Google Buzz Simplified

Simple tips to make the most out of Google Buzz.


Google Buzz is Google’s social microblogging and information sharing service, that comes embedded in Google Mail.

What you basically do on Buzz is share your status, photos or useful links with people who follow you. Google Buzz is like an expanded form of Twitter. 

Here are a set of tips and tools that will help you do more on Google Buzz:

1. Send a Buzz to a user’s Gmail Inbox

You can send a message to a user through Buzz by specifying the @ symbol, followed by the person’s email address, which will post the update on your Buzz feed and send the message to the user’s email.

2. Connect your Social websites


If you want to connect various social websites like your blog, Twitter profile or Picasa to your Buzz stream, then simply select the Connected Sites option at the top of your Buzz stream, and add/remove websites accordingly. [Refer above screenshot]

3. A Firefox Add-on for Google Buzz


If you are a user of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, then you can instantly share what you surf with your followers on Google Buzz, by installing the Buzz It Firefox add-on in your browser. Buzz It also auto-shortens URLs with Bit.ly.

4. Google Chrome Extension for Google Buzz

The Google Buzz extension for Google Chrome, Google Buzz Pad, is a useful add-on that allows you to view your Buzz account and also share links with your followers from Google Reader.

5. Block unknown followers

Google Buzz offers you the option to block unknown followers, who might be posting inappropriate or unwanted comments on your posts.

Simply go to the list of your followers, and select Block corresponding to the specific follower to block him/her.

6. Privacy – Disable followers/following list from Google profile


A new option to disable the public viewing of who you are following and being followed by, has been introduced in Google Buzz. You can now disable the viewing of both of these lists from third parties visiting your Google profile.

To do that, click on the lists to open them. You will find a checkbox as shown above at the bottom of the lists. De-select the checkbox to ensure these lists cannot be viewed.

7. Update Buzz via email

To update Google Buzz via email, all you require is a Buzz-enabled GMail account. Simply send your update to buzz@gmail.com, to post your update to your Buzz followers via email.

8. Find more people on Buzz


To find more people to follow on Google Buzz, select the Find People option at the top of your Buzz feed, and you can find recommended followers, or search for users via their names or email addresses.

9. Select Public/Private while posting


You can choose to share on Buzz with a select people, or with anybody else on the world wide web.

When writing a post, find the Public/Private drop-down and select the desired one. [Screenshot above]

10. Remove posts from your Buzz feed


To hide a post on your Buzz feed that you may not be interested in, select the Mute Post option from the top-right drop-down menu on the particular post. [Screenshot above]

11. Disable Buzz/Hide Buzz


You can disable Google Buzz entirely from your GMail by heading to the bottom of your GMail page, where you will find a Turn Off Buzz option.

To hide the Buzz label from Gmail, simply head to Settings –> Labels and edit as required.

12. Update Twitter and Buzz together

In case you want to post the same update on both Twitter, the popular microblogging platform, and Google Buzz, read this Internet Simplified post to know how.

13. Create a Google Buzz widget


You can create a Google Buzz widget for your website, by heading to Buzz Counter. Simply specify your Google profile name and obtain the code for the widget.

Paste it on your blog/website, and a widget (see screenshot above) will appear with your Buzz updates.

Related Reading: Compendium of Tips on GMail

Update Twitter And Buzz Together

BuzzTweep – Send updates to Twitter and Google Buzz at once.


BuzzTweep is a free service, using which you can update your Twitter account and your Google Buzz stream at once, with the same comment.

Just follow the instructions given on their website (Tutorials Page 1 and Page 2) to set up the service. Basically, all you require to do is set up a GMail filter, and then connect your Twitter account to the service.

Learn in detail about setting up a GMail filter in our detailed GMail tips post.

Related Reading: What is Google Buzz?

Google Buzz - Google's Social Microblogging Service

Here's a video that explains Google Buzz.

[Via Google Blog]

7 Interesting Twitter Services

Useful Twitter services, that are free.


Here are seven interesting Twitter services that you can give a try.

1. TweetAlarm

TweetAlarm is a Google Alerts-type of service for Twitter. Get alerted when users tweet about something specific to you with TweetAlarm.

2. TweetStats

TweetStats is a service that provides a detailed, graphical analysis of your Twitter usage. Just enter your Twitter handle, and you will get a detailed report about everything that can be possibly analyzed of your Twitter use.

3. Chir.ps

Chir.ps helps you tweet little audio clips to your followers. Record an audio clip and tweet it to your followers. Learn more here.

