Google Wave

Email Notifications in Google Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:26:47 +0000

I know for many people Google Wave was a bit of a miss as far as useful was concerned, well this may make things more useful to you. The Google Wave team have enabled Email notifications so just like buzz you can get an email when a wave is updated.

You can choose the frequency of the notifications between instantly to daily updates, you will only get one update for each Wave so at least you won't get drowned in notifications.

To enable Wave Email Notifications hover over the Inbox in your wave sidebar and click "Notifications"

Restore your Google Wave using Playback

John Carnell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:18:36 +0000

The Google Wave team have added a way to restore your Wave to an earlier time, using the Playback tool move through your wave to the point you would like to restore to and the click restore.

Any changes after the restore point will be removed, perfect for those times when some one makes a big mistake or goes Gadget mad. Your access level needs to be Full not the readonly mode that Google just added.

Google Wave adds Read-Only wave Participants

John Carnell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:04:32 +0000

Great news, at long last you can add Read-Only wave participants. These users can only read a wave they have no ability to add to or edit a wave and that includes Robots and Gadgets.

This is a really smart move by the Google Wave team and should really help to bring order to the chaos of Wave collaboration. I know a few people were really avoiding Wave until Google added some sort of access control, hopefully this should be just what they were waiting for.

When you add a new contact to a Wave you now get a drop down menu to select the access level for that invited user.

Google Wave gets an Undo option

John Carnell — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:33:20 +0000

One of the most requested features, some might say expected features is a way to Undo a change you make to a wave. The Google Wave team have responded and now if you use the Keyboard command CTRL+Z it will undo the last change you made.

Handy for those public wave moments when you accidently delete someone's gadget or mess up their blips. Changes are still tracked however!

Open your Google Wave to the public

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:54:53 +0000

First a Warning! Making a Wave public appears to be a one way process once you make a wave public you can't make it private again so be very sure you want the wave public.

Public waves are also getting hit with new users joining adding bots and trashing the wave remember ANYONE can ADD / INVITE / EDIT your Wave once you make it public

How to go public

To make a wave public you need to add the following BOT to your contact list in Google Wave:
public@a.gwave.com

The contact box will flash up a message saying it can't find the contact press ENTER on your keyboard and it will add it anyway.

Now go into the wave you would like to make public and add the BOT to your wave from your contact list, the wave is now public and can be found via the with:public search command.

Example: ' group:public@a.gwave.com mywavename '

Replaying a Google Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:52:20 +0000

At any time you can use the Replay button to allow you to see how the Wave unfolded, every edit is recorded by the system. This allows you to see what changes you or another person has made to a blip by following the flow of time.

Press the Right or left arrows to move forward or backward in the wave timeline you can see how far along the time line you are with the time line indicator, you can exit the wave playback by using the X at the far right side of the time line indicator.

Note that even if you delete a blip you created or someone else’s blip it will still appear in the replay up until the point it was delete

Google Wave Double click a blip to reply or edit

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:50:19 +0000

If you double click on a blip you will get a small popup just under where you clicked this provides a REPLY and EDIT option to quickly take you to the relevant option.

The reply button will create a reply to that blip however if you double click a word inside a blip you want to reply it will create a collapsible thread at that point very handy if you want to keep the wave tidy.

Say this is a master blip and I would like to add a note or reply to this message at this point here.

This means I don’t have lots of extra blips under here but can keep the focus of my comment related to the first sentence, these inline blips can then be collapsed saving space and keeping the wave tidy

Sending a Private blip in Google Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:47:40 +0000

One of the really clever aspects of Google Wave is the ability to create private blips that reply to a parent blip.

This is very useful if you want to keep a separate note about a particular blip or if you want to include a co-worker in a side discussion without impacting the conversation still carrying on.

You can even invite an additional person from outside the main wave who can comment in your private blip and view the parent blips content but not the entire wave.

Collaborating together in a Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:46:43 +0000

One of Google wave biggest strengths is its ability to let you collaborate with other Google Wave users, as it stand right now anyone you invite to a wave can edit any part of it and if you make the wave public any Google Wave user can edit any part of your wave.

Using the edit tools it's easy to collaborate on a document with one user typing in a blue colour and another in red and of course the play back function makes it easy to what was changed in that blip by who and at what point in the overall flow of the wave.

