Tag Archives: web services

February 25, 2013, 8:00 am

Host a Website on Google Drive

Google-Drive Last month, Mark showed us how to use Google Drive to host a continuously-updating archive of a Twitter account. Doing so means taking advantage of a new Google Drive feature, “site publishing.”

Now, maybe I just hadn’t had enough coffee when I was working on implementing “site publishing,” but it seems to me that the instructions provided by Google are not as helpful as they could be. It’s actually pretty easy, so I put together what may be an excessively detailed, step-by-step guide for under-caffeinated people like me. (This guide assumes you already have some HTML content you’d like to publish. And, as always, be mindful of the stability and security–or lack thereof–in the cloud. )

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June 6, 2011, 8:00 am

Make Meetings More Useful with Minutes.io

By Jason B. Jones

Accountability is one of the real pain points in meetings, perhaps especially in academic meetings, where it’s easy for assigning tasks or follow-up to get lost in the fog of the semester, or for attendees to confuse having explored an issue at length with having done something about it. And meetings don’t have to be terribly large to cause this problem–a phone call, or an impromptu encounter with a colleague, might easily count as a meeting that necessitates some follow-up.

The minutes of meetings often don’t help, either, as they dutifully record votes, and sometimes discussions, but frequently don’t indicate what the next steps are to accomplish a committee or department’s next set of tasks.

As Merlin Mann has argued, a sure-fire way to improve meetings is for meeting leaders (committee chairs, etc.) to insist on “transitive followup.” Tasks should be recorded in the…

April 13, 2011, 3:00 pm

HelloFax Makes Faxing Painless (Even for Profs. Hacker)

By Ryan Cordell

The very idea of faxing a document seems outdated to me. I suspect that many ProfHacker readers wouldn’t willingly fax something were there any option to submit it electronically. Nevertheless, I find myself needing a fax machine several times a year. What’s more, the things that must be faxed are, inevitably, essential documents: often tied to my finances or academic records.

So I was thrilled when Lifehacker recently posted (yes, Lifehacker again!) about HelloFax, a service that allows you to fax documents straight from your computer. Once you register for an account with HelloFax, you simply type in the destination fax number, upload your document, sign it electronically (if you want to), and send it. HelloFax sends you an email when the fax is delivered (or if the delivery fails). When you log into HelloFax, you can see the status of all of your faxes, and resend faxes that failed…