How to Sell Digital Products Online with Google Drive and PayPal

The web has made it incredibly easy for anyone to sell digital products directly from their website, Twitter, Facebook or even through email newsletters. The world is your marketplace and you can sell PDF books, MP3 music, photos, software programs, video courses, website themes, and everything else that can be downloaded.

While there are quite a few web services that let you sell digital content online for a commission (around 5% per transaction), I want to share a do-it-yourself solution that I have been using on my services website. You can see another example here on labnol.org.

The workflow uses Google Drive for storing files, PayPal for payments and Gmail for delivering content to the buyer. There’re no limitation on the size of files or the number of products that you can sell. There’re no bandwidth restrictions. There’s no middleman fees except for the usual PayPal charges. And people can purchase your stuff through PayPal or using their debit or credit cards.

Sell Digital Downloads with PayPal and Google Drive

First, create a “Buy Now” button in your PayPal account for the product that you wish to sell online and assign a unique Item ID to the item (see screenshot above).

PayPal will now offer you the HTML code for the purchase button that you can embed in your website. Alternatively, you can copy the direct link – see example – to share your product over email or for selling on social media websites.

The next thing you need to do is upload the corresponding file to your Google Drive. When someone makes a purchase, the Google script will pull this file from Drive and send it to the buyer via Gmail as an email attachment. If the file is big, say the size >20 MB, the script will automatically share the file with the buyer and sends the shared link instead of the actual file.

The final step is to run the Google Script that will monitor your Gmail mailbox for any PayPal related transactions and sends the digital files to the buyer.

This is easy. Click here to make a copy of the PayPal script in your Google Drive and include the Item IDs and file names of all products that you are selling through PayPal. Next choose Run -> PayPal and authorize the script.

That’s it. The script will read your Gmail mailbox every 5 minutes and will process all PayPal related emails. Once the files have been delivered to the buyer, the PayPal emails will moved to the archive. You can check out the Programmer’s Library for the annotated source code.

Later, if you release an updated version of your digital files, you can use Mail Merge with Gmail to let all your previous buyers know about the new version. You can put all the PayPal emails under a new Gmail label, extract the email addresses and use this list for your merge.

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This story, How to Sell Digital Products Online with Google Drive and PayPal, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 26/06/2014 under Google Drive, Paypal, Internet

Google Tests Site Info Cards for Mobile

Google Mobile Search experiments with adding the site info feature that shows information about sites from Wikipedia and the Open Directory. Google shows a three dot icon next to the snippet. Tap the icon and you can learn more about a site.

I used Chrome's mobile emulation feature and the cookie values from here to take these screenshots. For some reason, the experimental feature works only if you are not signed in to a Google account.



{ Thanks, Rubén. }

Huge Titles in Google Mobile Search

Google's mobile search interface has a new feature that makes titles bigger for search results that have sitelinks. For example, when searching for [amazon prime], the title of the top result is so big that it can't even be fully displayed, even if it doesn't have so many characters: "Amazon.com: Amazon Prime (One Year Membership)".

Here's the same search result, but for a slightly different query: [amazon prime membership].

I tested this for various navigational searches like [microsoft], [htc], [tesla], [stanford] in Google Search for Android, Chrome for Android and iOS and Safari for iOS.



{ Thanks, Lee. }

[Poster] Which Creative Commons License is Right for me?

Creative Commons makes it easy for content creators to define a set of rules under which they would like the public to use their creative work. For instance, if you upload a photograph on the Internet, you can apply a Creative Commons license that would allow others to embed that photograph in a website or use in a presentation but not sell it commercially.

The important thing to note about CC licenses is that they are irrevocable. Thus, if you release your images under a particular CC license, others will always have the right to use them under that license even if you later decide to stop distributing the images under Creative Commons.

If you have been trying to understand the terms of the various Creative Commons licenses, this comic poster from CC Poland is a good resource to start with. There are 6 types of licenses with separate conditions attached to each of them and you got to understand them well before picking a license for your work.

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This story, [Poster] Which Creative Commons License is Right for me?, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 20/06/2014 under Creative Commons, Infographics, Internet

Hangouts Integration in Google Search

Some of the phone numbers from Google's Knowledge Graph cards are now linked and open Google Hangouts. When you search for a local business, Google usually displays the phone number next to the address. Click the phone number and you can call directly from your browser using Google Hangouts, which opens in a pop-up window and informs you about the fees. Calls made to the U.S. and Canada are free.