Adding notes or discussion in sub blips and the private blip function are a great way to discuss what you are collaborating on without lots of (bracketed) notes all over the copy.

Creating your first Google Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:44:10 +0000

Clicking the New Wave button at the top of your Inbox will create a new Wave and open your first blip, it's customary to make the first blip the page Title so go ahead and create a page title and using the H1 button set the size to H1 a nice big Title. You can also add a short description about the purpose of the wave or any instructions to other wave members.

Inviting others to join your Google Wave

To invite other people to join your wave and assuming you already have some contacts, click the + symbol at the top of panel 4 (The Wave) it will be to the right of your Avatar (account image) click each of the people you want to add to your wave and the wave will be sent to their Google Wave inbox ready for them to take part.

Receiving a Google Wave

When another person adds you to a wave it appears in your Wave Inbox automatically and within moments of you being added to the wave, new waves appear at the top of your inbox and can be opened by double clicking on them, if a wave already has activity it will have a green indicator with a number in it to show how many unread blips are present.

How to: Send Pings to Google Wave contacts

John Carnell — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:40:57 +0000

A ping is a mini wave, in fact it really is just a wave in a very small drop down panel if you press the maximise button at the top of a ping window it will open into a normal Wave.

To send a ping click on a contact in your contacts list and click the PING button. This will open a PING drop down at the very top of your Google Wave Interface.

If you ping someone from inside a Wave the ping blip will occur inside that Wave not in a new window, in effect it becomes a private reply that only the person pinged and you become members off. Note at this time you can’t delete these types of private blips!

When a Ping is minimised you only have limited features no full edit bar your limited to just typing and replying, to restore the full editor just maximise the ping into a full wave Pings are useful if you just need a quick word with someone while working in another wave or to send information snippets to one another, honestly Ping feels a bit pointless but it’s useful to help replicate a more slimmed down Instant messenger communication window.

Google Wave community Etiquette

John Carnell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:16:25 +0000

With the ability to edit any part of a wave some etiquette has sprung up to try and make life more bearable for wave operator.

The first Blip in a wave should be considered non-editable by other users, the first blip should be a Wave title and description of the wave its polite to leave this alone.

Don't add gadgets or bots unless you really need them and if it's a public wave don't add any at all leave it for the wave owner to decide as lots of bots and gadgets can cause a wave to crash!

Clean up for empty blips - if you accidentally start a few blips with miss clicks be sure to clean up after yourself so others don't have to.

Try and stay on topic! This happens alot in public waves do try and stay to the topic of the wave you are reading.

Understanding the Wave editor tool bar - when editing or replying to blips

John Carnell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:10:39 +0000

This tool bar contains all of the formatting and styling tools you need to make your Wave a bit more personal or help to break up long blocks of text. This is also the Tool bar that allows you to add images & gadgets to your Wave.

You will notice it is very similar to the Microsoft Word Tool bar or any other text editor you may of used keep that in mind when using Wave and you won't get too lost.

Going from Left to right:

Bold - Make the currently selected text Bold
Italic - Make the currently selected text Italic
Underlined - Make the currently selected text Underlined
Strike Through - Make the currently selected text struck through
Text Size - Make the text Bigger or Smaller
Font: Set the font style of the text (limited to web safe fonts)
Text Colour - Make the Text a different colour
Highlight - Highlight the current text
Headers - Set titles as headings - this uses the H1 - H3 you may be familiar with from web development
Bullet List - Everyone loves bullet points!
Justify Left - sets the text to the left side of the page
Justify Right - sets the text to the right side of the page
Center - Centers the text
Link - Add a n external link into your page (copy and wasting works ok as well)
Attach - Attach an image, document or file to your wave (Only images currently)
Google Search - Search google for anything and import it into your wave
Add Gadget - Add a Google Wave Gadget to your wave like maps or a whiteboard
Yes / No Poll - Adds a Yes no Maybe poll to your wave for others to vote with
New Extension - Add new extensions to Google wave
More Actions - show any items that wont fit on the bar at its present size

Understanding the Inbox Google Wave

John Carnell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:02:56 +0000

The Google Wave inbox is very similar to any email service you may of used the Inbox provides the features you need to manage your Waves, including trashing (delete) and mark as read or unread you can move waves into folders and start a new wave from the inbox.

Any waves you are sent by other users or that you view in the public wave search will also appear in your inbox.

The Inbox Tool Bar includes the following options.

