Google Wave Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet

This is a quick guide to the current keyboard shortcuts supported by Wave.

Wave Navigation
Up/Down arrows use to navigate messages.
Tab/Shift-tab same as Up/Down arrows (outside edit mode)
Home/End focus first/last message
Space go to next unread message (doesn’t have to be within the same wave).
Left/Right arrows to switch focus between digest panel and wave panel.
Page Up/Down go to the next page in the [does not currently work, known bugs]
Ctrl-Space mark all messages read (focus must be on wave panel though mstahl@google.com)

Messages
Enter replies to messages: the new message will appear just below the selected message (it will be the same indentation level if it is the first reply, but indented more if a non-first reply).
Shift-Enter replies to messages at the end of thread: the new message will appear at the same indentation level, and at the BOTTOM most position.
highlight text + Enter inline reply: the new message will appear indented and INSIDE the current message.
Ctrl-R same as enter
Ctrl-E edit message
Ctrl-Enter (while editing) insert inline reply at caret

Text Editing
Ctrl-B toggles bold attributes for selected text
Ctrl-I toggles italics attributes for selected text
Ctrl-G Color
Ctrl-L Links to another Wave (highlight text, hit CTRL-L and put in a URL or a Wave ID (see Debug menu for ID’s) [NOTE: we will soon change the key combo]

Copy/Paste
Ctrl-C copy the selected text.
Ctrl-X cut the selected text.
Ctrl-V paste the text from the text buffer.

Structural Formatting
Ctrl- Make the current line a heading, where n = 1..4 for different sized headings.
Ctrl-5 Bullets
Ctrl-6 Normal (removes heading/bullet style, but not bold/italic etc. current visual glitch in some browsers where text stays big – but this is not persistent.)
Ctrl-7 LTR + Left align
Ctrl-8 RTL + Right align

Slide Show
Space / Right Next Slide
Shift-Space/ Left Previous Slide
Down / Page Down Next set of thumbnails
Up / Page Up Previous set of thumbnails
Home First Slide
End Last Slide

Lifehacker is one of my regular sites to visit

Here is an example of the useful information on Lifehacker.
They crowdsourced their readers to fine the best applications for various tasks we all perform. This link is to a list of some of their most popular results. A good example is the best journaling tools, “pen and paper.”
http://lifehacker.com/5303642/best-of-the-best-hive-five-winners-march-through-june-2009?skyline=true&s=i

Ubiquity: Make your own Mashups, no really

Ubiquity isn’t even beta yet, it’s alpha but it does some amazing things and points toward the future of the web.

For Example:

Highlight some text in another language, invoke Ubiquity with a two keystroke combo type translate and it appears on the web page you’re reading in your language. Type email-alan, it chooses my email from your address book and sends me the portion of the web page you’ve seleted.

You can lookup definitions or articles in Wikipedia then post the links with a note to Twitter. You can mashup gmail with maps or yelp.

There is much more already. See the video link below for a tutorial from the developer about more stuff Ubiquity can do. It’s fun and it’s free:

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Electric Avenues from the NYTimes.com and Wired

Op-Ed Columnist – Yes, They Could. So They Did. – NYTimes.com.

Tom Friedman in today’s NYT. Interesting view of a green transportation option in New Delhi. I really like reading this guy when I agree and when I don’t. It seems to me that he is good at backing his opinions with facts. A refreshing thing to see.

The car he refers to reminds me of this story of another automobile innovator in a recent Wired Magazine story.

“The choice: to recharge batteries at plug-in spots, or swap them out at special stations.”
Photo: Joe Pugliese

Losing Weight, Feeling Grateful: Best Free iTunes App ever

Its easy, all the slim people said. Just: get a diet buddy, set your goals, keep track of everything you eat, increase your daily exercise, reduce your portion size and you’ll balance your weight-to-height budget. For a guy like me, easily distracted, disorganized maybe just a touch lazy, this advice has not been easy to follow. Heck, it looks like a lot of work even to get started with all of that.

Funny story: I’m following each of those suggestions in an enjoyable and evidently sustainable way with a free iPhone app called “Lose It” by Fit Now, Inc.

There are several advantages to using this program:

• It is really, really easy to use
• First my Son and now my lovely Wife have started using it and we are enjoying sharing notes and have become diet buddies
• It helps you set goals which are easy to modify and tells you when you should attain those goals
• It keeps a library of the foods and even of the entire meals you’ve entered so you can easily repeat things you’ve looked up before. (I eat pretty much the same breakfast every morning, so I just click on that meal and I’ve added it to the log for the day.)
• It is easy to add custom foods or meals. (My Son Matt has “Dinner with Family” (an average of 600 cals) and things like “terrible school lunch salad” programed in.
• It figures the exercise calories you enter into your daily budget so you can see right away how much more you can eat and still stay on track.
• One tap on the iPhone and one on the day’s log, and I can see where I am. “Business dinner at Maggiano’s tonight, need to hit the gym for an extra 15 minutes this morning.”

I’ve never believed in listening to folks who are in the process of losing weight for advice on the subject. It seems to me that the people who have become and/or remained slim are the ones to emulate. That is where all the advice above came from and that’s what this little application is helping me and my family to accomplish.

