Software : SlingPlayer app delivers early Christmas joy to Windows 8 users |
- SlingPlayer app delivers early Christmas joy to Windows 8 users
- In Depth: Google Drive and Docs tips: 20 expert tricks and shortcuts
- Opinion: Instagram Direct arrives late to the DM party, follows the crowd
- Gmail will now display images by default
- Instagram Direct beats SMS photo sharing, says Systrom
| SlingPlayer app delivers early Christmas joy to Windows 8 users Posted:  Santa Claus may not be due to slide down the chimney for another 12 days, but the elves at Slingbox are bringing a little holiday cheer to PC and tablet users on the Windows platform. Sling Media announced today the release of SlingPlayer for Windows 8, a native media player app first announced last month and now available for PC users running Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system. Available globally from the Windows 8 Store, the SlingPlayer app offers a unified experience across all Windows 8 devices, including laptop or desktop computers, convertibles and tablets. Although Intel-powered Windows 8.1 devices could previously access Sling's web-based player, the Windows 8 app delivers support for ARM-based Windows RT devices like Surface 2 and the Nokia Lumia 2520. Sling it, touch itSlingPlayer for Windows 8 app works equally well with a mouse or fingers, thanks to the touch-enabled user interface that offers universal support for all devices. The app also includes an intuitive gallery view in keeping with the look and feel of other Windows 8 apps for easy discovery and navigation of live or recorded programs. Should you need another incentive to upgrade to Windows 8.1, the SlingPlayer native app is as good as any, since it requires the latest version. SlingPlayer for Windows 8 offers a free 24-hour test drive and is priced comparable to other versions at $14.99; a separate version is also available for Windows Phone 8 devices.
|
| In Depth: Google Drive and Docs tips: 20 expert tricks and shortcuts Posted:  Google Drive and the Docs suite it incorporates have grown a lot more powerful over the last couple of years. Desktop syncing, Gmail integration, mobile and offline editing, handwriting recognition, extra storage and a variety of interface tweaks have all come down the pipe to leave Drive looking like a very mature and capable platform indeed. It still falls short of the raw power of a typical desktop office suite, yet with growing broadband speeds and ever-improving mobile apps it's becoming a part of the workflow for more and more people. Whether you've only dabbled in Docs and Drive in the past, or you're a long-standing veteran, we've collected 20 of our favourite tips to help you improve your productivity. 1. File types Let's start with the main Google Drive interface. Click on the downward arrow inside the search box at the top of the screen and you can filter the files shown based on their format, their ownership permissions or their visibility on the Web. 2. Change the view There are a couple of useful links on the left of the Google Drive interface that can change the view of the files you're looking at: use Recent to see the most recently opened files at the top of the pile, and Activity to see files that have recently been changed by you or someone else with access permissions. 3. Multiple previews Do you want to be able to preview multiple files at once, without opening them up? Of course you do. Place ticks next to all the files you want to see in the main Google Drive interface, then press the preview button (an eye symbol). Use the cursor keys or the arrows at the sides to navigate through your files. 4. Drive on the desktop Google Drive's desktop application lets you use the platform as an online backup service for your local files. You can choose specific folders to sync on each machine. Native Google Docs files are shown as web links on your hard drive. 5. Built-in OCR Google Drive can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to parse text in PDF files and images and convert it into a standard Google Docs document. You can choose this option from the upload settings. The original image or PDF is embedded at the top of the document. 6. Paint formats The Paint format button is to the left of the toolbar in all of the main Docs applications, and you can use it to copy the format of one block of text to another. If you're creating a heading style, for example, you can quickly apply it to the other headings in your document. 7. Set default text In the Docs word processor, open up the stylesheets drop-down menu from the toolbar, then select Normal text > Update 'Normal text' to match. This sets the current text style as normal. Choose Options > Save as my default styles to use this new stylesheet on every new document. 8. Link searches If you highlight a block of text and then click the link button on the Docs toolbar, you'll see a list of suggested URLs based on the text you've selected. Matches for the selected word or phrase in your Google Drive file list are also shown, if you want to link between different documents. 9. Research If you're always switching to and from Google to look up information, you can make use of the Research pane (accessible from the Tools menu in Docs and Slides). Type a search term to see results from the web as well as your Google Drive and Gmail accounts. 10. Image drag You can drag and drop images right into your documents, whether from your local hard drive or a website. 11. Translate documents Leverage the power of Google Translate and get your documents swiftly translated from the option on the Tools menu. 46 different languages were available the last time we checked. 12. Email notifications In the Sheets spreadsheet app you can get customised notifications when something is changed on a spreadsheet. Choose Tools > Notification rules to set up your alerts as required. 