•    New Wave - Creates a new Blank Wave
•    Search Box - Shows the current search term default ' in:inbox '
•    Archive - Sends currently selected wave to the Archive
•    Mute - Stops the currently selected wave from showing if it has updates
•    Inbox - Sends the currently selected wave to the inbox
•    Spam - Flags a selected Wave as Spam and removes it from inbox
•    Read - Marks the current Wave as Read
•    Unread - Marks the current wave as Unread
•    Trash - Moves the Wave to the Trash folder
•    Move To - Allows you to move a wave to a folder of your choice

What is Google Wave

John Carnell — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

The easiest way to think of Google Wave is as a fusion of Email and Instant Messenger services with a Wikipedia edit anything philosophy, starting a Wave and inviting other users to join the wave can be thought of as the first email you would send starting a new conversation with one or more users.

Once other users join your wave the system really becomes a real time instant messenger programs like MSN or AOL with the only difference being that replies and conversations happen in "threads" with replies appearing under the previous message.

Due to the ability to edit any part of a Wave the system has a more open presentation like Wikipedia where anyone can change or update the content of a Wave they are a member of.

The open nature of Google Wave means that developers can create Gadgets and Robots that can interact with a Wave to add new features or extend the functionality of a Wave in new ways.

I think many people who look at Wave without experiencing it have a bit of a "Meh So what!" approach or find it overly complex, their certainly is a learning curve to Wave but if you have in your mind that you are using a Many to Many service where you will be more used to email One to Many or blogging again One to Many.

In Wave everything is open to be collaborated on, from the words you write to the images you add and the formatting of the entire wave can be edited by any Wave user with access to your Wave (either by you inviting them or by placing the wave in the public search)

Mix in video conferenceing, voting and other Gadgets and the possibilities for fostering open communication is huge.

Google Wave is every communication service you have ever used, rolled into one platform and wrapped in a collaboration layer that allows multiway communication to occur across a diverse information set.

That is the best in a nut shell definition I could think of, can you do better? Comment below

If you want to learn more about Google Wave purchase my Ebook The Unauthorised Guide to Google Wave, it contains a good look at Google Wave Preview and some of the more advanced features included in over 20 pages.

Google Wave: Searching for waves

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:53:38 +0000

How to search for Google waves.

How to create a saved search in Google Wave.

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:52:47 +0000

How to create a saved search in Google Wave.

Google Wave: Making a folder

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:51:59 +0000

How to make a folder in Google Wave

Google Wave: Adding contacts

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:49:49 +0000

How to add a contact to Google Wave.

Google Wave: 15 features

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:48:28 +0000

How to use 15 of the features of Google Wave.

Dr. Wave: Intro to Google Wave

John Carnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:47:10 +0000

Product manager Greg, a.k.a. Dr. Wave, gives an introduction to Google Wave and points out parts of the user interface. This is meant to be viewed inside Google Wave.

How to add contacts to Google Wave

John Carnell — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:26:46 +0000

Part of a series of Google Wave tips, tricks & advice on this site if you have questions please feel free to leave a comment.

Adding a contact to Google Wave is easy, all you need to know is a users @googlewave.com address this is based on each users Google Account name and if your a Gmail user it will be the same username just with @Googlewave.com for the address.

To add a contact to your Google Wave contacts list click on the + symbol at the bottom right of the contacts panel this will open a popup window with a text box, enter the new contact address in this box and press enter.

An example Google Wave address

Name: Joe Blogs
GWave id: joeblogs@googlewave.com

You will use your @googlewave.com address to allow others to find you and add you to their contacts list so they can invite you to their Waves.

Creating a Google Wave Account

John Carnell — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:19:50 +0000

When you receive your Google Wave invite it will come via email, to accept your invitation click the link in the email as directed.

VERY IMPORTANT: You must have a Google Account to use Google Wave if you don't already have one first go and sign up at google.com. BEFORE clicking your Google Wave invite link – Invite links can be used once only!

You will then arrive at wave.google.com you will be asked to enter your Google account details and your invite will be complete you will arrive in your Google wave Dashboard... Welcome to Wave!

It really is as easy as that just make sure you already have a Google Account before you click the invite link.

A handy list of Google Wave Search Commands

John Carnell — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:07:26 +0000

This list of search commands for Google Wave may be useful to you to use them enter a command followed by a keyword it into your Google Wave search box above your inbox and press enter.

