Showing posts with label to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label to. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Important Changes to Google Apps Marketplace Billing Policies
When we launched the Google Apps Marketplace in March last year, one of our goals was to make it easy for developers to build, integrate, and sell their apps to Google Apps users. Since then, each vendor in the Google Apps Marketplace has handled their own billing and keeps the revenue they generate. Today, we are making that the official Marketplace policy moving forward: Google will not require vendors to adopt a Google billing API or share any portion of their revenue with us. This will keep more revenue in developers’ pockets, and brings the Google Apps Marketplace policy in line with the Chrome Web Store.
So it’s business as usual -- developers can continue to “bring their own billing” to the Marketplace. Developers retain full control over application pricing and billing, and continue to keep all revenue from Google Apps Marketplace customers.
If you’re in need of a billing solution, we encourage you to try Google Checkout and In-App Payments. Or use one of the many other commercial billing and subscription services available online.
Please join us at our next Google Apps Developer Office Hours on Google+ Hangouts on December 19th at 12 PM PST time to discuss the Google Apps Marketplace and any questions you may have about these changes.
 | Scott McMullan profile | twitter Scott is a Product Manager at Google, where he runs the Apps Marketplace and is extremely lucky to be able to work with amazing developers and companies revolutionizing the way businesses use the web. |
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Tune in to YouTube at 6pm for a Big Announcement
At 6:00 pm PST this evening, we will be live streaming an important announcement at Google Campfire One about our latest developer efforts on the Google Developers YouTube channel. Dont miss it!
Publish your scripts to the Apps Script Gallery
Today, we are excited to make Google Apps Script available to everyone. Some of you may already be familiar with Google Apps Script within Google Apps, but in case you are new to it, Google Apps Script provides a powerful and flexible scripting environment that lets you automate actions across your spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and many other services.
An important new feature of Apps Script is a script gallery, where developers can easily publish their scripts to make them accessible to everyone. You can find the gallery by going to Insert and then selecting Script...in any Google spreadsheet.
Recently, the Google Apps team in New York put together a Movie Night script to help us easily figure out which movies were playing nearby and vote for our favorites - you can read more about it here. Let’s take a closer look at how the script works and how we published it to the new Apps Script Gallery.
We start by bringing up the script editor from a spreadsheet (Tools -> Scripts -> Script editor...).
The first step is to fetch a list of movies playing in a given area at a given time. We use the Google search results for a movie query as follows:
varresults = UrlFetchApp.fetch(http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=+
zipcode +&dq=movies&sort=1).getContentText();
vardoc = Xml.parse(results,true);
We can then use Apps Script’s handy Xml service to parse the results. The next step is to send an email to our friends asking them to vote. This is the slightly tricky part:
Phew! That was the tricky part. In summary, we just created a form for the spreadsheet, but instead of using that form directly, we’re going to use a form that is dynamically generated by the script. However, we still need the special key to correctly route submissions to the spreadsheet (and to validate those submissions).
After that, we can put together a list of recipients by calling the contacts service and reading the Gmail ‘Friends’ group:
varcontactGroup = ContactsApp.findContactGroup(’System Group: Friends’);
varpeople = contactGroup.getContacts();
Lastly, we put the movie thumbnails and descriptions in the email body - tailored to each recipient, so that we’ll know who voted:
varemailBody = "";
for(variinmovies) {
// add the image, title etc to emailBody (as HTML)
}
varaddresses = getFriends_();
for(variinaddresses) {
var email = email_header + form_key + emailBody + email_footer;
MailApp.sendEmail(addresses[i],"Movie tonight?", "", {htmlBody: email});
}
Check out the documentation and get started building your scripts - we look forward to seeing your gallery submissions. To share your masterpiece with the world, select Share -> Publish Script...from the script editor - its that easy!
Also, for those attending Google I/O this year, be sure check out the Google Apps Script talk on the Enterprise track.
Posted by Nikhil Singhal, Google Apps Script Engineer
Read more »
An important new feature of Apps Script is a script gallery, where developers can easily publish their scripts to make them accessible to everyone. You can find the gallery by going to Insert and then selecting Script...in any Google spreadsheet.
