10 Interesting social applications for your Google Phone

If you have a Google Phone I suggest you to take a look at this list with ten interesting and useful social applications for your mobile phone Android based. This list includes a Twitter client, Delicious bookmarks manager, MySpace and Facebook apps, Wikipedia and some music and contacts managers.

Any suggestion about other Android applications? Leave a comment, thanks!


1. Twidroid
Twidroid is a very nice client application for using twitter or identi.ca on your android mobile phone. It includes direct messaging, photo posting, replies and background notifications.

2. Delicious Bookmarks
This application allows you to save bookmarks to Delicious from the Android web browser. The current implementation simply adds the option to 'Save to delicious' when 'Bookmark page' or 'Share page' is selected from the browser menu. You can also view your bookmarks in the browser by clicking on the 'Delicious Bookmarks' icon in the application list.

3. Last.fm Android App
With Last.fm Android Application you can choose an artist or genre and Last.fm builds the perfect playlist just for you, fresh every time, featuring your favorites and new discoveries powered by millions of Last.fm users sharing the music they love. You can skip any song and find out about concerts, too.

4. MySpace App
If you love MySpace, you're really going to love MySpace Mobile for Android. Simply download the free application to stay connected with your friends, share photos, and check out the tour schedules of your favorite bands… anytime, anyplace!

5. Phonebook
Contacts are among the most important data on your phone. Phonebook gives them the place they deserve on your G1 phone.Phonebook is a great alternative to the Contacts application and it comes with a new user interface and extra features such as a landscape view, an activity log which includes calls and messages.

6. imeem App
Imeem for Android helps people easily discover music that matches their tastes. The application enables users to create custom Internet radio stations by searching for specific artists, discover new music through personalized recommendations and listen to the most popular artists in the imeem community. The application also gives people the ability to purchase DRM-free downloads by linking to the Amazon MP3 application on Android.

7. Quickpedia
Quickpedia is a free app for browsing Wikipedia on your Google Phone. Quickpedia's many features include:View Wikipedia pages optimized for comfortable and easy viewing on your phone's small screen; search Wikipedia articles using our fast find interface that puts you a click away from your most frequent searches;Dig deeper and find out more about current events and much more.

8. Fbook, Facebook App
fBook is an Android app that wraps and optimizes the Facebook iPhone website for your Android phone. In addition to the features available from Facebook's iPhone web app, fBook adds several important new features. You can upload photos directly from your phone to your Facebook account.

9. Snap!
Snap! stands for Social Networking on Android Phones. Snap! makes it easy to meet new people with common interests and to keep in touch with your friends and colleagues. Snap! turns your phone into a social networking companion and combines the best features from mobile devices and social networking sites. Check out the short screencast with audio below if you are interested.

10. Palringo
Palringo is the ultimate Instant Messaging client for mobile phones and computers. Palringo allows you to instantly exchange text, photos, and vocal IMs with groups or individuals. Keep in touch with all your buddies on all the most popular IM services, without installing or switching between different applications. Palringo allows you to chat to your friends on MSN, AIM, iChat, ICQ, Yahoo!, Jabber, Gtalk, Gadu-Gadu and Facebook.

Google SearchWiki: vote and add your comments about Woork

Google SearchWiki it's a new Google features which allows users to vote and post comments on web pages. Now you can customize your search results with your rankings and notes in a simple way directly for Google search results page.

This is a Google screenshot with search results about "Woork":

Try to vote this site and post your public comments. Thanks!

Google Spreadsheets Tips: Add custom charts

In the past months I dedicated several post about Google Spreadsheets about how to use basic formulas, how to design a project plan structure and how to implement a gantt charts using Widgets. Yesterday my friend Ivan ask to me to dedicate a post about how to add custom charts and, in particular, dynamic charts which update themselves when an user update a table with input data.

This tutorial explains how to add custom charts on Google Spreadsheets using Widgets. If you are an Excel user you'll find this very simple!

Take a look at this spreadsheet or copy this spreadsheet in your Google Apps Account.


