Webware

Google programmers are adding support for the Perl programming language to its App Engine service for hosting Web applications, but so far it's not really an official project.

The work is the project of Google employee Brad Fitzpatrick, who disclosed the project on his blog Tuesday. But he's not a member of the App Engine team, and Google isn't promising Perl support, he said. By going public with the project, he hopes to intercept other Perl fans' work in the area.

"I (along with other Perl hackers here at Google) are now allowed to work on … Read more

Adobe Systems is revamping its Media Player with a new interface and a deal that will let users of the software watch movies from Sony Pictures.

The interface update in the new version 1.1, due to ship Tuesday afternoon, presents users with a larger number of video shows. "There's more content that we surface earlier," said Ashley Still, senior product manager for Adobe Media Player.

The new Sony partnership means people will be able to watch full-length movies, including Jerry Maguire and Men in Black, on Adobe Media Player, she said. A total of about 600 … Read more

Here's why I'm a Gmail convert: for the first time since I started using e-mail nearly 20 years ago, I can keep my in-box tidy.

A month ago, I switched my personal e-mail from Yahoo Mail, with which I've been generally happy. What attracted me to Gmail was a number of specific Gmail features, but what I've come to appreciate is the big picture: a new way to look at the task of e-mail.

The old paradigm follows the metaphor of a paper-pushing office job with an in-box, trash can, and filing cabinet.

Gmail brings that paper pushing into the computer age. Most messages I care about are already organized with labels automatically as they arrive. I still must read and reply if necessary, but after that I just plop messages into a giant archive with no pesky manual filing. They can be retrieved easily via search or labels.

The result: my Gmail in-box has 14 messages in it, and I've had no trouble thus far keeping it in that neighborhood. I wouldn't say it's life-changing, but it's an improvement.

Here's one measure of its user interface success: several times a day, I miss Gmail features absent from my work e-mail, which uses Microsoft Outlook connected to an Exchange server. That Gmail accomplishment is notable given that its interface uses a relatively primitive Web-based foundation, while Outlook gets all the computing horsepower and interface richness of a Windows PC.

Google's philosophy with Gmail is to aim for the needs of power users. That might sound like foolishly overlooking the much larger mainstream market. But I think it's smart, because given the increasing importance of Internet communications, an ordinary user tomorrow will face the same challenges as a power user today.

Despite my overall satisfaction, though, the advantages I found in Gmail made its deficiencies all the more glaring. And the transition from Yahoo was extremely unpleasant. Here are some details for those of you thinking of taking the plunge.

The three Gmail features that wooed me Three Gmail features got me to make the move, and all three proved just as desirable as I anticipated.

The first feature is labels. Yahoo Mail, like Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, and every other e-mail client I've used, requires me to sort keeper e-mail into folders. Many times, though, I've been bothered by folders' fundamental organizational limit: you can put a message in only one folder. So with a message from my old roommate about his new camera, do I put that into the folder for him or the one for photography? And a year later, when I want to retrieve it, where should I look?

With Gmail, you can have multiple labels on a particular e-mail--one for both "family" and "wife," for example, not to mention "money," "travel," "tech support," and various other categories I use often. By color-coding labels, various categories are easily found in my in-box, and clicking a label shows all mails that use it.

Yahoo Mail made major progress around this problem by finally fixing its previously ineffectual search ability, but I still like labels a lot better.

… Read more

Users of Google Docs, the online applications for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, now have a wide range of templates from which to choose.

Google on Thursday announced the templates, which were created by Google and a number of companies with experience in the business. They can be browsed and opened through a template gallery that currently has 294 to choose from.

Among the options: wedding planners, business cards, cover letters, screenplays with proper formatting, invoices, loan amortization schedulers, fantasy basketball standings predictor, wedding photo albums, and party invitations.

I personally was excited to see the Sudoku template, was initially … Read more

Google doesn't deny that it's working on bringing offline access to two major Web applications, Gmail and Calendar, but a sign emerged Thursday that the feature--which would be a major expansion of the applications' utility and competitive threat--is due soon.

"Gears on Gmail and Calendar in approximately 6 weeks. Just had a preview at Google offices. Not sure if it is Google Enterprise only," said Andrew Fogg, chief marketing and strategy officer for Web 2.0 consultancy Kusiri, in a Twitter post Thursday.

Gears, formerly called Google Gears, is an open-source extension for Firefox and Internet … Read more

Microsoft is adding birthday reminders and several other new features to its Windows Live Calendar service.

The online calendar, which still is in beta testing, also got a new user interface and some more options for printing, Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday. On tap in coming days are the ability to subscribe to online iCal-format calendars, support for holidays, and the ability to synchronize with Windows Live Hotmail e-mail.

Some things on Live need updating though. The contacts section of the calendar page told me to upgrade my Web browser to Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari; I'm using … Read more

Google has revamped the contacts section of Gmail to let users decide who's on their A-list.

Gmail adds a contact entry for every e-mail you use, and previously showed either the full list or the "Most Contacted" subset Google chose. Now the service divides contacts into a "My Contacts" list that users can define and a "Suggested Contacts" list with everyone else.

Google announced the move on its Gmail blog on Thursday.

Automation still plays a part: The service can be set to automatically add to "My Contacts" anybody you send … Read more

Update 12:41 p.m. PDT: I corrected a reference that should have been to Yahoo.

Yahoo has begun sharing some future plans it has for Groups, its service where people with shared interests can get together online through mailing lists, calendars, polls, and other features.

In the "coming year," Yahoo plans to add many attributes that expand the scope of groups, according to the Yahoo Groups blog on Tuesday. Those features include tools for product reviews, service directories, wanted boards, address books, and event planners.

And upgrades to existing features include: a better system for hosting photos … Read more

Blinkx, whose technology lets people search for videos hosted elsewhere on the Internet, is making it possible for other Web sites to incorporate its search results and share any resulting revenue.

Through a program called Red Label, the company is opening its application programming interface (API) so other sites can pipe video search queries to Blinkx, retrieve the results, and publish them, said Chief Executive and founder Suranga Chandratillake.

"If you have fewer than 10,000 searches per day, you can have access for free. If you have more than 10,000, we ask you to monetize it and … Read more