Category: Google

Everyone, you can file this one under the “FINALLY!” category.  Google+ has started rolling out link sharing to external services and apps.  I’ll pause here so you can savor the moment….

Up until this point on Google+ when you wanted to share a link, you would only get the link copied to the devices clipboard.  You would then have to go to the 3rd party app (email, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, etc) and then tap-and-hold to past a link to the Google+ article you want to share.  Not intuitive. Not friendly. Not really helpful.

That, it appears, is changing.  Multiple people have posted that they can now use the share menu to share a link directly into other apps on their Android Phone and Android tablets.  I have tried it on both my OnePlus One and my Nexus 7 and it is working for me.  However, this isn’t out to everyone just yet.

With Android Marshmallow only days or weeks away from release, Google is starting to pave the way for it with updates to their various apps and services.  One update that is rolling out now is the Google Play Store app for Android phones and tablets.  The update is build 5.9.11 for those keeping score at home and it has an improved look to it as well as underlying services to improve the overall functionality of the store as it relates to Android Marshmallow.

The update is rolling out in the Google Play Store now so it may take a few days for it to hit your devices.

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.