set these up, create the four objects you'd like to reveal incrementally.
Right-click on the first object you want to reveal and select Animate
The animation right navigation menu will appear, allowing you to select how you want the object to appear (fade in, etc) as well as the timing of the reveal (slow, fast). You can also define what action will cause the object to animate (defaults to on-click)
Repeat process for the remaining 3 objects
You'll see the final product of all the animations in the right-menu. Once you create all the animations you want, you can reorder, change, or remove the existing animations, as well as add new ones.
Here's a screenshot (below) as well as a link to the help article on creating animations. |
H: How to access resources turned up in description of Google results?
This happens to me a lot, and I'm sure I can't be the only one. It goes like this:
I google something very, very specific.
One of the results will be something generic, like "housesforsale.com," but in the result sample/description beneath the main link, I'll see a snippet of exactly what I'm looking for, a perfect text match.
I click the link, and it only brings me to the main site, like housesforsale.com, and no amount of searching through the site ever turns up the location of that specific snippet which MUST be there somewhere.
How can I get around this problem?
AI: I've had this happen a lot, too.
Firstly, you need to understand that there's a problem with your statement
"that specific snippet which MUST be there somewhere."
What would make it correct is to say
"that specific snippet which MUST HAVE BEEN there somewhere, at the
time when Google last indexed it."
Once you understand that, look harder at the types of sites that you're seeing that supposedly have your search-term.
For me, they're usually heavy on advertising, with little or no real content. Kind of like the spammers of the internet-search world (I don't know the official terms for them), these folks seem to make sites that have all sorts of interesting content, that is totally unrelated to their site's real topic. They get indexed, and stay in the index until Google works out that they're rubbish and de-indexes them. But during the time in-between, they come up in search results.
YMMV - but in general, the answer is to apply discernment to the URLs of the presented search-results, as well as the snippet, and only follow up URLs that I your judge to have a high chance of being good for the type of item you are searching for. |
H: Facebook poll with anonymous voting capability
I want to create a poll in a group. The requirement is that the list of voters who voted for each option should be hidden from everyone, including me. Only the number of votes for each option should be shown to everyone.
Is this possible?
AI: I am sorry to say so, but it is not possible.
Anyhow, there is a work around: You can have the poll on some other website and have a post in facebook linking to the poll. |
H: Set reminders for subscribed calendar individually
When you subscribe to a calendar in Google Calendar you can globally set default reminders for the particular feed in settings. But I find that I can't change those reminder settings for individual events in the feed. I keep getting "failed to save changes" (or something like that).
Is this just not possible in Google Calendar?
AI: You could copy an individual event to one of your calendars and set the event reminder on that. If it clutters your calendar too much, you might create a special calendar ("Reminders") just for that that you don't display with your other calendars. |
H: Pushing a commit to github with "closes #XXX" does not close the issue
The only thing I can think of is that the commit was in a branch other than master. Does GitHub only watch the master branch for issue tags in commits?
The issue also doesn't have the commit attached to it, though the link to the issue from the commit works.
AI: GitHub will now only auto-close an issue via merged commit if it's brought into the default branch. This is usually, and by default, the master or main branch.
Until then the issue will remain open or one of the repo collaborators can manually close it. |
H: Alternatives to discontinued Google Calendar Appointment Slots
On January 4th, Google shut down the appointment slots feature of Calendar. I have been using it intensively, it had just the right set of features for me and now I'm searching for a replacement. Do you know an online appointment system which fulfills the following requirements?
free
lightweight: users who want to book needn't create a new account (if one can signup using their Google account, that's also good), fill in forms with multiple pages (like timetrade.com does), or confirm their bookings via email (like scheduleonce.com does)
there can be multiple calendars (I used it to represent multiple appointment places)
(optional bonus: booking users can see their calendars during booking to avoid booking time slots during which they are busy)
AI: Now I use YouCanBook.Me with the "On duty events" hack described here. It uses Google Calendar, one can set up multiple profiles (I do it per appointment places I have), and has a lot of configurable options. Since the booking is public, the booking form contains a captcha field, but that is a minor inconvenience. |
H: How to re-use Google Apps Scripts in new Google Spreadsheet
I'm having an issue. Whenever I create a new spreadsheet, I'm not able to add a script I've already created. The list for recent projects or scripts is always blank. Anyone have a resolution or do I always have to copy the script code and insert it into the spreadsheet?
AI: You can add your script as a library in the new spreadsheet. Lets start from the beginning. This sample code will add a string to the active cell:
function libTest(text) {
var sh = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet()
.getActiveSheet().getActiveCell();
sh.setValue(text);
}
Save the script, by creating a version:
Next, copy the Project Key from the script editor:
Publish the script as a web app (execute only you):
In the new spreadsheet, open the script editor. Chose Manage Libraries from the resources option and enter and select the key/library:
In the script editor you can now add the following code:
function test(){
libTest.libTest("jacobjan");
} |
H: What is causing Google Voice upload quality to deteriorate at 30 minutes?
I use Google Voice to make and receive phone calls on my computer. I've found that after being on the phone for 30 minutes, the other party starts to hear me as garbled, I can continue to hear them fine. Hanging up and calling back immediately resolves the issue.
What could be the source of this issue that causes the upload for VOIP to deteriorate and my voice becomes garbled to the listener after talking for 30 minutes?
AI: I had this problem, and it turned out to be the USB headset I was using on my Mac. It would get further and further out of sync (audio was delayed) as the call progressed, until about 30 minutes in when my voice would be garbled for a little while and it would then get back in sync, and then repeat. I had another USB audio device so I switched to that, which fixed it. |
H: Get rid of row in result of Google Spreadsheets query
I use the following formula in my Google Spreadsheet:
QUERY(Inkomster!A2:G;"SELECT SUM(C) WHERE G="&B3&" AND F='"&A3&"'")
This returns the following (On two different rows that is)
H1=sum
H2=3720
I don't want the result of the query to return two rows, I'm not interested in the first row. Just the second one. How can I accomplish that?
AI: You can use the following formula for that:
INDEX(QUERY(Inkomster!A2:G;"SELECT SUM(C) WHERE G="&B3&" AND F='"&A3&"'"),2,0)
The 2 references the row number and the 0 or 1 references the column number |
H: Already loaded video data is being discarded
As you probably know, the YouTube video player caches the loaded portions of the video so one can seek to any previously-loaded part of the video without re-downloading it. When viewing a video and the playback stops in order for the player to buffer more of the video, I usually go back to a previous already-downloaded point (less boring than staring at the throbber).
After I click on the orange area:
the player seems to discard the cached file and start re-downloading the video starting at the specified point. This has been happening for quite a while, and it's bothering on my low-speed connection.
Why is this happening and is there a workaround?
I tried using the experimental HTML5 player; it showed the same issue.
AI: It's a bug that YouTube needs to fix. As the player is Flash, there's no possible workaround for this issue. But there's a better way to watch YouTube videos from a PC video player called VLC, if you don't have VLC, search the web for download links.
Open VLC Player -> Click the Media tab in the menu bar -> Select Open Network Stream and paste the URL to the YouTube video you want to watch.
Tip #1: You can also play a playlist, just paste the URL to your playlist. |
H: SPLIT function in Google Spreadsheets with OR statement
I want to use the split function, but with different delimiters. I thought of something like this: =SPLIT(A:A;OR("-","&")) but it doesn't work.
Is it possible to have Boolean statements within a SPLIT function?
AI: The help says:
SPLIT(string, delimiter, treat_delimiters_individually)
so for text in A1 the function is
=SPLIT(A1,"-&",true) |
H: View estimated size of GitHub repository before cloning
I want to view the total repo size of a project hosted on GitHub without having to clone it. Sometimes I do this:
Start cloning some GitHub repository
Receiving objects: 45% (218/476), 5.50 MiB | 27 KiB/s
Already drained 5MB? Suspend...
^Z
Clone the repository on a server with a normal internet connection just to see its size.
Continue (or abort) the local cloning.
How do I find out the repository size in advance? In the search I see repository size, but not in other places.
AI: Using Github API:
$ echo https://github.com/hlamer/enki.git | perl -ne 'print $1 if m!([^/]+/[^/]+?)(?:\.git)?$!' | xargs -i curl -s -k https://api.github.com/repos/'{}' | grep size
"size": 284, |
H: Export YouTube subscribers as text list
Is there any way to export all YouTube subscribers as a text list?
Is there any API, or something?
AI: YouTube Data API provides you the option to retrieve subscribers list
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/subscriptions/list
Making an authorized request on this URL you will get a JSON response with your subscribers:
https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/subscriptions?part=snippet&mySubscribers=true&key={YOUR_API_KEY} |
H: How to change profile picture in Spotify?
Is there any way to change one's profile picture in Spotify?
AI: At the moment, it doesn't appear that is possible. See the official feature request at the Spotify community page. |
H: Remove Disqus hashtags from URL
I'm new to Disqus and have just added it to my blog site.
However, I've noticed that upon Disqus loading via JavaScript, it adds a hashtag to the page’s URL:
Why is this? Is there a setting to opt-out of it?
AI: Are you sure Disqus is adding it ?
It's some kind of stat tracking hashtag and I am a bit sure it is by AddThis (might be some other site too). If you have AddThis share widget on your web page then you probably have enabled tracking for it, to get rid of it just remove this line of code from the AddThis snippet :
<script type="text/javascript">var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true};</script> |
H: How do I opt out of emello?
I just went upto step 3 of emello, but don't want to use it any further. How do I opt out of allowing it to access my mail and to make changes to my trello cards?