4. TwitterCal

With TwitterCal, you can tweet events and notes directly to your Google Calendar account. To learn how to do that, read our complete post on Twittercal.

5. Twitzer

Twitzer helps you go beyond the 140-character tweet limit set by Twitter. You can post longer tweets. Learn more here.

6. Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader offers you details about how influential you are in comparison with other Twitter users. Enter your Twitter handle and be ranked with this service.

7. Twtpoll

Twtpoll helps you create a little opinion poll in Twitter. Generate a poll and share the link with others on Twitter, to get percentage stats about a particular topic.

If you need more Twitter tips, visit the useful Twitips website.

Orkut Extension for Google Chrome

Get Orkut updates through the Orkut extension on your Google Chrome web browser.


Orkut Chrome Extension is a useful add-on for the Google Chrome browser that gives you instant updates from the Orkut social network.


You get notifications of scraps, can share links and use it to update your status on Orkut. Instantly access friends’ pages also from this extension.

Download Orkut Extension for Google Chrome

Related Reading: More Tips on Google Chrome

Manage Google Docs Offline

Access, edit, and do more with your Google Docs documents, offline.


Memeo Connect is a useful tool that helps you manage your Google Docs, the online office tools suite provided by Google, offline.

Access all your Google Docs documents offline, edit them as you like, transfer them to your online Docs account with much ease, store current and previous versions on your hard drive.

The tool automatically syncs your files with your Google Docs account. You can test a trial version for 30 days, after which the service is chargeable.

Related Reading: More Google Docs Tips

Store Any File In Google Docs

You can now store any type of file in your Google Docs account. 


Google Docs has announced that it will soon implement a feature that allows you to upload and store any kind of file in your account.

The online office utility offers 1 GB space of free storage, and usually catered to documents, presentations, PDFs and spreadsheets only.

The size of file that you can upload is upto 250 MB. You can share, collaborate and organize all these files just like office documents.

[Via Google Docs Blog]

Translate As You Type With Google Transliteration IME

Google’s free tool can translate into your language as you type.


Google Transliteration IME is a free typing tool, available in 14 different languages, that translates words into the desired language based on how the word would sound like.

Simply, install Google Transliteration IME. Download it from here after selecting your language. In Language Settings in Control Panel, select your opted language.

Open any blank document (as shown in the screen above for the Hindi language) and start typing in English, how the word would sound like in the other language.

Transliteration IME will instantly convert it to the language itself. It also offers options, in case you meant a different word.

[Via Google Blog]

Create a Goo.gl URL with it’s Chrome Extension

Shorten long URLs in Google Chrome with the goo.gl extension.


Google has brought out it’s own URL shortening service – Goo.gl. Though it is not openly available for use like Bit.ly or many others, you can install the useful Goo.gl Chrome extension and instantly shorten URLs from the web browser.

Get the Goo.gl Chrome extension here.

Related Reading: About Google Chrome Extensions

Get the Best Google Chrome Extensions

The Google Chrome browser adds extensions to it’s features. 


Like Mozilla Firefox’s add-ons, Google Chrome now has Extensions that can be installed on the web browser to add new features.

To get the most popular and featured extensions, simply head to the Chrome Extensions page, browse for extensions and click Install to get the extension.


In the screenshot above, you can observe the installation pop-up of the Google Translate extension that can instantly translate a webpage to a language of your choice.

Choose from a host of extensions available, that have been used by thousands of Chrome users from across the world.

Related Reading: More Tips on Google Chrome

Send A Free Google Holiday Card To A Friend

With Google, you can send a holiday postcard to anybody in the US for free.

If you have friends and family members residing in the United States, then you can send a free holiday card to one person, courtesy of this free Google service.

Just fill in the details and write a message on the card, and Google will send a snail mail to your friend or relative. The service caters to the US only, and allows you to send one holiday greeting card.

[Via Google Blog]

Get Google Wave Notifications in Firefox

Try an experimental Google Wave add-on in Firefox.

If you are into Google's new platform for communication in real-time, Google Wave, then you can try this experimental add-on for your Mozilla Firefox web browser that gives updates on incoming waves.

To be on Google Wave, you need to have a Google invite. We still have a few invites to give away. All you need to do is comment on our post or our Facebook Fan Page, to get an invite.

Get Invited to Google Wave

Internet Simplified has 8 invites to Google's new real-time collaborative platform.

