I Heart Google

Picasa for Mac? Where?

elliott@popcult.cc (elliott bledsoe) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:43:00 +0000

Did Google really release their desktop photo management software Picasa for Mac yesterday? Because there's a press release that says they did, but both times I have tried to download the Picase 3 Public BETA release for Mac all I get is the Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac. According to the help page I should get 'picasamac.dmg' but as you can see that's not what downloads.

Thankfully the Terms of Use you are signing up too after you click 'Download Picasa for Mac (beta)' are the standard Google for Mac Terms of Use; could have been a little problematic if you're agreeing to terms that do not correspond with the software you are provided with.

Clearly the download link is directing users to the wrong page. If you open the PicasaWebAlbumsUploaders.mpkg file you will instal the Picasa Web Albums Uploader not Picasa 3.

Certainly doesn't look anything like the screenshot in the press release.

While we're on the Picasa Web Albums Uploader and since I am not playing around with Picasa 3 for Mac I'll take the time now to also say that I never really saw the need for the Uploader standalone software since the same package automatically instals the Picasa iPhoto plug-in which is much better and integrates right into iPhoto. Still, at this point it seems like you can't get the Picasa desktop application for Mac... just yet anyway...

In the meantime here's Google's official video about Picassa for Mac, to give you an idea of what it should do.

UPDATE (6 January 2009, 11.11am): It seems someone at Google picked up on the issue pretty quickly. I'm not exactly sure when but when I tired to download the Mac public Beta for Picasa 3 just after 11 o'clock the splash page and Disk image (*.dmg file) had been corrected.

I plan to write a detailed post about Picasa 3 for Mac when I've had a good play around with it. Stay tuned.

No more (PD)Fing about with PDF attachments! Introducing PDF Viewer to GMail

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:13:00 +0000

Google has integrated the Google Docs PDF Viewer Gmail (I haven't quite gotten used to calling it Google Mail yet) meaning you can finally view PDFs without having to launch Adobe Reader (either the desktop application or within the browser) or use the HTML view in Google Docs which often doesn't display formatting and strips images. Since today, when you receive an email that includes a PDF attachment you are given a 'View' option next to the file. I didn't have any emails with a PDF attached so I sent myself one so I could demonstrate.

Using the PDF Viewer in Gmail

To launch the PDF Viewer click 'View' under any PDF attachment in your email. It opens in a new window within Google Docs (which means you need to be signed up for Google Docs to use the service).

The default display shows the first page of the document in the main frame (left hand side), In the right hand section you have your navigation, arrangement, search and zoom tools as well as thumbnails of each page in the document.

The arrow buttons allow you to move through the pages of the document, showing you which page you are on (and how many pages there are). The plus ( + ) and minus ( – ) buttons zoom the document in or out. The two buttons between the zoom buttons reconfigure the document between displaying 1 page, with the rest of the document flowing on sequentially (see above) and displaying two pages next to each other with the subsequent spreads flowing on sequentially (see below).

At this state the search function (under the zoom and arrangement buttons) will return results based on a keyword search. Returned results appear directly below the tools section and before the page thumbnails.

The original function to view a PDF in HTML is now accessible via the 'Plain HTML' link at the top of the left column. It also provides links to 'Download' or 'Print' the document.

I'm tipping it won't be long before we see the PDF Viewer integrated into Google search results.

Import/Export graduates from Blogger in Draft

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:54:00 +0000

Just a quick note to announce that the Import/Export feature released as part of Blogger in Draft back in June has now been integrated into all Blogger blogs. Now it doesn't matter if you're in Draft or Blogger classic, you can backup, merge and manage your blog entries and comments as a convenient single, Atom -formatted XML file.

I posted about it as a feature of Blogger in Draft, and since there is nothing much else to add head over there to find out about the feature.

How to remove Google CalDAV

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:25:00 +0000

If you're like me, and wasn't satisfied with the sync provided by Google CalDAV, then here's a way to get rid of it since Google doesn't seem to have any information on how to do it. It is actually easier than you think.

