Author: Clinton

Google has begun rolling out an updated version of Chrome that promises to bring speed improvements and memory management improvements.  Chrome 45, for those keeping score at home, is starting to hit users of Chrome now (Chrome OS has already been updated to Build 45) so if you are using the browser on your PC, go to Settings>About to force the browser to look for the update.

In a blog post on the Chrome blog, Google points out that they have continued to focus on speed improvements in the browser.  The first area was improving the “continue where you left off option” in the browser.  This lets you restore tabs when you relaunch Chrome.  Now the browser is a bit smarter about how it restores these tabs.  Now tabs are restroed from the most to least recently viewed so you get to the fresher (and likely more important data) faster.  Also, Chrome can detect if your computer is running low on resources and will stop restoring the rest of your tabs to save memory.  You can of course restore them later if you’d like.

Google has released the all new Google Street View app today for both Android and iOS.  Previously, Street View was embedded into Google Maps and when you tapped on a location, you could then enter into Street View.  This new Google Street View app is a standalone app that allows you to explore 360-degree views of places all over the world plus gives you the ability to add your own 360-degree photospheres right from within the app.  Think of it as making your own personal street view and if you happen to have a spherical camera, support for it is there as well.

Google Street View – Free – Download Now

The Google Docs team has started the new month with some great new features in the suite for those in education and in business.  The biggest change is a new research function which allows you to harness the power of Google search all from within the app.

Now we’re taking the first steps to incorporate the power and intelligence of Google into Docs. We hope to make analyzing your data more intuitive, editing more accessible and document styling more dynamic – now your documents can be as beautiful as your ideas are bold.

The biggest and boldest new feature is the Research function in the Google Docs apps for Android.  Now you can research information from within the app leveraging Google.  To do this you will need the latest builds of the Google Docs (build 1.4.352.09.34) and Google Sheets (1.4.352.09.34) which are now rolling out to the Google Play Store.  As with most updates like this, you could see this update in a matter of hours or a few days.

Last month I began a series of four articles on my migration from Microsoft Office to Google Docs. In part one of the series I covered the foundations for making Google Docs work the best for you both online and offline. In part 2 I focused on Google Docs, the document editing app that is most analogous to Microsoft Word.

In part 3 I am going to focus on Google Sheets, the spreadsheet application that is part of the suite. Like I did in part 2, I am going to cover the app from the perspective of working with it from a desktop, from a Chromebook and from the Android app.

If you have not had the opportunity to read part 1 and part 2, you can find the links below for your reference.

My Migration to Google Docs Part 1 – The Setup

My Migration to Google Docs Part 2 – Google Docs on All The Toys

As a reminder to everyone who is thinking of making this migration, a word of advice-meets-warning I posted as part of the first article.

Take your time.  You will find that the majority of features in Microsoft Office are in the Google apps but they will be in different places.  It may take you a few menu clicks to sort it out.  Be patient.  Give it a chance.  Sure it may turn out that it isn’t right for you and your needs but I would suggest trying the experiment over a week or two before you make a final verdict.  It isn’t as big a migration from say a PC to a Mac but it is similar to moving from Internet Explorer to Chrome in many ways.  Same thing, but bits in different places and this process or that process may be a little different.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and your migration to Google Docs won’t happen that fast either.  Patience is the word of the day.

In addition to the six new smartphones that Acer announced today at IFA 2015 in Berlin, the company also announced a brand new 11″ Chromebook, the R11.  The Chromebook R11 is the first fully convertible Chromebook from Acer and sports an 11″ 1366 x 768 LCD display and is powered by an Intel Celeron processor.  The R11 will be able to have up to 4GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage depending on the configuration you purchase.  As for price, the Chromebook R11 will start at $299.

Today in Berlin at IFA 2015, Acer took the stage and made some great announcements.  In total they announced 6 new smartphones, four of which will be running Android 5.1.  The lineup ranges from a top-of-the-line Acer Liquid Z630 to the budget friendly Z530 that will be around $200 when it is available later this month.  Both the Z630 and Z530 line up will come with two versions, a standard model and a “S” version which will have slightly better specifications.