AI: For Google account access: If you want to disconnect your Google account from Emello, then:
Go to your accounts page (google.com/account)
Click Security in the left hand menu
Under "Connected applications and sites" click on Manage access
This will bring you to the tokens page where you can view and revoke access for any application that has been connected with your Google account. Find "Emello" and revoke its access.
For Trello account access: If you want to disconnect your Trello account from Emello, then:
Sign in to Trello then go to your Account Settings
At the bottom of the settings dashboard is a section called "Applications."
Revoke access to Emello from there.
Hope this helps! |
H: How do I change my username on Trello after I set up my account with my Google account?
I set up my Trello account by using the "Log In With Google Account" option. That created a username for me.
I don't like that username.
Can it be changed? If so, how?
AI: Visit https://trello.com/your/account
Click Change Name, Initials, or Bio
Edit your username
Click Save |
H: Access Google Search tools faster
A feature in the Google Search I use often is the specification of the search area (in my case Switzerland) to find a product in my country.
But this important feature has been hidden in some "search tools" and then again a dropdown list to choose it.
Some weeks ago it was just one click - now it's 3 click and need to search the button and look at the nice animation...
Can I change the Google UI so that adding search parameters is fast again?
AI: Greasemonkey with Firefox and a userscript finally got Google back the way it should be! |
H: What happens when I submit my blog on ping sites like pingomatic.com?
After reading "what I should do after posting a blog" I submitted my blog URL in pingomatic.com.
Then I got "Pinging complete!" message which shows results as can be seen below. It say "Bookmark this page and come back to it later to automatically re-ping.". I don't actually understand how this works and what happens by this pinging process! Any explanations on how this webapp works?
Weblogs.com Ping sent.
Blo.gs Ping sent.
Feed Burner Ping sent.
My Yahoo! Ping sent.
...
AI: Pingomatic is a service which alerts (pings) multiple RSS aggregators/search engines in one action when there is a new post on your blog. This saves you from having to register your blog to all of the services individually.
From the Ping-O-Matic main page:
What is this?
Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated. |
H: Is there a way to be notified by email whenever there is a new item on Google Reader?
I want be notified from Google Reader via email each time a new item shows up in one of my rss feeds. Is that possible?
AI: This IFTTT recipe gets you most of the way there. You just need to tag all of the feeds from which you want this email alert with a particular tag. (Since feeds can have multiple tags, you could tag all of them if you want.)
Google Reader channel, New item tagged trigger
Gmail channel, send an email action
For every new item in Google Reader with a specific tag, sends an email message from your Gmail account to an address you have specified. |
H: Add headers to Google Spreadsheet chart
I have a chart in a spreadsheet. If I click on it and select 'advanced edit' > Start,
it offers to 'Use row 12 as headers'. How can I use a different row for the header names?
My data has rows for the headers, some rows of old data I dont want displayed, the data (which starts at row 12).
AI: Yes. On that same tab there is a selection for Data Select Ranges
On the popup, choose your HEADER row first. This is important. Then click on add another range.
Now choose your data. Click Ok
Under "combine ranges" choose vertically.
Make sure the box is checked that says "use row XX as a header". (this would be the first range you chose).
I think that is what you are looking for. |
H: Where can I find related Google searches for a given search query?
I've noticed that Google (and some other search engines, such as Bing) display related search results under a "People also search for" heading. Is it possible to view a complete list of related Google searches for a given search query (for example, google related searches?)
AI: Google Trends will show related searches and their search-popularity. |
H: Is there a filter delimiter in Google Spreadsheets?
I'm trying to build a list of servers in a Google Spreadsheet. Each server has multiple services, and I would like to be able to select a single service and see all the servers providing that service.
The problem I'm facing is the multiple services part. There's too many to provide a column for each service. Is there any sort of delimiter I can specify in the filter?
Or is there maybe a better way I can do this?
AI: There's a possibility to do that, but its a bit complicated.
Formula
=IF(LEN(B2)>1,INDEX(SPLIT(B2,";"),0,VLOOKUP(FILTERED!$B$1,$D$2:$E$4,2,0)),B2)
=FILTER(DATA!A:B,DATA!C:C=B1)
Explained
In the first sheet (DATA) all data is presented. One helper column is added to capture the logic. Based on the value entered in sheet FILTERED the VLOOKUP formula will find a number, that will be used for the index function ($D$2:$E$4). That will show only a specific column, given by the split function. In the FILTERED sheet the result of the DATA sheet will be in filtered by the entered value in FILTERED.
Screenshot
data
filtered
Example
I've prepared an example file for you: Is there a filter delimiter in Google Spreadsheets? |
H: Google Calendar event time
How can I set an event at a particular time? When you add an event, it expects a time range, and when you set a task, it doesn't allow you to specify the time by which the task must be completed. How else can I do this?
AI: The "Tasks" that is built into Google Calendar does not allow you to assign a specific time. If you'd like to do this in Google Calendar without using other tools, then you can set up every task as a normal event. Add a tag in the front of the Event title
[TODO] Finish writing thing for dude
This will help you identify tasks. You can also change the color of the event/task. You can also set up another calendar just to create Task Events, which you can then toggle on and off in the "My calendars" list. |
H: Default Gravatar on wildcard email addresses unless specified
I own my domain and I use different email addresses for different sites, depending on what the site does, whether I think they'll spam me, etc.
Is there a way to tell Gravatar to use a picture for *@example.com unless it's already been defined?
I realize the wildcard would need verification. Gravatar could use the contact information for the domain as a way to validate the request.
AI: It's impossible. Gravatar doesn't actually operate on email addresses but MD5 hashes of them. There's no way to relate email addresses that have the same portion after the @ sign. If you send Gravatar an email that's not specifically in its database, it has no way to even tell what domain you are asking about.
This is by design to ensure we all know Gravatar isn't collecting email addresses. Otherwise, people would be reluctant to check for a Gravatar -- if the person didn't have one, you'd be giving Gravatar their email address. |
H: Is Google Docs' Revision History a stable long-term audit trail?
Are all our changes logged, safe, saved, secure and downloadable? Has Google Docs committed to it all being seeable, shareable, protected and preserved?
Remembering what was said is important. I write about Language Evolution et al, so I need a memory, a change log, to show a path.
Important work and business needs reliable, transparent records, so is Google Docs able to recall and share what happens in a living documents' life?
Version history by Google Docs is advocated to give us all integrity, in creative processes, but I am cautious and curious if our full, true timelines will survive long-term.
AI: No guaranteed, faithful audit trail is given by Google Docs. Logs are lost by Google because of (1) deleterious forced upgrades (2) forced space optimization (3) no downloadable backups preventing loss.
Revisions Deleted by Upgrade: Google Docs' last official upgrade did not save, nor migrate, old Revision History to their new version, resulting in total data loss and no alternative. http://productforums.google.com/d/topic/docs/Tsd-E-bzsh8
Automatic Revision Pruning: Docs deletes versions to save space, but you cannot control it, nor mark versions to save forever. http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95902
No Downloadable-Publishable Revision History: Contrasting Google Docs' promise to share our work, only you and people who can edit your document are able to view Revision History, making real public transparency/accountability/downloadability difficult if not impossible.
Google is known for their likeable Data Liberation Policy. but it severely misinforms people who do not know Revision History is not faithfully backed up.
I welcome Google to commit to never losing anything you share and write, and optionally allow others equal transparency to see everything we save (or tried...) and share.
So if Google Docs' deleterious behavior continues, people will continue to be disappointed if their archived data is unpredictably, untrackably, so very loseable. |
H: Google spreadsheet sync with gCalendar
I create a GTD system based on excel, whose link I report here.
The advantage of having this gtd is that I can share it with my european colleagues without the need of having a dedicated software like Trello which is - yes! - great, but has to be understood by many people. And they are not going to spend more time on understanding it.
I know it is sad to say, but in the 3rd millennium there is still a lot of people who likes more working with excel rather than with dedicated software.
This said, I need to synchronize or quickly report the deadlines of the attached document (mostly the ones in the details of each task) in some calendar application (let's say iCal) so that I can have all the deadlines in one glance.
My question is (three questions actually):
is there a way to put the deadlines in iCal (or gCal or whatever) different from copying/pasting? Something practical and quick.
is there any other solution (included simple software) which still has the same simplicity and usability and that might be used by my colleagues (*)?
another solution could be using google spreadsheet. In this case you thing there is a simple way to sync with gCal?
(*) note on my colleagues: they belong to the science field. The all use excel, and - I say it for experience - are not going to learn another difficult tool. They will only use something very very simple.
AI: This should be possible using Google Script. There are some scripts in the Script Gallery that you might find interesting, like EventManagerV3 - Script - Import your events into Calendar in one click. This script relies on the Google Calendar APIs.
Although you will probably have to modify it to suit your needs, it could be a good starting point.
You need to define when data is to be pushed from your spreadsheet to your calendar. Will it be triggered on every change to the spreadsheet? Or is it enough to push data once a day?
You will also have to deal with duplicates - you don't want to create a new calendar event every time a row in your spreadsheet is updated.
To install the script, go to your Google Spreadsheet and click Tools -> Script gallery.
Another possible way is to write your own script, and publish it as a service, in effect creating a web endpoint to your spreadsheet. If you can get it to serve iCal formatted data (or another format that the Calendar software can use), you might be able to set up a subscription from your Calendar system to the spreadsheet endpoint.