Step 1
Open iCal. Click on the iCal drop-down menu and then click on Preferences (or you can click ). You're probably be in the General options section.

Step 2
Click on the Accounts button to display the CalDAV accounts for your Google calendars that you are subscribed to.

Step 3
Select one of the CalDAV accounts that you want to remove from the list in the Accounts section on the left.

Step 4
Press the minus ( – ) button below the Accounts section to remove the selected calendar.

Step 5
Confirm that you want to remove the calendar by pressing 'Delete.'

Step 6
Unfortunately you can't hold the Control key and select multiple accounts to remove at the same time do you will need to repeat Steps 3, 4 and 5 for each calendar you want to remove.

And now you're free of Google CalDAV syncing!

Your sync stinks! Problems with Google Calendar CalDAV

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Ok so no one told me that Google had introduced CalDAV syncing (the download package is cutely named Calaboration ) so you can sync Google Calendar and Apple's iCal together (announced here and here). For ages you've been able to feed your Google calendars into iCal (not sure how? Find out here), but it meant you always had to go to Google Calendar to make changes to your calendars. If you added events on iCal it would reside with a local (ie on your computer) calendar. You could only sync from Google Calendar to iCal, not the other way around.

Some third party applications started to allow you to sync both ways. My pick was Spanning Sync. I did the 15-day trial and was pretty happy with it so I purchased a licence for it. It's not overly pricey; I paid $65 for the lifetime licence, but there is a $25/year option too.

Anyway, on the quiet Google released the CalDAV sync feature. I gave it a whirl but I have to say I am not convinced it is better than what Spanning Sync does. Here's why:

Synced with Spanning Sync

Synced with Google CalDAV

Sure Google CalDAV is free, but the way it sorts your calendars that are synced just isn't useful for me. It's ugly. It's messy. It makes my list of calendars huge! Also, you can't sync calendars of different names. And event reminders and alarms are not synced. The whole reason I use an electronic calendar rather than a print diary is because it reminds me (well and it is searchable).

Also the CalDAV 2-way sync is a dodgy at best. Over the last couple of hours since I put it on only 1 of the 6 events I have added to iCal have come up in Google Calendar. Oh and apparently (I haven't actually tested it), any events added on iCal/Google Calendar will come up read only on an iPhone, meaning you can't change anything about those events on the phone. Surely that's why people have iPhones right?

Plus, on top of all of this, I keep getting this with CalDAV, even though everything is set up right:

You can find out all you want to know about using CalDAV in the Google Calendar help. You have to be using OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to use CalDAV.

If you've installed the CalDAV sync on your mac, I have posted a removal guide to help you get rid of it if you want to.

[And no, I am not part of Spanning Sync's Save 5 + Make 5 referral program. No upselling here]

The (Not So) Great Google Chrome EULA Debacle

elliott@popcult.cc (elliott bledsoe) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I know there has been much discussion about the terms and conditions for Chrome. For the record I was totally aware of them. But I think that some of it was a bit fear-mongering and misrepresentative and some of it was out right wrong. As far as I am concerned a clause like the old clause 11 (extracted below) was nothing out of the ordinary really:

You retain copyright an any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, public, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sold purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

As much as I don't like people having to give up rights at all, the original term is pretty standard practice. I mean, look at the terms of use of most of the major social networks—for example clause 6, subclause 1 of the MySpace Terms and Conditions—they all take a licence from users to user content uploaded to the service/website to do stuff in relation to the service you've signed up to.

At least Google qualified the extent of the licence voluntarily (like many services are now doing), saying that the licence allowed them to use your content in relation to Google Chrome only. They weren't even taking rights to reuse that content on other Google services. The licence Facebook takes is far worse than Google's original term:

...By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing...

