Google Drive Arrives In...

Ever since Google released its cloud storage service Google Drive earlier this week, there has been some speculation as to what its integration with ChromeOS, Google’s cloud-centric operating system, would look like. Today, Google released the first developer version of ChromeOS 20 with support for Google Drive. As expected, Google Drive is now deeply integrated into the ChromeOS file manager, though this is clearly just a first effort and still needs quite a bit of work. The Google Drive integration is rather basic in this first release. Drive currently appears as an additional folder in the ChromeOS file manager. While the file manager now features a column called “available offline,” I wasn’t able to actually find a way to download my Google Drive files to the laptop’s internal storage, though. There also wasn’t a clear path for uploading files from the file manager to Google Drive (though you can obviously always use the Drive web app to upload and download files). It’s obviously only a matter of time before this functionality becomes available, though. For now, Google Drive’s advanced search features also aren’t available through the file manager’s interface. Adding support for Google Drive also puts more emphasis on the file manager in ChromeOS. In the early days of ChromeOS, the file manager was more or less hidden from sight. Over time, though, it clearly became obvious to Google that its users weren’t quite ready for an OS without the ability to manage their files in the way they had become accustomed to. If you haven’t looked at the developer versions of ChromeOS for a while, you will notice that it looks quite a bit different now compared to just a few weeks ago. Google now uses Aura , a hardware-accelerated window manager for ChromeOS , which allows you to open multiple browser windows and not just one window like before. ChromeOS now also features a Windows-like taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

Google’s Latest TV Ad: ...

Do you hate how things ended between you and your ex and are you still trying to get him/her back? Google apparently knows what that feels like and wants you to use Chrome to set things right. Or at least, that’s what it looks like judging from Google’s latest TV commercial for Chrome , which debuted last night. In this latest ad, Mark (markpotter7@gmail.com) is trying hard to get his ex Jen to go out for coffee with him because he still hates “how things ended” (why they broke up, the ad sadly never tells us). To woo his ex back (or at least convince her to go out for coffee with him), Mark then uses a steady stream of Google Docs spreadsheets, Picasa photos and YouTube videos to make his point. Google has also released a steady stream of ads for Chrome, Google+ and its other products over the last year or so. Some of them try hard to tug on people’s heartstrings while others feature celebrities like Lady Gaga . Just last December, Google also launched two commercials for Google+ with the Muppets . What most of these ads have in common, though, is that they don’t focus on technology so much, but what that technology can do for its users. No doubt, that’s a pretty effective advertising technique. Whether Chrome and Google can help you get your ex back, though, is a different question. The ad sadly doesn’t tell us Jen’s response.

Google Pumps Up Their C...

The amount of harried printing situations I’ve been party to has dropped dramatically since I finished school, but Google’s new update to their Cloud Print service should have you covered if you can’t say the same. According to a post on the official Chrome blog Google has baked the ability to print to any FedEx Office location right into Cloud Print, so you’ll be push your documents from Chrome, Google Docs, or your Android device to a participating store and pick up it whenever you need to. When I took the service for a spin, the process of actually creating the job took a shade under 30 seconds seconds — from there, I was greeted with an email mentioning that my document was now ready to print at a local FedEx Office. As long as you’ve remember to keep the retrieval code from the email handy, you’re all set to pick up your sales report (or printed copy of Charge of the Like Brigade ) when you need to. It isn’t a dealbreaker if you can’t get down there immediately though, as the document will continue to live in the cloud for ten days. After that, you’re plumb out of luck (unless you pop into Chrome and Cloud Print it again). I imagine that not everyone will be too pleased with this development — companies like Breezy have working to remove the friction from mobile printing for quite a while, and now they’ve got other competitor to deal with. Strangely enough, Google also announced that Cloud Print can now send documents to Ice Cream Sandwich-powered devices that have the Chrome for Android beta installed. It doesn’t strike me as a huge improvement over, say, just sticking it in Google Docs, but it’ll do in a pinch if you’re ever in need of a slightly-clunkier version of Instapaper.

Sacrificing Web Standar...