I created a small example spreadsheet, and created a script that I published as a web service:
function doGet() {
var result = "";
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openById("0Avea1NXBTibYdGYzdlluUDV2R3FSTnBPU2JVNmFqeWc");
SpreadsheetApp.setActiveSpreadsheet(ss);
var values = ss.getSheetByName("Ark 1").getDataRange().getValues();
for (var i = 1; i < values.length; i++) {
result += values[i][0] + ": " + values[i][3] + "\n";
}
return ContentService.createTextOutput(result);
}
When invoking the web service, I get a list of events in plain text format.
Now, obviously, no calendar software will be able to parse that format, but it seems possible to create a proper iCal format by modifying the script. |
H: How do I create pull quotes in Google Docs?
Can I install an app to make pull quotes in Google Drive? Or can I somehow create them using clever tricks?
AI: I've done some research and came to the conclusion that it can't be done in Google Docs. This thread in the Google Product Forum shows all kinds of negative energy around this topic.
One user suggested taking a screenshot of a Google Spreadsheet that can be imported into the Google Doc: Jack Kleeman
UPDATE
Here's my own attempt:
I've included the Google-Documents file, with table color set black: Pull Quotes |
H: Can someone who doesn't have a Google account be given editing rights on a Google Sites?
I have used Google Sites to set up a wiki and now want to allow three other people to be able to contribute to the wiki (full edit permission).
Do they all need to have a Google account and do I need to know which email they use to log in to their Google account to be able to grant them this permission?
So I go to the site's Sharing and Permissions page, there's a place where you can Add people and assign rights. The box says, "Enter names, email addresses, or groups...".
If I know my friend's email address, can I just enter jill.smith@example.com or do I have to contact her first to get the email she uses to log into Google?
AI: From their Google support page:
Note that anyone you set as "Can view," "Can edit," or "Is owner" must have a Google Account or Google Apps Account to share your site.
So the only way you can give someone else editing rights, is to have the person sign up for a Google Account. |
H: If someone doesn't show his/her friends in Facebook, will that person appear in another friend's list?
If someone doesn't show his/her friends in Facebook, would that person appear in another friend's list?
I mean, I want to hide my friend list. I don't want to be related in terms of Facebook friendship with anyone.
If I hide the list, would I appear in my friend's friend list when a stranger looks at it?
I am referring to hiding the list from strangers (people who aren't my friends on Facebook).
AI: Yes you will be visible on your friends-friend list. AFAIK there is no way to disable this unless your friend too hides his/her friends list. |
H: Should I add all my domain names to a single google apps account?
I have a large amount of domain names. I also have a Google Apps account (not a business one, but I'm grandfathered into having 50 users before I have to upgrade, etc.)
Since I'm no longer able to keep these domains up to date, I wanted to add them to my Google Apps account. However, some of these domain names are linked to other google usernames and it seems like I can't add them until I delete the other google user' connection. These other users are not necessarily Google Apps accounts/users, but things like Google webmaster tools, analytics, adsense or adwords.)
So I wanted to know if this is a good idea to just add them all to one Google Apps account then delegate access via App's domain management? As opposed to each domain having it's own Google Apps account? Especially since I want to delegate control of some of the sites to other people and give these people access to adsense revenue, analytics, etc.
One of the issues I have noticed already, is that my old Google Apps account's root domain name is not changeable; at least as far as I can tell. Is this something changeable if I upgrade to the paid google business apps?
AI: It really depends on what kind of services you want enabled on the respective domains and what you need for each of them.
If you have 10 domains under your control, but 7 of them were registered to catch those spelling mistakes in accessing your main domain, then it would be good to add these 7 domains as an alias to your main domain in Google Apps.
As for the remaining 3 domains, lets say they were registered as special domain names for the different projects in your organization and not everyone in your organization is involved in that special project. If you don't require Google Sites for that domain, then you can just add the domain as another domain within your parent organization's Google Apps.
Like you said, adding all the domains into one Google Apps is good as it is a central area to control things, though it is subject to certain limitations. You should have a separate Google Apps if you want to enjoy all the benefits that a primary domain has, for that special domain name that you might have. |
H: Create hyperlink to Google Voice phone number
I want to add some hyperlinks to phone numbers on a web page, and I'm wondering if it's possible to do this using Google Voice. Is there any way to create a hyperlink to a Google Voice phone number (so that clicking the hyperlink would allow a user to call a specific phone number using Google Voice)?
AI: Not a hyperlink, but you can add a voicemail widget to your website.
About voicemail widgets
You can allow others to call you from your website or blog by adding a voicemail widget to it. Visitors to the website can click the widget, enter their phone number, and Google Voice will call them and connect the call to your Google number. Here's how you can set up a voicemail widget:
Go to the gear icon at the top right of the page.
Go to Voice settings.
Click the Voicemail Widgets tab.
Click the Add a new Voicemail Widget link.
Select the appropriate settings for your widget.
Click the Save Changes. Then, copy and paste the code in the 'Embed' field into your webpage, your blog, your auction or networking site, or anywhere you want.
You can customize each of your voicemail widgets. Here are the options:
Specific settings (so that callers go to voicemail or ring only certain phones)
Specific greetings
Turning call screening on and off |
H: IF OR Statements
How do you do an IF ... OR ... THEN statement in a Google spreadsheet? In PHP I would do this:
if($C7 == "U.S.A." || $C7 == "Canada"){ ...
How to do the same as a spreadsheet formula?
At the moment I have
= IF ( C7 = "U.S.A." , "The Americas" , "Europe" )
I'd like to say if C7 = "U.S.A." OR "Canada"...
NB: I should have been able to (and tried extensively to) Google this, but the search engine ignores the words IF and OR
AI: In Google Spreadsheets, OR is a function (with any number of arguments), so you would write
IF (OR(C7 = "U.S.A."; C7 = "Canada"); "The Americas"; "Europe")
See the example spreadsheet I set up.
Also, check the Google Spreadsheets function list.
Note that my example code uses ; - you might have to use ,, depending on your locale settings. |
H: How can I automatically publish my blog feed on my Facebook page?
We have got a blog for our company in which we post about issues related to our job; this enables us to share our posts with a limited number of people who directly visit our blog.
Besides, we have a Facebook page for our company which has a great number of fans who also could be good audience for our blog posts. Sharing our blog posts manually in our Facebook page is a burden, and we need a way to share our blog feed automatically on our Facebook page. But is there a way to share new posts on our Facebook page automatically?
UPDATE: As Eddie correctly stated, I should mention that we've used Drupal as our blog content management system, but I'm not specifically asking this question for a Drupal system and I prefer a more general solution.
AI: There are dozens of solutions to this.
Facebook used to let you use an RSS feed to create Notes, but they closed that door a long time ago.
This If-This-Then-That recipe (among many others) will create a link post on your Facebook Page Wall with every new post in your RSS feed. |
H: Hot keys to switch between tabs?
Does anyone know if there´s a shortcut to switch between tabs in Google Spreadsheets?
If you use CTRL+PgUp / CTRL+PgDown like in Excel you switch between Chrome or Firefox's tabs instead.
AI: Use the following short cuts.
Shotcuts
Ctrl + Shift + PageDown ==> Move to next sheet (Option + Down arrow on a Mac)
Ctrl + Shift + PageUp ==> Move to previous sheet (Option + Up arrow on a Mac)
Screenshot
Reference
Keyboard Accelerators |
H: Automatically switch to the speaking user in Google+ Hangouts
In Google+ Hangouts, I see that by default the user who is speaking gets his/her picture in the main viewing pane, but clicking on another user's picture in the lower pane puts him/her in the main viewing pane. But how do I restore automatic control?
In other words, after having clicked one of the users, how can I revert to having the currently-speaking user be automatically loaded into the main viewing pane?
AI: Simply click the user you prioritised again (they should have a blue outline around them) and Google+ Hangouts will resume automatically prioritising the user speaking loudest. |
H: How do I mail merge from Google Spreadsheet to a Google Document?
With Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, it is easy to merge rows from a spreadsheet into pages in a Word file. This was traditionally used to make paper mailings. How can I do the same with Google Drive / Google Docs?
There are plenty of templates that offer spreadsheet-to-email mail merge:
How do I do a mail merge with Gmail? but that's not what I'm after.
AI: You will need to write a Google Apps Script for that. You could let the first row of the spreadsheet be field names, and create a template document where the fields are referenced like [FIELD].
So if your spreadsheet looks like:
NAME | STREET | ZIP | TOWN
---------------------------------------------
Vidar | Karl Johans gate 15 | 0200 | Oslo
John | 3021 Arlington Road | 123456 | Memphis, TN
... you could have a template document like
Dear [NAME], living at [STREET], [TOWN] [ZIP] ...
Your script will need to create a new, empty document, and for each row in your spreadsheet, add a new page and search/replace the field placeholders with row values.
I have a somewhat working version, which might need some polishing. It can be invoked here. It will create a new document named Result of mail merge.
You could use it as a starting point for your own script. Let me know if you're into that, or I can spend some more time finishing the script.
