Monday, July 30, 2012

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: A Hidden Feature of Google Handwriting

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
A Hidden Feature of Google Handwriting
Jul 30th 2012, 12:45

Google recently added handwriting recognition capabilities to their web search interface thus giving users an option to scribble search queries without opening the keyboard. Once you turn on the Handwriting mode, the entire Google page turns into a scratch pad – you can write anywhere on the screen and Google will instantly convert your freehand drawing into digital text.

The results are accurate and though the conversion happens on Google’s servers, you won’t notice the delay. Google suggests using block letters but cursive writing works as well.

You can use Google’s handwriting search on most touch-screen mobile phones and tablets but if you are on the desktop, you may change the user agent of your browser to iPad (or Android) and Google will then offer the Handwriting option on your desktop as well.

How Google Handwriting works?

When you draw a shape on the Google page, the path is captured in an array of X, Y points which is then sent to Google’s IME (Input Method Editor) API as a POST Request. It returns a list of possible suggestions (for instance, if you draw a round shape, IME may interpret that as “o, 0, O” while a straight line can be interpreted as “l, I, i, 1″) and one of them is added to the Google search box.

The Undocumented Feature

The JavaScript file associated with Google’s Handwriting feature reveal a hidden feature – other than letters and digits, you can also draw shapes and Google can convert some of them into words. For instance, if you draw a “heart” shape on the search page, Google will render that as the word “heart.”

Watch this YouTube video for a quick demo.

a = a.replace(/\u2661/g, "heart"),   a = a.replace(/\u263A/g, "smiley face"),   a = a.replace(/\u2639/g, "frowny face"),   a = a.replace(/\u00A9/g, "copyright"),   a = a.replace(/\u00AE/g, "registered trademark"),   a = a.replace(/\u221E/g, "infinity"),   a = a.replace(/\u2713/g, "check mark"),   a = a.replace(/\uD834\uDD1E\u0020/g, "g clef"));

When you draw a heart shape, Google’s IME returns the Unicode equivalent of the heart character and Google, at the client side, converts that symbol into a word.

Google Handwriting Recognition includes similar logic for emoticons, check marks, copyright and trademark symbols but they aren’t working at this time. It does however offer a strong hint that Google Handwriting could be coming to other Google products – like Gmail and chat – because one rarely write smileys and frowning  faces in the search box.

Also see: An Undocumented Google Search Operator

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, A Hidden Feature of Google Handwriting, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 30/07/2012 under Google, Internet.


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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: SlideShare 3D

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
SlideShare 3D
Jul 24th 2012, 21:05

SlideShare 3D

Slideshare decks transformed into 3D Slideshows

Introducing SlideShare 3D, an online tool that will transform any of the presentation decks hosted on SlideShare into a 3D slideshow with cinema mode.

The slideshow is touch-enabled so you can use gestures like swipe and pinch to move between slides on a touchscreen device. Also, the slides are rendered in plain HTML and would therefore work across all modern browsers including mobile phones and tablets.

To get started, paste the URL of any existing SlideShare presentation into the input box and click the “Magic Wand” button to transform that linear slideshow into a 3D one.  Photo presentations will especially look good in the  cinema mode when everything around the picture is darkened.

SlideShare has moved from the Flash Player to HTML5 based embeds and the individual slides in their player are now served as sequenced image files. SlideShare 3D tool internally uses reveal.js to transform these images into a HTML slideshow. Give it a try.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, SlideShare 3D, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 24/07/2012 under Slideshare, Internet.


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Monday, July 23, 2012

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: Download Printable Facebook Posters for your Business

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
Download Printable Facebook Posters for your Business
Jul 23rd 2012, 12:17

Facebook Sticker

Facebook Poster

Facebook Banners for your Website and Business

This is handy. The Facebook Marketing team today released a set of printable posters (PDF) that you put in your business stores thus encouraging customers to like your Facebook Page (or check-in) while they are inside the store.

Alternatively, you can resize these images and use them as banners on your website linking to your Facebook Page.

These PDF posters are ready for printing but you can also customize them by adding your unique Facebook Page URL before sending the images to the printer.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Download Printable Facebook Posters for your Business, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/07/2012 under Facebook, Internet.