Anyway, regardless, as announced yesterday, Google changed the term. The new clause 11 in the EULA reads:

You retain copyright an any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, public, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sold purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

I was more fascinated by the sloppy drafting in relation to clause 10.2. It reads:

You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing.

I thought Chrome was open source?! Funnily enough at the beginning of the EULA, before clause 1, it states:

These Terms of Service apply to the executable code version of Google Chrome. Source code for Google Chrome is available free of charge under open source software license agreements at http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html.

The licence that Chromium is under is a BSD Licence. At the Google Code Chromium page the terms of the BSD Licence are stated as:

BSD License
Copyright © 2008, The Chromium Authors
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the Google Inc. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

This statement could be seen as express permission from Google to modify the source code but it seems strange to have a clause stating that you can't change the source code only the have another statement earlier in the document that says you can.

Picasa photo software now supports Creative Commons

elliott@popcult.cc (elliott bledsoe) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:46:00 +0000

Google's desktop photo management software Picasa now includes a rights management section of its settings to allow users to assert 'All Rights Reserved' or a Creative Commons licence. It was announced over on the Google Photos Blog. You can find the 'Photo Usage & Licensing' settings by going to Picasa Web Albums and clicking 'Settings' in the top right corner.

Scroll down about half way down the page and you will see the rights management section:

Click 'Allow reuse with attribution' to get Google's licence generator. It provides you with three check boxes:

Allow remixing;
Allow commercial use; and
Require Share Alike.

Depending on the combination of these check boxes you check, one of the six standard CC licences will be generated. Using this setting option you apply a default CC licence to all the photos you upload. You can of course manage individual photos on a case-by-case basis. I applied Attribution only as the default on my web albums (what a surprise):

Choosing an Attribution Licence in the 'Photo Usage & Licensing' section of the Picasa Web Albums settings.

In a lot of ways this is an even simpler licence generator than the official Creative Commons one. What would be better would be if 'Require Share-Alike' didn't appear unless you'd click allow remixing. That way the licence chooser begins with permissions (a positive/open thing) rather than restrictions (a negative/closed thing). Of course a key issue with Google's chooser in Picasa is that it doesn't include the ability to choose a jurisdiction for your licence.

Update: Make sure you click 'Save settings' when you're done. LOL.

(Thanks to Fred Beneson. I found out about this via his post on the CC blog)

Where for art thou Chromeo?

elliott@popcult.cc (elliott bledsoe) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Have Google released the prince charming of web browsers? As I am sure most of you are already aware Chrome, Google's open source web browser was released 2 September (USA date). It is BETA right now but like most Google things when released it is pretty stable.

UPDATE: I have heard reports from friends that certain features were buggy today. The big one, downloads were not working at all.

Of course at this stage it is PC only so I had to get onto a work computer to have a look. The blogosphere has already got most of the good bits covered, so I won't rehash old news. But I will say it presents a new browser experience: not a completely new experience, but rather a better way of doing what you already do. A browser 1.5 if you will. It is a browser designed to be up-to-date with how we use the internet now. As Google says, "Google Chrome was built for today's web and for the applications of tomorrow."

Here's some of my thoughts:

Home/New Tab History Page

The default home page (if you haven't changed it) and new tab page is something like a very simplified iGoogle page. You can't add your preferred webapps or anything, but it has standard features. For example it displays thumbnails of your most commonly visited websites for quick access. You can search your entire web history if you like. It also keeps a list of recent bookmarks and closed tabs.

I look forward to the day that the default home page and new tab page is as customisable as iGoogle.

Open for business/play/development

One of the coolest things about Chrome is that Google have released it under the (very) open software licence, the BSD Licence. The Google Code page for Chrome is here. A bit of a slap in the face to the Free Software Foundation's GPL (and so close to their birthday) but whatever.

Fast as lightning

It is true what they say, Chrome is very quick to load things. In my experience faster than any other browser.