13. Theme master slides The themes in Slides help you get your presentation up and running quickly, and in October Google added the option to edit the master slide (and thus the current theme). Open the Slide menu and choose the 'Edit master' option to make changes. 14. Layout tables The Docs word processor doesn't have the most advanced design tools, but you can use tables for slightly more unusual layouts. Use the Table menu to create the grid and then change its borders to 0pt width so that they're invisible. 15. Conditional formatting The capabilities and scope of Google's online office suite continues to grow. Via the Format menu in Sheets you can apply specific text and background colours if the cells in a certain range match particular criteria (such as their numerical value). 16. Word Art The Slides presentation program includes a basic Word Art tool that you can access from the Insert menu. You can change text colour, border colour and border thickness from the toolbar, and Word Art shapes can be useful if you need more flexibility than a standard text box can give you. 17. Scan documents If you have the official Google Drive app for Android, you can select the Scan option to use your phone or tablet as a scanner. Snap a physical document with your device's camera and the app converts it to a PDF saved in Google Drive. 18. Find new apps Many of the apps available in the Chrome Web Store tie right in with Google Drive and add extra capabilities to the service. From the main files list open the settings drop-down menu and choose Manage apps to look at apps you've already connected. Follow the link to browse for new programs, which cover everything from photo editing to online document signing. 19. Start publishing You can embed a presentation or any other type of file on the web to make it easier for other people to find. Choose Publish to the Web from the File menu to see the available options. 20. Go offline If you're going to be away from a reliable Internet connection for a while, you can still work on your files by utilising Google Drive's offline capabilities. You need to set this up in advance so the necessary caching can be carried out, and you need to be using the Chrome browser: choose the Offline link from the file list to enable the feature. If you haven't already installed the Drive Chrome app, you'll be prompted to do so. If you're running Chrome OS, the feature is enabled automatically.
|
| Opinion: Instagram Direct arrives late to the DM party, follows the crowd Posted:  When we cozied up for Instagram's event in New York earlier today, it was with a pang of hope that the announcement would stir up some scorching excitement, something new and unexpected. Smart bets were on a direct messaging service (which it was), but would Instagram trek into the novel land of hard-copy, printed pictures? Impractical perhaps, but still interesting. What we ended up with was a short 20-minute presentation introducing Instagram Direct, a service that lets users send pictures and videos privately while carrying on conversations with up to 15 people. Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom went though a few shaky talking points about art and communication, feature phones and puppies before finally dropping the singular note about its in-app direct messaging service. Cue the video of people doing "life" with it, and the event was over. While the presser itself was short and disappointing, Instagram's entrance into the DM space feels very late and perhaps even pointless. With Facebook PMs, Twitter DMs, iMessage, BlackBerry Messenger, Snapchat and countless others, we have an abundance of ways to communicate away from the internet-at-large's prying eyes.
To put it under harsher light, Instagram Direct is now yet another messaging service in a sea of pings, pokes and notifications. Sure, it's centered on moments, which sounds nice and all, but does it offer anything we don't already have? Stay awhile, won't you?Before outing Direct, Systrom noted that of the Instagram's 150 million members, more than half use the service daily. That's a large tally of 75 million, but another angle is that there are a whopping percentage of users who aren't on Instagram as part of their day-to-day activity. These absentees may well be snapping a quick shot with their apps and then sharing it on any number of other platforms, with Instagram a by-product of their social network milieu. It's easy to see then that with Direct, Instagram is trying to keep its current user base hooked while also attracting a new crowd increasingly keen on private messaging. "Stay awhile, and have a conversation, won't you?" we would suggest as Direct's sardonic tagline. However, how successful Direct will be at getting users off their current messaging services - or at least spending more time on Instagram's - is a big question mark. Yes, you can have a conversation centered around a single photo or video with multiple people, but is that really enough for Direct to become a regular messaging habit for users? We're skeptical, to say the least. There are Direct plusses, if copiedTo be fair, Instagram Direct has quite modern look and finished feature set, though a number of its parts look copied straight out of other services' textbooks. Direct users can share their pics and videos with up to 15 other filter aficionados and see if they've been seen, similar to Facebook and iMessages. As for receiving DMs, it seems Instagram has taken a cue from Twitter by only having photos and videos sent by people you know made immediately available. To combat spammers, Direct users can choose to accept or ignore a message from an unknown person, whereas Twitter shuttled the ability to receive messages from any follower in November. Unlike Snapchat - the inevitable direct comparison to Direct - Instagram's messages are ever-lasting; they won't vaporize after an allotted number of seconds.