Google Wave is a pioneering new tool that allows you to collaborate and communicate with your friends and business associates in a real-time platform.

You can start a wave by including your friends in it, and then work in a single window with all involved. The idea is to bring together email, data sharing, wikis and instant messaging in one interactive place.

Internet Simplified has 8 invites to Google Wave. To get an invite, please leave a comment with your email address on this post. Alternatively, you can leave a comment on our Facebook Fan Page.

We will give out invites on a first-come-first-serve basis. Kindly note it takes a while before the invite is given out by Google. Thank you.

Browse Images in Google Image Swirl

Looking for related images? Try Google Labs' Image Swirl experiment.

Google Labs have come up with an interesting way for you to browse through related images, in a much improved way than ordinary Image Search.

Try Google Image Swirl now.

Related Reading: 5 Less-Known Google Services Worth A Try

Google Translate Adds Better Features

Translate as you type, read and write in any language and listen to translated text.

Google Translate, one of the internet's premier language translation services, has added an impressive set of new features that make translation much more easier.

Watch text being translated as you type it out, read and write in any language irrespective of whether you can understand the alphabets of that particular language.

You can also listen to the translated text, for better understanding of pronunciation of that text.

[Via Google Blog]

Get an overview of your Google Account with Dashboard

Google introduces a new service, for more transparency.


Head to Google Dashboard to get an overview of all the services that you use, which are provided by Google.

Google Dashboard is a one-stop place to instantly check all information about Google services like Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, Google Calendar, GMail and many more.

The service also lists out the Google products that you are not using currently.

[Via Google Blog]

Get More Out Of GMail – A Simple Guide

25+ tips, tricks and more to get the best out of GMail. 

 
Google’s free email service, GMail, is a very useful web-based service you can use as an email client. Here are 27 tips and tricks to help you make the most of GMail.

1. Use GMail as a secondary hard drive with GMail Drive


GMail Drive is an interesting tool that allows you to use that extra space in your account as an online storage drive.

The drive will appear listed in My Computer. When you transfer a file to the drive, it generates an email and posts it to your account.

Filter emails from GMail Drive in a separate category in your GMail account to keep it clean and organized.

2. Check spam with a simple GMail trick

When you register for a new account with a website and would like to check in the future if that website is giving away your email address to irritating spammers, then you can try this simple trick.

When registering on a website say http://www.abc.com, give your email address as username+abccom@gmail.com when asked for an email.

The thing here is that you will still receive mails on your username@gmail.com normally with the plus sign making no difference, but when you search GMail for username+abccom@gmail.com to see any messages received for this particular email address that you registered with, you’ve just found out that abc.com gave away your email address to spammers.

3. Create and use GMail filters effectively

You can filter and categorize the emails you receive everyday automatically by making the best use of GMail Filters, and Labels. Designate certain emails to be of a specific category and set up a filter to automatically have those mails transferred to that label.

You can also create filters to check spam or auto-delete bugging emails.


For example, say abc@xyz.com is a troublesome email sender. Create a filter and provide his email address in the To: field in the filter.


Then select Next Step and choose from the various options provided. You can auto-delete those mails, archive them or apply a label. Select Create Filter and never bother above these emails again.

4. Multiple GMail email addresses - @gmail.com, @googlemail.com

When you register on GMail, you basically get two email addresses. For example, john@gmail.com and john@googlemail.com will send your emails to the same account.

To get the best out of this, you can probably set a filter (as explained above) in GMail to make these two addresses completely specific. For example, give username@gmail.com to your friends while keep username@googlemail.com for your business purposes.

5. The GMail Dot trick

You should also know that GMail completely ignores dots in your email addresses. For example, an email sent to user.name@gmail.com will be received by username@gmail.com. 

Again, you could take advantage of these glitches by using multiple email addresses at multiple places and setting a simple filter in GMail that can categorize your emails.

6. Access GMail when it’s blocked at work or school

There are a few ways to access GMail at places where it might be blocked, like work or school. Learn more here. 

7. Convert your GMail account into a portable online drive

Download gDisk, a free tool that helps you transfer and maintain your files through GMail hence making them accessible everywhere.  

8. Manage multiple GMail accounts and do more easily with the GMail Manager Firefox add-on

The GMail Manager add-on for the Firefox web browser is a simple and smart tool to help you get more out of GMail. Download it here. 

9. Back up your GMail account to your computer with POP and IMAP


You can back up your entire GMail account on your computer by enabling POP in Settings. You can do this without having to pay any money for the service. POP enables one-way communication between GMail and your email client (like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail). You can also use the IMAP protocol, which allows two-way communication. IMAP is recommended.