X marks the spot

All in all bookmarking on Chrome is pretty good. There is a bookmark bar that appears on the default home page and new tab page. To add bookmarks press the 'Star' button. Once it is added whenever you view that page the Star will be have a yellow fill.

If you want it on all the time you need to set Chrome to 'Always show bookmarks bar.' You can do this one of three ways:

Via a right click on the bookmark menu on the default home page/new tab page;
Via the 'Spanner' drop down menu; or
By pressing 'Control' and 'b' on your keyboard.

You can add single sites to your bookmark bar or folders for groups of related bookmarks. On the far right end of the bookmark bar is the 'Other bookmarks' drop down menu which is designed for stuff you want to bookmark but which isn't a regular viewing as the main bar. 'Other bookmarks' also allows single entries or folders for groups of entries.

Within folders in the bookmark bar you can click and drag entries to rearrange them. Right click on any entry to edit it. Or you can just go to the page you've book marked and press the 'Star' button to edit its entry.

The Search is Over

Like Firefox the address bar also acts like a Google search. Either type in the address for what you're looking for or just use keywords. A drop down menu displays results from your web browsing history and bookmarks. If what you're looking for isn't in that list hit 'Enter' and you'll be redirected to the search results in a Google search. Interestingly, Chrome lets you preference another search engine as the default.

Application Shortcuts

A really cool feature of Chrome is the ability to create shortcuts to webapps which will open the app in its own window. This means you can create shortcuts to things like Google Calendar or Google Notebook and with a double click have the webapp open and ready to use.

Now You See Me, Now You Don't

The minimal design means you only see what you need to see. Unlike other browsers which often have a permanent status bar, the equivalent in Chrome only pops up when it is needed: while pages are loading or when you hover over a link it pops up the links location.

On the Downlow(ad)

Similarly, the 'Download bar' appears only when you're downloading stuff. When something begins downloading the 'Download icon' appears and directs your vision to the download bar along the bottom of the window where the time remaining till complete is displayed. Once it has finished the item becomes a button. Click on it and it opens the file. Click on the 'Down arrow' drop down menu and you are given options including 'Find in folder' for locating where the file downloaded to.

At the far right hand end of the 'Download bar' is the 'Show all downloads' link which takes you to the 'Downloads' page which provides you with a chronological list of downloads. At the top you can search your download list by keywords. It would be great to see the 'Downloads' page able to be aggregated by other parameters. Maybe alphabetically by file name, by file size, alphabetically by file source?

Another niffty feature is that a tab indicates that you've downloaded something by displaying a little blue arrow next to the 'Execute' button. A helpful little reminder.

Go incognito

Like Internet Explorer's private browsing mode, Chrome has an incognito mode. When you go incognito this handy explanation is displayed:

You've gone incognito. Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window.

And just so you know you're incognito there is a shady little character in the top left corner wearing a hat, sunglasses and a trench coat. Get your shady browsing on!!

A few other things

The layout is very sleek and minimal.
It does take a little getting used to not having your usual drop down menus ('File', 'Edit', 'View' etc). All the kinds of things you used to do with these menus are now hidden in other places in the browser. My advice, if you don't already know a lot of the standard keyboard shortcuts, get to know them.
If you want the 'Home' button you have to turn it on in the 'Basic' tab in 'Options'. Find 'Options' in the 'Spanner' drop down menu.

There's always a but

The Big One: It isn't available on MAC!

My only other real complaint is that for a Google product it is not very well integrated with existing Google features. Here's some examples:

Bookmarking

Anything that you add to your bookmarks with the 'Star' button should automatically be added to your Google Bookmarks. Also adding folders to the bookmark bar and the 'Other bookmarks' drop down menu could be a little easier to find.

RSS

Unlike Safari and Firefox there is no automatic indication of an RSS feed on a page (that I have found anyway). When I did click on a feed link it just got a page of random code. It didn't start my default RSS reader and ask me if I wanted to subscribe to the feed. It should as a default open Google Reader in a new tab and ask if you want to subscribe to the feed in Reader.

