Chrome's Giant Touch-Optimized Menu

To contact us Click HERE
Somewhere between Chrome 25 (beta) and Chrome 26 (dev), the browser's menu got bigger. It's now optimized for touch interfaces even if you're using a non-touch computer. I've checked the height of the menu and it's now 580 pixels, instead of 420 pixels. That's a 38% increase and it makes the interface more difficult to use for mouse users.


When you use Chrome's sync feature, the menu's height becomes 625 pixels. Here's how a recent Chromium build looks on my 1280x800 laptop and remember that most laptops sold right now have a 1366x768 resolution:


Chrome also changed the contextual menu:

Google Drive's File Previews

To contact us Click HERE
Google Drive has a new feature that lets you preview files using an interface borrowed from Google+. This feature is not restricted to photos and videos, it also works for Google Docs documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, Microsoft Office files, PDF, PostScript and XPS files and TrueType fonts.


It's interesting that Google Drive shows the new previews if you click a file that's not associated with a web application. For examples, the previews don't show up if you click a Google Docs document, so you need to right-click the file and select "Preview".


"When previewing a file, it's easy to flip through nearby files by clicking the arrows on the left and right sides of the preview window. This is a great way to scan through a group of photos you've stored in your Drive," explains Google. You can also use the left and right arrow keys to navigate to the other files and up/down arrow keys to scroll up/down in documents. While the previews don't let you edit documents, you can select text, zoom in or out, find text (Ctrl+F), print the documents or share them with other people.


The feature is currently rolled out, so you may not see it yet in your account. Check back later or sign in to a different Google account.

{ via Google Drive Blog }

Google's First Ultrabook

To contact us Click HERE
Chromebook Pixel is the first Chromebook designed by Google and the first premium Chromebook. Until now, Chromebooks used low-end CPUs, average displays and plastic chassis. Google decided to change all that and build "the best laptop possible" to inspire other manufacturers. It's like the first Nexus Chromebook.


But why is it called Pixel? It's the first Chromebook with a retina-like display, 3:2 aspect ratio and 2560x1700 resolution. Much like Apple's Retina MacBook Pro, Chromebook Pixel uses pixel doubling to make everything look sharp and crisp. The display has "the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today" and it's a 12.85-inch IPS touchscreen with 400 nit brightness and 178° extra-wide viewing angles.


Pixel has an anodized aluminium body, glass touchpad, backlit keyboard, hidden vents, Intel i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. "The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise," informs Google.

Google also includes 1TB of free Google Drive Storage for 3 years. You can also buy a special model with an integrated LTE modem for Verizon.

The Verge has some cool pictures. "There are subtle design touches throughout the machine that help add to the 'premium' feel that Google is going for. The fan vents out in the hinge, every edge is subtly bezeled to prevent sharp angles, the speakers are fairly loud despite being hidden underneath the keyboard, and Google even opted to not put labels next to the ports."

The downside is that Google's Chromebook is really expensive: $1300 (WiFi)/$1450 (WiFi+LTE). It's more expensive than Apple's MacBook Air and most ultrabooks. While it has a better display, Chrome OS is more limited than MacOS (or Windows) and it only became popular when Samsung and Acer started to offer $200-$250 Chromebooks. When you can buy tablets with high-resolution displays for $400 (Nexus 10) or $500 (iPad), the $1300 Chromebook Pixel feels out of place and overkill. After all, you can buy a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and a Samsung Chromebook for less than $1200. An ARM device would've been a lot cheaper, but less powerful.

"The Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you're interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations."

Now Google has a good reason to open its own physical stores.

{ via Google Blog }

Book Review: Wiley's English-Spanish and Spanish-English Dictionary

To contact us Click HERE
If you have been in the translation business as long as I have, you have probably amassed your fair share of dictionaries and glossaries. As legal translations are my specialty, I have taken great pains to buy as many Spanish-English legal dictionaries/glossaries as possible.

To get the most out of your money and time spent researching, it is important to have resources with concise translations for each term that suit your translation style. There are many works on the market that have terms that are more explanatory than they are translations.

I have read mixed reports about the Wiley's English-Spanish Spanish-English dictionaries. Some translators are not keen about the "word list" aspect about them. Although I wouldn't use this dictionary as my primary source for legal translations, I have found terms that I hadn't come across in my other legal resources (It has a total of 40,00 of them).

If you have many Spanish<>English legal dictionaries/glossaries, perhaps you don't need this one, but if you only have a few, I recommend it.

Adding foreign terms to Word's spell checker, where do you draw the line?

To contact us Click HERE
When spell checking a legal translation in Word, do you ever find it obnoxious to have to keep hitting the "Ignore" or "Ignore all" button? I know I do. This has led me to add some foreign terms and all names, foreign or not to Word's spelling dictionary by pressing alt+a in the spellcheck dialog.

However, I do not add words like Calle, which must be kept in Spanish if it is part of a street address or Colonia or Circunvalación or Polígono or Zacatecas or any number of place names.

This, of course makes the spell checking process more tedious and cumbersome. I could decide to add them and have them infiltrate as "visitors" to the official English realm, but then what if for some reason I was overwriting a document in Spanish and I left some of those words in by accident? This would make the spellchecker less reliable.

I know that there is a custom spellcheck dictionary that I could set up in Word, but I have not taken that step yet. Another possibility would be to use a different word processor and create a spell check scheme to accomodate my needs. A good place to find solutions to this and other Word-related dilemmas is Word Tips.

New Interface for YouTube Channels

To contact us Click HERE
YouTube tests a new interface for channels. For now, the updated layout is only available for a few channels like Sorted Food, iJustine, The Pet Collective and YouTube's own channel, but it will soon be enabled YouTube-wide.

What are the changes? The persistent left sidebar and the list of featured channels limit the channel's real estate, but make the interface more consistent. Most of the features from the old interface are still available, but they're more difficult to find. For example, to find the "feed" view, you need to click the arrow next to the home icon and click "feed". The list of playlists, the featured playlists and the list of likes are buried in a drop-down. There's also a new "about" section that shows the channel description, the number of subscribers and the video views, which is used to be placed in the right sidebar. The search box is only displayed when you click the new search icon.

The channel trailer replaces the featured video for non-subscribers. "You can show a trailer that will only appear to viewers who aren't already subscribed to your channel. This is your chance to let visitors know what your channel is all about and tell them why they should subscribe."




{ Thanks, Sterling. }

YouTube Background Audio in iOS 6.1

To contact us Click HERE
For some reason, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system breaks one of my favorite features: playing videos in the background. It worked in Apple's old YouTube app, YouTube's mobile site and almost any other video app/site (an important exception is YouTube's official app). Close the app, double-tap the Home button, swipe from left to right and tap the "Play" button to continue playing the video in the background. In iOS 6.1, the "play" button doesn't work.


It's a great feature for music videos, podcasts, ambient sounds and it's unfortunate that Android doesn't include it and Apple (accidentally?) disabled it in iOS 6.1. Until Apple fixes the bug, you can install two third-party YouTube apps that use some undocumented APIs to support background audio: McTube and YouPlayer. McTube continues to play the video after closing the app, while YouPlayer lets you manually enable background audio.