Posts Filed Under ‘Bylines’
I'm thrilled to announce that the online book by Adam Pash and myself, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, is now in print! Order your copy here.
The new edition is double the pagecount of the Preview PDF released last fall and it's packed with screenshots and examples. In this expansion, Adam and I went out of our way, page after page, to illustrate the answer the most common question about Wave: "What is the point?" We added two new chapters, completely rewrote several existing chapters, and since the book is now available in print, added an index for easy reference. We scored a Foreword from one of my web heroes, Lars Rasmussen, who with his brother Jens created Google Maps and Google Wave.
The coolest part of this DIY undertaking is that a portion of print book sales go to a great cause. San Diego-based charity Partnerships with Industry fulfills our print book orders. Instead of sending half the cost of the print book in an existing online print-on-demand service, your book dollars create a job for adults with developmental disabilities in my community.
The new edition of The Complete Guide to Google Wave is available as both a PDF ($9) and a print book ($25) and on the web site (free). If you've already purchased the Preview PDF, to thank you for your early support, we're upgrading you to the First Edition PDF for free. Keep an eye on your email inbox for that. If you haven't already bought a copy, order one here. Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you'll let us know what you think.
The Complete Guide to Google Wave
San Diegan Self-Publishes First Google Wave Book [NBC San Diego]
Four Google Apps Marketplace Apps Worth Trying · For my latest column at Fast Company, I took a spin through the just-launched Google Apps Marketplace and found four apps worth hooking up to your domain. (One of my picks, TripIt, does a smart job of merging your existing account with your Google Apps account, too--the model for how any service that plugs into Google Apps should work.) Here's the full story. · 4 days ago, 2 comments
My latest two videos are up at Fast Company: one's on firewalling your attention with time blocking, and the second is on three ways to use Google Wave in your business.
The time blocking piece is actually a personal confession about my hermit tendencies. Sometimes I just shut everything off, fall off the face of the planet, and have some uninterrupted me-time. I've had co-workers say to me, "Um, where did you go today?" and the answer is usually "To my happy place, a distraction-free zone." As you'll hear in the video, at my last office job, I actually used to schedule a meeting with myself complete with a conference room to get away and focus on something for awhile. Here's the 2 minute, 37 second clip.
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My FastCompany.com video series continues with two new installments: one on reducing multitasking, and the other on claiming your name on the web.
The singletasking bit is timely, as I've been on a mental deep dive working on ThinkTank these past few weeks, surfacing to see what I might be missing on the internet very minimally. When your brain sinks its teeth into something worthwhile, time and space cease to exist--the key is getting to that special state of flow, the zone. Singletasking is one way to help yourself get there.
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What is Google Wave? · Over at Macworld this morning, I took a shot at explaining what Google Wave is (and isn't). Even in a Wave-backlash/Buzz-love world, I'm still bullish about Wave. It's the best collaboration webapp I've ever used. Once you've experienced inline replies in a wave with your group, you never want to email again. · 3 weeks ago, 2 comments
My latest FastCompany.com video segment, shot several weeks ago, is about managing your social media updates, partly by funneling them all into one place (like your email inbox).
Then Google Buzz launched.
So, here's my social media productivity two-punch: first the video, then a walk through Google Buzz's more advanced features.
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Must-Know Browser Tricks · My latest at FastCompany.com dives into your browser's options dialog and keyboard shortcuts: Five Browser Secrets of Power Web Surfers · February 8th, 2010
December Always Gets Me Reflecting · There's a little failure in every success, and a little success in every failure. 'Tis the season to take stock. · December 23rd, 2009
This past year was a watershed moment for the real-time web, cloud computing, and mobile application development, thanks in large part to Google. This morning over at Lifehacker, I rounded up the biggest Google product releases and updates of 2009.
I may co-host a weekly podcast dedicated to Google news, but seeing the amount of mind-bending stuff Google released this year in one place still blew my mind.
While Google's three biggest launches of the year--Wave, Chromium OS, and Droid/Android 2.0--are still very much developer/early-adopter-only, their impact will resonate through the next ten years on the web (even if they don't stick around in their current forms). For more on Google app updates, acquisitions, legal battles, and a complete timeline of what came out when this year, check it out: This Year in Google: The 2009 Edition.
My Year-End Financial To-do List · The month of December--or as I like to call it, the month of "Holy crap where did all my money go this year"--is not only a time of holiday shopping, it's also a time of bank account reckoning. Over at Lifehacker this morning, I ran down my end-of-the-year financial routine for keeping things on track going into the New Year. Here's my list of Essential Year-End Money Moves. · December 9th, 2009
I'm tickled pink to finally announce the project I've been hard at work on for weeks now: my new book, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, is now available to read and share for free at completewaveguide.com.
Anyone who reads my stuff or listens to This Week in Google knows that I'm a Google Wave nut. Yes, it's a hyped, complex, do-it-all web application, but the sheer ambition is part of Wave's appeal for me. Since I logged onto Wave's developer sandbox back in June, I've spent a whole lot of time in Wave, figuring out how it works and what it might do--and blogging about my discoveries just didn't cut it. So, along with Adam Pash from Lifehacker, I've compiled everything we know how to do in Google Wave in a book format at completewaveguide.com. I'm calling it a book, but for now it's just a web site--with eight "chapters" and two "appendices," free for you to read, share, and if we're lucky, help us expand. The site will grow into traditional book formats, however: thanks to the team at 3ones, a PDF version of the book's preview edition will be available for purchase this month. In January of 2010, a softcover print version of the book's first edition will be available as well as an updated PDF. Adam and I have committed to four editions throughout 2010, so the book will change and evolve along with Wave. The latest and greatest version of the book will always be available for free at completewaveguide.com.
I turned down a request-for-proposal from my traditional book publisher to try this experiment in iterative self-publishing. I ran down the whole story of why on the book's About page. This approach scratches several itches I've had for years: I've always wanted to publicly collaborate on a book using MediaWiki, try my hand at self-publishing, and license a book under Creative Commons. Now, to see how it will all turn out. Check out the book and let me know what you think. (Also, follow @gwaveguide on Twitter for Wave tips and book news.)
Here's what I covered over at my weekly HarvardBusiness.org blog Work Smarter this past month:
Been wearing my virtual business suit over at the Work Smarter blog at Harvard Business Online, but been remiss in posting my articles here. Here's a recap of what I covered during August:
Things have been quiet here this week and will be till Sunday because I'm working at Comic-Con, San Diego's nerdy popular culture explosion at the downtown convention center. If you're in San Diego and going to CC, come say hi to me at The Guild booth #4417, where I'll be helping out selling The Guild DVDs and t-shirts. In the meantime, catch up on stuff I've been posting elsewhere.
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Rather than put up a new post every time I do something somewhere other than here, I'll save it up and get it all over with in one giant self-promoting shot once a month.
Here's my Mac-heavy byline roundup for June.
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