To do this, go to Settings and select Enable POP for all mails. Then set up your email client and follow instructions as provided.

All of your emails will now have a backed-up copy on your hard drive, which you can further back up to a secondary disk to never lose your emails.

10. Watch YouTube videos, see Flickr and Picasa picture streams in GMail


You can watch YouTube videos and check Flickr streams right from within GMail itself by enabling the specific Labs features. Select the green Labs image from the top-right corner of your GMail screen. [Shown above]

Do explore tons of other Labs features, provided in GMail.

11. Search Google, Yahoo, Bing or Twitter from GMail Chat

Add the Search Bot as a friend in your GMail Chat to search Google, Bing or Twitter from your mailbox itself. Learn more here.

12. Import existing mail into GMail

You can now import existing mail from any email client by using the Google GMail Loader. To import from web-based services, go to Settings –> Accounts and Import.

13. Upload files from another mailbox into GMail

Try this handy service, GMail Uploader, that allows you to instantly upload files of another mailbox to your GMail account.

14. Be notified of new mails in GMail

Download a simple tool called GMail Notifier that informs you of new emails you might have received in GMail, from your taskbar.

15. Use GMail Offline

Use GMail when you are not connected to the web by enabling the Google Gears option in Labs features in GMail settings. 

16. Set up GMail Voice and Video Chat

You can easily setup GMail Voice and Video Chat in your mail account. Read this to learn how. 

17. Stay Invisible in GMail Chat

To stay invisible in GMail Chat, simply select the Invisible option when you set your status. Note that this feature is not available in the stand-alone chat client Google Talk. 

18. Enable keyboard shortcuts in GMail 

You can use keyboard shortcuts in GMail. Simply enable them from settings and use them. Here’s a list of GMail’s keyboard shortcuts.

19. Set Email Forwarding to receive GMail emails in office


Go to Settings –> Forwarding and POP/IMAP and provide your office email address in the field to have your mails sent there. You can choose to also archive/delete them from GMail.

20. Add a cool signature to outgoing mails in GMail

Automatically add a custom signature to outgoing GMail messages with the WiseStamp Signature Add-On for Firefox. Learn more here.

21. Add a Facebook Profile Badge to your emails

You can put a Facebook account Profile Badge in your GMail messages. Learn how to do that here. 

22. Get things done efficiently in GMail with GTDGmail

GTDGMail is a simple freeware that allows you to change the way you use emails. The tool has unique features that allow you to speed up your daily activities in GMail and also helps you maintain your account. 

23. Create and manage a simple GMail To-Do list

GMail Todo is an open-source application that helps you effectively manage tasks in GMail. Download it now. 

24. Do everything with GMail for Mobile Phones

Enable GMail on your cell phone – download this simple GMail For Mobile client from your mobile phones. 

25. Use GMail’s advanced search operators


GMail has a list of advanced search operators you can do when you browse through your email archives to look for that relevant mail you had received a long time ago. Check out the list of search operators here. 

26. Add a Random Quote to your GMail signature

Read this to learn how a random quote is added to all your outgoing mails in GMail. 

27. Select Contacts from GMail address book

You can select contacts from your address book by simply pressing the To: tab when composing a new mail. Learn more here.

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Register Now For The New Orkut

Google to release an improved interface.


The Orkut team has announced that they are set to release a simplistic, improved interface for the social network that seems to be losing popularity with the rise of Facebook. The new Orkut will have a better look, plus options for personalization and fewer pages.


You can register your Google email address here to be notified and invited to use the newer version of Orkut, once it has been deployed completely.

[Via Orkut Blog]

Google introduces Music Search

Listen to song previews in Google Search’s new feature.


When you search for a music album or a specific song in Google, the search engine will return you results that include an audio preview of the song that you can listen to right on the page.

Google will also provide links to listen to the song on Pandora, imeem or Rhapsody. This search feature helps you discover music more easily and directly.

[Via Google Blog]

Related Reading: The Complete Guide to Google Search

Convert, Zip and Download Google Docs Files

New feature in Google Docs.


You can now batch download your Google Docs files in any format you like, with a new Export feature. Select this feature from the More Actions tab at the top of a specific folder in Google Docs.


Export up to 500 MB of documents by converting them into a format you would prefer, and Google Docs will create a zipped file for you to download.

[Via Google Docs Blog]