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Got an interest in Google Wave but have absolutely no idea where to get started? Try out The Complete Guide to Google Wave, a new (free) book written and edited by my pal and Lifehacker emeritus Gina Trapani and yours truly.

Google Wave may not be available to everyone just yet, but there’s still a lot to learn about it and not that many places to do that learning. That’s where The Complete Guide to Google Wave steps in.

Wave is a young, complex, and frankly incomplete web application and technology. It’s also an ambitious project that has the potential to change how we work, collaborate, and communicate on the web. That’s why Gina and I decided to pour our time and attention into Google Wave and pull it all together into this book.

We’re calling it a book, even though right now its content is only available on the web at completewaveguide.com. It features eight chapters and two appendices, but we’re going to expand the book as Google continues to grow and expand Wave. (In fact, anyone can help us do just that by contributing to the guide.)

If you’d like a more permanent or convenient copy of the book, its first preview edition will be available for purchase as a PDF later this month, and the first edition print version will be available in January of 2010. Gina and I are planning to release four editions of the book throughout 2010 to keep up with the changing face of Wave, but the latest version of the book will always be available and free at completewaveguide.com.

Check out the book’s About page for more details on our adventure in publishing (including why we’re self-publishing), or just head to the home page to get started with your Wave education. For updates on book releases and various Wave tips, follow @gwaveguide on Twitter.

Note: Our server has had a little trouble keeping up with the traffic, so if you’re having trouble accessing the site, try this mirror instead.

Originally posted 2009-11-02 17:00:00. Republished by Old Post Promoter

Filed under: OS, Switchers

As the resident Mac expert for my family and friends, I often find myself fielding questions from the recent switchers in my life. A lot of those questions come in the form of “how do I <insert random Windows task here>?” Apparently Apple’s support folk have also encountered this phenomenon as Apple has created a knowledge base article to tackle many of these questions.

The article, entitled “Switch 101: On Windows I used to…” is part of Apple’s Switch 101 series which is directly aimed at getting recent switchers comfortable with using OS X. It covers such tasks as finding and opening files, quitting applications, and using shortcut key modifiers (such as , the Command key).

I have shown this article to many recent switchers both in my family and otherwise; it has always proved to be a valuable resource to those that are new the Mac platform. Another great resource for recent switchers is TUAW’s own Mac 101 series. Do you have any other tips for recent switchers? Post them in the comments and share the wealth of your experiential knowledge.

TUAWSwitch 101: A guide to using OS X originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scottish photojournalist Harry Benson, who’s captured some amazing frames of The Beatles, world leaders, and historic events, gives the New York Times his best tip for shooting at night or in low natural light.

He doesn’t lighten or otherwise touch his photos with image editors, and his secret to shooting in low light is simple:

Don’t be afraid. You’ll be surprised just how good your photos will be. Make sure there is some light on your subject’s face. But be brave about it. The thing about is that I’ve been awakened to see just what digital cameras can do in low-light situations. It digs right into spaces that I never thought a camera could penetrate.

The post offers a few nitty-gritty details for manual-settings types, but he’s right—the best photographs I’ve seen from parties, weddings, and news events come from shooters who simply stand steady, shoot what they can frame, and shoot a lot.

The Google Earth app for the Nexus One Android smartphone is now available for download. The app won’t work on every Android phone, but the Droid version is coming soon. Eventually all phones that run Android 2.1 will be able to use the app.

Previously Apple’s iPhone was the only phone with a Google Earth app. The Google LatLong blog post announcing this new version argues that the Nexus One is a better fit for Google Earth’s 3D interface thanks to its 1 GHz processor and 800 x 480-pixel display. Google says this is the “fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet.”

The Nexus One app has some features the iPhone version doesn’t, notably the road overlay. Google Earth is a lot more fun to use when you can actually use clearly defined roads to navigate. One of the most lauded general features of the Nexus One is voice recognition; the Google Earth app takes advantage of that. For example, you can say “Eiffel Tower” and it will take you there.

Regardless of which device you have, you can pick up the app by visiting http://m.google.com/earth.

Tags: android, droid, Google, google earth, iphone, nexus one

With the human genome complete, one of the more prominent follow-up projects has been the cancer genome, in which researchers attempted to study the complete catalog of mutations that are present in different cancers. So far, the results have been pretty mixed, with mutations in a lot of genes we already knew about, and many indications that cancers from different tissues have distinct collections of mutations. All of these are present against a massive background of DNA base changes that might be significant to the disease, or irrelevant. But two new studies indicate that, for large DNA differences, it might be possible to separate out informative changes.