Example: with:public Twitter - would show you any public wave that mentions the word Twitter

Details of what the command does is directly BELOW the command and some commands have more than one way to trigger them.

Search Commands for Google Wave

creator:name

from:name

Finds all waves created by name.

participant:name

with:name

Finds all waves where name is a direct participant (name may be a user or a group).

contributor:name

by:name

Finds all waves where name edited at least one message.

to:name

Finds all waves where name is a participant, but not the creator.

onlyto:name

Finds all waves where name is the only participant, beside the creator.

onlyby:name

Finds all waves where name is the only contributor.

onlywith:name

Finds all waves where name is the only participant (name is either your own, or a group you belong to).

dfrom:name

Finds all waves with a direct message from name or waves with only two participants, where name is a contributor.

dto:name

Finds all direct messages to name, or waves with only two participants, where the other participant is also a contributor.

is:note

Finds all waves in which you are the only participant. Note: The keyword me can be used with all of the above operators to search for yourself. Use Google Wave account address for name.

is:read

Finds all waves where all messages within the wave (including all private replies) have been read .

is:unread

Finds all waves with at least one message that has not been read.

is:filed

Searches over waves that have been filed into one of your folders.

is:unfiled

Searches over waves that have not been filed (and are either still in:inbox or only in:all )

is:muted

Searches over all waves that have been muted.

is:unmuted

Searches over all waves that have not been muted.

has:attachment

Finds all messages with an attachment.

has:document

Finds all messages with a document attached.

has:image

Finds all messages with an image attached.

tag:name

Finds all waves with the tag name.

title:term

Finds all waves with term in the title.

in:inbox

Find waves in the inbox.

with:public

Finds public waves.

onlyto:me is:unread

Finds waves sent only to you and still unread.

in:folder

Finds all waves moved in a specific folder. Like, in:office

Five getting started uses for Google Wave

John Carnell — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:23:21 +0000

Google Wave has many possibilities here are just a few simple ones to get you started, remember everything that Google Wave does is based around a collaboration platform. In the future collaborating on a whole host of different types of activities or requirements will be possible as developers extend the Google Wave platform to suit the needs of the users.

Collaborate on a document

This one is obvious but some people still don't realise that Google Wave at it's heart is a collaboration platform. Any member of a Wave can edit any part of it including correcting adding or deleting information added by another user, the Playback feature makes it easy to see who changed what.

Plan a meetup or a trip

Using the Maps Gadget you and other members of a wave can choose a suitable spot for a meet up or arrange a trip together, when combined with collaborating on a document can be very handy for creating an itinerary everyone can agreed with.

Create a Blog Post

Yup using the Wave platform its possible for you and other members of a wave to collaborate around a blog post and then by adding a Robot (an automated addon for Google Wave) have the content of the top blip posted directly to Wordpress or Posterous (Tumblr and others are bound to be in the works)

Make your Wave public

When you create a wave only you and those you invite to the Wave will be able to edit or add to the wave, however if you add easypublic@appspot.com as a member of a wave it will add the Wave into the public search so anyone can join and edit your wave (Obviously use caution)

Embed a Wave into a web page

Bet you didn't know you could take a Google Wave and embed it into a normal web page? Do a search in with:public and you will find a few different ways to make it work. You can see a Wave that I have embeded into this site. This has limited usefulness at the moment but in the future will be a great way to display Waves inside your main website.

You can also check out my Google Wave Advice Squidoo page that has links to loads more Google Wave resources

Archive Your Google Wave and expose them to the web

John Carnell — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:00:23 +0000

One of the issues with Google Wave right now is that its closed off to the majority of web users, enter Waves Archive to give non users a little taste of Google Wave.

The archive pulls in the top blip from any Google Wave that includes the Archive Bot as a member.

wavearchive@appspot.com - Add this bot as a contact and the Archive will pull your Wave into it's site in just a few seconds.

Google Wave on your Mobile Phone

John Carnell — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:38:09 +0000

You can also use a compatible mobile phone to access Google wave simply visit wave.google.com using your mobile phones web browser and login as usual the interface will scale itself to your mobile phones available screen size.