Editor’s note: Sean Gerety is a user experience geek and Microsoft Regional Director  (a program for independent developers who connect Microsoft with the developer community). Follow him on Twitter @IdeaKitchn . When I saw 4ormat’s TechCrunch post, “ Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K by Dropping IE ,” I first called shenanigans, but then congratulated them on their brilliant marketing ploy. They might as well have titled the article, “Startup Saves Over $100k in Marketing Costs by Pretending not to Work in IE”. I tested 4ormat’s admin site in IE10 and used the IE developer tools to bypass the page block in IE9, and it works just fine. They probably saved another $100k by not testing in Opera (try loading the signup page in Opera). Reading the numerous kudos and criticisms in the comments, it did get me thinking about what browsers you should target for your site. I’ve grown up on a diet of Zeldman’s Web Standards First and that the belief that the web is for everyone. That’s what makes the web great. For someone to advise otherwise is bad for business and short changes the community of the web. I noticed that 4ormat did make the effort to ensure that customers’ portfolio sites do display correctly in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and IE, so why not go all the way and make the rest of the site work? And I’m not talking about supporting IE6, I’m talking about modern browser support. It’s not that hard to do. Today you can use tools like BrowserStack to load and test a site quicker than you can start up a virtual machine. It’s not that hard. A Dirty Secret Most web developers, myself included, do the bulk of their development and debugging in a single web browser, whether Chrome, Firefox, Safari or IE. They perform quick tests in other browsers, fix some bugs (usually in their favorite client side development tool, e.g. firebug) and then release it to the web or a killer QA team.  Using web standards is the best way to get more mileage for your site. Locking yourself into any vendor, will eventually code your site into a corner that will maroon you into incompatibility. We saw this with IE6, and it feels like we are back on the slippery slope . Bad for Business Tyler claims that his company saved $100k in development and debugging costs over three years by not testing in IE (or Opera).  While plausible, it’s also irrelevant.  The big question is how much revenue did he give up by not supporting IE?  Sites like Tumblr and Dribbble are doing an amazing job by supporting everything.  At last glance, Tumblr have a total of 51,205,107 blogs and is still growing. Designer showcase Dribbble shows what’s possible to when a site is built on web standards and progressive enhancement from the beginning. Dribbble used cutting edge Web standards like CSS3 transforms that had very little browser support at the time, but gracefully handle legacy browsers. Although it launched nearly a year after 4ormat and is still invite-only, Dribbble’s popularity has skyrocketed, with at least an order of magnitude more unique visitors than 4ormat, according to compete.com. At the very least, Dribbble shows that it’s possible to build a large audience among designers by focusing on Web standards and supporting major browsers rather than “Best Viewed With”. Tyler’s experiences might be relevant if he was building this five years ago. However, we now live in a world of modern browsers. He should remove the page block for IE9 and start signing up everyone to take advantage of all the free press that 4ormat.com has received. Make the web for everyone…

Why Does The New Google...

Google launched a massive redesign of Google+ earlier today. The reaction to this new interface for the company’s fledgling social network have been generally positive, but most users are somewhat confused about why there is suddenly so much whitespace on the site. Indeed, the #whitespace hashtag is currently trending on the site and it’s probably the most discussed “feature” of the new design. I think there is a reason behind this madness, though. What Google’s Vic Gundotra didn’t talk about when he announced the changes this morning was the fact that Google has now also switched to a responsive web design for Google+. Instead of a traditional fixed-width design, responsive design adapts to the size of your browser window. So while your Facebook page always looks the same, no matter whether you’ve maximized your browser window or not, the new Google+ design actually changes as you resize your browser window. Right now, Google isn’t doing much with this capability, but it definitely built this redesign around this idea. To see this in action, just head over to Google+ and resize your browser. If your window is big enough, your Google Chat buddy list will either appear on the right side of the screen or, as you make the browser smaller, show up as a collapsed menu in the bottom right side of the window. In a short hangout earlier this morning, Vic Gundotra pointed out that Google is obviously quite aware of the whitespace. He also said that Google isn’t planning to use the space for advertising, but wouldn’t say more about it. What Google will do with this space is anybody’s guess. As we’re moving to bigger and wider screens , though (which are actually rather suboptimal for the kind of news feeds that are at the center of services like Google+, Facebook and Twitter), it only makes sense for Google to experiment with wider layouts as well and to figure out how to best use them. Until it actually does something with all of this newfound space, though, you can install this Chrome plugin to remove the whitespace for the time being. [image credit: Mark Thurman ]