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Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: Measuring your Blog’s Social Performance

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
Measuring your Blog's Social Performance
Jul 7th 2012, 10:50

Want to know how your blog is doing on social sites like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook?

The updated Social Sharing Analytics tool helps you quickly measure a site’s performance on social sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Just paste the URL of any website that has feeds and you are good to go. The tool extracts all the recently published stores and displays the corresponding social counts.

Now we also have a WordPress plugin that displays the social sharing counts of all your blog posts right inside the WordPress Admin dashboard.

wordpress social analytics

As you can see in following screenshot, the plugin adds a new “Social” column to your “Edit Posts” screen in WordPress where the respective sharing counts (likes, tweets and +1s) of all the blog posts are displayed.

The plugin makes no changes to your WordPress blog posts or database. For best performance, set WordPress to display 10 or 20 posts in the Edit screen.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Measuring your Blog’s Social Performance, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 07/07/2012 under Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Internet.


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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: Things to Know Before you Download Windows 8

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
Things to Know Before you Download Windows 8
Jun 15th 2012, 16:00

Windows 8 Screen

Microsoft today unveiled the "release preview" version of Windows 8 which mostly indicates that the new Windows operating system is feature-complete. Windows 8 Release Preview is available as a free download and it is very likely that your existing system specs are good enough to run Windows 8.

The System Requirements for Windows 8

According to this Windows 8 FAQ, any machine equipped with 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of hard disk space and 1 GHz processor should be able to handle Windows 8. The minimum RAM requirements are 2 GB in case you would like to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8.

Should you download Windows 8 Setup or the ISO Image?

As you may have noticed on the Windows 8 download page, the installation of Windows 8 can be done in two ways.

  1. You can either take the easiest route and download the Windows 8 Setup program – that’s also the default option.
  2. Alternatively, you can download ISO Images of Windows 8.

If you are planning to install Windows 8 on your existing computer, either on a different partition (dual-boot) or just want to upgrade from an older version of Windows to Windows 8, the default Setup program is a good choice.

Please note that that your installed software programs will only be preserved if you are upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your planning to install Windows 8 on top of Windows XP or Vista, only the files will be preserved but not the various software programs that you may have on the disk.

The Windows 8 ISO image may be more handy in other situations like:

  1. Your computer has an x64 processor but is currently running the 32-bit version of Windows. If you want to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8, download the 64-bit ISO.
  2. You want to install Windows 8 on your Mac (iMac or Macbook) using Boot Camp software.
  3. You want to install Windows 8 on multiple computers. In that case, you can download the ISO once, create a bootable DVD and boot the other systems using this newly created Windows 8 disk.
  4. You plan to run Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine inside your existing copy of Windows.
  5. You are running Windows XP.

The universal product key for Windows 8 is TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF.

Will my software programs run inside Windows 8?

Before grabbing the ISO image of Windows 8, quickly run this setup utility and it will show a list of all software programs and hardware drivers on your system that are compatible with Windows 8. Alternatively, you can visit this page to see a list of all known software and hardware devices that are found to be working with Windows 8.

How should I go about installing Windows 8?

You can have Windows 8 on your computer in three ways – you can install Windows 8 side-by-side (also known as dual-boot), as a virtual machine (so that it runs inside your existing Windows just like any other software) or you can have Windows 8 as your primary OS (there’s no going back from here).

If you just want to try out Windows 8   but without modifying any of your existing set-up, the safest bet is to use a Virtual Machine. If you have a vacant disk partition or don’t mind creating one (it’s easy), go for the dual-boot option. Else, if you have a spare computer, you can consider upgrading to Windows 8 overwriting the previous installation of Windows.

Also note that if you are upgrading from Windows 8 Consumer Preview to the new Windows 8 Release Preview, none of your installed programs, files and account settings will be preserved though everything would be moved to the windows.old folder.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Things to Know Before you Download Windows 8, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 15/06/2012 under Windows 8, Software.


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Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: Find Who is Linking to your Website with Google Analytics

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
Find Who is Linking to your Website with Google Analytics
Jun 15th 2012, 09:35

The organic search rankings (and Google PageRank) of your web pages depend on several factors but the most crucial one is incoming links (also known as backlinks). Search engines treat external links pointing to your website as “votes” and more votes will often translate into higher search rankings.

