Technology As Innovator

After my suggestion for tabbed profile, Facebook is preparing for a big change in profile.

Sneak preview available here

If you publish a presentation at Google Docs, you’ll receive a simple URL that can be used to view the presentation online. Unfortunately, if you go to that URL without being logged in to a Google Account, Google will ask you to log in:

The explanation is that Google Presentations offers some advanced features that require authentication: chatting with other people that view the presentation and joining a presentation that’s already in progress. To view the presentation without logging in, click on the small link from the bottom of the page: “View published presentation in a new window”.

If you want to link directly to the presentation and skip the authentication page, just add “&skipauth=true” to the URL provided by Google and replace “Presentation” with “Present”. Here’s an example.

URL provided by Google:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?docid=ID

Modified URL:
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=ID&skipauth=true
(replace ID with the presentation’s ID)

Most people will also want to download the presentation, but Google doesn’t offer this feature in the view-only interface. You can link to the PPT file by using this format:

http://docs.google.com/MiscCommands?command=saveasdoc&exportFormat=ppt&docid=ID

Source: Google Operating System

I’ve noticed that Facebook has hidden “Networks” tab for some time.

Now Facebook just announced that they will discontinue Networks and encourage using Groups.

What do you think of this decision?