Script content:
var selectedTemplateId = null;
var selectedSpreadsheetId = null;
var spreadsheetDocPicker = null;
var templateDocPicker = null;
function mailMerge(app) {
var app = UiApp.createApplication().setTitle("Mail Merge");
templateDocPicker = createFilePicker(app, "Choose template",
UiApp.FileType.DOCUMENTS, "templateSelectionHandler");
templateDocPicker.showDocsPicker();
return app;
};
function createFilePicker(app, title, fileType, selectionHandlerName) {
Logger.log("Creating file picker for " + fileType);
var docPicker = app.createDocsListDialog();
docPicker.setDialogTitle(title);
docPicker.setInitialView(fileType);
var selectionHandler = app.createServerHandler(selectionHandlerName);
docPicker.addSelectionHandler(selectionHandler);
return docPicker;
}
function templateSelectionHandler(e) {
var app = UiApp.getActiveApplication();
selectedTemplateId = e.parameter.items[0].id;
UserProperties.setProperty("templateId", e.parameter.items[0].id);
Logger.log("Selected template: " + selectedTemplateId);
var spreadsheetDocPicker = createFilePicker(app, "Choose spreadsheet",
UiApp.FileType.SPREADSHEETS, "spreadsheetSelectionHandler");
spreadsheetDocPicker.showDocsPicker();
return app;
}
function spreadsheetSelectionHandler(e) {
var app = UiApp.getActiveApplication();
UserProperties.setProperty("spreadsheetId", e.parameter.items[0].id);
selectedSpreadsheetId = e.parameter.items[0].id;
Logger.log("Selected spreadsheet: " + selectedSpreadsheetId);
doMerge();
return app;
}
function doMerge() {
var selectedSpreadsheetId = UserProperties.getProperty("spreadsheetId");
var selectedTemplateId = UserProperties.getProperty("templateId");
Logger.log("Selected spreadsheet: " + selectedSpreadsheetId);
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById(selectedSpreadsheetId);
Logger.log("Spreadsheet opened");
Logger.log("Opening template: " + selectedTemplateId);
var template = DocumentApp.openById(selectedTemplateId);
Logger.log("Template opened");
var templateFile = DocsList.getFileById(selectedTemplateId);
var templateDoc = DocumentApp.openById(templateFile.getId());
//var mergedFile = templateFile.makeCopy();
var mergedDoc = DocumentApp.create("Result of mail merge");
var bodyCopy = templateDoc.getActiveSection().copy();
Logger.log("Copy made");
var rows = sheet.getDataRange();
var numRows = rows.getNumRows();
var values = rows.getValues();
var fieldNames = values[0];
for (var i = 1; i < numRows; i++) {
var row = values[i];
Logger.log("Processing row " + i + " " + row);
var body = bodyCopy.copy();
for (var f = 0; f < fieldNames.length; f++) {
Logger.log("Processing field " + f + " " + fieldNames[f]);
Logger.log("Replacing [" + fieldNames[f] + "] with " + row[f]);
body.replaceText("\\[" + fieldNames[f] + "\\]", row[f]);
}
var numChildren = body.getNumChildren();
for (var c = 0; c < numChildren; c++) {
var child = body.getChild(c);
child = child.copy();
if (child.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.HORIZONTALRULE) {
mergedDoc.appendHorizontalRule(child);
} else if (child.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.INLINEIMAGE) {
mergedDoc.appendImage(child);
} else if (child.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH) {
mergedDoc.appendParagraph(child);
} else if (child.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.LISTITEM) {
mergedDoc.appendListItem(child);
} else if (child.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.TABLE) {
mergedDoc.appendTable(child);
} else {
Logger.log("Unknown element type: " + child);
}
}
Logger.log("Appending page break");
mergedDoc.appendPageBreak();
Logger.log("Result is now " + mergedDoc.getActiveSection().getText());
}
}
function testMerge() {
UserProperties.setProperty("templateId",
"1pAXWE0uklZ8z-O_Tejuv3pWSTiSv583ptUTGPt2Knm8");
UserProperties.setProperty("spreadsheetId",
"0Avea1NXBTibYdFo5QkZzWWlMYUhkclNSaFpRWUZOTUE");
doMerge();
}
function doGet() {
return mailMerge();
} |
H: How to split, trim, and sum up numbers in spreadsheet text cells?
I have a series of cells in a Google Spreadsheet containing string such as:
A1 = "X5.1 Y4.3 Z2.8"
B1 = "X2.5 Y1.9 Z4.8"
C1 = "X6.2 Y1.9 Z3.4"
I need to get the sum of all the numbers that appear inside the strings. In other words, to have a formula which will effectively sum 5.1+4.3+2.8+2.5+1.9+4.8+6.2+1.9+3.4 .
The number of cells to be summed in such a way is dynamic, and typically much more than 3.
Is there way to achieve this elegantly?
AI: If you have a row of data like A1:F1 you could use this formula in excel
=SUMPRODUCT((0&MID(A1:F1,{2;7;12;17;22},3))+0)
or this in google-spreadsheets
=arrayformula(SUM((0&MID(A1:F1,{2;7;12;17;22},3))+0))
That assumes each number is 3 characters like 3.5 and allows for up to 5 numbers per cell - you can extend the {2;7;12;17;22} part if there might be more than 5 per cell - or for high numbers that part can be automated based on cell length.
If you have a column of data like A1:A10 then the separators in {2;7;12;17;22} need to change to commas so that would be like this in excel
=SUMPRODUCT((0&MID(A1:A10,{2,7,12,17,22},3))+0)
or this in google-spreadsheets
=arrayformula(SUM((0&MID(A1:A10,{2,7,12,17,22},3))+0))
blank cells are allowed in the data so you could make that a larger range for expansion purposes.
Explanation:
If A1 contains this string X5.1 Y4.3 Z2.8 then
=MID(A1,{2,7,12,17,22},3)
will give you this "array"
{"5.1","4.3","2.8","",""}
Notice that the values are included in quotes which means they are text values (MID function like LEFT and RIGHT etc. always returns text values) so we need to convert these text strings to numbers before they can be summed - one way to convert is to do a mathematical operation on that array that won't change the values, e.g. *1 or +0. If we use the latter, though, we get this:
{"5.1","4.3","2.8","",""}+0 = {5.1,4.3,2.8,#VALUE!,#VALUE!}
applying +0 to the non-numeric blank [""] values gives #VALUE! error....which is a problem if we want to sum the results.......so, before adding zero we can concatenate a zero to the front of each result, e.g. using
=0&MID(A1,{2,7,12,17,22},3)
gives the result
={"05.1","04.3","02.8","0","0"}
concatenating a zero to the front of each number won't chage the value of the numeric values but converts the blanks to zeroes, so now when zero is added we get no errors, just:
{5.1,4.3,2.8,0,0}
which can be summed without error.
Extending the range to A1:A10 simply means that the resultant array is 10x5 rather than 1x5 - everything else works the same way....... |
H: COUNTIF but when multiple conditions are met
I'm trying to create a GDocs spreadsheet to collate data from a survey. I'm fairly new to the advanced features of GDocs/Excel but here's what I'd like to achieve. I've tried Googling but it's a tough thing to search.
I currently have a COUNTIF formula that looks like this:
COUNTIF( 'Survey Data'!F2:F200; "Divisional Exec" )
This works fine. But I would like to refine that. So I want to count the number of times a string appears when COLUMN A = 'ACT' and when COLUMN F = 'Divisional Exec' in the same row.
Is this possible to do in Google Spreadsheets? If so how do I do it?
I have tried Multiple Conditions on a CountIF? but can't seem to get it to work for me.
AI: Try this formula in google - spreadsheets
=arrayformula(SUM(('Survey Data'!F2:F200="Divisional Exec")*('Survey Data'!A2:A200="Act")))
In Excel - assuming Excel 2007 or later you can use COUNTIFS
=COUNTIFS('Survey Data'!F2:F200,"Divisional Exec",'Survey Data'!A2:A200,"Act") |
H: Merge commit from different fork of the same repo in GitHub
How can I apply pull request that was made for a parent repository of my fork into codebar of my fork. Not sure anyone can understand this question :), I'll try to explain with an an example.
There is a repo https://github.com/balupton/history.js, there are some pull request for this repo that has not been merged into the codebase, for example this one https://github.com/balupton/history.js/pull/251/commits. For some reason original developer do not accept it. Now, I have forked this repo https://github.com/prudnikov/history.js and want to merge this particular pull request into mu repository. How can I do this?
AI: You should be able to just pull down the other repo and have it merge with yours.
git pull {url-of-repo-with-commit-you-want-to-merge-in}
This will fetch the repo mentioned and have it automatically fast forward merge in any commits you don't have into yours.
So in your example, while on your master branch, or if you want to test it out on some other branch:
git pull git://github.com/dantipa/history.js.git
remote: Counting objects: 9, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1/1), done.
remote: Total 5 (delta 4), reused 5 (delta 4)
Unpacking objects: 100% (5/5), done.
From git://github.com/dantipa/history.js
* branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD
Updating e84ad00..e2d5251
Fast-forward
scripts/uncompressed/history.js | 2 +-
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
Now with the other commit merged with yours you can push back up to your own remote with that extra change. |
H: Huge increase in Facebook traffic are there facebook analytics to see how people found us ?
We've got a company facebook page, we rarly update it, or engage with our audience, but today i went on to google analytics for our company website, and saw this .
To put this into perspective we usually get between 1 and 0 people coming through facebook each day to our site.
Along with the increase in traffic we got a large increase in likes, we have no idea who these people are, or why so many people have visited our FB page and then clicked on our website. (i recon about 6000 people must have been on our FB page today, baring in mind that only a small % of them would then click though to our company website.)
Does facebook have built in analytics to :
Stat's ie how many page view our company page has had today
a referals view ti see were these people came from
Is this real or could it be a malicious bot ?
AI: Facebook exposes analytics for pages with Page Insights. The Reach page (https://www.facebook.com/<pagename>/page_insights_reach) includes information about how many page views your page gets each day, and a list of external referrers. |
H: How do you remove an app from Google Drive?