1. From table to chart
Image to have this table with the following data about a list of products:

For each product I want to display, in the same chart, price, cost and the difference between price and cost. Ho can I do? A good way to do it is using an Area Chart.

2. Select Chart
To add an Area Chart on Google Spreadsheets click on Insert gadget and from the Gadget window select Charts > Area Chart. The chart will be added on you active sheet. Now you have to set all required parameters (Range is necessary!):

If you take a look at the table at the step 1, cost and price values are in the column D and E, so the range is:

Sheet1!D3:E10

...where Sheet1 is the name of the sheet where is the table. Now click on Apply and Close to add your chart on the current sheet. Simple, no?


3. Dynamic Charts
Now, image to have the following table which simulate the selling trend of a set of products (products details at step 1). When an user change quantity (column K) total values in the table will be updated with the new data. Price is taken from the table at the step 1 (column E), using Vertical Lookup function (Vlookup) using the ID Product (column I) as search criteria.

Total (column J) is calculated as Quantity * Price. I want to add a chart which display how revenues are allocate (for each product) on the total revenue. You can do it easy using a Pie Chart. Click on Insert gadget link and from the Gadget window select Charts > Pie Chart. The chart will be added on you active sheet. Now you have to set all required parameters (Range is necessary!):

If you take a look at the simulation table, total values are in the column J and products names in the column I, so the range is:

Sheet1!I4:J6

...where Sheet1 is the name of the sheet where is the table. Now click on Apply and Close to add your chart on the current sheet. At this point every times you change quantity values (column K) your chart will be updated with the new data.

Take a look at this spreadsheet or copy this spreadsheet in your Google Apps Account.


Related content
Google Spreadsheets Tips: Gantt Chart (Microsoft Project-like) using Widget
Use Google Spreadsheets to get financial informations about companies
Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting
Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial

Google Spreadsheets Tips: Gantt Chart (Microsoft Project-like) using Widget

Google Spreadsheets is a powerful web application to do everything you do using Excel. A nice way to use it is to manage a project plan with a gantt chart (microsoft project-like) and share it on-line with your team.This is a free and versatile solution to do that. This tutorial illustrates how to use Google Spreadsheets Viewpath Gadget to implement it.

Take a look at this spreadsheet


Step 1: Project Plan structure
First step is defiing your project plan structure. I suggest you to use this basic structure:

Column A: Task ID (WBS) (an unique ID which identifyes each task with a progressive number).
Column B: Task description (a short description of the activity).
Column C: Percentage of completion (0%-100%).
Column D: Predecessor (finish-start relationships between tasks).
Column E: Start date (task start date).
Column F: Finis date (task finish date).

The result is something like this:

All previous fields are required for viewpath gadget but, if you want, you can add other columns with other infos (for example the name of a resource assigned to each task, task duration in terms of day, ecc...). When your project plan structure is completed you are ready to add Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets Viewpath Gadget.

Step 2: Add Gantt Gadget
Click on Chart icon and select Gadget option.

In the Gadget window find and select Gantt Chart gadget (by Viewpath) and click on Add to spreadsheet button:

In the option window assign all required parameters to the correct column of your project plan structure (for example Start dates in this example are in the column E):

After assigned all columns, click on apply button and see the result. Now you can save your project plan , publish and share it with all member of your team.


Related Content
See also the following link about this topic:

• Google Spreadsheets Tips: invert word position using formulas
  
• Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial
• Gantt Chart with EditGrid online spreadsheets
• Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets
• Project Management: a project plan with Excel (template)
• Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting
• Project Management: Excel Gantt Chart Template

Google Spreadsheets Tips: Invert word position using formulas

Are you a Google Spreadsheets users? Take a look at this tips to invert words into a string.

Ok guys, finally I have a litte bit of time to add a new post on my blog. Today I want to return to talk about Google Spreadsheets, illustrating simple tips very useful to invert automatically (using some basic formula) the order of words in a cell.

You can also use all formulas in this example in Excel.

Take a look at the spreadsheet here

Download Excel file

Step 1 - Input data

For example, image you have a column with several names (name + surname):

Jack Bauer
Christian Troy
Gregory House
Micheal Scofield
Lincoln Burrows
...

