Google Wave বর্তমানে টেকী দুনিয়ায় হট টপিকে পরিনত হয়েছে, যদিও গুগল এই সার্ভিসটি সকলের জন্য উন্মুক্ত করেনি। শুধু মাত্র যারা ইনভাইটেশন পেয়েছেন তারাই এটি ব্যাবহার করতে পারবেন।যাদের অলরেডি Google Wave একাউন্ট আছে তাদের অনেকই এটি আসলে কি বা এটি কিভাবে ব্যাবহার করতে হয় সে সম্পর্কে ভালো ধারনা নেই।তাই আমার এই পোস্টে Google Wave এর ইউজারদের কাছে সংক্ষেপে এটি কি এবং এর মেনুবারের বিভিন্ন বাটন এর কাজ বর্ণনা করলামঃ

Google Wave কি?
Google Wave একটি অনলাইন যোগাযোগ এবং সহযোগিতা tool যা real-time communication কে আরও বেশি seamless তৈরি করে-- এক স্থানে, আপনি richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps ইত্যাদি কে পরস্পরের মাঝে আদান প্রদান করতে পারবেন। এর মাধ্যমে একাধিক অংশগ্রহণকারীগণের সঙ্গে কথোপকথন এবং আলোচনা করতে পারবেন। অংশগ্রহণকারীগণ একটি Wave এর মধ্যে যেকোন সময় এবং যেখানে ইচ্ছা উত্তর দিতে পারবে, এবং এর ভিতরে এডিট করতে পারবে।

What is 'ping'?
If you're looking for a fast, easy way to start communicating live with your contacts, you can ping them. Pinging someone is similar to IMing or chatting, but once you're done, your conversation will become a wave.
To ping one of your contacts, follow these steps:
1. Locate in your Contacts panel the person you'd like to ping.
2. Click the person's name to display his or her profile card.
3. Click Ping Name.
4. Enter in the window that appears whatever you'd like to ping to your friend, and click Done.
When you ping someone, a pop-up window will appear in his or her account, with the message you entered. If the person is online, he or she will receive a notification immediately and can respond to you live. If the person isn't available, the notification will pop up the next time he or she signs in to Google Wave. (When someone's online, you'll notice a green ball in the bottom corner of his or her profile photo, in your Contacts panel.) If you prefer to view your conversation in your wave panel, rather than the pop-up window, click the Expand icon at the top of the notification window (indicated by two boxes).

With whom can you use Google Wave?
You can add any of your contacts to a wave, as long as that person also has a Google Wave account. We'll make sure your Gmail contacts are available in your Google Wave Contacts list, if they have access to the service, too.

How do you start a new wave?
To start a new wave, click New Wave at the top of your search panel. You'll then see a text box where you can enter the content of your wave.
To add other people to a wave, click the (+) button at the top of the compose window, and select participants from your Contacts list. You can also drag people from the contact list and drop them in the participant panel.

What is 'playback'?
Playback allows you to do just that -- play back each part of a wave so you can see exactly how everything unfolded, in chronological order. You can see when new messages were added, when edits were made, when people were added to a wave -- anything, really!
You can use the playback feature by following these steps:
1. Open the wave you'd like to play back.
2. At the top of the wave panel, click Playback.
3. Use the playback controls that appear to navigate through the wave.
4. Watch the yellow status message window beneath the playback controls for a summary of each update to the wave, or view the updates in the messages.

How do you attach files and/or images?
To attach a file or image to a wave, follow these steps:
1. Start a new wave or open the one you'd like to add to.
2. Click the paper clip icon in the compose toolbar.
3. Find the file you'd like to upload, and select it.
You can attach files up to 20 megabytes in size. All photos you upload will be downsampled -- downsampling is the process of making a digital image smaller by removing pixels. Waves containing large files tend to load more slowly, so we've implemented this process in an effort to keep Google Wave nice and speedy.

How do you share photos in Google Wave?
Google Wave is a great way to share photos and collaborate on albums. Here's how to do it:
1. Start a new wave, or open the one you'd like to add to.
2. Upload images to the wave. If you have Gears installed, you can drag pictures from your desktop straight into the wave.
3. Add your friends to the wave so they can see the photos.
4. To view a slide show, use the Images menu at the bottom of the Wave panel. It appears once there are images in the wave.
All participants on a wave can add photos and help write the captions together. It's a great way to make a group album.

What are read-only waves?
You might notice that waves started by Google, like your Welcome Waves, are "read-only." Read-only waves are generated by the system, and it isn't possible to participate in them as you would in normal waves. That is, you can't edit them, and you can't reply to them.
It isn't yet possible to make your own waves read-only, but we look forward to offering this functionality in the future.