Notifications

How great would it be if Chrome popped up a notification that you've received a new email in your Gmail account? Or what about a reminder that an event in your Google Calendar was coming up? Or even an accept or reject pop up when someone invited you to a Google Calendar event?

Other integration

Wouldn't it be nice if you were viewing a page, saw an event or something that was interesting and simply by highlighting and right clicking you could choose an 'Add to Google Calendar' option which would automatically read the information and try to match it to dates and times (like Apple Mail does with iCal and Address Book). Likewise, imagine if you could add people to your 'Contacts' in Gmail in a similar way.

I know it is early days yet, but come on Google, none of this is radical ideas!

Start the viral campaign: Google's PR for new browser distributable under a CC licence

elliott@popcult.cc (elliott bledsoe) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:41:00 +0000

I saw this morning the Google Chrome comic this morning and my interest in the Chrome project has peaked. An interesting marketing campaign by Google:

Get Scott McCloud to create a comic book explaining your new project using cartoon characters of your actual project team talking about the project. Stick the comic and the comic only in an envelope and post it to journalists. Done.

What is more, as I read on Mike Linksvayer's blog, that the hardcopy comic was released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic licence. The licence notification is on the back cover of the comic:

The backcover of the Google Chrome comic. CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 Generic.

Clearly they want recipients to distribute it. Which is exactly what Phillipp Lenssen of Blogoscope did. He scanned each page and put each image together to look at on his site.

Mike took Lenssen's scans and compiled them into a PDF document if anyone is interested in seeing the whole comic as it was issued to journos. And before some of you jump on the 'but that's a derivative work' band wagon, just have a read of what Mike had to say on the issue:

Note that although Creative Commons licenses containing the ‘No Derivatives’ term do not allow altering the license work, they do allow moving the otherwise unaltered work to a new format... Lenssen’s scanning and my PDFing are examples of such format shifting.

Well actually, I agree with Mike that his creation of a PDF is probably ok under the licence. Clause 3 which states that your right under the licence to "reproduce the Work" and to "distribute copies" of it includes:

"...the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights in other media and formats..."

And since Mike's PDF includes the whole work in its entirety he has simply taken the work from the physical printed document into the medium of a PDF.

But I have to say I disagree with Mike's assertion that Lenssen's reuse of the comic is a format shift not a derivative work. It could be argued that Lenssen's HTML composition of images (PNG files) scanned from the original printed comic might be considered a derivative work and therefore be in breach of the licence. Arguably it could be considered a 'Collective Work' per the definition in the CC licence, but unfortunately under a CC BY-NC-ND licence the work needs to be distributed unaltered, in its entirety. Leaving off copies of the front and back cover in the composition has altered the original work in the process of transferring it to a different medium and is probably a derivative work. Sure, the risk of being sued by Google for it is slim, but as a matter of best practice, the covers really should be included as well.

UPDATE: I did notice the version of the comic available on the Chrome press site does not include the licence information or the back cover.

UPDATE: The comic page has been updated to include a licence notification.

Wishing on a Star (Rating system)

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:07:00 +0000

Along with today's release of the Blogger in Draft Import/Export tools Google also released a star rating system which users can add to their blogs. If it is activated readers can indicate how much like like a post by giving it a star rating (1 to 5 stars).

Adding Star Ratings to blog entries

It is really easy to add the star rating to your blog but you have to have upgraded to Layout already. The star rating widget does not work with classic Blogger templates. Either click on 'Layout' on the Dashboard page next to the blog you want to add them to or click on the 'Layout' tab.

When the click and drag layout page has loaded, click on 'Edit' in the bottom right corner of the 'Blog Posts' box.

The 'Blog Post' settings will appear in a pop-up window. To activate the star rating simply check the box next to 'Show Star Rating' option.

This will add it to the 'Arrange Items' box.

