Google Chrome PDFs – Disable Chrome PDF Viewer Plugin

Posted on Mar 21, 2011 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

I was losing my mind with trying to print a PDF I had opened in Google Chrome. I also missed some of the Adobe Reader features like bookmarks that I was accustomed to. I like the speed of Google Chrome’s rendering of PDFs, but these things were sorely missing in some cases, so I thought I would show how I got back my old Adobe functionality by disabling the PDF plugin.

In your Chrome browser, simply navigate to chrome://plugins. You will then be able to disable the Chrome PDF Viewer.

I hope this saves someone else some headache and maybe is useful for disabling other Chrome plugins down the road.

Gmail (or Google Apps Email) Undo Send

Posted on Feb 8, 2011 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

If you use Gmail for personal or business, I recommend enabling the “Undo Send” feature in your labs settings. It flashes a bar where you can cancel sending your message for a few seconds which really helps, since apparently, it is normal brain function to only remember that one little thing after you have clicked send.

I have a theory on it, though. We likely have a small rush of adrenaline each time an email is sent that triggers a moment clarity in thought the moment we “pull the [send] trigger”. I haven’t had a crazed moment like Bridgestone’s new commercial (yet), but it has saved me some minor heartache.

Google Docs Notification Rules – Docs vs Spreadsheets

Posted on Feb 6, 2011 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

I initially thought this was an issue with my share settings or something I was not configuring correctly, but as it turns out, this really is just a feature available in Spreadsheets at the moment. I expect Google will deliver this feature to other document types soon.

Liferay Intranet Portal with Google Charts Dashboard

Posted on Jan 17, 2011 in Business Strategy, Case Studies, Industry Trends, News and Updates, Offerings, Technical Tips | 0 comments

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and finally got around to adding Google Charts into an enterprise intranet portal. We had five unique data points to display as key performance indicators (KPIs) for how the organization is performing.

We have delivered a number of whizbang charting and dashboard capabilities and had a lot of fun with them over the years, but this time, we wanted a lightweight capability that generated images (no Flash and no JavaScript) so any old browser on any platform would render this area properly. We also didn’t want to introduce any extra file downloads associated to the various charting libraries we have used in the past.

We decided to use a Google-O-Meter (the gauge at top of the image) and Bar Charts (the lower four bars). There were a number of tricks we employed to get these looking the way we needed (transparent background, proportionally accurate grid lines in the bar charts, a think arrow in the Google-O-Meter, etc.), but the most satisfying aspect was the simple ability to integrate this with custom Liferay Web Content Structures and Web Content Templates.

We are pleased and impressed with how easily and nicely these technologies came together. Give it a shot sometime and if there is a lot of interest, we might get some time to post a detailed white paper on how to go about this.

Google Docs Redirect Loop

Posted on Oct 19, 2010 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

You may have noticed a redirect loop when trying to navigate to a Google Doc. Chances are that you have multiple Google accounts that you have logged into at the same time.

Though Google is working to make the experience more seamless by providing an interface that allows you to choose which account to use when opening a document, we have still seen this redirect error occur appear (so far, only in the Google Chrome browser). You should be able to avoid the redirect loop by signing out of your other Google accounts — you may also be able to open an incognito window. Feel free to comment if you find other solutions or insights.

Is your city doing enough? Taking Branding, Marketing, Promotion, Contest Strategy To New Levels

Posted on Apr 1, 2010 in Technical Tips | 0 comments

We all heard about Topeka’s unprecedented name change to Google. But ironically, to me, Google’s logo change to Topeka today is even more surprising. It’s up to you to top all of this.

Google Apps Reporting API – Not quite this easy with Exchange

Posted on Sep 4, 2009 in Industry Trends, Technical Tips | 1 comment

I have been somewhat enamored by Google Apps and its potential. Many enterprises have been happy with Exchange for mail, calendaring, contacts, and more. I have been one of those people. However, I have found Google Apps to be getting better and better for use in the enterprise and I will not be surprised to see it begin to take significantly larger chunk of market share from Microsoft over time.