Google Reader Tip!

I am a big fan of Google Reader. I think it is for now, the best online rss reader available. I had a look at the Feedly chrome extension. It gets close, but its just not as fast and easy.

 

Now I found a nice trick for Google reader, that allows you to go through your subscribed feeds with a button on your bookmark bar. No need to go to http://www.google.com/reader/ anymore!

 

If you follow below steps, you’ll have a nice Next button that will take you to your next unread item directly.

 

- Open Google reader at: http://www.google.com/reader

- In the top-right, go to Settings –> Reader Settings

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- In the settings menu, select the Goodies Tab

- When opened, scroll down to the “Put Reader in a bookmark part

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- Drag the link there to your bookmarks bar, and that’s it!



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11:00 | | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

MAPLAB – Bicing map is Back

Today, I had a bit of a fight to make a map I made last year work on my new server. The map was previously hosted on Google pages sites, and it worked fine.

Somehow, after copying the files, it broke. It is fixed now… :)

 

The map is themed around Bicing, which is the Barcelona public bicycle network.

 

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This is an older project. I actually built this last year to have a go at Google Maps, and see if I managed to build something useful.

 

The idea is coming from an iPhone app that exists already, but since we do not all have iPhones I made a simple plain web version, to soon be ported to a smaller mobile format.

 

The application is loading a map and tries to find your position. you can then choose to enable elements of the map, like Bicing stands, Bicycle lanes and even Wikipedia articles.

 

Have a look here

 

But keep i mind, this is still and will probably always be under development.



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15:48 | | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

Google URL Shortener – QR Addition

As a Chrome extension, I was using the Google URL Shortener for a while now. It is easy and fast. Now after reading a Techcrunch post, I found out about new functionality behind this URL Shortening service.

 

When Clicking the Shorten URL Button in Chrome or making you shortened URL through the web interface (http://goo.gl/) you will get a shortened url like this:

example:

from http://abiteof.com  to  http://goo.gl/lQOc 

 

Now, If you’d like to have some statistical data about the usage of your shortcut, add a plus sign or .info behind this:

example:

http://goo.gl/lQOc+ or http://goo.gl/lQOc.info

 

now the really interesting one is that the Google service (as some other do for some time now ex. badurl.pro) can generate a QR code to that link automatically by adding .qr to the shortened URL:

example:

http://goo.gl/lQOc.qr

 

The nice thing is that you can use this URL as an image source in a standard html tag.



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10:16 | | Tags: , , | No Comments »

New! Google New!

image As most of us know, Google launches new services and applications almost by the day!

Now they launched another one! Here’s Google new. A website where Google explains their new products.

Even though I, and with me many people, write about what’s coming out, it is sometimes hard to keep track of the Google-Universe.

 

I have been subscribed to the RSS feed of Google Labs for some time now and for me that has been a good source of new developments. Most of them in Beta though and some clearly not fit to go live… ever!  This new site, the Google new site… is compiling finished stuff. Therefore, I believe this should complement the feed and should enable us to know what’s going on.

 

Have a look, as I’m sure there are things that you where not aware of:

Google new



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Nokia Maps and Google Maps

For over a year now, I am using my Nokia 5800 X-press Music. I am not a big smart-phone user, and this Nokia does most of what I need it to do.

The only application I’d like to see some more compatibility is with the Nokia Maps application. It is quite hard to use the data you store in the maps application anywhere else.

Since Google maps is my map application of choice, I have been looking into a way to move my landmarks, routes and other data to a Google map.

This small How-To will explain how I get data from my Nokia Maps application into Google maps.

You will need the following software:

- Nokia Maps (…)

- Google Maps/Earth

- GPS Babel

 

To Save Locations From Nokia Maps to Google Maps:

  • On your phone, Go into the "Landmarks" app,
  • Select all your landmarks,
  • Select "Send", and email/Bluetooth  them to yourself on your PC – just one ".lmx" file attachment.

Now there are two ways to go ahead:

    1. use a web based translation service to generate a Google KML File from the LMX file. You can give this a shot, but I used both:
      http://www.poieditor.com/poi_convert/lmx-to-kml/
      http://tomtom.gps-data-team.com/poi/poi_edit.php and when importing, Google Earth came up with a “No Data” Error. FAIL.
    2. Use GPS Babel. this is free software, and does a good translation. It allows you to play with many settings. I downloaded a copy and managed to make a working KML file in the first attempt.
  • Once you have opened GPS Babel, use the LMX file as input and write to a KML file. I used these settings:

image

This will give you a KML file you can Import with Google Maps/Earth

  • In Google Maps, Go to My Maps
  • Create a new map
  • Select the import Button (screenshot)

image

  • Select the KML file you’ve created previously and hit Upload

You now have a Google map with your phone’s landmarks.

This was not so hard, but hard to find! Without GPS Babel almost impossible to do unless someone comes with a good translation script that can do the job online.

 

To save data from Google Maps to your Nokia Maps application

  • Go to Google Maps on your computer and find the place you are looking for.
  • Centre in to the location by double clicking on it.
  • Click on the “Link to this page” link
  • Copy the link from the “Paste link in email or IM” box
  • Go to http://map2nokia.appspot.com/
  • Paste the link into “Google Maps URL” box and type a title and description accordingly.
  • Press the “create .lmx” button to create and download the file.
  • Bluetooth or email the .lmx file to your phone.
  • Open the .lmx file and select options -> show on map.
  • Done! You can save the location so that you can start navigating when you’re ready.


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13:23 | | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »
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