Find Sites That Are Linking To You

Would you like to know which websites are linking to any of your web pages? Or how many incoming links (or backlinks) have you “earned” since yesterday? Here’s how you use use Google Analytics to find out who’s linking to you.

Step 1: Sign-in to your Google Analytics Account and open the “Standard Reporting” dashboard for any of your Analytics profiles.

Social Report in Google Analytics

Step 2: Click the Traffic Sources group in the left sidebar followed by Social – > Pages.

Step 3: The next screen of Google Analytics will have a list of the most popular web pages on your site (sorted by traffic). Click on any of these pages to view its incoming links report.

Google Analytics - Page Report

Step 4: Google Analytics will open the Social Referrals report for that page. We need to switch to the Activity Stream tab as shown in the next screenshot.

Activity Stream

Step 5: On the Activity Stream page, switch to the Events tab (next to Conversations) and then click on any of the “green” Trackback icons (they also have permalinks) to get a list of all external website that are linking to that particular page.

Trackbacks Report

Step 6: This is the last step. Select any of the Trackbacks on the page, choose the down arrow and select “View Activity” to know the exact page URL that is linking to your website.

View Trackback

Tracking Backlinks – Bonus Tips

  • It may take a few steps to access these TrackBacks report the first time but you can add it as a widget to your Google Analytics dashboard for quick access anytime later (look for the "Add to Dashboard" button at the top of the page).
  • These reports display backlinks per page but if you would like to see the backlinks of your entire website, go to the top of the report and “Click All” to remove the Page filter.
  • If you would like to know how many new sites have linked to your websites in the last day, just go to the Date Range and change it to "Yesterday" or you can even choose custom dates.

Also see: Track Print Usage with Analytics

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Find Who is Linking to your Website with Google Analytics, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 15/06/2012 under Google Analytics, Internet.


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Friday, July 13, 2012

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog: Use Regular Expressions to Find Anything in your Gmail Mailbox

Digital Inspiration Technology Blog
Digital Inspiration is an award-winning how-to tech blog around all things related to computer software, web applications, mobile and personal productivity.
Use Regular Expressions to Find Anything in your Gmail Mailbox
Jul 13th 2012, 17:24

Gmail offers some very useful search commands to help you quickly find messages that could be buried deep in your mailbox. For instance, a query like from:(John OR David) has:attachment after:2012/01/15 will locate all emails received in the past six month that have attachments and the send is either John or David.

The built-in Gmail search is powerful but there are some scenarios where it will not work. For instance, you cannot perform a wildcard search inside Gmail (like apples * red). Or how do you locate all emails that have a phone number mentioned in the message body? It is also not possible to perform case-sensitive searches inside Gmail.

You can however do all this  in Gmail with the help of regular expressions (or regex).

Gmail Search with Regular Expressions

Advanced Gmail Search with Regular Expressions

Regular expressions allow you to perform complex search operations in most popular programming languages and the same can be used with Gmail as well using Google Docs. Let’s start with a simple example.

Say you are looking for email messages that contain any variation of the string “gray color”. There could be one or more spaces between the two words, the words may use either British or American spelling and the first letters may or may not be capitalized. The regular expression thus will be:

[Gg]r(a|e)y\s.*[Cc]olou?r

Where do you put this search expression? The search box in Gmail doesn’t support regular expressions directly but with Google Docs, it can. Here’s how:

  1. Click here to make a copy of the Gmail RegEx sheet into your Google Docs account.
  2. Wait for 10-15 seconds and a new Gmail RegEx menu will appear in your new Google sheet. Choose Initialize from the menu and grant the necessary permissions as requested by the program.
  3. The program will search your entire mailbox by default but if you would like to limit the search to any particular lable (say Inbox or Spam), just put that label name in cell F3.
  4. Now enter any regular expression in the cell F4 and choose “Search Mailbox” from the Gmail RegEx menu to begin searching.

Any messages that match your search criteria will be listed in the initial columns of the same sheet. If you would like to perform a new search, simply change the regex in cell F4 and choose Search from RegEx menu again. Please do note that Google Apps Script allows you to perform 10,000 read operations in Gmail per day.

And if you are curious to know how the program works, here’s the annotated source code.

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Digital Inspiration @labnolThis story, Use Regular Expressions to Find Anything in your Gmail Mailbox, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 13/07/2012 under GMail, Internet.


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