Recently, the Google Apps team in New York put together a Movie Night script to help us easily figure out which movies were playing nearby and vote for our favorites - you can read more about it here. Let’s take a closer look at how the script works and how we published it to the new Apps Script Gallery.
We start by bringing up the script editor from a spreadsheet (Tools -> Scripts -> Script editor...).
The first step is to fetch a list of movies playing in a given area at a given time. We use the Google search results for a movie query as follows:
varresults = UrlFetchApp.fetch(http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=+
zipcode +&dq=movies&sort=1).getContentText();
vardoc = Xml.parse(results,true);
We can then use Apps Script’s handy Xml service to parse the results. The next step is to send an email to our friends asking them to vote. This is the slightly tricky part:
- In the spreadsheet, select Form -> Create a form to open the form creation window.
- Add two questions, one titled “Movie”, and the other “Attendee” - we don’t care too much about any other text as it will all be replaced by the script at run-time.
- Close the form creation window.
- In the spreadsheet, select Form -> Go to live form, and copy the ‘formkey’ parameter from the address bar.
- Open the script in the editor, and insert the ‘formkey’ into line 2 of the script.
Phew! That was the tricky part. In summary, we just created a form for the spreadsheet, but instead of using that form directly, we’re going to use a form that is dynamically generated by the script. However, we still need the special key to correctly route submissions to the spreadsheet (and to validate those submissions).
After that, we can put together a list of recipients by calling the contacts service and reading the Gmail ‘Friends’ group:
varcontactGroup = ContactsApp.findContactGroup(’System Group: Friends’);
varpeople = contactGroup.getContacts();
Lastly, we put the movie thumbnails and descriptions in the email body - tailored to each recipient, so that we’ll know who voted:
varemailBody = "";
for(variinmovies) {
// add the image, title etc to emailBody (as HTML)
}
varaddresses = getFriends_();
for(variinaddresses) {
var email = email_header + form_key + emailBody + email_footer;
MailApp.sendEmail(addresses[i],"Movie tonight?", "", {htmlBody: email});
}
Check out the documentation and get started building your scripts - we look forward to seeing your gallery submissions. To share your masterpiece with the world, select Share -> Publish Script...from the script editor - its that easy!
Also, for those attending Google I/O this year, be sure check out the Google Apps Script talk on the Enterprise track.
Posted by Nikhil Singhal, Google Apps Script Engineer
Monday, March 9, 2015
New features in Admin SDK Custom user attributes and opening up access to all domain users
[ed: This post originally appeared on the Google Developers Blog]
By Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work
By Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work
The Admin SDK provides a comprehensive directory experience for Google for Work customers to help them meet specific business needs around data storage for customers. Here are some important updates to this SDK.
Custom attributes in the user’s profile
Now available is a new feature in the Directory API which allows you to add custom attributes for your users. For instance, you could store the projects your users work on, their desk number, job level, hiring date — whatever makes sense for your business.
Once the custom attributes for your domain have been defined, they behave just like regular fields in the user profile. You can get and set them for your users and also perform searches on custom fields (e.g. “all employees that work on the shinyNewApp in Hyderabad”).
Custom attributes can be of different data types; they can be single- or multi-valued. You can configure whether they are “public” i.e. visible to everyone on the domain, or “private” i.e. visible only to admins and the users themselves.
Read access to all domain users
Historically, only admins have been able to access the data in the Admin SDK. Beginning today, any user (not just admins) will now be able to call the Directory API to read the profile of any user on the domain (of course, we will respect ACLing settings and profile sharing settings).
We hope that you will be able to use this new feature to build business applications (e.g. corporate yellow pages, expense approval, vacation management, workflow applications, etc.) that can be used by all your users.
Please feel free to go through our documentation to go learn more about the Admin SDK, and specifically the Directory API. Happy hacking!
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
How to Get Better Clipart Results on Google
Hey everyone! Its time for Technology Tuesday again! This time, the poll winner was "How to Get Better Clipart Results on Google."