For searches like [john radcliffe hospital phone number], Google shows a separate card that includes the phone number.

It's interesting to notice that not all phone numbers are clickable. Phone numbers from local search results or from ads don't have links. Another exception: customer service numbers.



{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Chromecast Support for YouTube Live Streams

Chromecast is now even more useful: you can watch YouTube's live streams. This should work in YouTube's mobile apps and in Chrome for Android.



Here's a screenshot from YouTube's app for Android:

"With Chromecast available in 18 countries and YouTube live streams happening on the regular, we wanted to share one of our favorite ways to use Chromecast. Head to one of the live streams in the YouTube app, just press the cast button, then kick back and enjoy these live events from the comfort of your living room," informs Google.



Here are some live streams you can watch:



* ASP World Tour (surfing)

* Adidas Dugout live from Rio (football / soccer)

* Birds, puppies, cats and more streaming live @ The Pet Collective

* other live streams



Apparently, "YouTube Live streams cannot be viewed from Germany." Here's an explanation: "because of the German law (RStV), you must have a broadcast licence from the media authorities when you make a live stream that can reach more than 500 people at the same time. Not getting one would result in a fine of up to 500000€. "

Sync Any Folder on your Mac with Dropbox

Cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive allow you to have only one folder on the computer the content of which will always remain in sync with your online account. Any files that you place in this particular folder can be accessed from the web or any of your other computers and mobile devices.

If you would you like to store files from other local folders in your Dropbox, you can either move these folders inside the main Dropbox folder or you can get hold of a free utility called MacDropAny. This app will allow you to sync folders outside your main Dropbox folder with Dropbox but without you having to move these folders anywhere.

To get started, download MacDropAny and copy it to your Mac Applications folder. Now launch the app and it will ask you select a folder on your Mac that you would like to sync with Dropbox (or Google Drive). Next select the folder inside your main Dropbox folder where you would like this external folder to go. You may even choose the root Dropbox folder here.

There’s an alternate way as well. Just drag any Mac folder, drop it over the MacDropAny icon and choose the location of the Dropbox folder.

That’s all it takes to add any external Mac folder in your Dropbox queue. What the MacDropAny application just did is it created a symbolic link, or soft link, in your Dropbox folder that points to the external folder. Advanced users can directly run the command “ln -s” inside the shell terminal to create these links manually without requiring any app.

MacDropAny is available for Mac only and works with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and other cloud storage services that impose the one-folder-only restriction. Windows PC users may download the free SyncToy utility from Microsoft to backup external folders with Dropbox.

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This story, Sync Any Folder on your Mac with Dropbox, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 18/06/2014 under Apple Mac, Dropbox, Google Drive, Software

How to Download Auto Awesome Photos

Auto Awesome is one of the best features of Google+ Photos. It's a good reason to upload your photos to Google+ instead of choosing a different service: you get something in return. Auto Awesome photos and videos use your photos and videos to create something new. Some of them improve your photos, others are funny, while some of them would normally require professional software.



Just because they're so nice, I decided to backup my Auto Awesome. Here's how to download them:



1. open this page: http://ift.tt/Jxfozp (or go to Google+ Photos and search for #AutoAwesome)



2. click "show all" below the first photos from that page

3. select the first photo: mouse over the photo and click the tick icon.

4. use your browser's find-in-page feature (Ctrl+F or Command+F on a Mac) and search for from your circles. That's a different section which shows Auto Awesome photos from your circles and that's where your Auto Awesome gallery ends.

5. Shift+click the last photo above the "From your circles" section and you should see a message like "230 selected".

6. click "more" in the navigation bar and select "download".

7. You'll get a Photos.zip archive with both photos and videos. The filename includes the type of AutoAwesome effect. The archive should also include the "year in review" video titled 2013-MOVIE.m4v.

Google Keep's Debug Tools

Google Keep for the desktop shows an interesting feature in the menu: a "debug tools" section with a single item: "show client log".

Google Keep opens a dialog that shows some information about your notes, some details about "upsync", "downsync", preloaded chunks and app init. If you enable "Show user text content", the debug page will also include the text of your notes.

I'm not sure if Google actually intended to show this debugging option in Google Keep's navigation menu. This looks like an internal debugging feature that's used by Google employees. Google Keep's Chrome app and Android app don't include this feature.

Google Account History

Google Settings page has a new section called "account history". The section shows some links that let you manage Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and video history (the videos you've watched).

