Google Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a good way to save time. Instead of trying to find a menu, a button, or an option, you just type a combination of keys. The only problem is that you have the remember the shortcuts.

One way to do that is to print the shortcuts and start exercising. Another way is to understand their meaning and use them naturally.

Here's a list of shortcuts from different Google web applications and how to learn them. The list is short and contains only the most important keyboard shortcuts.

Navigation:

• J, K - these two shortcuts are for navigating to the previous / next item in a list. They're used in Gmail and Google Reader. In Gmail they have two purposes:
  * if you look at a list of messages (for example, your inbox), you can move the pointer of the current message. Then just press enter to read it.
  * if you read a message, use J/K to go to the previous/next message from the corresponding view.
• P, N - these two shortcuts are also used to go to the previous / next item. They're used in Gmail (to navigate between the messages of a conversation), Google Reader (the same as J, K in expanded view; in the list view, you won't see the content of the item unless you press enter), Google Calendar (replaces the two arrows from the top of the window: view the previous/next date range).
• Arrows have meaning. Use them in Google Maps to pan the map. Use them in Google Video to move back or forward or to change the volume (up/down).

Moving to a section:

• G, followed by a letter is a way to say "Go to...". In Gmail and Google Reader, you'll be able to different sections by typing G and the first letter of that section's name. Example: GI (inbox), GD (drafts), GC (contacts), GA (all items), GS (starred items), GT (go to a tag in Google Reader), GU (go to a feed in Google Reader).

Actions for an item:

• The obvious:
  * C is for composing a message (in Gmail) or creating an event (in Google Calendar).
  * F is for forward.
  * R is for reply (and A for "reply to all").
  * S is for star. In Gmail and Google Reader, you can star the current item.
  * T is for tag. You can tag posts in Google Reader.
  * V is for view. Use it in Google Reader to go to the original website that delivered the feed.

Search

• In most Google web apps, you can go to the search box by typing /. This shortcut also works in Firefox and Opera to perform inline search for almost any other page.

I compiled the complete list of shortcuts for Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Video and Google Maps in a small notebook. Note that Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are disabled by default, so you'll have to go to Settings/General/Keyboard shortcuts to enable them.

Viewing Your Site from Google

View Your Site Through Google's Eyes

Google Webmaster Tools added a new feature: a complete of the links that point to your site and a list of your internal links. Google's link operator shows only some of the backlinks. Now, because Google trusts you (you validated the site, so you have access to it), you can see the number of backlinks for each page of your site and a list of backlinks.

The interface is pretty difficult to use, especially for large sites, so it's a good idea to download the data and analyze it Excel or other spreadsheet application.

Google's blog says there are some limitations: "We do limit the amount of data you can download for each type of link (for instance, you can currently download up to one million external links). Google knows about more links than the total we show, but the overall fraction of links we show is much, much larger than the link: command currently offers."

Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Search

One of the features I like most when I use Google on my mobile phone is that I can type the number of the search result instead of selecting it manually. The desktop version of Google.com doesn't show the order number for search results and doesn't offer any keyboard shortcut that could save you time.

If you install Greasemonkey for Firefox, you can add a script that sets some keyboard shortcuts for Google search. The script works even for the localized versions of Google.


You'll see that each search result has a digit in front of the title. This works only for the first 10 results from a results page, so it might be a good idea to stick to the default number of search results (which is 10).

You can also go to the next page of search results by tying n and go back to the previous page by typing p. To edit the query you have two options: either type e to select the query, so when you type something the query will be replaced, or type a to append something to the query.

A very cool feature is the tab mode: if you type t, the numbers will be highlighted in green and search results will open in new tabs.

How to Backup a Blogger Blog

If you have a blog hosted on Blog*Spot and you've upgraded to the new version, there's an easy way to backup your blog.

This page lists the latest N posts from the blog:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=N
Instead of N, type the number of posts. If your blog has less than 1000 posts, you can save this page:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000

To download all the photos uploaded to your blog, DownThemAll comes to the rescue. The Firefox extension lets you download all the files with a certain extension from the current page, so it's a good way to download all the images from the previous listing.


There's also a way to get all the posts in an XML feed. This is a better format if you intend to import it in a database.
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000

The number of posts can be easily obtained from the dashboard.



You can also backup the comments:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?max-results=1000

Upload Files in a Browser Using Drag and Drop

A typical file upload control in HTML looks like this:


You have to type the file path or can you click on "Browse" to get the path using a dialog provided by the operating system. This is usually cumbersome if you have a file manager like Windows Explorer that shows the file in the current view because you have to get the path of the file.

So it would be nice to drag and drop the file to the upload control and obtain the path. In Firefox, you can do this if you have an extension called dragdropupload. The extension should work in any site that lets you upload files using standard controls, but here are 3 examples of Google services where you can be more productive if you use it.

When you compose a message in Gmail, you can click on "Attach a file" and drag and drop one or more files in the input box. You can also drag and drop the files over the "Attach a file" link.

Another example: Picasa Web Albums lets you create albums and upload photos online. While in Internet Explorer you can do that easily using an ActiveX control, in Firefox you can add up to 5 photos at a time, one by one. The extension can save you time, because you can just select 5 photos in a file manager and drag-and-drop them to one of the upload controls.

This extension is also the magical way to upload more than one image at a time in Blogger. Just select the images you want to upload, and drag them to the standard control. Everything will look messy, like in the screenshot below, because the extension adds more upload controls at the bottom of the page, but the important thing is that it works and there's no limit for the number of images (the total size should be less than 8 MB, though).