I hope youre able to use these tips to help find better clipart images! Do you have any google images tips that I missed? Let me know!
In Part 5, I mentioned that there was an easy way to change the colors of an image that you find. For next weeks poll, Ill be adding that!
Read more »
This post is separated into five sections:
Part 1: How to get only clipart images to show up
Part 2: How to find a copy of an image without a watermark
Part 3: How to find awesome black and white images
Part 4: How to find high-quality clipart images
Part 5: Other Google Images tricks/tips
For those of you keeping track, here are the poll results:
Now... onto part 1... how to get only clipart images to show up
Now, for part 2, how to find a copy of an image without a watermark.
Next is part 3, how to find awesome black and white images. (This one is my favorite trick!)
Now lets do part 4, how to find high-quality clipart images.
And, last but not least, here is part 5, some other Google Images tricks/tips.
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
I hope youre able to use these tips to help find better clipart images! Do you have any google images tips that I missed? Let me know!
In Part 5, I mentioned that there was an easy way to change the colors of an image that you find. For next weeks poll, Ill be adding that!
Monday, March 2, 2015
How to Add a Followers Button for Bloglovin’
The more I read the more I think that the blogger followers box wont be disappearing just yet... but to be safe I backed up all the blogs I follow over at Bloglovin! Since so many people have been switching over to Bloglovin, I figured Id write up a tutorial on how to add a bloglovin button to your blog. Here it is!
Read more »
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Drive. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
How to Make a Simple Frame in PowerPoint
Its Tuesday again! For a while, the poll was acting screwy, but the votes were all restored just in time! The winner was "How to Make a Simple Frame in PowerPoint!"
For next weeks poll, Im going to add how to add an easy border to your pictures... like I did with the pictures on the post about my pumpkin bulletin board!
Read more »
If you want to make a more complex frame,
be sure to check out my previous tutorial:
Anyway... here are the recovered poll results!
Yes, yes, I know it says 5 hours left to vote, so the votes arent final, but Im writing this up in NY (its currently Monday as I type this!) and Im not sure how much longer well have power! For everyone else being affected by this hurricane... stay safe!
Now, onto the tutorial!
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Study Guides Strategies to Think Like a Genius!
Study Guides & Strategies: http://www.studygs.net/Exercises & Games: http://www.studygs.net/exercises.htm
Thinking Like a Genius: http://www.studygs.net/genius.htm
Study Guides & Strategies
"The Study Guides and Strategies web site is authored, maintained and supported by Joe Landsberger as an independent educational public service. 
Collaborative projects are developed across institutional, cultural and national boundaries. I resist advertising, registration, and distracting graphics or features that may interfere with maximizing learner access."
Collaborative projects are developed across institutional, cultural and national boundaries. I resist advertising, registration, and distracting graphics or features that may interfere with maximizing learner access."Copyright?
"Permission is granted to freely copy, adapt, and distribute individual Study Guides in print format in non-commercial educational settings that benefit learners. No request to link to the Web site is necessary. Please be aware that the Guides welcome, and are under, continuous review and revision. For that reason, reproduction of all content on the Internet can only be with permission through a licensed agreement ...more"
Any Juice?
The first time you visit the Study Guides & Strategies site, you might be thinking "Big deal! Just a lifeless text-based site with a lot of hyperlinks to whatever! I better get back to the real life in my Second Life!" Wait a minute, give this site a minute or two and you will discover some amazing articles or tools that could assist you in becoming a more effective learner (Dont judge a book or site by its cover!). In 2006 alone, this amazing site had 11.8 million page views. I wonder why? The best way to find out is to explore some of the wonderful study guides on this site covering topics such as learning (preparation), studying, classroom participation, learning with others, online learning and communicating, reading skills, preparing for tests, research, projects and much more.
This amazing collection of study guides are written using a simple and effective design philosophy, which enables us easily to digest and learn (No unnecessary jargon and graphics! Also, the study guides are perfect for handouts, too!). On top of that, many of these study guides are translated into several languages (around 30), including Arabic, French, Indonesian, and Spanish (The different language translations (clickable icons) are displayed on the left side of the index page). Interestingly, now they have also added some easy-to-learn/use exercises and games (developed by students for students!), which are intended to reinforce or complement the selected Study Guides topics (I had fun trying the speed reading game!).
Thinking like a Genius!
Are you getting excited? If not, I will just have to share with you nine (9) quick tips from the site on how to think like a genius:
- Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)
- Visualize!
- Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.
- Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
- Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.
- Think in opposites.
- Think metaphorically.
- Prepare yourself for chance.
- The practice of genius
If you are planning to develop a study guide for your students, you should perhaps consider using the Study Guides & Strategies site as your main reference. Why reinvent the wheel (I mean Study Guides)?
Joe Landsberger (and his team) deserves a Honky Tonk Yamaguchi! thumbs up for this amazing project :)
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Social Media Infographics Built to Last
Goldmine: 60 Informative Social Media InfographicsREALITY CHECK!
When you first discover a social media infographics goldmine, you are like...WOW! Now, I can really spice up my presentations with some sizzling social media infographics to stimulate the audience. But, then you start to look at the statistics found in these infographics, and then you realize (I hope!) that much of the data shared are outdated and kind of useless (at the moment of discovery).
Yes, the infographics look cool, but should coolness override showing relevant and updated data?
The problem with many social media infographics is that the social media numbers are still radically changing, and will so for some time to come. For example, Facebook has around 650 million users now, but is expected to grow to 1 billion by 2012. Or worse yet, your super infographic shows 400 million Facebook users!
So, can we find social media infographics that are built to last (at least for a year or two!)?
FUTURE INFOGRAPHICS?
For finding updated Facebook infographics/charts (not totally cool, but at least reasonably updated), Socialbakers is a great place to find tons of stats, including informative details on your country. But, you will still have to manually update your slides with the latest Facebook stats once a while to ensure that they are updated and still relevant.Wouldnt it be cool if you could use a dynamic plug-in or widget plucked into your presentation (PowerPoint/Keynote), which via the Internet could continuously keep your social media stats updated and relevant? Better yet, it allowed presenters to manipulate or play with the data, and then we could visually experience the process from inception to present, besides the final snapshot. Gapminder is a perfect example of how I would love my dynamic (social media) infographics to work.
Another good example would be Garys Social Media Count:
Besides these three (3) examples above, I am pretty sure that there are many more dynamic social media infographics to discover and use, and that I hope YOU can share with US (Thank you!). I will add them below as we discover together.
In a nut shell, dynamic infographics should:
- Provide easy access to continuously updated and relevant data/information.
- Have an embed feature (script/widget/plug-in) making it easy to add to our presentation (or website).
- Be self-updating every time you access the Internet.
- Show the changes over time (start to present) of what it is illustrating (if applicable).
- Enable us to manipulate the data/information (if applicable).
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Get Your Kids To Write Their Name on Their Work!
Im starting to go through my plans for the beginning of the year and I found a bunch of things that I want to add to my blog... and many of them Ill be adding as freebies! Soo... heres the first freebie!
Years ago I learned the first verse of this song from a preschool teacher at my previous job. So, my first year teaching Kindergarten, I obviously used it a LOT with my kiddos.
I was absolutely amazed when my students added new verses to the song! Thats right... my students wrote the second and third verses of this song! I absolutely love how creative they were and I use all three verses with my students nowadays!
I added this file to TPT as a PowerPoint file so you can insert your own name into it, and I even embedded the font into the document so it should load up on your computer perfectly. I havent actually done the embedding before so I hope it works!
Click the picture below to download the song!
How do you get your kiddos to remember to write their names on their paper?
Read more »
Years ago I learned the first verse of this song from a preschool teacher at my previous job. So, my first year teaching Kindergarten, I obviously used it a LOT with my kiddos.
I was absolutely amazed when my students added new verses to the song! Thats right... my students wrote the second and third verses of this song! I absolutely love how creative they were and I use all three verses with my students nowadays!