Google also includes "pause" buttons for all the 4 data streams. When you click "pause", Google shows black-and-white pictures and tells you what you'll be missing.



"Pausing Google Search History may limit or disable features such as Google Now, more accurate search results and predictions, and saved searches on mobile devices. Pausing Google Location History will limit the functionality of some Google products over time, such as Google Maps and Google Now. Pausing YouTube Search History does not delete existing history. To view your history, remove individual items, or clear your entire history, go to your YouTube Search History page."

Here's what happens when you pause Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and video history: the colorful images are converted to black and white.

YouTube's video history is really useful because it shows all the videos you've watched from any device, as long as you are logged in. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't provide a search feature, so you have scroll until you find the right video. YouTube's video history is the most important source for YouTube's recommendations, so you should delete some of the videos if you see unpleasant recommendations. Google also uses video history to improve ads, but you can opt out of interest-based Google ads.



YouTube's search history is used to show search suggestions and to improve recommendations:

Google search history is used to show search suggestions, to personalize search results, to improve ads and to provide data for some Google Now cards. There's an important distinction between YouTube search history and Google search history: YouTube only saves your queries and the video history is saved separately, while Google search history includes both your queries and the search results you've clicked on.



Location History started as a Google Latitude feature, but it's still available, even if Google Latitude was discontinued. To understand Location History, you need to know what Location Reporting is.



"Location Reporting allows Google to periodically store and use your device's most recent location data in connection with your Google Account. Location History allows Google to store a history of your location data from all devices where you are logged into your Google Account and have enabled Location Reporting."



Both features are related to mobile devices and they're used by Android/iOS apps like Google Maps, Google Search and Google+. Location History requires Location Reporting, but you can use Location Reporting while disabling Location History. Google uses your data to improve Google Maps search results based on the places that you've been, to show some Google Now cards and to show your data on a map.



{ Thanks, Herin Maru. }

Feeling Lucky in Google Flight Search

A few days ago, Google Flight Search added some really cool features that help you find destinations you may enjoy. Pick one or more airports and Google shows a list of recommendations.

You can expand the map and "enter a full-screen exploring experience".

There's an "I'm feeling lucky" button that picks a destination for you. You can restrict the results, depending on your preferences. Choose the number of stops, a price range, an airline, times and duration. Click "I'm feeling lucky" again to see a different destination that matches your filters. Google shows photos for each city and helps you find the best dates for your trip.

Google Flight Search now lets you enter the name of a continent (South America) or a region (Central Africa) and shows a list of popular destinations.

Startup Tips From a Former Googler

Thomas Korte worked at Google for almost 9 years and he's now running AngelPad, a startup incubator. Thomas shared some of the things he learned at Google and could be useful for a startup:

* hire great people

* hire for the company, not for the job

* ask "why not?" instead of "why?"

* use data, not opinions

* put users first, money last

* share company information with employees

* build a culture that lasts

* give a license to dream (Google's 20% time - the permission from the company

to do things that are outside the normal scope of what you are doing)

* ask for forgiveness, not for permission (Google Books started as a service for scanning catalogs and Google didn't ask for permission to scan them).

Google Shows Step-by-Step Instructions

I mentioned a few months ago that Google now answers complicated questions. Depending on your query, you might see a long answer obtained from a web page.



Google's answers also include lists. Here are some examples from a Gmail support page and an Apple support page:

When searching for [gmail export contacts], Google now lists the steps right on the search results page, so you don't have to click the search result and find the answer.



Here's a similar example for [icloud restore]. Notice how Google removes some of the text from the article to keep it brief.

The answers aren't limited to tech-related queries. You can also find [how to remove a popcorn ceiling], [how to install a toilet], [how to change a tire], [how to boil eggs] and more.

Save your Google Voicemail to Google Drive as MP3 Files

When you receive a voicemail message on a phone number connected to your Google Voice account, the text transcription of the voice mail is emailed to your Gmail account along with a link to play the audio message on your phone or desktop. Now you can automatically save that voice mail to your Google Drive as an MP3 file.

I have written a little web app that scans your Gmail mailbox for any voicemails from Google Voice and it will save the audio in a specific folder on your Google Drive. The app attaches the voicemail transcript to the MP3 file as well thus making it possible for you to search your voice mails from within Google Drive.