A while ago, I installed DriveTunes to play music from Google Drive. Now, it annoys me.
I've already:
removed the Chrome extension
revoked DriveTunes access to my files
revoked DriveTunes authorization from my account (https://www.google.com/settings/security)
Yet, it's still there and I get the DriveTunes icon on my documents.
AI: You're going to want to open the Settings menu, then Manage Apps:
Then, disconnect the app |
H: Change subject line in new Gmail compose window
With the old compose format, there is a section to edit the subject line.
However, I'm not seeing this with the new compose window - am I missing something?
AI: Click the down arrow next to the reply arrow (upper left corner). That'll give you the option to (additionally) Forward, Reply all (not pictured), or Edit subject. |
H: How do I add isblank(ref) criteria to arrayformula?
This is an improvement of work from this post.
I have an array formula that is similar to this image:
It sums column A when the date in F matches the due date (C). What I want to do is only sum A when F matches C and B is blank. This way when I add a date into the "Paid On" Column, G and H will no longer reflect that payment as "needed".
This would make my budget sheet much better.
AI: I've created a new sheet in the spreadsheet your working in, called "playground". There I started playing around and ended up with a QUERY formula. First I reproduced your result:
=QUERY(A:D;"SELECT C, SUM(A) GROUP BY C PIVOT D") (See F2)
Secondly I added your request:
=QUERY(A:D;"SELECT C, SUM(A) WHERE B IS NULL GROUP BY C PIVOT D") (See I2)
UPDATE
If you start adding rows, the result is getting odd; an extra blank row and column is added. I had to re-arrange the query a bit to adjust for that:
=QUERY(A:D;"SELECT C, SUM(A) WHERE (D IS NOT NULL AND C IS NOT NULL AND A IS NOT NULL AND B IS NULL) GROUP BY C PIVOT D")
UPDATE 12-02-2013
To complete the answering, I've updated the result with the following query:
=QUERY(A:B;"SELECT SUM(A) WHERE(B IS NOT NULL) LABEL SUM(A) 'Total Amount Due'")
The QUERY function is extremely powerful and with a bit of SQL knowledge easy to use !!
See references for help (or asks again):
QUERY
Google Visualization API Query Language |
H: In copy/paste, Google Docs says "These actions are unavailable via the Edit menu, but you can still use Ctrl C" etc?
When selecting copy/paste from the right-click menu, why does Google Docs pop up a dialog to say:
Copying and Pasting in Google Docs
with the message:
These actions are unavailable via the Edit menu, but you can still use Ctrl-C or Ctrl-V
etc when it could just do the operation direct from the menu?
Copy and Paste is in the menu...
...but selecting it says you can't do it, use Ctrl-C etc
What was the design thinking behind this?
I can't understand why one can't just do the operation, after all:
It provides the menu options: copy and paste
when you select these, it knows what they are to tell you
it can do the copy and paste but via Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V etc.
Surely they can link the Google Docs code that handles the menu selection with the code that actually does the operation
Was it a patent issue?
A security issue?
Or some kind of user interface conflict that made this extra step mandatory?
AI: I will assume you're not using Chrome, which is why my answer is relevant.
Check out this article on copy/pasting in Google Drive documents:
When working in Chrome, you can use the right-click menu to copy and paste content (or select "Copy" or "Paste" from the Edit menu in the toolbar).
When using the right-click-context menu in Drive, the stuff you cut/copy/paste is stored in a different place (in Chrome). Therefore, if not using Chrome, you won't be able to use the menu options. The keyboard shortcuts still work because those pieces are stored elsewhere (on the system clipboard, not browser).
Update: a little more context - Chrome uses its own web clipboard. Why? I'm not 100% certain but I think it's so that you can preserve things when pasting across files or apps (like Spreadsheets to Documents, etc) which you can't do with the traditional system clipboard. Since the context-menu is also native to the app that it's running (in this case your Drive and Chrome are all connected together), the context-menu will behave differently when used in Firefox. This is because those specific options are looking to access the Chrome clipboard, which it cannot.
My answer becomes even more conjecture at this point: I would bet that the Ctrl+C event is overwritten in Chrome to copy/cut to the Chrome clipboard, but would naturally default to the system clipboard if not in Chrome. The context-menu doesn't behave the same way because, well, I have no idea :) Might be something to bring up in a product forum though... |
H: Github as an Online External Storage
Does Github serves as an online external drive? How much available space storage if so?
AI: This is not the intended purpose of github. It's intended for management/perusal of software source-code (and related assets).
Please also see this article: https://help.github.com/articles/what-is-my-disk-quota
For standard online storage, I would look at Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, Amazon S3, or an online backup solution. |
H: Google Apps mail to domain not received
I moved servers, and consequently all domains, to my new host about 2-3 days ago. Everything has gone smoothly except for an issue regarding emailing a mailbox hosted on Google Apps on my own domain from the server, for example.
1.1.1.1 hosts example.com.
I have a PHP script on the server hosting example.com to mail admin@example.com for certain things. It will never arrive in my admin@example.com inbox hosted by Google Apps since I've moved servers. It worked fine before.
I know mail is being sent because I can edit the script to email for example: admin@yahoo.com or admin@gmail.com instead of admin@example.com and both arrive in my inbox, though in spam (probably unrelated). I thought this was because the server IP wasn't the same as my old one, and the system was using my old server IP so emails couldn't be forged, so it would need 24-48 hours to propagate the new IP and the mail would start being received. However it's now been almost 72 hours and I still can't email anything on the@example.com domain.
AI: Have you set your SPF record to include the new server as a host for your mail to be sent from?
For example, if your new server's address is 1.1.1.1, your SPF will now look like:
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ip4:1.1.1.1 ~all
Note, it will take a while depending on your TTL of your l
Here are the relevant articles which should help:
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33786&topic=2759192&ctx=topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework |
H: Hide particular feeds from Google Reader main article stream
I'm using Google Reader and I'm looking for a way to hide some feeds from my stream of all unread articles.
Basically if you subscribe to a feed all its new articles appear in the list. I don't want all feeds to appear there. Is there a way to accomplish this? I searched for such a functionality inside Google Reader itself and also through Google but couldn't come up with a good solution myself.
(Browser: Google Chrome)
AI: You can't selective choose which feeds are excluded from the "All Items" stream.
You can, however, tag feeds with multiple tags.
So, if you organize your feeds by topic, e.g.
Technology
Movie Stars
Cooking
How about also organizing by importance? You can use tags like
Read daily
Read when I have nothing else to do
Read only when desperate
All Items except the feeds I don't care much about
Then just make sure you tag the feeds you really want to read in a stream with the same tag.
In your settings, you can change the Reader start page to be one of your tags. |
H: Keep indentation in Google Docs
In Google Docs, is it possible to preserve the indentation depth of text that is being typed (so that tab characters won't need to be typed repetitively at every line)? I'm trying to create a list like the following, so that the indentation depth will be kept when a new line is started:
To do list
Routine tasks
Charge iPod Touch
JavaScript projects
Project 1
Project 2
The tab characters should be automatically inserted before this line (so that they won't need to be typed manually)
By default, many text editors, including Geany, preserve indentation when pressing the "Enter" key at the end of a line. Is there an option to preserve the indentation in Google Docs as well?
AI: Yes, there are ways to control the indentation of paragraphs in Drive, and there are ways to create itemized lists. All of these options are available in the text formatting icons at the top of your document (shown in image)
Here is advice on both:
For paragraph indentations:
You can increase or decrease the paragraph indents by using the icons on the right:
This will increase the indent, and keep it there until you change the indentation levels.
You can also access these options by going to Format > Paragraph styles
Update - adding info on keyboard shortcuts
A keyboard solution is to use the Tab key. If you hit Tab at the beginning of a line that already contains characters, it will indent the text and preserve the indentation level on subsequent lines (Shift + Tab at the beginning will decrease the indent). Any tabbing done in the middle of a line or at the start of a new line without existing characters will produce the regular Tab without preserving the indentation level on future lines.
For bulleted and numbered lists
You can get there by using the icons in the text formatting bar found at the top of the page. Look for the little numbered or unnumbered list icons next to the paragraph indentations.
Some keyboard shortcuts are:
For a numbered list, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + 7
For an unordered (bulleted) list, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + 8 |
H: How can I selectively filter email messages and redirect them from Outlook.com?
How does one selectively filter an email message and redirect it from Outlook.com?
AI: Click the Gear icon to open the options menu.
Click "Rules for sorting new messages" under "Customizing Outlook"
Click "New" to create a new rule
You can act on messages based on
Sender's address
Sender's name
To or Cc line
Subject
Message has attachments
Depending on which option you choose you'll additionally compare this a string with "is", "is not", "contains", "does not contain", "begins with", "ends with".
Choose the "Forward to" action and put in the email address to which you want to forward
Save your rule |
H: How can I share a Draw.io doc?
I'd like to use Draw.io in real time collaboration with a colleague—the About page says it can be done—but I can't see any options. How can I do it?
AI: For how to share a draw.io diagram with another user generally, see the FAQ entry on the subject.
Repeating the current content:
You can share a draw.io diagram stored on one of the cloud storage options with another user using the built-in sharing functionality of that platform, https://drive.google.com in the case of Google Drive, https://www.dropbox.com/home in the case of Dropbox and https://onedrive.live.com in the case of OneDrive.
Google Drive also allows the option to share within the application itself, using the blue "share" button top right in the app.
