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What We Use: Adam Dachis' Favorite Gear and Productivity Tips [Video]

Submitted by admin on Mon, 02/13/2012 - 15:00
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This week we're sharing the hardware, software, tips, and tricks, that keep our blogging wheels spinning.

Webclip for Google Chrome snips text to your Google Docs

Submitted by admin on Tue, 11/09/2010 - 15:00

There are plenty of good note taking and clipping tools around -- like Evernote -- but maybe you just want something lightweight to help you gather research or quotes for use in a project. Webclip is a handy little extension for Google Chrome which is up to the task. It's got a single purpose: to save Web page text you select to Google Docs.

Once you've installed the extension, just highlight text on a Web page and press the webclip icon in your browser actions area. You'll see an OAuth dialog the first time, but from then on clips will be added directly to a document called 'webclips'. The extension even uses Chrome's notification system to tell you when your text has been successfully saved. As you can see in the screenshot, details about the source are saved as well. The page title, URL, and date of your capture are all inserted before your copied text.

Webclip has a lot of potential. With the addition of support for more than just text -- say images or rich formatting -- and the ability to save to more than one webclip doc, it would be a killer extension for Google Docs users who browse with Chrome.

 

More on Google Cloud Print, and announcing HP's new Web-aware printers

Submitted by admin on Wed, 06/09/2010 - 11:00

 

I actually wanted to cover this one a few days ago, when I first heard about HP's new range of 'just email me!' printers -- but we're not a hardware site! However, now that Google's in on the gig and now that we know Chrome OS played a role in HP's printer development... well, now it's software news! (Fast forward to 31:37 in the video above for the Google Cloud Print presentation.)

If you haven't heard about HP's new printers, it's a complete range, from domestic printers priced at $99 through to enterprise-level machines. They have one amazing trait in common: they're all Web-aware. They all have an email address. You can simply send a document or some photos to that email address and... it prints! I'm trying to find you a link to the actual printersso you can check their specs, but it seems like HP hasn't updated their website yet. Darn.

Google Cloud Print is basically the same thing, but without the email step. You simply press 'print', and Google Cloud Print does the rest. If you've tried printing from your smartphone, you'll probably appreciate just how awesome such a feature would be.

Anyway, Lee and I have been keeping an eye out on the Google Chrome OS source, and the Cloud Print functionality is only available for internal testing at Google. We'll be sure to let you know when it's ready for public testing!