The challenge with studying cancer-causing mutations is that, as part of the progression of the disease, cells tend to accumulate damage to the proteins that keep them dividing in a healthy and controlled fashion. As a result, the pathways that keep cells with DNA damage from dividing tend to get inactivated, so cancer cells pick up many additional mutations, some relevant to the disease, others not. Determining whether a mutation is a contributor to the disease or a harmless passenger has always been challenging.

A lot of people were upset over how Google handled their privacy when they launched Buzz, and it looks like Google may pay the price in legal fees. According to SFGate, a class action complaint has been filed against Google alleging that it “broke the law when its controversial Google Buzz service shared personal data without the consent of users.” Good thing we’ve got that handy disable button now. [SFGate]

Filed under: Video, How-tos, Cult of Mac, iPhone

TUAWiPhone battery dead? In a squeeze you can charge it with Jaffa oranges originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember last week, when Motorola said it was releasing an Android 2.1 update for the Droid, but then totally didn’t? Moto tried to “explain” the situation in forums, but didn’t really, edited its long-erroneous Facebook post retroactively, and ended up breaking a lot of hearts. Well, now Motorola has a new “Software Upgrade News” chart detailing planned upgrades for its Android devices. While this is certainly helpful going forward, the lack of clarification on the Droid update doesn’t exactly solve the confusion that got them into this mess: Motorola is merely saying that the OTA upgrade will roll out “soon.” As previously promised, we’re also going to be getting a Cliq update to 2.1 eventually as well, which is now being pegged for Q2. Sadly, upgrades for non-US handsets are decidedly less expedient — or not even assured — but at least we’ve got something.

[Thanks, Glenn]

Motorola publishes schedule of Android upgrades for its handsets, steers clear of specifics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Macworld, iPhone, iPod touch

I stopped by the 4iThumbs booth to check out their product that would purportedly increase my (admittedly dismal) typing speed on the iPhone/iPod touch. It consists of a plastic overlay that puts small ridges between the letters of the standard iPhone keyboard, available in both portrait and landscape formats. The product comes with some tabs that you affix to the top and bottom of the device, and you can then slip the plastic overlay on and off. You can touch through the overlay and use the phone as usual while it’s attached, although the bumps aren’t terribly comfortable for swiping. There’s a matching set of tabs for the back of the device which can hold the overlay when it’s not in use.

I tested it out, and it works. I never texted much on any device other than the iPhone, so I can’t make a direct comparison of typing speeds between an iPhone and, say, a Blackberry. I do type a lot on my iPhone, though, and I can readily say that my typing speed and accuracy increased dramatically while using the 4iThumbs overlay.

4iThumbs is $19.95US online for 1 set, which includes portrait and landscape versions and the tabs to attach them to your iPhone/iPod touch. At Macworld, you can pick up 2 for $15US, but you’ll have to get there quick to take advantage of the show pricing.

TUAWMacworld 2010: Hands-on with the 4iThumbs keyboard for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google took a lot of flack over privacy concerns this week, like over a loophole that allowed people to figure out your private email address in replies. Security weblog Social Hacking details another method your Gmail address is exposed using a URL hack.

The Social Hacking post points out that users with numeric profile address (e.g., http://www.google.com/profiles/104424237445852766735–the numeric address of the post’s author) may think that means their Google account username is still hidden. Turns out with that number, it’s actually very easy to divine a user’s account id. Here’s how it works (from ReadWriteWeb):

First, you simply copy the numbers from a user’s Google profile and then append these numbers to http://picasaweb.google.com/[numbers].

For some users who haven’t customized their Picasa page, the username (which is also their Gmail address) will come right up. If the user has customized the account and added a nickname, you simply have to replace the URL in the address bar with javascript:alert(_user.name); and a small pop-up window will show you the username.

The solution, from Social Hacking:

To protect yourself from this access, visit the Picasa settings page.  Under “Your gallery URL,” add a new username and select the new username for your gallery URL. Also, you may want to edit your nickname.

I suppose the point here isn’t that Google’s done you wrong in every way, but it’s worth recognizing that when you go public with Google accounts, they really are public, and they tie together in more ways than you might realize.