Note that only Google Drive supports real-time collaboration between users, Dropbox and OneDrive are last write wins.
If you are not using a cloud storage option and are saving the diagrams locally, you must manage your diagrams yourself, we do not have copies of the diagrams and cannot offer sharing functionality. |
H: Setting default shape menus in draw.io
When starting a new drawing I always have to go through the process of closing the ones I don't need and opening the ones I do. I would like to cut this step from my process.
Is there a way to set the shape menus I want in draw.io?
AI: For now there's a URL parameter libs that takes a semicolon separated list of the library sets you want, e.g.:
https://www.draw.io/?libs=general;flowchart;basic;arrows;clipart;signs;mockups;electrical;aws;pid;leanMapping;cisco
That's also the list of all possible values currently for that parameter. You've made me realise there's a bug with ER, BPMN and iOS sets regarding this, we'll look at that.
We have discussed this and intend to persist the library settings between uses. A question for you, would you prefer this to be stored per browser (i.e. cookies) or per Google account (as a meta file in your Drive)? |
H: What's different about add-on items?
Today I noticed that Amazon now has add-on items:
How is this any different from the normal Super Saver Shipping? They both just seem to say that shipping's free on orders over $25. Is there a difference?
AI: Ah, I just figured it out. It's not just that Add-ons get free shipping on orders over $25, but they get no shipping at all on orders under $25: |
H: How to get the average of the last four values of a row
I have a spreadsheet that looks like this.
It basically tracks the ratings of each show.
As you can see each row as a varying number of values. What I want to be able to do is to get the avg for each show for the last 4 ratings only.
For example, for the show 30 Rock, I would want to get the values in column L, M, N and O for that row and then divide by 4. I'm looking for a formula that I can apply to all shows rather than manually updating the formula each time.
Notes:
The formula would also need to take into account some shows that don't have any values yet or shows that have less than 4 values entered.
We have a maximum of 24 values that can be entered for any one show, i.e. columns C to Z if that helps.
AI: Try using OFFSET to get the range and AVERAGE function to average, i.e. like this for row 2:
=iferror(average(offset(C2,0,max(0,count(C2:Z2)-4),1,4)),0)
If there are fewer than 4 values, that will average them all, otherwise just the last 4—if there are no values you get 0. You can change that to a blank by replacing 0 at the end of the formula with "".
This formula works in both Excel and Google Spreadsheets. |
H: Facebook emoticons
Someone sent me this message in Facebook:
How did he make these emoticons?
AI: Oops I found it, there are many websites that provide it, here is an example. |
H: Is it possible to exclude the email signatures when searching in Gmail?
Currently I'm trying to search through my rather large email archive on Gmail.
Unfortunately the words I like to find also occur in almost any email footer as the signature text.
While I understand that there is no entity type "signature" in a plain email body, it seems that Gmail is still (limited) capable of detecting signatures (and collapsing them with those ... buttons).
My question:
Is there a search operator to tell Gmail to search for text but omit the signature?
AI: Kinda, there is a work around to do what you want, while doing the search, you can specify that results should not have some text, by using the field Doesn't have, and include in this field some text from the signatures.
or if you can also specify to search for whole sentences only, by using double quotes like this:
"my one long sentence"
so it will match the whole sentence only, and not single words. |
H: Compare each cell of two rows
I am working on a Google Doc spreadsheet using a not-so-simple formula. The formula works but is not as I want it. What I want to achieve is:
"Compare each cell from T3 to AM3 to each cell from T2 to AM2 and give 1 if they match, otherwise 0. Then make a sum of it all.
So if 10 pair of cells match, I should have 10. If 13 match, 13, and so on. If none match, 0.
I thought of writing something like
=SUM(IF(T3:AM3=$T$2:$AM$2;1;0))
But this gives me 1 if they all match and 0 even in the case of one pair not matching. How do I tell the spreadsheet to apply to every pair?
And how can I "sum"? The fact is "sum" won't work without at least two parameters and I don't need a second parameter. I'm at a dead end.
AI: Try this:
=arrayformula(sumproduct((T2:AM2=T3:AM3)))
What this will do is compare each cell, return a 0 or 1 if true, and then sum up the counts.
Arrayformula() is a way to apply a function to an array, rather than a single cell. |
H: Application to convert a sentence into a bunch of songs put together singing what you said
A while ago I found a website that allowed you to enter a word, sentence, etc... and then it would generate a sound clip that used various lines from songs to essentially say out those words. It was a very interesting web app and I have had little luck finding it in Google again.
AI: While I think this question is out of the scope of Webapps, the tool sounded interesting so I did some research.
Is "Let them sing it for you" the tool you're looking for?
Looks like the original creator has stopped hosting the project:
For unknown reasons the Swedish National Radio decided not to host the
project anymore in late 2011. Hopefully it will be up soon again.
There is a Chrome Extension that still lets you do this however. I will not put the link here because you should always be wary of installing extensions from untrusted authors. But if you want to investigate and give it a try, search for "Let them sing it for you" in the Chrome store under "Extensions" |
H: How do I set the timezone for Google Drive from Google Apps?
It appears that I have to proactively select the timezone I'm in to Google Drive so that they display correctly. Is there a way I can push this setting to all users within the organization?
AI: You can change your timezone in the settings for Google Drive. See below screenshots.
As for changing it for all users this is not possible. Each user will have to set their timezone individually. |
H: Categorize cells in Google Spreadsheets
I'm using Google Spreadsheets to manage my shared expenses with my girlfriend. It looks like this:
| Who | What | Category | When | Amount |
| Gui13 | Vegetables | Meals | October 2012 | 26€ |
| GF | AT&T | Multimedia | October 2012 | 30€ |
...
Now, I'd like to categorize automatically the expenses, meaning autofill the "Category" column according to what's in the "What" column.
I have an extra sheet where I have 2 columns indicating which value should be categorized as this or that:
| What | Category |
| Vegetables | Meals |
| Wine | Meals |
| AT&T | Multimedia |
...
What I want to do is:
find if the "What" cell content is found in the 2nd sheet
if yes, fill the category with the content of the cell of the 2nd sheet
if no, nothing
I couldn't figure how to do that with GDocs. I think it would involve FILTER or INDEX, but I'm not sure. Any idea?
Example sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhTjRwDZNsNNdF90Ymx0clpCV0l1ckhscnBmRVRNU0E&usp=sharing
AI: Try this:
=iferror(vlookup(C2,Sheet2!A$1:B$6,2,FALSE),"")
Here's an example.
Some notes:
Put the formula in the cell you want to fill
C2 refers to the value you're using to look up in the array
When entering the array range, make sure to put in $ before the row numbers, otherwise the range will be dynamic, not fixed.
If you add more categories, you'll need to update the formula on Sheet1 |
H: What is the maximum length of video on Facebook?
What is the maximum length of video on Facebook? The FAQ offers nothing I could find on maximum file size and/or length of video.
AI: The Facebook FAQ doesn't list it but currently the limit appears to be 1,024 MB or 20 minutes. Facebook could of course change this in the future. |
H: How do I remove shared documents & folders that I have in My Drive in Google Apps?
I recently added a shared folder to My Drive using the option 'Add to My drive'. How do I remove it from My Drive?
Although am unsure whether this is the proper way of doing it but if I check the folder I want removed and then select 'Remove' it removes it. Google should really offer the option to 'Remove Shared Folder for My Drive'.
AI: Like you said in your edit, you can simply remove (delete) the folder/file from your Google Drive to remove it from your own drive. This is equivalent to stopping Google from continuing to follow updates to that particular folder/file and showing it in your drive. |
H: How do I add a RSS feed to Google Reader or Feedly?
I'm trying to configure Google Reader/Feedly to track JavaWorld articles. JavaWorld offers many different RSS feeds. I'd like to subscribe to Core Java, but I cannot find/add this feed to Google Reader.
AI: Click the Subscribe button
Paste in the link to the feed. In your case:
http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/1390/feed
Click 'Add' to complete the process. |
H: What does the time next to the cell phone icon mean?
I noticed that a time value lies next to each cell phone icon in Facebook chat.
What does this time value indicate?
AI: It had been 50 minutes since the user is away from Facebook web app and is available on FB mobile. |
H: How can I customize Google Voice behavior when forwarding calls?
I setup my Google Voice number to forward to my AT&T cell phone number. There are two features of the forwarding behavior I'm not very fond of:
When someone calls, they get a recorded voice asking for their
name. People tend to assume this is voicemail, and not realize that
my phone is ringing, and after they follow the instructions I will
be picking up.
When I pick up the phone, it tells me the name of the person
calling and asks whether I'd like to answer the call or send it to
voice mail (I'd rather it simply assume I'd like to answer so I
didn't have to wait or bother with the keypad).
I don't think its relevant, but I'm using an iPhone 4. Is there anyway to setup Google Voice call forwarding which avoids either of these two issues?
AI: In Google Voice, go to Settings | Calls and turn off "Call Screening".
Callers will no longer be asked to say their name, nor will you be prompted to "press 1" to accept the call.
More information at Google Support. |
H: Folder convention in Google drive
What folder this indicates in drive
One with little white dot (shown in image with green color box)
and
other without dot (shown in image with brown color box)
AI: Folders that contain the "dots" are those the folders have been shared with other people. On the other hand, folders that do not contain the "dots" are all private only to you.. |
H: Connectors (lines and arrows) in Google Drawings
When creating a flowchart in Visio I can choose how connectors will be rendered as:
right-angle
straight
curved
But when drawing the same chart in Google Drawings there only seems to be straight type. I can't seem to find a way to draw lines at right angles?