To get started, click here and authorize ^why the app to access your Gmail and Google Drive accounts. On the next screen, click the Google Voice button and wait for the app to initialize. That’s it. The app will run in the background and monitor your Gmail account for any messages from Google Voicemail.

It creates a new folder called Google Voice in your Google Drive and all the voicemail MP3 files are saved in this folder. Also, once a voice mail has been processed in Gmail, a new label called MP3 is applied to that message to prevent the app from reprocessing that email message.

The app is powered by Google Scripts and the entire source code is available below. You can stop the script anytime using the uninstallation link that would have arrived in your Gmail account when you authorized the app.

Google Script – Save Voice Mail as MP3 in Google Drive

/* Written by Amit Agarwal amit@labnol.org   */
/* Tutorial: http://ift.tt/1qEMTAp  */

var folder,  folder_name = "Google Voice";
var archive, gmail_label  = "MP3";

/* Find Google Voice messages in Gmail */

var filter  = "from:voice-noreply@google.com -label:" + gmail_label;    
var threads = GmailApp.search(filter, 0, 10);

if (threads.length) {
  
  /* Google Drive folder where the MP3 files will get stored */
  var folders = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(folder_name); 
  folder = folders.hasNext() ? folders.next() : DriveApp.createFolder(folder_name);
  
  /* Gmail Label that is applied to processed voice mails */
  archive = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName(gmail_label) ? 
    GmailApp.getUserLabelByName(gmail_label) : GmailApp.createLabel(gmail_label);
  
  for (var x=0; x<threads.length; x++) {
    
    threads[x].addLabel(archive);
    
    var msg = threads[x].getMessages()[0];
    
    /* Find the link to play the voice mail message */
    var url = msg.getBody().match(/https?:\/\/http://ift.tt/1qauxtx);
    
    if (url) {
      
      /* Find the name of the voice sender (or their phone number) */
      var file_name = msg.getSubject().match(/new voicemail from (.*) at /i);
      
      /* Add the voice mail date to the file name */
      var file_date = Utilities.formatDate(
        msg.getDate(), Session.getScriptTimeZone(), "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
      
      if (file_name) {
        
        /* Extract the audio file and save as an MP3 file */
        var mp3 = url[0].replace("/voice/fm/", "/voice/media/svm/");
        var file = folder.createFile(UrlFetchApp.fetch(mp3).getBlob());
        
        /* Save the voice mail transcript with the audio file */
        file.setName(file_name[1] + " [" + file_date + "]" + ".mp3");
        file.setDescription(msg.getPlainBody());
        
      }                   
    }        
  }      
}

[*] The script triggers every 15 minutes and processes 10 voice mail messages in the batch starting with the most recent ones. If you have too many old voice mails in your Gmail account, it may take a while to process all the emails.

[**] The web app requires permissions to access your Gmail and Google Drive. I have shared the full source code of the app but if you aren’t convinced yet, just make a copy of the above code in your Google Drive and run it manually.

Also see: Save Gmail Attachments to Google Drive

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This story, Save your Google Voicemail to Google Drive as MP3 Files, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 13/06/2014 under GMail, Google Drive, Internet

How to Record Streaming Audio with Audacity

Would you like to record streaming music from Internet radio stations like Pandora or iTunes? Are you looking for a simple way to save the audio from a live webinar that’s playing on your computer? Or maybe you are trying to capture the background sounds of your favorite video game.

Recording “What You Hear” – Step by Step

Here’s an extremely easy and inexpensive method that will let you record any sound coming from your computer speakers. There’s no complex configuration required and all you need is Audacity, a popular audio editing software (freeware) and some common computer cables. The steps are similar for both Windows and Mac computers.

Step 1. Get the Software Cables

You’ll need a pair of headphones that you already have, a stereo audio cable (3.5mm male to male) and a jack splitter (3.5mm male to two 3.5mm female splitter). With the splitter, you can connect two headphones to your iPhone or iPod and thus both you and your friend can listen to music at the same time.

Step 2: Connect the cables to the computer

This video clip explains how you can connect the cables to the computer for recording system audio.

The male end of the jack splitter goes into the audio output port of the computer (often colored green). Plug one end of the loopback cable into the jack splitter and other end into the line-in port on the computer (often colored blue). Finally, plug your microphone jack into the other vacant female port of the splitter.

[*] If you have a newer Macbook that doesn’t have the audio input port, you can still capture the audio of Mac using Audacity without needing any cables.

