Google Data » kushal

OMG Google Chrome!

kushal — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:44:00 +0000

Posted by Nick Santos, Software Engineer, Google Notebook

There's been a lot of excitement about Google Chrome, Google's fast and clean new web browser. But you may have noticed that it's missing a way to clip to Google Notebook! Oh noes! Luckily, you can still add and use the Google Notebook bookmarklet. To install a bookmarklet on Google Chrome, click the in the upper-right, and select "Always show bookmarks bar."

Then, go to the bookmarklet page and drag and drop the bookmarklet on to your bookmarks bar.

The next time you find something you want to clip, click on "Note This" in your bookmarks bar and away you go. Hurrah!

Another cool feature in Chrome is the ability to make application shortcuts. Just go to the full-page Google Notebook, click on the icon, and choose "Create application shortcuts..." This feature will let you launch notebook in its own window straight from your desktop.

OMG Google Chrome!

kushal — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:44:00 +0000

Notebooks to go

kushal — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Posted by Daniel Benson, Software Engineer, Data Liberation Front, Chicago

Our friend Export is tired of the bar scene and has moved into his own place. To check it out his swanky new digs, look down at the bottom of your notebook and click the Export link.

That will take you straight there.

Most of these exports are old friends, but what's that sneaky ATOM thing at the bottom? It's a way to export your notebook and import back again. Just head over to the Manage Notebooks page and bring it right back.

What good is this? Well first of all, the export is an ATOM-formatted document, so you can edit it to your heart's content. You can back your notebooks up, or hax0r on them, or write converters to get data into Google Notebook from other sources. Most importantly, though, we believe that you put your notebooks there, they belong to you, and now you can take them back. They're your notes: do whatever you want with them!

Notebooks to go

kushal — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:38:00 +0000

I Can Has Bookmarklet?

kushal — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:34:00 +0000

Posted by Nick Santos, Software Engineer, Google Notebook

I love my Google Notebook browser extension. It's like a faithful puppy. It follows me by my side everywhere I go on the Internet.

Sadly, I can't always take my Firefox extensions with me. Maybe I'm traveling, using a friend's computer, or perhaps I feel like using Safari today. Then I find a hilarious picture of a LOLdog. ZOMG! How do I clip it to Notebook???

We have a solution: the Google Notebook bookmarklet! Just add the bookmarklet to your browser's bookmarks bar. Every time you click on it, it will grab your current selection and post it to your Google Notebook in a small window.

To be fair, the bookmarklet is like the dirty pig to my trusty Firefox extension sheep dog. But when I need to clip and I need it now and my extension isn't right beside me, it's definitely helped me. I hope it will help you, too. Let us know how it feels.

That'll do, bookmarklet. That'll do.

I Can Has Bookmarklet?

kushal — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:34:00 +0000

Size Does Matter

kushal — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Posted by Nadav Savio, UX Designer, Google Notebook

If you could see my desk, you'd know I like to spread my things out. I need plenty of room for all my papers, books, Oblique Strategies cards, and other desk-based flotsam. When my desk is small, it feels like a mess and I can't seem to focus on anything.

Similarly, the Google Notebook browser extension has always felt a bit cramped. It's small enough to leave open while I'm surfing and add new stuff, but not really big enough to easily view my existing notes. So you can imagine my pleasure that the latest release includes the ability to choose a size for the mini notebook! Now when I open up a recipe in my recipes notebook, it's big enough for me to follow along (no more imperfectly boiled eggs for this designer!).

To change the size of your mini-Notebook, just open the Tools menu and pick "Resize." You can choose small, medium, or large.

Of course, not everyone might need or want a 5,000 square-foot home, so we'd love your feedback: What size options would be useful? Is it helpful to have a choice?

Size Does Matter

kushal — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Google Notebook’s Official Guide to Bars

kushal — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:24:00 +0000

Posted by Nick Santos, Software Engineer, Google Notebook

Today, it's my pleasure to announce the opening of two trendy new bars on the Notebook home page.

Uptown, we have the new editing toolbar. It offers a wide selection of text-editing tools from Google's text-editing artisans. All the standard tools from the old Notebook toolbar are still here, but we've added a new strikethrough button. More importantly, the toolbar has a fresh new look! And by "fresh," we mean freshly stolen from our friends over at Google Docs.

If you take a look downtown, you'll find our new export bar. There's nothing really new here: in fact, you've probably seen a few of these options before, scattered throughout Notebook. But it's nice to finally have a one-stop shop when you're ready to gather all the stuff you've collected in Notebook, and take it out on the town. You can plot a notebook of locations on a map, format any notebook as a document, and send a public notebook to Google Reader.

We hope you enjoy these new tools. I think I'm going out tonight and celebrate: by creating a notebook of all my favorite bars!

Google Notebook’s Official Guide to Bars

kushal — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:24:00 +0000

Take addresses to go with mobile map links

kushal — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Posted by Kushal Dave, Tech Lead, Google Notebook

For some time now, Notebook has automatically detected correctly-formatted U.S. addresses in your notes, letting you view them by choosing "View on a map" from the Tools menu. And we recently made it possible to export these maps to the "My Maps" feature in Google Maps for additional customization. The Notebook team even used this feature when it met up in New York last December to plan a tasty dessert tour of New York. But when it came time to walk around the city, we had to print out the map; it turns out the time when addresses are most handy is when you're out in the real world, not at a computer.