Is that possible?
But even though there isn't any possibility to draw right-angled connectors by default there are two missing features that would make such task at least easier to accomplish:
ability to add manual alignment guidelines - using these one could put two to easily draw two straight lines that would connect perfectly at intersection
ability for lines to have connection points similar to shapes - using these one could position one line and then draw the other and connect it to the other line making both of them connected
How do you solve this problem?
AI: There is no automatic way to create a right-angled line. The best way to do this would be to:
Create 2 intersecting lines. I think you mention this in your 1st bullet. One way to make sure that the lines are perpendicular to each other is to hold the Shift key down while dragging out the line. This will automatically "snap" it to a preset angle (0, 45, 90 degrees, etc). By making 2 lines perpendicular you could make the ends meet and create a right angle line.
Use the polyline tool. You can find this by clicking on the drop down arrow next to the line icon. This menu will allow you to create lines of different types. Examples are:
Arrow
Curve
Polyline
Some of these new lines (not all) will allow you to attach the ends to the connection point of another shape (like a text box) but you'll have to fiddle around with it to find what solution works best for you.
If you're looking to create formal flowcharts with Google Drive, there are now apps you can connect to your Drive account that will help you create flowcharts. Examples include Lucidchart and Draw.io. To connect these apps to your Drive account, go into your Drive and click Create > Connect more apps |
H: how do I get named ranges in Google Spreadsheets to be more reliable/current?
I'd like to pull values from a named range into a calculation. I have this function:
function getNamedRange(n){
SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getRangeByName(n);
}
Seems pretty simple. I have a named range called "budgetItems". It definitely exists and has about 6 values in it. But when I try to pull the values with
var items = getNamedRange("budgetItems"); items.getValues();
it usually says items is null. I've gotten it to work in the past but it seems really flaky. I suspect there is eventual consistency and caching goofing things up here.
I've attached this function (to pull the values from the range) to a menu item. When I run that menu item it takes about 15s to run 5 lines of js -- and then fails. That's... suspicious.
AI: This little script will a retrieve named range and make a summation:
function namedRange() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var sh = ss.getActiveSheet();
var nRange = ss.getRangeByName("budgetItems");
var data = nRange.getValues();
var sum=0;
for(var i=0; i<5; i++) {
sum += parseInt(data[i]);
}
sh.setActiveSelection("B1").setValue(sum);
}
Using the above code as a formula in Google Spreadsheet, allows for significant reduction of code and API calls:
function getTest(range){
var sum=0;
for(var i=0, len=range.length; i<len; i++) {
sum += parseInt(range[i]);
}
return sum;
}
You can address the range as: =getTest(A1:A5) or =getTest(A1:A9)
See example file: getRangeByName (editable) |
H: Password Protected Public Dropbox?
We deal with a lot of clients and passing a lot of large files back and forth between them. It is easy enough for us to send them a large file by putting it on our Dropbox and sending them the public link for it. But there is no easy way for them to send us a large file via Dropbox. The only option I'm aware of is this:
We create a shared folder on our Dropbox account and invite ClientX to have access to it. Then the client can drop files into that shared folder and then we can retrieve them.
The biggest problem with this is asking client's to sign up for and use Dropbox. Only a small fraction of the companies we work with use Dropbox. So asking them to jump through the hoops of signing up for and installing Dropbox on their own computers is a pain. They would rather just email super huge attachments to us.
I'm wondering if it's possible with Dropbox to create some sort of publicly accessible folder that anyone can upload to (given that they provide a password) via the browser without having to sign up for Dropbox or anything like that? Is this possible?
AI: The best option is to roll-your-own. There is an opensource option that takes a bit of set-up, but is fairly good and does respect permissions, however, it does require you to generate everything for your clients. In any case - worth checking into:
ownCloud
ownCloud gives you universal access
to your files through a web interface or WebDAV. It also provides a
platform to easily view & sync your contacts, calendars and bookmarks
across all your devices and enables basic editing right on the web.
Installation has minimal server requirements, doesn’t need special
permissions and is quick. ownCloud is extendable via a simple but
powerful API for applications and plugins.
ownCloud started with a keynote by Frank Karlitschek at Camp KDE’10
where he talked about the need of a self-controlled free and open
source cloud. |
H: What is the difference between Google Vault and the Postini archiving feature?
We have a Google Apps for the Enterprise, with the Postini Archiving feature built in.
What is the difference between that and the Google Vault?
AI: Google Vault is a step on the way of integrating Postini-like services more nicely into Google Apps. That is, Google will probably at some point discontinue Postini-as-we-know-it, when all the relevant features have been reimplemented in Google Apps.
Thus, Google is transitioning Postini accounts to the respective Google features, including Google Vault. Your domain administrator will receive notices from Google with details sometime in Q1 2013.
So my advice would be to not delete your Postini account until you receive the transition notice, as Google will move your account to Google Vault for you, and your Postini subscription will be cancelled (from 2):
Starting in Q1 2013 and prior to your next renewal, you will receive a Termination Notice for your Postini agreement. |
H: Google Apps for Business Trial
I recently created my own Google Apps for Business account for free (my company has less than 5 employees). I want to test Google Play Private Channel but it isn't possible with a free account, I can get a free trail for 30 days. I was wondering if I have to pay after the trial or I go back to my free account?
AI: No. There's no longer a free edition of Google Apps. If you had signed up for a trial full account before December 6 2012, you could have cancelled the trial and gone back to the free edition. Since Google no longer offers a free edition, and December 6th is more than 30 days ago, you cannot revert to the free edition.
From the Google Support article:
After the last day of your trial period, you can no longer downgrade to the Google Apps free edition.
You can cancel your account or delete your domain.
If you have not entered your billing information and you do not explicitly cancel, your account will expire. However, if you've already entered your billing information, you should cancel to ensure that you're not charged at the end of your trial. |
H: What version of Leaflet does Flickr use?
As a user of the SmoothWheel Firefox extension, I sometimes come across apps that capture the scroll event but don't prevent it to propagate further, resulting in, for example, a map zooming while the page simultaneously scrolls down.
I've reported the issue for Leaflet and for the ACE editor, and it has since been fixed in Leaflet 0.5 (released 17 January 2013). However, the issue still appears in Flickr. To make sure that what's missing for Flickr is an upgrade to the latest version, I would like to know what version of Leaflet do they use, but looking at the page source wasn't enlightening.
So... what is the version of Leaflet that Flickr uses?
AI: Thanks to the code.flickr.com blog, I found out that they actually maintain a fork of Leaflet. It seems like it was never updated or tweaked on any way, being simply a frozen version of Leaflet at a commit from June 2, 2012, which corresponds to version 0.4. Looks like an upgrade is in order :) |
H: How long will a TinyURL be available?
This is not a thread about if URL shortener are good or not, I'm just wondering how long such created TinyURL will be available? Is the given URL available "forever"?
If so - is there a way to override such URL again?
AI: From their website:
By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.
Obviously subject to the service existing indefinitely!
By override, do you mean modify the redirection target URL? I can't readily see anywhere that this is stated, although I'm fairly sure it cannot be modified. |
H: Does Flickr have support for transparant PNG images?
I tried uploading a PNG image to Flickr and after being uploaded I copied its link (enlarged version) but the image was JPG thus had no transparency.
I just moved to picasaweb to upload png images but I still want to know if there's any option to upload PNG images or Flickr don't have any support for it.
AI: Flickr don't have support for it. From their support page -
Flickr officially supports JPEGs, non-animated GIFs, and PNGs. You can
also upload TIFFs and some other file types, but they will
automatically be converted to and stored in JPEG format. |
H: Get iCloud emails to Gmail
I'm trying to opposite thing most websites describes. I'm using GMail as my major app and iCloud account as addition to owned iPad. I'm trying to add iCloud (me.com) account to Gmail. But either I'm missing something or this is not possible.
I've sereached the net ot get iCloud / me.com account details. Then I followed usual way, I've been using to add my previous three external e-mail accounts, I'm checking via my Gmail. I thought, that adding fourth -- iCloud / me.com -- shouldn't bring any problems. Turned out, I was wrong.
I've added all account details (server, login, password, port, SSL etc.) into "Add new account" page. In response I got server error with following description:
Missing +OK response upon connecting to the server:
* OK [CAPABILITY st11p00mm-discream009 1O59 IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR AUTH=ATOKEN
AUTH=PLAIN] iSCREAM ready to rumble (1O59:32462) st11p00mm-discream009
Whoa! Does it means, that Gmail uses non-standard headers when getting e-mail from external account or it is not sending something, it should send, and therefore getting e-mails from iCloud / me.com account in Gmail is... impossible?
AI: Gmail seems to be rather strict about the +OK response; what you're seeing is nonstandard but innocent silliness like "iSCREAM ready to rumble" getting rejected.
So, the short answer is: No, you will not be able to use Gmail as an IMAP client for your iCloud account (so far as I know).
If your primary concern is sending and receiving using your @me.com email address, you could forward all your iCloud emails to your Gmail address (http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2642) and set Gmail up to send from your @me.com address (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22370). If you do this, try to send using Apple's SMTP servers (in the second link, scroll down to "If you choose to send mail through another domain's SMTP servers:" and follow the directions). The only drawback with this approach is that whatever you do in Gmail to iCloud messages isn't mirrored back in your iCloud account itself. |
H: Sync Facebook/Twitter posts with Google+
My business uses a Facebook page to post all of their updates on, which (I'm told) are also automatically posted to Twitter. I have just set up a Google+ page for the business, and I would like the posts from the Facebook page to sync with the Google+ page as they do for Twitter.
