Send Tweets with Rich-Text Formatting using TallTweets

You can post messages of virutally any length to Twitter using TallTweets. The web app bypasses the 140 character limit of Twitter by either converting your tweet into a PNG image or by breaking the long snippets of text into multiple tweets and sending them all in quick succession. Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood’s biggest star, once recommended it too.

Compose Tweetstorms & Tweetshots

A new release of TallTweets has just been rolled out and it includes several new features and enhancements. The interesting additions are:

1. TallTweets now supports rich-text formatting so you can use bold text, write in italics or even mark words with the yellow highlighter. See image tweet.
2. You can compose Tweetstorms (numbered tweets, sent sequentially) and TallTweets will offer a live preview as you type so you know exactly how the tweets will look like in your timeline. See Tweetstorm
3. TallTweets has gone international and now supports all languages including Hindi, Arabic, Malay, Chinese and more. In fact, if you use the “tweet as image” option, you can even send tweets in languages that are not officially supported by Twitter yet.

To get started, go the Tall Tweets website and sign-in with your Twitter account. Next choose the tweet style (tweetstorm for text tweets, tweetshot for image tweets), compose the tweet and then hit the Send button.

The TallTweets website is mobile-friendly so you can should be able to send tweets from your mobile and tablets as well. On the technical side, TallTweets uses an HTML5 library to convert text into images in the client’s browser itself.

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The story, Send Tweets with Rich-Text Formatting using TallTweets, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 24/06/2015 under Twitter, Internet.

Add Google Drive Files to Google Calendar Events

The latest version of the Google Calendar app for iOS brings a few useful features, catching up with the Android app.

You can now add Google Drive files to calendar events in the iOS app, as well as the desktop Google Calendar site. This feature was already available in the Android app since February and in Google Calendar Labs since 2009. "Event attachments" graduated from Labs and it's now available for everyone (including developers).

If a Drive file isn't shared with all the guests, you'll see a prompt and you can change how the file is shared.

Here's a screenshot from the desktop site (the feature may not seem new if you've used the Event Attachments feature from Google Calendar Labs):

Another feature already available in the Android app is the 7-day view, which lets you see more events at a glance. You can now switch to the 7-day view in the iOS app and customize your calendar with week numbers in the settings.

Google takes advantages of the improved notification features from iOS8 and adds interactive notifications for events, so you can email guests or view the map without having to open Google Calendar first.

Picasa Web Albums, Back to the Future

Picasa Web Albums is fully functional again. The site no longer redirects to Google+ Photos and the search feature works, at least for personal photos and videos. The search feature was removed in 2013.

I thought that Google will discontinue the service and replace it with Google Photos, since Google+ is no longer required. For now, Picasa Web Albums is here to stay and that's surprising.

Google+: Then and Now

Here are 2 screenshots that show the importance of Google+ today and a few years ago. Back in 2013, Google changed the navigation bar and added an app launcher: the first shortcut was for Google+.

Google has recently tweaked the app launcher. The first shortcut is now for "My Account", followed by Search, Maps, YouTube, Play, News, Gmail, Drive and Calendar. Google+ is now the 10th shortcut, right next to Google Translate and Google Photos.

Google Wallet, Rebranded as Google Payments?

A few weeks ago, I posted about Google Payments, a service that could replace Google Wallet. If you open Google Wallet's site, you'll notice that the name of the service is now Payments. There are still references to the Wallet Card and Wallet Balance.

Another change is that payments.google.com no longer redirects to wallet.google.com, but shows the same site.

Google says that "the Services offered by Google Payments are covered by the Google Wallet Privacy Notice. The Google Wallet Privacy Notice will be updated effective June 30, 2015." The link sends users to this page, which is the Google Payments Privacy Notice.

{ Thanks, Kevin. }

Free Google Play Music Radio

Google Play Music is a great music streaming service, especially if you pay for the All Access subscription. If you're not a subscriber, you can only listen to the music you uploaded/matched using Music Manager or the Chrome app and the music you bought or got for free from Google Play.

When Apple launched iTunes Radio in 2013, it seemed ironic that Apple offered a free ad-supported service, while Google had a paid subscription service. Now that Apple Music is ready for launch, it's time for Google to offer the missing free radio feature.

"Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version in the U.S., giving you a new way to find just the right music and giving artists another way to earn revenue. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so you don't have to. If you’re looking for something specific, you can browse our curated stations by genre, mood, decade or activity, or you can search for your favorite artist, album or song to instantly create a station of similar music."

The free radio feature is already available if you're using the Play Music website and it's rolling out this week to the mobile apps for Android and iOS. It's US-only, for now.