...and for some reason you need to invert the order in surname + name. You can do it manually... but in case of more then ten names could spend a lot of time to do it. A good solution is using some formulas


Step 2 - Find a criteria to separate words
What is it the criteria you can use to split single words? In this example is the space (" ") between name and surname. You have only to find the "position" of the space (" ") to have a reference to split the content in the cell. You can do it using find() formula in this way:

=find(" ";B5;1)

This forumlas return the index (position) of the space (" "), contained into the text in the cell B5, starting to the position "1".

...for the cell B5 (Jack Bauer) the space is at position 5 (index = 5).

Step 3 - Extract words
Now, in a new column you can extract the surname and in another column the name. To extract the surname you can use right() formula combined with len() formula:

=right(B5;len(B5)-C5)

...where len() formula return the lenght (number of chars) of the text contained in the cell B5.

To extract the name you can use left() forumla:

=left(B5;C5)

Step 4 - Concatenate extracted words in a new order
Finally, you can concatenate words you extracted in the order "surname and name", using concatenate() forumla:

=concatenate(D5," ",E5)

...concatenate surname (D5), a space (" ") and name (E5).

It's all!

Take a mind, you can also use the same formulas in Excel but remember only to separate formula parameters using ";" instead of ",".

Related Content

See also:

• Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial
• Gantt Chart with EditGrid online spreadsheets
• Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets
• Project Management: a project plan with Excel (template)
• Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting
• Project Management: Excel Gantt Chart Template

Playing with AdSense ads position

When you place AdSense on your site you have to do this simple consideration: where can I place AdSense advertisements in order to realize a great result in terms of revenue without irritating my readers placing advertisements in too much strategic positions?

First time, in order to maximize my revenue, I placed an AdSense box (336 x 280) below the title of my post... Sincerely, I didn't find it a great choice in terms of readability and layout but, considering the all respect daily income, without doubt the best. But my readers didn't appreciate my "revenue-oriented" choice so, after several messages, in order to satisfy my aficionados readers, I decided to move AdSense box (336 x 280) to the end of my posts. Result...? This is the trend of my revenue in the latest days after I moved AdSense box below the text of posts:


How you can see from the picture (considering a constant traffic about 3500-4000 unique visitors/day), a disaster. I didn't report my daily income but isn't important to understand the poor trend.
Then Saturday morning I decided again to place AdSense below the title of my post, but changing AdSense box (336 x 280) with a smaller one which I find more tolerable for all my readers... Whit my big pleasure, today, just two days after I found a significant improvement on my revenue comparable with my initial daily income using 336 x 280 ads box. I hope this choice can be more "appreciated" for all my readers :)) !

Related content
Why you have not need of an eBook about Google AdSense secrets
Place Google AdSense below post's title on Blogger

Google Spreadsheets (Apps) now supports Safari

It's true! I tried some seconds ago... With my big surprise, finally Google Apps supports Safari.

So, all Mac users (Safari lovers) can edit Google Spreadsheets files directly with their own preferred browser, without switch every time to Firefox.

Related Posts

Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial
Gantt Chart with EditGrid online spreadsheets
Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets
Project Management: a project plan with Excel (template)
Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting

Use Google Spreadsheets to get financial informations about companies

In the past days I wrote some posts about Google Spreadsheets and how to use some common formulas like countIf(), vlookup(), sumIf().

This post explains how to use GoogleFinancial() and GoogleLookUp formulas to get financial informations about a list of companies in Google Spreadsheets.

Take a look at this spreadsheet

Spreadsheet structure
My spreadhseet's structure is very simple. It contains a column (column A) with company's name and other columns (B:L) with the financial data I want to get - using GoogleFinancial() formula - for each company (price open, current price, highest price of the day, erning-per -share...).



To get these informations, take a mind GoogleFinancial() formula take two parameter: symbol (the company code used to identify the company in the market) and an attribute (kind of data you want to display). So, first step, we have to get the symbol (company code) using another useful formula, GoogleLookUp().

