I’m in love with Google.
Thursday July 6, 2006 at 3:48 pm | Filed under On the Web, Software
Sorry Monique, there’s another love in my life lately. It’s Google, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I had to post about this because it’s not just one thing, it’s many that this company has done lately to make me change the way I use the internet. It’s all about Google Maps/Local/Earth, Gmail for domains, and Google Browser Sync for Firefox. Other hot Google things worth mentioning, and definitely worth a look, are Sketchup, Google Checkout, Google AdSense, and Google Spreadsheets.
Google Maps, Google Local, and Google Earth… man, what an interface! If you haven’t used these, where have you been? Go check them out.
I know I’m incredibly late to the Gmail party, but after signing up when it first came out, it took joining the Gmail for domains beta program to really get my attention. I have replaced horde as our webmail client on e-popp.com with Gmail and I’m just amazed with it. The interface is so nice, the way that labels work, the POP access, the 2GB of space that no longer lives on my server, and the overall speed of the thing makes it a no-brainer. I often find myself using webmail at home now instead of Apple mail! Fitting nicely in with gmail is Google Calendar: a standards compliant ical-based calendar that works so well with gmail that it will look through your emails for words that resemble invitations and ask you if you want to add it to your calendar. All of the functionality of a stand-alone application, with the benefit of being able to access it from anywhere. I even have reminders sent to my cell phone. Brilliant!
That leaves Browser Sync. I’ve been looking for something like this for a long, long time. In short, it syncs up your bookmarks on any computer you use firefox on. For example, I have the same bookmarks at work on my mac and my PC as I do on my mac and my laptop at home. If I add or delete a bookmark on any of the computers that are using Browser Sync, all of the others are automatically update next time I use them, and the update is fast too. Different computers, Operating Systems, platforms, whatever, as long as it’s Firefox, it’s synced.
Some would say that all of these server-based applications leave openings for privacy to be breached. This is a huge debate and it’s something Google will have to confront and assure its users about while developing all of these
I know this entry kinda reads like a paid advertisement, but Google is really making some quality stuff that will improve the quality of collaborative web-ware in the future. To keep up with Google’s new stuff, keep tabs on Google Labs. Google Google Google.
Microsoft steals the spotlight!
Tuesday May 17, 2005 at 12:49 am | Filed under Mac, Software
Windows Desktop Search was released today. It’s an indexing tool that monitors the files on your hard drive, the emails in your email program, PDFs, web pages, and all sorts of other things you may need to find. Because the app pre-indexes all of your things and builds a reference database of it all, you can quickly search for somethign on your computer that previous took forever, grinding through your drives to find. This is great stuff, you should download it.
Or wait. Maybe this isn’t so revolutionary? Maybe Yahoo and Google released this kinda thing months ago? Yup, they did. The release of Windows Desktop Search is a result of Microsoft “laboring to catch up in Web search” as ZDNet put it. That’s not totally fair to Microsoft though. They have created a more robust app than its Yahoo or Google counterparts. It even integrates a bit more into the operating system, and contains a few more bells and whistles.
Where it gets interesting is when you start to factor in what Apple has done. They announced that “Spotlight,” an indexing search function would be built into their Tiger OS 10.4, back in June of 2004. Last month Tiger was released and Spotlight is a dream. It’s not only integrated into the operating system seamlessly, but the cool thing about it is you don’t have to think about it. You get that same instant quality searches no matter how you search, and no matter what you search in, even 3rd party apps can take advantage of the Spotlight technology built into the OS.
I can go on about Tiger, but I’ll save some of that for another post, as Dashboard alone is one of the coolest things ever built into an OS. I just thought it was interesting how once a good idea is thrown out there, everyone jumps on the bandwagon, fast. While I think that Spotlight is easily the best implementation of the index searching lot, anyone who hasn’t downloaded an app like this should pick one and try it. Finding things on your computer has never been so easy.
Picasa 2
Tuesday February 15, 2005 at 11:43 am | Filed under Software
At work I was looking for a quick organization tool for images that I have on my laptop and ran across Google’s “Picasa.” What a great piece of free software. In some ways this thing surpasses Apple’s iPhoto in features, and it comes really close in ease of use. There’s a really slick way to view all of your images that is structured by album, and a great way to re-size emails so they’re emailable to those with slower connections. While Picasa isn’t a gull fledged photo editor, it does have some quick filters and photo manipulation tools that come in handy. It doesn’t have all of the details that an iView Media Pro might have, but hey, it’s free and really easy to jump in and start using. If you’re a Windows user, and want a free, fast, and easy solution to organizing your photos, you may want to check out Picasa 2.