PaulSpoerry.com

Social Media, Technology, and geeky stuff for your brain.

Create Your Own Google+ Profile Banner

Paul Spoerry — July 29, 2011 — 5 Comments

Create a Google+ profile banner on your Google+ profile. In a few simple steps you can have one too with Google Plus Profile logo maker.

Creating a Google+ profile banner just became really easy thanks to the Google Plus Profile logo maker. A while back I created a profile banner for my Google+ profile, I’d done something similar when Facebook rolled out the feature to display you’re latest pictures across the top of your profile. I was stoked when I discovered mine was featured on Mashable’s Google+ Profile Hacks article. Since then several people have asked me how I did it. The “banner” across the top of your profile isn’t really a banner at all, but a series of five images, the myself and others decided to turn into one semi-continuous image for a fun effect. Continue Reading…

In Facebook, Google, Google+, Tech, Web Life google, Google+, GooglePlus, maker

Gmail has been updated with custom notifications, better sync for battery life, new picture options, and new message options.

A new update for Android’s Gmail app just showed up on the Android Market and it’s chocked full of goodness.

Here’s what’s new:

Save bandwidth and battery by only syncing priority mail: You can now pick which mail to sync, this should help conserve battery life. I’m most excited for this addition because I use a lot of labels and now you can choose which ones to keep synced, and which ones you want to update automatically.
Custom Notifications per label: For each label you are keeping synced, you can set custom notifications. You can decide if you want to receive notifications for a given label and give that label a distinct ringtone, choose to have it vibrate, and decide if you want it to only notify you on the first new e-mail.
Remember ‘Show Pictures’ for senders: The Gmail mobile app will now act just like the Gmail desktop app when it comes to displaying images in an email…. in other words, you can tell it to always display images from a particular sender.
Better TalkBack support for accessibility: TalkBack is an accessibility screen reader that provides spoken feedback.
Turn off sticky message actions in landscape or all orientations: The settings section has beefed up and you can now configure general preferences , preferences for individual accounts, and message actions. You can decide if you want to always show them, show them only in landscape, or only in portrait mode,
Performance enhancements: They didn’t say what other performance enhancements but performance boosts are always a good thing right? ;)

The only thing missing for me is the ability to hide certain labels from the app. There’s just some mail that I keep in archives, mail that come as notifications or from mailing list that I have automatically pushed to their own labels that I really never have any intention of needing to see while on my mobile phone. Still, this is a decent list of updates. More screen shots after the break… Continue Reading…

Google+ Mobile Application: Customize Your Stream with Manage Views

Paul Spoerry — July 28, 2011 — Leave a comment

By using the Manage Views settings within the Google+ mobile application you can customize your stream viewing while on the go.

Google+ Circles “helps you organize everyone according to your real-life social connections–say, ‘family,’ ‘work friends,’ ‘music buddies,’ and ‘alumni’.” This becomes useful as your friends join, or you start following well known celebs or tech writers. Each Circle becomes it’s own stream on the Google+ website, allowing you to filter down to just the updates from the people in a specific circle. Many people don’t know that the same functionality exists on the Google+ mobile applications.

In Android, Apple, Google, Google+, Tech circles, google, GooglePlus

Google+ Profile Popup Window Hack

Paul Spoerry — July 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

Hovering over a user name link in Google+ pops up a mini-profile, and some clever users have figured out a simple way to include Twitter style bio’s into them.

Some clever users have figured out a way to make the information in this box provide more relevant information that might help deciding to make a new connection easier. It’s pretty simple and will provide someone hovering over your mini-profile more detail about you. Continue Reading…

In Google, Google+, Hacking, Tech, Web Life circles, google, twitter

Updated Code for Google +1 Buttons

Paul Spoerry — July 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

As reported last month, the code for Google +1 buttons could be improved so that the buttons load faster and stop blocking other resources. Google updated the code and recommends publishers to generate a new code.

“We’re introducing a new asynchronous snippet, allowing you to make the +1 experience even faster. The async snippet allows your web page to continue loading while your browser downloads the +1 JavaScript. By loading these elements in parallel, we’re ensuring the HTTP request to get the +1 button JavaScript doesn’t lead to an increase in your page load time,” explains Google.

Google also optimized the existing code so that the button renders up to 3 times faster. Even if you don’t update the code, you’ll still benefit from these changes.
The code generator is easy to use and I’ve noticed that a lot of sites added a +1 button next to Facebook’s “Like” button. It’s unfortunate that Google didn’t optimize the code when it was released.

Reposted from: Updated Code for Google +1 Buttons

In Facebook, Google, Google+, Tech google, GooglePlus