Use GoogleLookUp() formula to retrieve company code
To find the Company Code (column B) I used GoogleLookUp() formula, a very useful function which use the web to retrieve information about a serie of questions you have (for example about countries and territories, planets, companies, ecc...).
In my example I want to retrieve the company code for each company in the column A. I used this formula:

=GoogleLookup(A6, "ticker")

...where A6 is the reference to the cell which contains the company name, and "ticker" is the attribute you have to use with GoogleLookUp() formula to get the company name.

In my example the previous formula is like:

=GoogleLookup("Apple Inc", "ticker")

and the result is:

AAPL

You can find a detailed guide about GoogleLookUp() formula, with an explanation about all attributes you can use, here.

Get Financial Data using GoogleFinancial() formula
So, for each company, we have the company code (column B) and now we can use GoogleFinancial() formula to get financial informations about our companies. In my example, column C display the currency in which the stock is traded, simply using this formula:

=GoogleFinance($B6, "currency")

...and the result is:

USD

In my spreadsheet I used the following formulas:

Currency: =GoogleFinance($B6, "currency")
Price Open: =GoogleFinance($B6, "priceopen")
Price: =GoogleFinance($B6, "price")
Price-to-Earnings: =GoogleFinance($B6, "pe")
Erning-per-share: =GoogleFinance($B6, "eps")
Beta: =GoogleFinance($B6, "beta")
Volume AVG =GoogleFinance($B6, "volumeavg")
High (highest price the stock traded at for the current day) =GoogleFinance($B6, "Hig")
Low (lowesest price the stock traded at for the current day) =GoogleFinance($B6, "low")

Take a look at this spreadsheet

You can find a full guide aboutGoogleFinancial() formula here.

Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting

Today's lesson explains how to implement a dynamic Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting (change with rules option).

Take a look at this spreadsheet or copy this spreadsheet in your Google Apps Account

Implement the gantt chart
For explain the topic of this post I prepared a spreadsheet whit a simple work breakdown structure, with only four columns (WBS, activity, start date, finish date).

The question is: how do you do to change a date and update automatically the gantt chart?

You can think to solve the problem in this way, using a simple IF statement: for each activity, if the date's value, contained into the row 2 (in gray), is equal or grater than the activity's start date or the same date's value (row 2) is equal or less then the activity's finish date, add an "X" into the cell. Otherwise leave the cell blank. Formula for the cell C4 is:

=if(AND((E$2>=$C4),(E$2<=$D4)),"X","")

You can copy and paste this formula into the other cells.

So, if a cell satisfies the previous rule, you can use conditional formatting, to change the cell's background from the default color (white) to another color.

Click on cell background color icon and select Change with rules.



Select the following rules:

Text is exactly = X

... then, select the background color you want to apply to the cell.

How you can see in the first image, I used two color: yellow for activities and green for activities'tasks. You can repeat the previous rule changing the color from yellow to green for your tasks.

Take a look at this spreadsheet here.

Similar posts

Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets
Project Management: a project plan with Excel (template) Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial

Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial

After my previous post about how to implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets, I received some emails which asked to me to explain some useful formulas used frequently into spreadsheets. I published an example's spreadsheet which you can see here whith an example about these functions:

- Count If
- Vertical Look Up
- Sum If
- Count Blank

You can use these functions, with the same syntax, using Excel (remember only to use ";" to separate functions' attributes and not ",").


Download this tutorial for Excel

Take a look at Google Spreadsheet file

On-line presentation

If you want you can also take a look at this presentation:




Count If
countif() is a very useful function which you can use to count an element in an interval. In the following example I'm looking foor how many times is repeated the name "Lara" into the interval. The result is 2.

Formula is:

=countif(B13:B17,B8)

...we can "traslate" this formula in this way: count how many times the value contained in the cell B8 is repeated in the interval B13:B17.


Vertical Look Up
vlookup() is another useful function which I use frequently to manage data in a spreadsheet. You can use it to find a value (not repeated) in an interval and return a value contained ina column in the same row of the found value. In the following example I found City and Age for "Jason". The result is Dublin and 34:

Formula is:

=vlookup(F8,F13:G17,2,)

... search for the value in the cell F8 (Jason), in the interval F13:G17, and return the value contained into the interval column with index 2 (Column G).