Switching origin of the updates from Facebook to Google+ is currently not an option as the person in change of posting these updates is used to using Facebook and not really prepared to change. Also, it would be great if all old posts are added to Google+ as well.
AI: The Google+ API is read only at the moment. Google is working with select partners to provide the Page API which allows writing to the page. You may be able to work with one of these partners (see http://www.google.com/+/business/3rdpartytools.html) to get what you need.
You can also request access to this API at https://developers.google.com/+/api/pages-signup, however there is no indication when, or even if, they would grant you access if you apply for it using this page. |
H: How can I save messages from a particular sender in a particular folder in Gmail?
A particular sender (an advertising company) sends a lot of emails daily into my Gmail inbox. Now those mails are important to me, since I am interested in their ads, but every time it is not possible to check them all. So I don't want my inbox to be flooded with their emails. Sometimes I can't work properly with my inbox filled with their emails. So is there a way so that I can mark the sender such a way so that the mail comes as usual, but it goes to a specific folder in lieu of flooding my inbox, so that when I get free time I can check their mails entering a particular folder?
AI: A strength of Gmail is the use of labels, instead of folders. You need to create a filter to automatically add a label to the message and automaticlly archive the messages.
To create a filer for a message that frequently is sent to you:
select or open a message you want to filter
Under the More pulldown select the command: Filter messages like these
You will then see the form open up with the FROM box filled in.
Google with then show you the messages that the filter has found.
Click create filter with this search.
You can now specify if you want to:
Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
Apply the label:
Also apply filter to x matching conversations.
Click create the filter.
Archiving the messages keeps the message, it just removes the inbox label from the message. Labels can be used to search using label:mylabel. Labels are listed on the sidebar menu so that you can quickly jump to a filter that just shows the messages with that label. Plus messages can have multiple labels.
You can edit/delete/create filters under Settings(gear)->Filter |
H: Sometimes I get this error message when using Outlook with Gmail
I occasionally get this error message and my e-mails do not get received.
AI: Did you try visiting that URL? It gives you some tips:
In most cases signing in from the web should resolve the issue, but you may also want to try these troubleshooting tips:
Make sure your mail client isn't set to check for new mail too often. If your mail client checks for new messages more than once every 10 minutes, your client might repeatedly request your username and password.
Try clearing the CAPTCHA (learn more). If you're a Google Apps user, and this doesn't work, you may not be a transitioned Google Apps account user yet. Try https://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/UnlockCaptcha instead. Be sure to replace 'yourdomain.com' with your actual domain1 name.
Try changing your password according to our tips on creating a strong password. |
H: Gmail reply pop-out like new-style compose
Gmail's new default behavior is to pop-up a sub-window when I press "Compose"—not a new window managed by my desktop window manager (WM), but a new HTML-based "window," like for chat. I consider this (typical of Gmail) to be an extremely good interface design decision. This allows me to browse other emails and chat easy as I reply, without having to fuss with my desktop window manager.
I like this behavior so much that when I hit "Reply" to an email, I wish I had the option of popping it out to this Gmail-managed window. Being able to pop it out into a WM-managed window is a nice option if I'm wanting to reference other tabs in my browser, but if I am working primarily in Gmail, it is would be nice to be able to have the option of positioning the reply as if it was a new compose "window".
Is this possible? Am I missing some button or shortcut to accomplish this? Or is this something which has not been implemented in Gmail?
AI: You can do this if you click on the arrow at the top of the reply and select "Pop out reply"
This should open your reply into the sub-window-format compose.
Edit
@justingordon asked about a keyboard shortcut for this behavior. Updating the answer.
Holding Shift+ R or A will reply (or replay-all, respectively) in a pop-out window. |
H: How to make a ratio win:total with only integers and least terms
I am trying to find a way to show a simple ratio of wins vs total games. For example:
2 wins on 5 games would give me a ratio of 2:5
5 wins on 15 games: 1:3
8 wins on 18 games: 4:9
As a nice to have, it would fun to allow half points for the first member, but I guess this would be too complicated:
7 wins on 10 games: 3.5:5
AI: I see that you want to simplify the fraction (e.g. 5/15 => 1/3), but there's no standard function for that in Google Spreadsheets.
Some time ago I found this post, where a formula is mentioned:
=(A2*(10^(LEN(A2)-2)))/GCD(A2*(10^(LEN(A2)-2)) ;10^(LEN(A2)-2))& " / " & ( 10^(LEN(A2)-2)) /GCD(A2*(10^(LEN(A2)-2)) ;10^(LEN(A2)-2))
where A2 is wins divided by games. It does not grant your wish of half points, but you might be able to massage the formula into giving you that.
I set up an example spreadsheet using that formula here. |
H: How to set a default starting location for Google Maps?
How can I set a default starting address for Google Maps?
AI: You can't really set a default starting address.
However, under "My Places", you can define addresses for "Home" and "Work". Then when you are using maps to get directions, you can use "Home" or "Work" as the start/end point instead of typing in a full address or lat/long coordinates.
More information from Google Maps Help |
H: How can I get LaTeX with MathJax to show up in Google Sites?
I have tried loading MathJax through a Google Sites HTML Box. But I can't get the JS to load.
Does anyone have another solution for getting the JS to load or LaTeX into Google Sites?
AI: My first attempt to Google on this topic yielded in a first hit: search result LATEX Google Sites.
On the following two websites, it is explained how to show the LATEX on Google Sites:
Use LaTeX on Google Site
Google's LaTeX
See snapshot of last reference: |
H: Automated Pay-Days, Genuine Marketing or Scam
For last two days, I have been noting the add on many high traffic websites that reads Google pays me $5000 per month
The add looks like the following on stackoverflow.
When I click on the ad, it takes me to a page describing the success stories of different people who have benifited from the programs. For registration, I am routed to the Automated Paydays website. The website highlights more success stories and offers life time membership for $59 (as on 24-feb-2013). Yesterday, the membership cost was $24.97. When I move on to their terms and conditions page, they explicitly disassociate themselves from google, facebook and all other internet giants. This is rather interesting because on their advertimsement, they are using the name of Google which is a credible company and one cannot easily overlook such an offer provided that it is made by google.
Furthermore, in their earning discalimer section, they state that all the success stories belong to the people with exceptional skills and we don't guarentee that every member can acheive same or similar results.
To sum it all up, there is high level of contradiction present in the content about automatic-paydays. My question is, given all the contradiction, should someone still trust this website? If someone has knowledge or experience with this site please guide. Is this really a genuine marketing company or another scam on the internet?
Regards
AI: I never saw a "overlay" ad on a Stack Exchange site that looked like that (overlays the question list, with a close button on the top right).
Besides the fact that the ad itself looks and sounds suspect (all "earn thousands of dollars for a few hours working from home" ads are suspect, especially when they use the name of a company like Google, but disassociate themselves from Google in their fine print), are you sure that you don't have some kind of malware on your machine that displays that ad in your browser?
It certainly doesn't look like the other ads on the Stack Exchange sites, and I'm sure that the guys at Stack Exchange would never sell ad space to someone like this. |
H: Modifying user information on Google Apps
I am an administrator of a Google Apps for Education account. When my users log in, they always receive warnings that their information can be accessed, modified, or deleted by an administrator at any time. I don't actually know what I can and cannot do with my users' information. I know that google-apps-improved-login was an option for a while, but what options do I have for modifying user information beyond the changes I can make in the Apps Control Panel?
AI: As a super admin, you can change their password to something you know which gives you the ability to access, modify and delete any of their information.
Additionally, super admins gain access to other users' Google Sites.
Google Apps Administrator privilege details |
H: Can mail admin read my chat?
I have a company email, hemc@companyname.com, which is managed by my company admin and it is hosted on Google Apps mail services.
I want to know whether the admin can check my emails or my chat history.
AI: If your organization uses Google Vault, an admin can search your email and chat archive.
Also remember that as an admin, I could always reset the user's password, log in as that user, and access everything. |
H: Is it possible for a normal user to flag a Wikipedia edit as potential vandalism?
I can find vague references from various sources (e.g. on Talk:Anti-vandalism ideas: Automatic vandalism identification) implying that Wikipedia edits can be flagged as potential vandalism. However, I (a normal, non-admin Wikipedia user) don't see any way to flag a given Wikipedia edit as potential vandalism. Am I missing something?
AI: You don't "flag" edits, per se. If you see an edit that is vandalism, you're expected to "rollback" or, at least, edit out the vandalism bits yourself. That's part of Wikipedia's mantra of Be Bold!
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Content
You can edit almost any page on Wikipedia. Simply follow the "Edit" link at the top of that page. Be bold in improving articles. When adding facts, please provide references so others may verify them. If you are affiliated with the article subject, please see the conflict of interest guide.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us_-_Readers
If you find some incorrect information, there are a few things you can do. First, you can fix it yourself! Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Just hit the "edit" button on the top right of the page, make the correction, and hit "Save page". If you want to learn more about editing, try our help pages.
If you can't or don't want to fix an error, your best approach depends on what kind of problem it is:
if it's clear vandalism and you can't fix it, please email info-en-v@wikimedia.org and include the address or title of the article and a description of the issue.
(emphasis mine)
If an account is a serial vandal, there are places to report them so that they can be dealt with.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism (especially How to respond to vandalism - for beginners) |
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