Web Apps

Google Cloud Connect is a small add-on for Microsoft Office designed by Google. It connects Microsoft Office to Google Docs, so you can save your documents to Google Docs in the cloud and collaborate online directly from Microsoft Office. The unfortunate part is that it doesn’t let you edit Google Docs documents directly inside Microsoft Office. It would be great if you could. To be honest, Google Docs is very handy, but it crashes quite often, and it has far too few features… ...

Plurk is a well-known microblogging system in Taiwan. Each message is limited to 140 characters. That limit makes things awkward for people who want to ask the community a question or share something good. For example, say you see a really funny story, but it's 300 characters long, so you can't post it on Plurk. Some people solve this by splitting the 300 characters into three parts and replying to their own post with each part, but that's a bit inconvenient. Here I want to introduce a new site called Plurk Paste...

AirDropper is a plugin whose main function is to turn your Dropbox into a place where anyone can upload files. By default, you can share files in your Dropbox for others to download, but people without a Dropbox account can't send files to you (you can use a shared folder if the people sending files to you have Dropbox accounts). AirDropper gets around this limitation. The principle is simple: through an authorization process, AirDropper is allowed to access your Dropbox account. Then you just have people send files to AirDropper, and it automatically saves them into your Dropbox, which indirectly lets anyone upload. But note that this plugin doesn't work like FTP. Instead, when someone wants to send you files, you send them a link, and they upload the files using that link. Once the upload is finished, the link expires. From my experience trying several Dropbox plugins, most of them are slow, and some won’t even load at all. This is especially true of the top-ranked ones. I guess Dropbox sends them so much traffic that their servers can’t handle it….. But AirDropper, which I’m introducing today, has been fairly stable. Its only drawback is that sending the email isn’t fast enough. ...

Recently, my team used Google Docs to write the web page content for a 2010 web design competition on charity, humanities, and technology, so I ended up using Google Docs' online collaboration feature. It's quite easy to use. Just set the document's sharing permissions, send the URL to your collaborators, and you can start editing the document together. It also has a simple built-in instant messaging program, so you can chat while you write. It's great for school group assignments or for anyone who needs to write reports at work....

Calling Dropbox an online hard drive actually sells it a bit short, but it’s the only name I can think of right now. If anyone has a better name, please let me know! Dropbox’s main function is that you install a client program on your computer. When you have a file to upload, you just drop it into the Dropbox client and it’s uploaded. Dropbox also gives free users 2GB of space, and if you recommend Dropbox to someone else, your space can grow too (up to 8GB). Personally, I feel 2GB is already enough. ...

FindBook is a website that compares book prices for you. Just enter the book’s title, the author’s name, or its ISBN, and it lists which bookstores carry the book and at what price. It also has a “Daily 66% Zone” that collects books sold at 66% of the list price. I’d recommend that anyone who wants to buy books check prices there first. I’ve compared prices there myself, and the difference is actually quite big. For example, if a bookstore’s list price is 500, FindBook can find it for as little as 300 (or even 250). FindBook also calculates shipping for you, which is really convenient~ ...

4Shared offers a free online hard drive with 10GB of total storage and a maximum of 200MB per file (I remember it used to be 100MB per file…..). It also supports external sharing links. One annoying thing is that you have to log in once every 30 days. Otherwise, your membership is canceled and all your uploaded files are deleted. 4Shared also uses a membership system, so you have to create an account before you can upload files. But the sign-up process is really simple, with only a few things to fill in~ You can also sign in directly with your Google account. Also, the file upload interface of 4Shared is really cool. Take a look at the picture below and you’ll see what I mean ^^ ...

Google Public DNS is a service Google recently launched that lets you browse the web using Google’s free DNS. The benefit of Google Public DNS is that it makes your browsing safer, and your browsing speed may also improve. By the way, openDNS also offers a DNS service, and it’s pretty good too, so feel free to check it out. Google Public DNS is also one of the few Google services that doesn’t require going to a website to use it (you just configure it directly on your computer). ...

Gmail Labs is a recent feature from Gmail. It contains many things Gmail is still experimenting with (for example, offline mode and translate mail). In other words, the features in Gmail Labs are usually features that Gmail may release in the future. However, because Gmail Labs features are still under development, they are not very stable, and installing some incomplete features can sometimes cause problems. But don't worry too much about that! Gmail Labs provides a URL that lets you turn off a problematic Lab feature when something goes wrong. I have used Gmail Labs for over two months and have rarely run into crashes. Below, I will introduce several Gmail Labs features that the site owner recommends....

After a long wait, I finally received a Google Wave invitation. I’m sure many of you have heard of Google Wave. It’s a new service Google is about to launch, combining email with many other Google services. It’s a bit like MSN (because it’s real-time). Honestly, I don’t fully understand what Google Wave is about, so I’ll quote someone else’s article below. Google Wave is still in testing, and you need an invitation to use it. I’d been asking for invitations on various forums, and I finally got one. Here are some Google Wave pictures for you XD. I’m still figuring out how to send invitations to other people~ ...