Today an unusual piece of news called for attention in my work. Google is threatening to shut downs its operations in China, which likely would lead to the blocking of all Google services in the country.

As we have an office in Being and we use Google Apps for email and calendaring, we need a backup plan. Nothing too difficult, but good that we do not rely on it for office applications completely as that would have caused a bit more work.

Meanwhile the story is intriguing to follow.

Since arriving in China in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online

Google now said that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether, citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems and China’s attempts to “limit free speech on the Web.”

Human Rights and Free Speech organizations are pleased with Google’s standpoint and calling it “both the right move and a brilliant one”.

It does not seem likely the Chinese government will let Google leave, possibly starting a technologic exodus, but it is hard to say really.

Google is very serious about this as you can read in A new approach to China.

Today Google started testing a new feature that makes it easier to schedule events with guests. The new event page will include a mini calendar right next to your guest list, so you can see when people are free. You can show or hide guest names so you can focus on the most important ones. It also allows you to easily add rooms and other resources.

It is quite an improvement in usability compared to the old style where you need to do your planning in a popup, with little information. In the new version you can actually see the other event others have scheduled – provided they allow you to read that of course. But even if they do not, the new user interface is much easier to work and saves you a few clicks to get your scheduling done.

I keep writing Google has acquired GrandCentral and there are a lot of promises in the air. I am actually waiting for integration your phone(s) work seamless with Gmail: listen to voice mails from your inbox, click to call and set your availability through the presence settings of Gmail.

Gmail is Googles answer to Microsoft’s hotmail, Google Apps to Microsoft Office and Google Com (from communications) would be its answer to Microsoft Office Communication server. Anyway, not that far yet, but good stuff anyway: tasks and sms text messaging.

Tasks
Keep track of what you need to do with a lightweight task list right inside of Gmail. Just click and type to add new tasks, convert emails into tasks, and (most satisfyingly) check them off as you’re done. Once you turn on this Labs feature, look for the Tasks link to the left of your inbox under Contacts.

Text Messaging in Chat
Send SMS text messages right from Gmail. You chat from your comfy computer and reach your friends on the go; they get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards.

Precipitate lets you search for and launch the information you have stored in the cloud from within Spotlight or Google Desktop for Mac. It currently supports Google Docs and bookmarks. It installs as a preference pane and then does its work automatically on the background.

It is a personal Open Source contribution from a member of the Google Mac team, get it here.

All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin, which will work on PCs with Windows XP or Vista, as well as on Macs with OS X 10.4 or later. The plugin will work with all the major browsers, including Google’s own Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Interestingly, Google Talk, Google’s desktop chat program does not have any video functionality yet, though Google enabled voice chat for Google Talk a long time ago.

In the spirit of open communications, Google designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.

With voice and video Google is obviously taking up on Skype and it has some distinct advantages. It is web based, although I wouldn’t mind a fully featured Google talk client for the mainstream operating systems, so you just need a computer with Internet access. The great news for organizations is that it rides on the global address book that you have already when you use Google Apps.

All of this brings Gmail another step closer to Unified Communications where you have all your communications available for you in one applications (read: screen). I still wonder when they will integrate GrandCentral to make your phone(s) work seamless with Gmail: listen to voice mails from your inbox, click to call and set your availability through the presence settings of Gmail.

But first let’s start enjoying integrated video conferencing. And please buy a Mac so you don’t have to scramble your camera and microphone every time you want to use it.

Oh yeah, Microsoft has all of this already with its Office Communication Server but thats really for large Microsoft shops only (good for you if you are). I suppose Cisco, Ericsson and Alcatel have something alike too but all much harder to get and implement.

Checkout Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat for the full post.

Say you would like to find a message from a certain person. If you would only search for the name you’d find anything that matches it. Even is the person’s name is only mentioned in the e-mail. But if you use to: Amy you will only find the messages sent to Amy. No need even to use the exact e-mail address. Just use the name as it is displayed in the e-mails. Same goes for to, cc or bcc.

Another common one is finding messages in a certain location. If you just search for a term you will find anything that matches it, wherever it is. If you use in: inbox however you will only find messages from your inbox. Same goes for trash and spam, good for checking is an expected message accidentally landed in the spam folder, without having to buy medicines.

One I use often is searching within a certain label only. For this you can use label: projects to search through messages labeled with projects. Here you will start getting a little more advanced since you would usually combine it with another search them. Say I look for a project budget, I would search for label: project budget, or even for the latest not archived but still labeled budget I would look for label: project in: inbox budget. Good change that will give me what I look for at once.

Since we are combining anyway, this is where the good stuff starts. I would advise you to print this page and keep it handy so you can use it day to day and become familiar with it.

A last note is that you can also search messages sent or received during a certain period of time. Unfortunately dates should be in yyyy/mm/dd format and you can’t use today, yesterday, last week, last month and so on. Hopefully this will be added by Google at some point. Maybe they’ll even include: tomorrow and next week. That’ll be useful!

Terms you can use: