Google Calendar, and its Web 2.0 potential Wednesday, 19 April 2006 8:56 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Web 2.0, What's new at Google?!, featured IT of the week, free/Open Source Software.add a comment
We all know that Yahoo calendar is the leading service in this category.
Google has launched Google Calendar beta (GC), you may share it w/ friends, colleagues and the like, or keep it private (default), or you may open it up for every one (esp. helpful if you have a business like an art gallery, theatre, book club, or a library). The GC service will also recognise events w/i the text of Gmail messages and flag them, so you may add them into your GC instantly.
Color coding helps to keep different things (home, office, art, concerts, vacation, etc.) straight, you can also add different holiday calendars (e.g. US Holidays, China Holidays).
It lets you quickly add an event, and view multiple calendars w/i one screen. Similar to Outlook and Evite, Google Calendar beta lets you send invitations to anyone — even to people who don't use Gmail. Event reminders, including SMS updates, will surely keep you on your toes.
GC lets you import calendars from MS Outlook, and Mac fans will love it since it syncs w/ iCal.
You can export your schedule via RSS, and then read the feeds from a third-party newsreader.
Its unclutered interface, Web 2.0 potential, together w/ Google's powerful search capability, I think you'll like it.
For its Web 2.0 potential, read Google Calendar API + GC's Web 2.0 Potential on Search Engine Lowdown.
spyware, things you should know Wednesday, 1 March 2006 5:32 pm
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, featured IT of the week, free/Open Source Software.7 comments
Been sick for a while, haven’t kept up w/ my blog … lots of things to blog about … attended this great spyware workshop presented by two Student Computing Support tech guys (for more details, see Thurs. @ 3 Library Seminars) a couple of weeks ago, meant to share w/ you all what I learned. (Don’t know what spyware/malware/badware/adware is and what it will do to your computer? Read this from Wikipedia).
1. anti-spyware software and tools
Microsoft Anti-Spyware (Windows Defender (Beta 2)): http://www.microsoft.com
Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE (Personal version is free to download): http://www.lavasoftusa.com
Spybot Search and Destroy (freeware, donate if you can 
): http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
Ewido Anti-Malware (free download): http://www.ewido.com
note: of all these software, I personally like Spybot S&D the best.
2. Comprehensive list of spyware (black list ): http://www.spywareguide.com
3. Report to stop badware (sponsored by Google, Sun Microsystems, etc.): http://www.stopbadware.com
4. Faculty (staff) and students of CofC, download and install Symantec Anti Virus: http://antivirus.cofc.edu
5. You may wish to use alternative browsers, such as
Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org
Opera Web Browser: http://www.opera.com
6. Tips to protect yourself from spyware
- Read User Agreements Before Clicking Yes to Protect Yourself from Spyware (Spyware that comes bundled with shareware usually appears in Chapter 9: Third Party Software);
- Be Careful of Advertising That Looks Like Windows Warnings to Protect Yourself from Spyware;
- Carefully Read Windows Warnings that Present themselves while Surfing to Protect Yourself from Spyware;
- Install a Program to Detect Spyware and Scan Often to Protect Yourself from Spyware (see above 1);
- Be Leery of Visiting Websites that aren’t Well Known to Protect Yourself from Spyware;
- Update Windows and your Browser to Protect Yourself from Spyware;
- Be Leery of Installing Shareware and Free Programs to Protect Yourself from Spyware.
Google launches home page service, Google Page Creator Thursday, 23 February 2006 10:15 am
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, What's new at Google?!, featured IT of the week, free/Open Source Software.2 comments
From Steve Rubel’s blog Micro Persuasion
“Remember that rumored Ajax-based Google home page service? Well it launched. For more, see Chris Sherman’s
analysis on Search Engine Watch on where this fits vis-a-vis Google’s Blogger”.
Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes. It promises that No technical knowledge required (no HTML, or complex software), wysiwyg (What you see is what you’ll get), and you don’t need to worry about hosting (Google will host it for you just like it’s free blogging service, Blogger). All you need to do is to login with your Gmail account and … start making pages.
pdf995, create quality pdf files for free (another cool open source software) Friday, 17 February 2006 11:30 am
Posted by Dongmei in Internet Resources, featured IT of the week, free/Open Source Software.1 comment so far
I’ve used pdf995 for some time (my cool former colleague Kathy Whitley recommended it). But I know many people don’t know about it (I was asked by one colleague yesterday if I had Adobe Acrobat which I don’t have). It’s a very cool software.
Here’s the lowdown. It comes in a suite, pdf995 suite, but if you just want to create simple pdf files from other file formats, download pdf995 only (2-step download, download pdf 995 printer driver and Free Converter here).
You may download the whole software suite or individual components from the downloads page on the pdf995 site.
All three products are available as FREE downloads. The free versions display a sponsor page in your web browser each time you run the software. If you would prefer not to see sponsor pages, you may upgrade by obtaining individual keys for each product.
If you wish to see what features that pdf995 suite offer, click here.
Pdf995 makes it easy and affordable (free) to create professional-quality pdf documents. Its easy-to-use interface helps you to create PDF files by simply selecting the “print” command from any application, creating documents which can be viewed on any computer with a PDF viewer.
If you wish to make fancy pdf files (with embedded links, etc.) you need to download the pdfEdit995 as well. PdfEdit995 offers a wealth of additional functionality, such as: combining documents into a single PDF; automatic link insertion; hierarchical bookmark insertion; PDF conversion to formatted HTML or DOC (text only); integration with Word toolbar with automatic table of contents and link generation; autoattach to email; stationery and stamping.
Included in the pdf995 suite, Signature995 offers state-of-the-art security and encryption to protect your documents and add digital signatures. Also available is the Standard Encryption Module. Standard Encryption uses native PDF encryption to restrict users from printing, copying text and images and modifying PDF files. It can also password protect PDF files.
For those enthusiastic programmers, you may obtain the source code for GNU GPL modps.exe here.
You won’t believe it, but over 10 million satisfied customers and millions of enterprise users worldwide use these software (BTW, I don’t get for this post at all 
). Join the crew and I know you’ll like it.
Google chat … chat inside your Gmail account Tuesday, 14 February 2006 11:01 am
Posted by Dongmei in What's new at Google?!, featured IT of the week.2 comments
Why a new category on Google in my blog, isn’t enough there about the Google universe?
I decide to do a column/category just for Google, temporarily, I named it “what’s new at Google“. Why, it helps librarians to differentiate our world (to our patron) from the Google world if we become Google experts, or at least keep up with what’s going on in the Google universe (fellow librarians, I’m sure that you’ll learn a lot if you listen to Steven Bell’s teleconference presentation “Google and Your Patrons” in the College of DuPage’s Soaring to Excellence 2006 series).
I can’t say I’m a Google expert, but I use lots of Google services and Google tools on a daily base, I want to show you many things that Google can do (and can’t do ). And you know what, one study shows that among all the people that used search engines, only about 5% used the advanced search function (that’s my motivation right here, to make you one of those 5% ).
All that being said, here’s the first post, about the all new Google chat service:
Google finally launched its very own chat service that it’s been promising for weeks. Now you can chat inside Gmail, with your Gmail contacts and folks on the Google Talk network. You can save the chat history in the chats folder (just like one of your regular email folders), and best yet, you can even search them, like you do with other Gmail email entries. You can opt to turn off the save function (in settings).
Google started to roll out chat on all Gmail accounts, I saw mine this morning, so hopefully you’ll see yours (if you use Gmail) soon. Happy chat on Valentine’s Day!