Step 3. Start the recording

Open the Audacity program on your computer and under preferences, set the recording input as Built-in Input (it maybe listed as Line In or Microsoft Sound Mapper Input as in this screenshot). Now play any media file on your computer, or play music on a streaming site, switch to Audacity and hit the Record button. If you see a moving waveform, the audio is getting recorded.

When you are done, stop the recording in Audacity and export the audio as an .wav file. You can also download the LAME encoder to save the audio in MP3 format or use FFMPEG to convert the audio manually.

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This story, How to Record Streaming Audio with Audacity, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 08/06/2014 under Music, Software

Create an Email Newsletter with your Facebook Photos

Most of your friends and family members are active on Facebook and thus they can always see the pictures and other stuff that you regularly post on these social networks. However, if there some people in your family who do not have an account on Facebook yet, or they prefer to stay away from the site, you can still keep them in the loop with Kidpost.

Also see: Sell your Facebook & Instagram Photos

Send Facebook Photos by Email

Kidpost will monitor your Facebook and Instagram feeds and it will prepare a daily email digest with all the photos and videos that you have uploaded to your accounts in the previous day. It will only gather media that have the tag #kidpost attached (see example) so you can choose what gets included in the outgoing email.

You then need to specify a list of email addresses who you want to send these updates to. Once the recipients confirm their addresses, they will start getting a daily email newsletter will all your photos.

It is much like building an automated email newsletter with your Facebook content except that it is private – you have to decide who is included in your list.

Kidpost currently supports Facebook and Instagram though support for other services like Twitter and Flickr will be included soon. Also, the service is free though that may not be the case once the service sheds the beta tag.

Thank you Gina Trapani for the tip.

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This story, Create an Email Newsletter with your Facebook Photos, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 06/06/2014 under Facebook, Internet

How to Record Screencast Videos on Android

I uploaded my first Android screencast on YouTube today. The video walks you through the steps necessary to install an Android app from the Google Play store on your mobile phone.

The Android screen was recorded at 720p (1280×720) resolution, there are no visible frame-drops in the video and the screencast output is in MPEG-4 (.mp4) format that can be directly uploaded to YouTube or can be edited in any video editing app, both on your phone and the desktop.

Screencasting on Android – Step by Step

If you would like to record screencast videos of your own Android phone, the good news is that you don’t need to install any app nor do you have to root your device. The not-so-good news is that you can only capture screencasts on phones (or tablets) that are running Android 4.4+ and it will not record the audio.

According to Google, about 14% of Android devices are currently running KitKat. If you happen to be one among them, here’s how you can screencast your phone.

Step 1: Prepare your Android Device for Screencasting

Open your Android phone settings and go to About Phone, the last option in the list. Next tap Build Number seven times in quick succession and you’ll see a message saying that Developer Options have been enabled in your device.

Now use the “back” button to return to the Settings page, tap Developer Options and toggle the on-off switch. Here turn on USB Debugging and also enable Show Input Touches – the on-screen interactions like taps and swipes will be recorded as circles in the screencast.

Step 2: Prepare your computer (Windows or Mac)

We need to install the Android SDK on our desktop. This is simple. All you have to do is download the SDK in a zip file from the android.com website and unzip the file anywhere on your computer.

The Android SDK is available for both Mac and Windows.

Step 3: Connect your Android phone to the desktop

First connect your Android phone to your computer though the regular micro USB cable. The phone will display a prompt asking you to “Allow USB debugging.” Tap OK to continue.

Now open the command prompt in Windows, or the Terminal shell on your Mac, and switch (use the “cd” command) to the sdk/platform-tools directory inside the Android SDK folder.

Here run the command adb devices and if it shows a device under the “List of devices attached”, you are all set to record the first movie of your Android screen.

Step 4: Record the Screencast Video

Run the follow command to enter recording mode. Advanced users may refer to the help manual to learn about the various options supported by screenrecord.

adb shell screenrecord --verbose ./sdcard/screencast-video.mp4

Now switch to your phone and whatever you do here will get recorded in the video. When you are done, go to command window and press Ctrl + C to stop the video recording. The screencast is now saved in your Android phone.

You can use a File manager app, I prefer File Wrangler, to search for the screencast-video.mp4 file on the phone and transfer it to your desktop for editing.

Also see: Screencasting on iPad & iPhone

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This story, How to Record Screencast Videos on Android, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 06/06/2014 under Android, Screencasting, Software