Sum If
sumif() executes a conditional sum of values contained in an interval based on some criteria:

Formula is:

=sumif(J11:K15,J6,K11:K15)

...sum in the range J11:K11 the values contained in the column Points (interval K11:K15) where the value in the interval J11:J15 is equal to J6.


Count Blank
countblank() count how many blank (empty) cells there are in an interval:


Formula is:

=countblank(N11:N15)

Count blank cells in interval N11:N15.

I suggest you to download the spreadsheet in .xls format or take a look at the Google Spreadsheets file here.

Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets

In the past days I added some post about the topic project management: organize a project plan and implement a project plan with Excel. I added also an Excel template that you can download here. In this post I'm going to explain how to implement a project plan using Google Spreadsheets. You can see the example at this link.

Copy and use this spreadsheet

Create a copy of this spreadsheet for your Google Apps account


File structure
My Google Spreadsheets file has two woorksheet WBS (work breakdown structure of the project) and User View (a list with resources to assign to each task.)


Work breakdown structure
In WBS sheet you have the following columns: WBS (task ID), Task (task description), Pred (predecessor), % (percentage of completion), Owner (resource assiged to the task), Role (owner role);


Owner role is calculated looking for the name insert into the column Owner into the sheet User View using VLOOKUP function (vertical lookup), for example:

=vlookup(E5,'user view'!A:B,2,)

...it search the value contained into the cell E5 on the sheet user view in a colum's interval from A to B, and return - if the value in E5 exist in the column A - the result from the column with index 2 (column B).

Sheet WBS has also other columns like star date, finish date, re-planned star date, re-planned finish date, project delay, and a section to assign a variable cost + fixed cost + a manual adjust to each task.

Take a look at the spreadsheet for more info about all columns.


Resources
All resources (task's owner) are located into a second worksheet User view. I have added some basic columns and the hour cost for the resource.


Total Task is calculated automatically from the sheet. I have simply added a function, COUNTIF, that count how time an user si repeted into the sheet WBS

=countif(wbs!E:E,A3)

... it updates the counter if finds in the column E of the sheet WBS a value equal to the value contained into the cell A3.


Excel or Google Spreadsheet?
Sincerly, I found Google Spreedsheets a good application to create spreadsheets with a medium level of complexity, but the "response", for an Excel-addicted, is not the same. In any case it's a useful service and, above all, it's free!

Why you have not need of an eBook about Google AdSense secrets

If you have a site, probably you use Google AdSense to monetize your traffic. If after some month since site's startup, you are not satisfied for the obtained results, in terms of revenues, you could try to find some suggestion on internet about how to increase your revenue with AdSense. In this case, can help you one of the many ebooks about this argoument written from some AdSense Guru.

But, what it’s a typical structure of these ebooks? And they are really useful?

The introduction
First chapter is an introduction about the eBook and how his author earned million dollars simply applying some rules that he promises is going to reveal to you in the next pages... (it would seem interesting... ok, let's go!)

Do you know AdSense?
Second chapter is the answer to the question: “what is Google AdSense”?... (mmm... but at this point I ask to me: “why I have to pay for a thing I can read for free on Google AdSense official site?”)

The first AdSense secret
Third chapter is a detailed explanation about announcements’ formats. To the end, the first secret in order to become a millionaire with adSense is revealed:

“Bigger formats are better because they are more visible than small formats”. (indeed???)

The second AdSense secret
Now it’s time for the second secret, the most explosive: after some pages it’s revealed and can be resumed with this sentence:

“Place AdSense announcements where are visible, for example on top of the page.” No Comment.

Now, after all, my suggestion is: "not to throw your money." Ok?

Google Maps finally integrates subway stations

If you used Google Maps today you may have noticed that they have finally added subway stations to the map interface.

It’s nice visually, but doesn’t give you as much options as HopStop (directions by train, driving or walking) but nonetheless I am a fan.

At the very least, I can see how to get home from wherever I maybe.