If you want to arrange where the Star Rating widget appears in the entry footer click and hold on the 'Ratings' element and drag it to where you would like it.

And now you have star ratings on your blog entries.

Backing up your blog is IMPORTant! New Import/Export feature in Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:23:00 +0000

The Blogger in Draft blog reports that users on Blogger can now import and export their blogs. This may not seem all that exciting to some, but what it means is that it is now much easier to backup you blog. Instead of relying on saved HTML files or saved feeds, now you can simply and easily make a backup of both your blog entries and comments in a convenient single, Atom-formatted XML file.

It also makes merging two or more blogs easier. Individually manage which imported entries you add to an existing blog or import the lot. Alternatively, if you decide to move your blog to a different blogging platform you can without having to manually transfer the files.

The feature is now an option within the basic tab of the settings for each blog. From the Dashboard click 'Settings' next to the blog that you want to make settings changes to.

Exporting

To export your blog, click 'Export blog' in the 'Blog Tools' section of your blog's settings. The download page should appear.

Simply click the 'Download Blog' button. I'm on a Mac using Safari so the file automatically begins downloading to the 'Downloads' folder.

If you're using Firefox or Internet Explorer (and most other browsers) you will probably be asked for the location you would like to save the file to.

Once it has downloaded you're done. Now you can either store this file as a backup or use it to import the entries of the blog you just exported to another blog. A few things to remember when using the exporting tool though:

The export tool only exports posts and comments, it does not export the blog settings or templates (you can of course download an XML file of your blog template in the 'Layout' tab); and
If you have enabled the content warning for you blog you must remove it before you can export your blog.

Importing

If you have an exported blog already you can import this into an existing blog or a new blog on Blogger. If you want to import the entries and comments into an existing blog go back to the 'Blog Tools' section of Settings to the blog you want to import the posts into. Click on 'Import blog' and you'll be taken to the import page.

Click on 'Choose File' and select the XML file for the blog you want to import.

Once you've selected it, press 'Ok' then complete the CAPTCHA security test. Before uploading you need to decide if you want to publish all the incoming posts automatically or not. If you do not check the box to publish the imported entries automatically you can manually select entries to be published. Alternatively, if you do import all the posts automatically you can delete entries you don't want in the blog's 'Manage Posts' section. Once you've decided, click the 'Import Blog' button. After the XML file has been uploaded, you will be automatically redirected to your 'Manage Posts' page and a notification will inform you how many posts have been import and how many existing posts there were in the imported file.

This feature isn't just available to import content into existing blogs; you can import entries into a new blogs too. The process is fairly similar, but rather than accessing the import tool from the settings of the blog your importing into, it is conveniently included in the process of creating a new blog now. From the Dashboard click 'Create a blog' and you'll see the import tool in the 'Import a blog' section under the 'Advanced Options.'

The process is pretty similar. Select the XML file, complete the CAPTCHA security test and click 'Upload'.

Once the entries have been imported you'll be asked to set the name and the URL for the new blog. Then you'll be given the option to publish all of the imported entries or to manage them manually.

A few things to remember when using the importing tool:

At the moment the maximum size of a blog you can import is 1MB; and
You can only import exported Blogger blogs (although I am sure that Google will roll-out the ability to import content exported from other blogging platforms since they have a commitment to open platforms in the broadest sense of open).

If you haven't already converted over to Blogger in Draft you'll need to if you want to take advantage of this new feature. It's easy to do. Start by going to draft.blogger.com.

Syncing Google Calendar to iCal

noreply@blogger.com (elliott bledsoe) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 02:49:00 +0000

Click on the arrow next to the calendar you want to feed and go into 'Calendar Settings.' In the calendar address section click the iCal button. Copy the provided URL. Then in the 'Calendar' drop-down menu in iCal click on 'Subscribe' and paste the URL into the field and press 'Return.' Your calendar should appear in the left hand Calendars column under the heading 'Subscriptions.'