24 April 2014

10 Common Web Tasks You Can Do Without Signing Up



open-internet

Security bugs like Heartbleed make it abundantly clear that your logins and passwords are not safe. But what if you could use the Web for common tasks like uploading photos and videos or chatting with friends, all without signing up for an account? Guarding your privacy is important. There are obvious benefits to having logged into a service like Flickr because it will keep all your albums in one place, but that also means everyone can steal or harm all your albums in one place. And sometimes, you just crave anonymity for your own reasons. Whatever the case may be,...


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Travel Back In Time With Google Street View



Skyline

Google Street View has become one of the best tools to travel around the world in eighty seconds. Now, a simple but fun update on Google Street View allows you to roll back time. The timeline of past events has been recreated with the help of historical imagery from past Street View collections dating back to 2007. You can say that Google has dug up its archives to create this digital time capsule of the world. The update is rolling out to Street View in Google Maps for Desktop. It’s the closest thing to time travel we are going to...


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How to Bypass Web Filtering and Censorship In The UK and Turkey



uk-tr-censorship

Governments are afraid of the Internet. It is the final medium where people can publish whatever they wish, to an audience of an infinite size. The Internet has brought down governments, unveiled corruption and is one of the most potent forces for freedom and democracy. In Turkey, both Twitter and YouTube have been blocked at the ISP level, after allegations of corruption by Prime Minister Reycep Tayyip Erdogan was unveiled. The ban of Twitter was later overturned by the ruling of a constitutional court, although Erdogan is challenging this ruling. Meanwhile in the UK, the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has...


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New Apple Products, Internet Bill Of Rights, OnePlus One, Street View Time Machine [Tech News Digest]



apple-store-sunlight

Today in Tech News Digest, Apple teases new products, Brazil gets an Internet Bill of Rights, the OnePlus One turns heads, Xiaomi plans international expansion, Google Street View becomes a time machine, Amazon launches Prime Pantry, Apple ups its recycling efforts, and Conversnitch is the creepiest light bulb ever created. Apple Teases Brand New Products Think you are having a bad day? In 1976 Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800. Now it’s worth $58,065,210,000. — Relatable (@Iifepost) April 24, 2014 Apple has reported its financial results for Q2, 2014. TechCrunch has all the details, but suffice...


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How Do You Watch TV? [We Ask You]



we-ask-you-logo

How we watch television has changed dramatically. Shows can be viewed on a range of different devices. They can be watched live, recorded for later, or downloaded from the Internet. And then there is piracy. With all of these options to choose from, we feel a healthy debate about TV is long overdue. Square Eyes Squared We want to know, How Do You Watch TV? It’s a simple question with a multitude of possible answers. Whether you’re a traditionalist watching TV on a square box in your living room or a hipster watching TV on your tablet in a coffee...


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How to Receive Files in your Google Drive from Anyone



A school teacher wants to have a public drop box (not Dropbox) where students can upload homework assignments. A recruiter wants to have an online form where job applicants can upload their resumes. A news organization may need a public drop box where people can upload files anonymously.


Google Forms would have been a perfect solution here but unfortunately you cannot upload files to Google Drive through Forms.


The other option is to have a shared folder inside Google Drive but there are limitations. One, you need a Gmail Account and should be invited by the folder owner to upload files in a shared folder. Second, all collaborators can view and even remove files that have been uploaded in a shared folder on Google Drive.


Drive Form with File Uploads


Receive Files in Google Drive with Forms


What you can do is create a regular web form (written in HTML and CSS) and then use Google Apps Script to post the content of this form into Google Drive.


Before diving into the implementation, take a look at this sample form. When you upload a file, it will show up in a specific folder on my Google Drive. You don’t even need to have a Google Account to upload files and the Google Script based form even works on mobile devices.



  • Click here to make a copy of the Google Script into your Google Drive.

  • This is vanilla form with a text field, a file input field and a form submit button. You can open the form.html file to apply your own CSS styles or add more input and textarea fields.

  • From the Run menu, choose doGet and authorize the script. The script needs these permissions since the form will be uploading files to your Google Drive.

  • Next choose Deploy as Web App from the Publish menu. Click Save New Version, choose Anyone, even Anonymous from the drop-down and click the Deploy button.


The Google Script will now offer you a form URL. Anyone can now use this form to upload files to your Google Drive.



<form id="myForm">

<label>Your Name</label>
<input type="text" name="myName">

<label>Pick a file</label>
<input type="file" name="myFile">

<input type="submit" value="Upload File"
onclick="google.script.run
.uploadFiles(this.parentNode);
return false;">
</form>

This is a bare-bones version of the form but it can be further enhanced through Apps Script. For instance, you may choose to save the form details in a Google Spreadsheet along with the Drive URLs of the uploaded files. The script can even email you the uploaded files as attachments similar to Mail Merge.


[*] If this looks a bit too technical, you can ask guests to send you files as email attachments and then use the Gmail to Google Drive program to automatically save these file attachments in your Drive.[**] If you aren’t on Gmail or Google Apps, you can still receive files in Dropbox from anyone anonymously.

Awesome Google Scripts → Custom Google Scripts →




This story, How to Receive Files in your Google Drive from Anyone, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/04/2014 under Google Drive, Internet