{"id":525,"date":"2014-01-24T15:19:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T22:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rockblot.wordpress.com\/?p=508"},"modified":"2014-11-24T04:28:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T04:28:48","slug":"using-google-apps-from-your-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/using-google-apps-from-your-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Google Apps from Your Desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
For some time now, I\u2019ve used Google Chrome as my browser of choice.\u00a0 Not only have I found it faster, but it has some wonderful apps that you can access from an icon on the bookmarks bar.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t already have the bookmarks bar turned on, you can do that from the Settings page.\u00a0 If you\u2019re using the current version of Chrome, you\u2019ll see button with three bars in the upper right hand corner. Click it and select \u201cSettings\u201d and in the \u201cAppearance\u201d section, select \u201cAlways show the bookmarks bar.\u201d\u00a0 While you\u2019re there, set anything else that needs setting and set up Chrome to automatically log into your Gmail address. (If you don\u2019t have one \u2014 get one \u2014 you\u2019ll understand why later.)<\/td>\n\"ChromeSettings\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
With that now checked, you should see the \u201cApps\u201d button on the left side of the bookmarks bar.\u00a0 When you click it, it will open the apps tab.\u00a0 There you\u2019ll find the Google Store icon.\u00a0 Click that to be taken to the store where you can find all kinds of applications, both of the free and for a price variety.\u00a0 Peruse the various categories and download a few.\u00a0 When you do, an icon to access them will appear on your Apps tab.<\/td>\n\"ChromeApps\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

When you\u2019re in the \u201cStore\u201d you\u2019ll notice that there are some \u201cdesktop\u201d and\u00a0 \u201coffline\u201d apps as well as a large number of browser-based apps.\u00a0 Since I have a Gmail account, that means I automatically have access to Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and the like.\u00a0 But that doesn’t mean I always have to open up a browser, put in my Login ID and password to access my data.\u00a0 I can put it on my desktop and just be a double-click away from my calendar or my documents.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how you do it:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Screenshot-2014-01-24-11.21.23.png\"<\/a>Open up your Apps tab by clicking on the Apps button in the bookmarks bar.\u00a0 Then right-click on the App you\u2019d like to be able to open directly from your desktop.\u00a0 In my case, I\u2019ve right-clicked on Google Calendar.\u00a0 The default is \u201copen as regular tab\u201d \u2014 but I\u2019m going to change that to \u201copen as window\u201d instead.\u00a0 The minute I left-click on \u201cOpen as window,\u201d the context menu will close.\u00a0 When I reopen it, it will have a checkmark in front of \u201copen as window\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

Now, with the context menu on the screen, click on \u201cCreate shortcuts\u2026\u201d.\u00a0 A \u201cCreate application shortcuts dialog box will appear on the screen and allow you to either create a shortcut on your desktop and\/or pin an icon on \"image\"<\/a>your Taskbar for easy access.\u00a0 Now you can open your calendar (or set of calendars) directly from your desktop based your calendar settings.<\/p>\n

Any APP that I set up with a desktop shortcut will open up in a Chromeless window when its desktop shortcut is double-clicked.\u00a0 AND\u2014because I set up Chrome to automatically log into my gmail address when I open my browser, it knows I want to see my google calendar (and any other sets of calendars I\u2019ve set it up to view).\u00a0 Same way with any other Google Service (Google Docs, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Picasa, Google Drive, etc.)\u2014it knows it\u2019s me and knows where to connect.<\/p>\n

One last benefit of using Chrome.\u00a0 I have a Desktop and a Laptop. Because I\u2019ve set up Google Chrome on both of them to automatically log into my Gmail address, Chrome, my bookmarks, and my Apps are identical on both PCs.\u00a0 If I change\/add\/delete something on one PC, it\u2019s automatically changed\/added\/deleted on the other PC the next time I log onto it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some time now, I\u2019ve used Google Chrome as my browser of choice.\u00a0 Not only have I found it faster, but it has some wonderful apps that you can access from an icon on the bookmarks bar.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t already have the bookmarks bar turned on, you can do that from the Settings page.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[18,30,31,32,49],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","category-online-services","tag-desktop","tag-google-apps","tag-google-calendar","tag-google-chrome","tag-pin-to-taskbar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rockblotter.com\/DijaKnowThat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}