HTML5 drag-and-drop upload comes to Google Docs

You've been able to do it for a while now in Gmail, and now drag-and-drop uploading has arrived in Google Docs. If you're running a compatible browser like Chrome, Firefox 3.6+, or Safari 5, adding new files to your Google Docs storage is as easy as sliding them over from your desktop file manager.

To use the new drag-and-drop uploader you still need to click through to the Docs upload page. I'd like to see this added to the main screen, so I can drag right into a specific folder.

Tags: apps, docs, drag-and-drop, google, html5, office

via downloadsquad.switched.com

Posted via email from ://allthings-bare

Zynga’s FrontierVille Hits 20 Million Monthly Users

People sure love clobbering virtual snakes. Social gaming powerhouse Zynga has just released the latest stats for its new game FrontierVille, and it’s clear that it’s off to a solid start: around five weeks after launching, the game is now up to 20 million monthly users, with around 6 million Daily Active Users (DAUs). That’s up from 5 million DAUs on June 22, when the game had around 12 million monthly users.

Zynga has also released the following stats about what people are actually doing on their virtual frontiers:

6.3 million people have built their frontier cabins
3.3 million people have built a general store
2.3 million people got married
1.1 million people have had a kid
10 million people have clobbered a snake (snakes were clobbered 252 million
times)
3.6 million people have scared away a bear (bears were scared away 128 million times)

So why is this significant? Zynga’s games hit a slump earlier this year and its top game FarmVille has been steadily losing users — the company needs to prove that it can keep pumping out hits. FrontierVille is already ranked as the company’s third most popular game, after FarmVille and Poker, and its monthly active stats are still growing nicely. Still, some of these users may simply be making the switch from FarmVille to FrontierVille (the games share many similarities), and it remains to be seen if FrontierVille has the same staying power as FarmVille has displayed.

I still believe that Zynga needs to launch some truly innovative, different games if it wants to score another hit on the same level as FarmVille in its hayday.

via feedproxy.google.com

Posted via email from ://allthings-bare

More Google Chrome web apps for you to enjoy!

Filed under: Google, Browsers

More Google Chrome web apps for you to enjoy!

by Lee Mathews (RSS feed) Jul 6th 2010 at 1:00PM

When I posted my how-to on installing the demo web apps Google includes in Chrome the other day, several commenters decided to edit the code and pack icons into their own .CRX files for web apps they use frequently. I've done the same, and they're all linked after the break for everyone to install and enjoy!

A few things to remember:

1) You must enable apps support to use these. Check the first how-to post if you don't know how to do that.

2) Due to security restriction in Chrome, you can't simply click-and-run to install these .CRX files. Right click and save link as to save them to your computer, then drag them onto your Google Chrome window to install.

3) These are not full-blown extension apps. Really, they're web apps (like GMail, Twitter, etc) + PNG icons. App tabs open with no toolbar and the tab looks different in your Chrome toolbar (as you can see above).

4) Want your apps to reappear every time you launch Chrome? You still have to pin them -- just like regular tabs. If you don't pin an app tab, it won't reappear.

Lee's Apps:

• Facebook
• Google Reader
• Twitter
• TeamViewer
• µTorrent Falcon (make sure you're running the desktop version as well - download here)

Commenter Apps:

• Feedsquares by Qikon
• Grooveshark by Qikon
• MyFav.es by Qikon
• Pandora by Dave
• Yahoo Mail by pat_boy2008

The Google Apps, in case you had trouble with the

• GMail
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs

Bonus:

• Spark Chess and Trillian's web client are available from Owen Campbell-Moore: download here

To create your own app, here's what you do:

1. Find nice looking icons and make sure you have at least two sizes (24 and 128 pixesl)
2. Modify the manifest.json from one of my apps or one of the Google apps in your resources folder. If you're only creating two images, strip out the lines which reference the 32 and 48 pixel images.
3. Make sure you input the correct URL and change the name of your app.
4. Load it into Chrome via the load unpacked extension button

That's it. Simple, huh?

Chrome apps are capable of a lot more than pretty icons -- including things like running offline and notification support --but for now I'm happy with the eye candy.

Now go build some of your own, and share them with us in the comments! We'll add them to this post!

Tags: apps, chrome, chromium, dev, google, nightly

• Comments (5)

Email This

via pheedcontent.com

Posted via email from ://allthings-bare

Office Web Apps Offers Free Doc Editing with 25 GB Storage [Microsoft Office]

Office Web Apps Offers Free Doc Editing with 25 GB Storage [Microsoft Office]: "

Office Web Apps, the free, cloud-based viewing and editing suite that Microsoft promised would be available to everyone, has opened wide its doors. It's a decent set of basic-plus editing tools, powered by SkyDrive's generous 25 GB of storage space. More »

"