Google Wave works ok on these phones

• Apple iPhone (3.0)
• Google Android 1.5 /1/6
• Nokia 9000 (untested by me)

If you come across any other phones that are working with Google wave please let me know in the comments below

Google Wave Keyboard Shortcuts

John Carnell — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:31:52 +0000

Provided by the Google Wave developer site, I know many of you are Keyboard warriors that love shortbut keys so here is a list of ones that work with Google Wave

General

• Up/Down Arrows Arrow keys allow you to navigate through messages in your account.
• Home Takes you to the first message in a wave.
• End Takes you to the last message in a wave.
• Space Takes you to the next unread message in a wave.
• Left/Right Arrows Switches focus between the compose window and the inbox.
• Page Up/Page Down Takes you to the next page within a panel.
• Ctrl then Space Marks all messages "read" when focus is on the Wave panel.

Messages

• Enter Reply to a message at the same level of indentation.
• Shift then Enter Reply to a message at the end of a wave. The new message will appear at the same indentation level, at the very end of the wave.
• Ctrl then E Edit message.

Text Editing and Formatting

• Shift then Enter Same function as 'Done' button -- signifies you are finished editing your addition to a wave.
• Ctrl then B Bolds/unbolds selected text.
• Ctrl then I

Italicizes/unitalicizes selected text.

• Ctrl then K Adds a link.
• Ctrl then [n] Makes the current line a heading, where [n] = 1 through 4 for different sized headings.
• Ctrl then 5 Adds bullets.
• Ctrl then 6 Removes formatting from text.

Copying and Pasting

• Ctrl then C Copies the selected text.
• Ctrl then X Cuts the selected text.
• Ctrl then V Pastes the text you have copied or selected.

How to get a Google Wave Invite

John Carnell — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:59:07 +0000

Google Wave is currently an invite only service this means you will either receive a Prime Account from Google or been sent an invite from a Prime Account, this is currently the only way to access Google Wave.

The only difference between the two types of accounts is a Prime Account has eight invites to send to friends and a non-prime accounts get none, other than that all functions are the same.

This helps Google to manage the growth of Google Wave during the first few months of testing, over time it’s expected that all accounts will be able to invite friends.

Google Wave Application Store - There's a Gadget for that!

John Carnell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:44:06 +0000

At the Google Wave London meet up on Monday Wave's lead developer Lars Rasmussen spoke a little about the future of the Google Wave platform, including the intention to open up a Wave Application store similar to Apple's App store to iPhone.

The Google Wave App Store would allow developers to create Gadgets or Robots for Google Wave and charge a fee either to own the add on application or on as needed basis like renting a Video Conferencing service.

What this does signal is that Google is very serious about seeing Wave expand beyond the basic features of a collaboration framework by creating the app store it give developers the opportunity to take bigger risks for greater rewards.

After all the iPhone is not a phone its a smart platform that just happens to feature a phone, the same is true of Wave while collaboration is a feature (like having a touch screen) its the bottom layer of a much bigger platform that developers can build all sort of cool things on top of.

If you want to hook up with me on Wave add bullyingukonline@googlewave.com as a contact.

Google Wave - Advanced user interface how to video

John Carnell — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:51:17 +0000

I was playing around with Google Wave the other day and discovered you can do a few cool things with your Wave interface to make managing multiple waves more easily. Rather than try and explain it I thought I would put together a video for you and upload it to Youtube.

Enjoy this look at Google Waves advanced user interface controls, I would recommend pressing the HD button so you get a nice clear picture.

Latest Changes to Google Wave - Inc Wave:Public

John Carnell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:32:55 +0000

Google have pushed a new update to the Google Wave servers, this update has returned the green online blip on contact images so you can now see who is online.

The Blip editor bar has been given a bit of make over and now features a drop down arrow on the right side of the bar, if you have alot of gadgets any that wont fit on the edit bar will be included in the drop down neat!

However with every update comes the odd glitch and this update has changed the way you search for public waves, their may also be an issue with public waves not updating searching using the new Groups: tag and repoening the wave seems to fix it.

To search for public waves you need to use the following from now on:

group:public@a.gwave.com ***

Where *** is the search term you would like to use.

The UK Charity / Nonprofit Google Wave

John Carnell — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:26:38 +0000

This is a Google Wave for the UK Charity profesional Google Wave users, If you have a google wave account click the Join Wave button below the Wave window when already logged into Google Wave and the wave will be added to your inbox.

If you are already logged into Google Wave you will be able to see the content of the wave below.