Google Presentation Widget

Here’s an interesting new feature from Google. We have seen how common embedded YouTube videos have become on websites and blogs. Google have now applied the same concept to Google Docs. If you create a presentation in Google Docs (or upload one built in PowerPoint), you now have the option to publish it with a viewer widget.

This is very easy to do:

1. Log into docs.google.com
2. Select ‘New’ from the menu bar and click on ‘Presentation’
3. The tools are very simple. It’s like using a minimalist PowerPoint.
4. You can add images either as uploads or as URLs that point to images on the web.
5. Click on the ‘Publish’ tab on the top right.
6. Copy the code in the text box and paste it wherever you want on the web.
7. You now have a nifty presentation widget!

Growth of Blogs and Readership

Links for 2008-05-21 [del.icio.us]

Posted: 22 May 2008 12:00 AM CDT

• Blogs Blossom into a Big Business – eMarketer
  Statistics and projections on the growth of blogs and readership. eMarketplace estimates that 16% of the internet population will be publishing blogs by 2012. 67% will be reading blogs by 2012.

Online Reputation

The internet has changed over the last few years. Four years ago there were around three million blogs on the internet, now there are well over a hundred million. The number of blogs has doubled every six months. Each one of these blogs acts as a personal forum for the author to publish their opinion on everything and everyone. Other web users can also chime in with their opinions. In addition there are the large social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. Millions of people are not only browsing – but also posting. The website eMarketplace estimates that currently 13% of U.S. web users have their own blogs.

With so many authors – how do you know if anyone is commenting on you?

The internet can have a profound effect on your reputation – both positively and negatively. There is a whole new class of businesses that offer services to establish and protect your online reputation. But there are several things you can do yourself to build, monitor and protect your reputation:

1. Google your name periodically to see what your reputation looks like.
2. Set up your profiles on such sites as LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Xing. Make sure that when someone searches for you, they will find information that you want them to see.
3. Use your real name when you post and comment on subjects on which you are knowledgeable. These posts will appear in searches and will help build your reputation.
4. Don’t post anything that could be embarrassing. Even if you use a pseudonym, it could be uncovered.

Remember that the internet is a very public place. Online content is difficult to remove. A positive online reputation is a great benefit. A negative reputation can be damaging and very hard to repair.

Online Reputation Links

• Blogs Blossom into a Big Business – eMarketer
  Statistics and projections on the growth of blogs and readership. eMarketplace estimates that 16% of the internet population will be publishing blogs by 2012. 67% will be reading blogs by 2012. Thanks to Vicki Ziegler for this link!
• Online Business Networking.
  “Increasingly people accept that Facebook serves a different function than LinkedIn. In simple terms: deals on LinkedIn, dates on Facebook. But the real race for business networking has two horses. LinkedIn is clearly one. The other is not Facebook, but Xing”

Web Links May 13, 2008

• gethuman
  Are you fed up with wasting your time in annoying automated voice-mail systems? Help undermine this technology with gethuman.com. This site shows you how to get past voice-mail and speak to a real person at various companies.
• XML in 10 points
  A really good explanation of XML. Although it is not quite a house-hold term yet, XML appears in a lot of conversations. If you are curious, here’s a nice, simple ten point list that explains what it is and what it is used for.

Web Links May 12, 2008

• Splashup
  A web based photo editing tool. This program works as as flash application within your browser. You get powerful picture editing functionality in a completely web based application. Access and edit Publish Post from anywhere!

New Google Earth Beta

An amazing new version of Google Earth is now out. It is version 4.3 but it is still in beta. There are some excellent new features that include:

• Time of day. You can select the time of day and the program will adjust the lighting and even create shadows on mountain terrain and buildings.
• Weather and clouds. You can turn on layers to show cloud-cover and radar images. When you are at ground level these are realistically rendered above you.
• 3D buildings. These are best in US cities. As soon as you zoom to a city simple models appear and then they are rendered with more detail over time. They look very realistic.
• Street View. In some cities there are now interactive panoramic photos that you can jump into all along city streets.
• Flight simulator. You can now fly around in a jet! I managed to crash mine into the ground.

Here is a great video of what it looks like. The original source is the Google Earth Blog. Thanks to the folks at My Tech Opinion where I first found this.

I installed this and my experience was not quite as smooth and seamless as in this movie. In particular I had some issues with the streaming of the images. Detailed images did not appear as I zoomed in. This is still a beta. I would recommend waiting to upgrade until it is fully released.

Space Database Stacking Plans

The Space Database stacking plan is a back-end service that supplies content to many commercial real estate websites. It is one of our key technical innovations that facilitate getting marketing drawings out to prospective tenants as quickly and easily as possible.

Our stacking plan is a website tool that seamlessly blends into a clients leasing and marketing site. This can look any way clients want it to look:

Here is a sleek and cool version that includes a tabular report as well as leasing contact information:

And here is a version that gives you a great sense of what the building is actually like. In this case the vacancy information is semi-transparent and ‘floats’ over the building image:

In both of these cases the diagrams are integrated with live data from the Space Database drawing management application. Any changes made within the program are automatically and instantly updated. Links in the stack will pull up PDF file drawings of the available space.

In addition to measuring buildings, creating re-usable CAD files and calculating areas in accordance to BOMA 96, Space Database also provides the software and services to make all of this information accessible and useful. Our software and services streamline and speed up the leasing process. We help landlords find new tenants and we help speed up the process of getting them moved in.

Web Links May 7, 2008

• Gliffy a free, web based diagramming tool similar to Visio
  This website offers a web based tool that allows you to create flowcharts, floor plans, org charts and network diagrams. Think of it as a Google docs version of Visio! The free version allows for up to five diagrams a month. You can upgrade for a modest fee
• HTML Playground, html, css reference by example
  A great tool for web design. More than a list of tags and their meanings, this site lets you play with the code right on screen and instantly see the results. A great reference tool.

New Del.icio.us Links

A new feature of this blog is that I will be sharing my Del.icio.us web links as blog posts. These will appear as a daily compilation on any day after I have added these links. At the bottom of the blog you will find a tag cloud of topics in my Del.icio.us account.

Tech Note – how I set this up:

Del.icio.us has a tool called a ‘Thingy’ that is supposed to publish a link compilation automatically to a blog – but it does not seem to work for this platform (Blogger). But if you know of a way – let me know!

Here’s the work-around that I used. It is based on a solution by
Anand Kishore. Here’s what I did: How to get Del.ico.us daily blog posting to appear in Blogger:

1. Set up a new blank blog in Blogger. This blog won’t be used for anything so it does not matter what it looks like. It’s only role is to be the root of an RSS feed.
2. Configure the blog where you want these posts to appear to receive posts by email. (i.e. not the blank one you just set up) You can find this under “Settings/Email”. Click on “Save emails as draft posts” you might want to edit what these look like before the world sees them.
3. Next pick up the feed in Feedburner. This is a feed from an empty blog so it will have nothing in it.
4. Under the “Optimize” tab, I turned on the “Link Splicer” feature. This allows you to tap into your Del.icio.us account and add your new links as an item in the feed.
5. Open up the RSS feed in your browser (the RSS icon at the top left of the page) You should see a compilation of your Del.icio.us links.
6. Click on the “Get … delivered by email” link. Enter in the email of your blog. If you add any links to Del.icio.us, you should see this as a draft post the next morning!

Again, if you know of a simpler or better way of doing this, please post a comment!