Call some features unoriginal, but previously Instagram users were left to discuss their photos in a sea of comments open to everyone in the community. With Direct, they can hold much smaller, more intimate discussions amongst their favorite Instagramers and friends. Whether Instagram will turn a blind eye to all the inevitable sexting in its DM channel remains to be seen. And as we suggested to Systrom, inviting friends into a thread would have been a cool feature to include, though one that's not been completely ruled out. The last feature would truly help Direct stand apart from the crowd, and at least Systrom and Co. are aware of the call for it. Follow the crowdInstagram has struck upon what's made other messaging platforms successful while adding a few twists of its own, packaging it in an appealing format and gifting it to more users than many services could hope for. It can't necessarily be faulted for taking some pages from other services' books (you can only be so original), but because of its tardiness, Instagram may suffer from feelings of, "Well, I'm used to XYZ. Why switch?" There's a ring of Facebook Home to the whole Direct venture, a sort of let's do this because we can and because we need to do something different. Instagram will surely find more success than Home, and while Facebook didn't really need Home to grow, Instagram arguably needs Direct. It needs to keep users engaged, it needs to attract more, and it needs to compete. People will no doubt find themselves using Instagram Direct, even if there's no true difference between it and other services at this point. Will they keep coming back, though? That's a major unknown. |
| Gmail will now display images by default Posted:  Google has announced improvements to Gmail that make it easier for users to view images in their emails. Up until now Gmail users have had to manually display images in their messages, but no longer, according to a Google blog post. Google said the restrictions were in place to begin with to protect users from potentially harmful images, but that precaution is apparently no longer necessary. "Thanks to new improvements in how Gmail handles images," images will now be automatically displayed by default in Gmail on desktop, iOS and Android, Google Product Manager John Rae-Grant wrote. Out with the old, in with the imagesGoogle will now serve images to Gmail users through its own secure proxy servers rather than the images' original external hosts. "So what does this mean for you?" Rae-Grant posed. "Simple: your messages are more safe and secure, your images are checked for known viruses or malware, and you'll never have to press that pesky 'display images below' link again. "With this new change, your email will now be safer, faster and more beautiful than ever." Users who want to go back to the old way, to save on data or just to be cautious, can select "ask before displaying external images" under the "general" tab in the settings menu. And if your images still aren't displaying after this improvement rolls out, check to make sure that box isn't already checked - for some users it will be on by default. The changes to Gmail images should arrive on desktop starting today and on mobile platforms beginning in early 2014. |
| Instagram Direct beats SMS photo sharing, says Systrom Posted:  It's too easy to write off Instagram's launch of Instagram Direct as a response to Snapchat. Kevin Systrom, a 29-year-old co-founder of the 150 million-strong image sharing service, has much bigger plans. Interestingly enough, he's thinking of the estimated 4 billion feature phone users worldwide. "So, what's the opportunity today, if there are only 1 billion smartphones," Systrom asked rhetorically to a room of reporters that looked as if it were ripped from the most hip Instagram shot. "You've got to imagine that, over time, people will shift to smartphones, and we'll see an even more meteoric rise in how many photos are taken in the world. And that's all about communication - that's all about sending photos to other people." Know what sounds cool? 4 billion smartphonesWith the smartphone revolution arguably still a nascent one, Systrom is thinking about how the general masses share photos with friends privately from their phones. If it's on a feature phone, that's likely through SMS, or text messages. It'd be fair to wager that most of the 1 billion smartphone users globally do the same.
Systrom and his crew don't just want to please its current 150 million users, about half of which log on daily. Instagram wants to be there when the 4 billion feature phone users inevitably upgrade to an iPhone, Android phone or Windows Phone. (Just look at the iPhone 5C, Moto G and Lumia 520 - the vendors are working on it.) More importantly, Instagram wants to offer a service that solves the issues with using SMS to share photos among friends while mobile. Instagram Direct is definitely a v1 release, so to speak, but it might already be better than texting in many regards. The same, but different"In text messages, there's a thread, and you basically have to go back and forth," Systrom tells TechRadar. "You can send one, and then you're typing a bunch, and then maybe someone sends another image - it's much more of a conversation." "This is, 'Let's make the image the cornerstone of the conversation and be the main attraction.'" SMS has long been the most immediate way to get a photo to your contacts in private, but, as Systrom points out, the message thread isn't always about the image. "If you ever, on an iPhone, tapped into an image that someone sent you, if you swipe back, it goes to the last image that they've sent you," the Instagram head says. "There's no continuity."
Also like SMS threads, Instagram Direct photos last as long as you want them to, allowing up to 15 people at once to comment on an image and return back to them. What could even further differentiate this feature from texts would be the ability for any user in a thread to invite other friends into the discussion. "We've heard that request from our team, and we'll probably hear it from users," Systrom admits. "I think we'll have to decide when and how." Is this the end?With services like Facebook Messenger, Twitter and now this, reporters have long asked whether the end of SMS is nigh. Probably not, but Systrom seems hopeful that folks clinging to texting for this purpose might consider Instagram Direct. "What we wanted to make sure Instagram Direct was was much more of a timely experience, and I think that is very differentiated," Systrom says. "That being said, I don't think this replaces text messages, but it will just be a new, fun behavior." Systrom humbly points to Instagram Direct as a fun, new and probably better way to share selfies or shots of brunch with your friends, but with 4 billion potential users in the back of his mind. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechRadar: All latest Applications news feeds To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment