More features from gmail labels

Stanley Chen, Software Engineer say's

Many Gmail power users have elaborate label systems to help organize their mail -- some help file and retrieve mail, others help manage their attention. 

We created the "Hide read labels" and "Hide Labels from Subjects" labs to help people manage their ever-growing lists of labels. Given the popularity and usefulness of these labs, we've decided to graduate them into fully-fledged features. We've also made a few improvements to how they work. First, instead of simply hiding all labels from subject lines, you can now choose which labels to show or hide. We also spiffed up and organized the Labels tab in Settings as well as the dropdown menus for each label in the label list.


If you had enabled either Labs feature, your settings should automatically be carried over. If there was a glitch in the matrix, or if you want to change the visibility for a bunch of labels quickly, you can adjust them en masse by going to the Labels tab in Settings.

source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/dealing-with-label-overload.html

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Google Docs is now more powerful!

The Google Docs Viewer is used by millions of people every day to quickly view PDFs, Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint presentations online. Not only is viewing files in your browser far more secure than downloading and opening them locally, but it also saves time and doesn't clutter up your hard-drive with unwanted files.

Today we're excited to launch support for 12 new file types:

• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
  
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 / 2010 (.PPTX)
  
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
  
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
  
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
  
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
  
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
  
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
  
• TrueType (.TTF)
  
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)

Not only does this round out support for the major Microsoft Office file types (we now support DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS and XLSX), but it also adds quick viewing capabilities for many of the most popular and highly-requested document and image types.

In Gmail, these types of attachments will now show a "View" link, and clicking on this link will bring up the Google Docs Viewer.



You can also upload and share these files in Google Docs, so that anyone can view the content using their browser.

And as always, the Google Docs Viewer is available for use on any website, with both a full Chrome and embedded option. More information can be found here.

source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/12-new-file-formats-in-google-docs.html

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Al Jazeera on Google TV

original post by Daniels Lee, Developer Relations

Best of Google TV Series

Over the past two weeks, Al Jazeera has carried 24/7 breaking news coverage of the protests in Egypt. Live video of the protests from Tahrir Square, streaming from AlJazeera.net and English.AlJazeera.net, have driven a 2500% traffic increase to their website. The majority of this traffic has come from the United States, as U.S. viewers can't access Al Jazeera's broadcast on television.

This week, Al Jazeera released their Al Jazeera spotlight site where you can watch breaking news clips, scan headline news and dive into the breadth of their web content -- all on the big screen.

For the latest coverage on the protests in Egypt you can also visit Al Jazeera's YouTube channels in both Arabic and English for premium coverage and CitizenTube for on-the-ground citizen reports.

see also:
http://googletv.blogspot.com/2011/02/al-jazeera-on-google-tv.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-your.html

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Safe GMail again!

Post from Nishit Shah, Product Manager, Google Security,

Has anyone you know ever lost control of an email account and inadvertently sent spam—or worse—to their friends and family? There are plenty of examples (like the classic "Mugged in London" scam) that demonstrate why it's important to take steps to help secure your activities online. Your Gmail account, your photos, your private documents—if you reuse the same password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked, or your password is conned out of you directly through a phishing scam, it can be used to access some of your most closely-held information.

Most of us are used to entrusting our information to a password, but we know that some of you are looking for something stronger. As we announced to our Google Apps customers a few months ago, we've developed an advanced opt-in security feature called 2-step verification that makes your Google Account significantly more secure by helping to verify that you're the real owner of your account. Now it's time to offer the same advanced protection to all of our users.

2-step verification requires two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone. Over the next few days, you'll see a new link on your Account Settings page that looks like this:


Take your time to carefully set up 2-step verification—we expect it may take up to 15 minutes to enroll. A user-friendly set-up wizard will guide you through the process, including setting up a backup phone and creating backup codes in case you lose access to your primary phone. Once you enable 2-step verification, you'll see an extra page that prompts you for a code when you sign in to your account. After entering your password, Google will call you with the code, send you an SMS message or give you the choice to generate the code for yourself using a mobile application on your Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device. The choice is up to you. When you enter this code after correctly submitting your password we'll have a pretty good idea that the person signing in is actually you.


It's an extra step, but it's one that significantly improves the security of your Google Account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know—your username and password—and something that only you should have—your phone. A hacker would need access to both of these factors to gain access to your account. If you like, you can always choose a "Remember verification for this computer for 30 days" option, and you won't need to re-enter a code for another 30 days. You can also set up one-time application-specific passwords to sign in to your account from non-browser based applications that are designed to only ask for a password, and cannot prompt for the code.

To learn more about 2-step verification and get started, visit our Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see our ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-your.html

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