I added this file to TPT as a PowerPoint file so you can insert your own name into it, and I even embedded the font into the document so it should load up on your computer perfectly. I havent actually done the embedding before so I hope it works!
Click the picture below to download the song!
How do you get your kiddos to remember to write their names on their paper?
How to Make a Bibliography Easily!
I remember sitting next to my APA citation guide in college and struggling to find the right page... and it was a painful process. Then, I stumbled on this website and my life changed. This book turned bibliographies from a stressful thing that I needed to do (just when i thought i was finished) to a breeze.
What format do you use? APA? MLA? Chicago? Turabian? What do you need to cite? Books? Websites? Journals? Newspapers? Whatever it is... you can probably make a bibliography in 5 minutes... no joke.
For next weeks poll, Im going to add the option how to search on any blog, which is particularly helpful when a pin leaders you to a main blog page and not directly to the post you want!
Read more »
What format do you use? APA? MLA? Chicago? Turabian? What do you need to cite? Books? Websites? Journals? Newspapers? Whatever it is... you can probably make a bibliography in 5 minutes... no joke.
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Drive. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
For next weeks poll, Im going to add the option how to search on any blog, which is particularly helpful when a pin leaders you to a main blog page and not directly to the post you want!
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
How to Put a Watermark on Your Photo
Thank you everyone for voting on the technology poll! This week, the winner was How to Put a Watermark on a Photo!!!
Again, more than half of you voted for this in the poll!
I included two versions of this tutorial. In light blue, youll find directions on how to do everything right in GimpShop. Honestly, this is what I tend to do, as Im pretty comfortable using the program. For those of you who feel overwhelmed by the Gimp interface, I included alternate directions (in a medium blue) which include a brief portion in Gimp, and the remainder of the tutorial in Gimp. They both have the same effect, so its totally up to you!
Before I start the tutorial this focuses on how to use an image as a watermark. If you want to add text on your picture, click the picture below to check out my previous tutorial:
Now... onto the tutorial!
Now, for the tutorial that incorporates PowerPoint!
As far as next weeks poll is concerned, I just came across a MAJOR find in PowerPoint... Do you remember my previous post on giving a picture a transparent background? Well... I just stumbled across a way to do this right in PowerPoint!!! So obviously that will be on next weeks poll!
Read more »
Again, more than half of you voted for this in the poll!
I included two versions of this tutorial. In light blue, youll find directions on how to do everything right in GimpShop. Honestly, this is what I tend to do, as Im pretty comfortable using the program. For those of you who feel overwhelmed by the Gimp interface, I included alternate directions (in a medium blue) which include a brief portion in Gimp, and the remainder of the tutorial in Gimp. They both have the same effect, so its totally up to you!
Now... onto the tutorial!
Now, for the tutorial that incorporates PowerPoint!
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Docs. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
If you want to grab the cootie catchers from the picture, click the picture below!
As far as next weeks poll is concerned, I just came across a MAJOR find in PowerPoint... Do you remember my previous post on giving a picture a transparent background? Well... I just stumbled across a way to do this right in PowerPoint!!! So obviously that will be on next weeks poll!
How to See What Your Most Popular Blog Posts Are
This little trick is another one of my favorites. When I think about what option to add to the Technology Tuesday poll, I also try to think about what my most popular blog posts are - ones are benefit teachers in different grade levels. For new bloggers, this can also help you to write more relevant posts... ones that your current followers are loving. Plus, its nice to see that all of that hard work writing fabulous blog posts is paying off!
Now, for the quick and easy tutorial!
For next weeks poll, Ill add another Blogger tutorial... how to see how many people follow you by email!
Read more »
This option just barely snuck into the lead on the poll!
Now, for the quick and easy tutorial!
You can download this tutorial as a PDF by clicking this picture!
Note: This tutorial is hosted on Google Drive. To save it from there, just open the file and click File > Download to save onto your computer!
For next weeks poll, Ill add another Blogger tutorial... how to see how many people follow you by email!
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