Lose It! screenshot from Mashable article

There is a list of weight loss related apps reviews at Mashable if you’re interested in reading about the others, just click on the screenshot above.

Good luck and feel free to check in with me any time after March 14th to see if I’ve reached my goal and maintained the weight loss.

Kidrex: a simple effective web search filter for kids

One of the jobs I do is to run a computer lab I built for a city after school program. I use Open DNS to help protect children and the adults who use the computers during school hours from seeing unsavory material and from going to phishing and spyware sites. I recommend using Open DNS for these situations if you are comfortable with following a few simple instructions from their site.

Here is another tool to help with the same problem, though. The front end for Google at Kidrex.org helps to keep folks away from those sites’ results in their search engines. I might be tempted to use this as a default search engine if I’d ever been embarassed by search results at work. And, remember, lots of adults don’t want to see that stuff either. I’m certainly going to recommend it to my parents. As an additional benefit, when I tested KidRex there were no advertisements in the results.

If you have a computer that kids use regularly, you might want to set Kidrex.org as the start page in your browser.

Kidrex Screenshot

Jelly looks interesting/Can’t we all just work together?

Jelly is group of folks who get together to work in the company of other people once in a while. Since knowledge workers are stuck at home or in cubes or have to go to public places where most folks aren’t working, this seems sorta reasonable to me.

The groups have sprung up in at least 20 cities so far. I bumped in to ours when a friend on Facebook set up a group and a couple of meeting dates. Thanks Tessa!

According to Wired Magazine, someone started a take off on the group and named it Cream Cheese.  I guess the idea is to find a need and fill it with something delicious.

Links from their main site:

RECENTLY…

Costco Connection
Pop17
NPR’s Marketplace!
Jelly on Current TV!
Jelly on CNN!
Jelly on JetSet/EpicFu
Jelly on Clark Howard’s Radio Show
Jelly on NPR Morning Edition
Jelly in Philadelphia Inquirer
Jelly in Brooklyn Based
Jelly in PSFK
Jelly in Wired
Jelly on Buzzfeed
Jelly in the NY Post

A simple task to improve communications

If you haven’t done it yet, please add a signature to your email. A signature is a block of text at the end of your emails that contain all your contact information. It saves your recipients the hassle of asking for your address and phone number or searching for them on your website.

Here’s what mine says at the moment:

–
Best regards,

Alan Thornton
Decatur Computer Help
On-site Computer Troubleshooting
(404) 932-4348

http://www.decaturcomputerhelp.com – site
http://alanthornton.wordpress.com – blog
twitter: @decaturcomp

Referrals appreciated
–

You’d be surprised how often I try to give someone this info to be told that they already have it.  Providing your contact information with every email is one of the best uses of 2 minutes of your work time I can imagine.

Twitter

The most common question I hear about Twitter is, “What it it?” Followed closely by, “Why would I want it?” and, “How would I use it?”

I think the best answer is, Twitter is a very quick and simple way to communicate with a group of folks you enjoy.

The account is free. The posts are so simple you can send them from your cell phone. Posts are short (limited to 140 characters) and encourage folks to be clever and precise, unlike what I’m doing here. (chortle, chortle)

Still there is enough room for a short statement and a link to a website, article, photo, video or the like.

During an event like the Oscars or Election Night, it is fun to either chat back and forth with your chosen friends or to watch the comments of the entire Twitterverse on a site like Twitscoop.

There is a short video on the subject here that may explain things better than I have.

Oh, and there is one more question that I should mention. The main question that Twitter asks you is “What are you doing?” You’ll be surprised at the diverse answers.

…and one more thing, if you want to follow my posts there, just add “decaturcomp” as a person to follow, I’ll get a note and follow you back, then we’ll be able to keep up with each other. See you there.

Report voting problems by phone, text or Twitter

The right to vote and have our vote counted is sacred to most Americans.
Voting problems have plagued our last two Presidential elections. This time there is a way to track problems virtually in real time:

On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. Some voters will have a terrific experiences, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years – long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before. That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help! Be a citizen journalist! Submit a report about conditions at your polling place.

Four ways to submit reports to Vote Report:

* Twitter: include #votereport and other tags to describe the scene on the ground
* SMS: Send text messages to 66937 (MOZES) starting with the keyword #votereport plus other hash tags
* iPhone: We have a Twitter Vote Report iPhone app in the App store!
* Phone: Call our automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683) to report about conditions, using any touch-tone phone

And if you would like to talk to a human to report bad conditions you’ve observed, please call our partner 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

As news outlets and blogs will report on Election Day stories, www.twittervotereport.com is an invaluable resource for thousands of voters to get immediate help. From questions like “where do I vote” or “how do I make sure that my rights are being upheld,” Twitter Voter Report augments these efforts by providing a new way for voters to send text messages (aka tweets) via cellphones or computers which will be aggregated and mapped so that everyone can see the Nation’s voting problems in real-time.

Imagine a nationwide web map with pins identifying every zip code where Americans are waiting over 30 minutes to vote or indicating those election districts where the voting machines are not working. Collectively we will inform each other when the lines are too long and ensure that media and watchdog groups know where problems exist.

For more information, go to www.twittervotereport.com. The complete list of tags or keywords that you can include in your reports is listed there. And please help to spread the word — copy and email this to friends who haven’t voted yet!