Today, we launched a feature that addresses (so to speak) this problem by linking from the mobile version of Google Notebook to Google Maps. When looking at notes that have identifiable addresses on your mobile phone, you can click the "View in Google Maps" link and jump right to a map. We hope this will be handy way to get to friends' addresses, restaurant locations, apartments from Craigslist, or wherever else you may be going after doing your research online.

Take addresses to go with mobile map links

kushal — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Permalinks: Up and hAtom!

kushal — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Posted by Michał Cierniak, Software Engineer, Search Quality

Have you ever clipped text from a site and later found that the link Google Notebook associated with it takes you back to a page that doesn't have your clipped content anymore? I know I have. Luckily, there's a new feature in Notebook to help you see your note in its original context. In the newly released version of the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, if you clip part of a page that supports the hAtom standard, we will save the correct permalink and title for the text you clipped.

Say you're reading the Bird Lovers Only Rescue blog and notice the post from 5 January 2008 announcing a PBS Nature Series called Parrots in The Land Of Oz. You keep a notebook on TV shows about birds, so you select the text describing the show and clip it into Google Notebook. If you did this with an older version of Notebook, you would see the clipped text with the title "Bird Lovers Only Rescue" and http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com as the URL. But when you navigated back to this page later, you would only see the most recent posts, not the one you were trying to save. The post you wanted would be hiding somewhere in the site. But the new Toolbar with Notebook helps make sure your notes take you back to the right place.

Please note this feature only works on web pages that support hAtom and the number of sites that use this standard is limited. Here's a a list of sites that support hAtom, including popular news sources like People Magazine and numerous blogs. The Blogger platform supports hAtom for all blogs that use the new templating system.

We hope that more and more sites will support hAtom and other microformats in the future. If you want to modify your blog's template just enough to make Google Notebook find the permalink info, you can follow my instructions, which are intended for Blogger. If you know enough about HTML to customize your blog's template, you should be able to figure out how to apply them to other blogging software.

Permalinks: Up and hAtom!

kushal — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Surviving the holidays with Google Notebook

kushal — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:52:00 +0000

Posted by Kushal Dave, Tech Lead, Google Notebook

Christmas always stresses me out. Between travel plans, gift ideas, wish lists and finishing up at work, there's a lot to keep track of. Luckily, Google Notebook helps out a bit — below are a few tips from the folks who use Notebook that can ease the stress during the holiday frenzy:

Store travel information in Google Notebook. When there are multiple reservations involved, it's useful to have a single notebook with all of your confirmations side-by-side without all the extra stuff from the original email. Or if you're still trying to choose between different travel options, Notebook is a handy place to save alternatives from different booking sites. Just select the relevant part of any page and clip it (check out this video for more tips). It's then super-easy to print the notebook, share it with the people you're visiting, or use the mobile version to access it at the airport. For me, putting everything into a trip Notebook is also a useful way to make sure I didn't accidentally schedule a return flight before a departure flight (which I've been known to do on occasion).
Make notebooks of present ideas. I have a notebook of ideas for presents that I clip into any time I run across something promising while browsing the web. Or I just put down ideas as they pop into my head. Making a section for each person you need to give a present to help you feel more in control. (But be sure not to publish your notebook or you'll ruin the surprise!)
Make a wish list notebook. Help out your uncreative friends (or parents!) with a wish list notebook. Do make this one public! One tip: public notebooks aren't always the most attractive way to share a wish list. But luckily there's a way to take any public notebook and make a custom display for it. Here's a view I made that you can put your notebook into to send to your friends.*

I hope any or all of these tips come in handy. Happy holidays from the Notebook team!

*If you're a JavaScript hacker, try looking at the source, adapting the JSON feed to your needs, and posting about it in the comments. We're excited to see what you come up with.

Surviving the holidays with Google Notebook

kushal — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:52:00 +0000

Store travel information in Google Notebook. When there are multiple reservations involved, it's useful to have a single notebook with all of your confirmations side-by-side without all the extra stuff from the original email. Or if you're still trying to choose between different travel options, Notebook is a handy place to save alternatives from different booking sites. Just select the relevant part of any page and clip it (check out this video for more tips). It's then super-easy to print the notebook, share it with the people you're visiting, or use the mobile version to access it at the airport. For me, putting everything into a trip Notebook is also a useful way to make sure I didn't accidentally schedule a return flight before a departure flight (which I've been known to do on occasion).
Make notebooks of present ideas. I have a notebook of ideas for presents that I clip into any time I run across something promising while browsing the web. Or I just put down ideas as they pop into my head. Making a section for each person you need to give a present to help you feel more in control. (But be sure not to publish your notebook or you'll ruin the surprise!)
Make a wish list notebook. Help out your uncreative friends (or parents!) with a wish list notebook. Do make this one public! One tip: public notebooks aren't always the most attractive way to share a wish list. But luckily there's a way to take any public notebook and make a custom display for it. Here's a view I made that you can put your notebook into to send to your friends.*