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BloggerIf you blog at all, you’re probably familiar with Blogger. Google’s blogging service is the sixth-largest in the world, serving up blogs to some 400 million active readers worldwide. In recent years, Blogger has been looking a little stale compared to competitors like WordPress and Drupal, but Google has been hard at work revamping the service with a new template designer, real-time stat tracking, mobile-friendly templates, and other welcome updates. At press time, the new features had yet to launch, but they’ll be worth a closer look when they go live.
Google GroupsGoogle’s earliest foray into the world of social networking was Groups, which it bought and rebranded in 2001. It’s a massive collection of user-created forums on just about any topic. Very little differentiates Google Groups from Yahoo Groups or any of the other online forum sites. You can join an existing group, or start your own.
Google BuzzIn yet another attempt to make headway in the social media game, Google launched Buzz in May 2010. Early adopters immediately pounced on the service, which is integrated directly into the Gmail interface. Buzz had been heralded by Google as a smarter approach to social networking that would reduce unwanted noise in your social stream and surface the most relevant posts from your best buddies. In reality, it did almost exactly the opposite. Most early adopters quickly abandoned the service citing concerns over privacy and usability.
Picasa Web AlbumsDespite the name, Picasa Web Albums is more than just an online extension of the Picasa app. It’s more like Google’s answer to Flickr (which we’re pretty sure lost its relevance a year ago). With or without the desktop app, Picasa Web Albums gives you a gigabyte of online storage to share photos and videos. Unfortunately, a gig isn’t a lot of space for pictures, so it won’t be long before Google starts pressuring you to upgrade your storage to 20GB for $5 per year. Is that a lot of money? No, it’s not. Is it enough of a hassle that you’ll just want to stick to Facebook for photo sharing? Yes, it is.
SketchUpAn interesting departure from Google’s standard fare, SketchUp is a free 3D modeling tool that’s insanely easy to use. Even with no background in graphic design, you can start creating 3D graphics in just a few minutes by simply drawing a shape, pulling it into three dimensions, and then drawing more shapes. Google provides more than 100 how-to videos on the SketchUp site to help you get started and master the tools.
iGoogleRemember when web portals were all the rage, and everyone was supposed to have a personalized home page preloaded with news, weather, email, and whatever else? Yeah, iGoogle is a holdover from that era.
Google Storagegoogle.com/accounts/b/0/PurchaseStorage
If you need more storage for any of your Google services, Google abides (for a price). A 20GB upgrade costs $5 per year, 80GB will cost you $20, and so on, with options all the way up to 16TB for $4,096 a year. Your upgraded storage becomes available to all of your various Google accounts, in addition to your free quotas on each service, so you can load up your Picasa Web Albums with as many pics and videos as you can afford the space for.
PicasaEasily one of the best free photo tools anywhere, Picasa has evolved from humble beginnings into a robust photo editor complete with organization features, advanced editing tools, and built-in sharing options. During installation, Picasa will sweep your hard drive in search of images, and integrate them into its photo browser to get your pictures under control. From there, you can open them up, autofix problems, fine-tune lighting and effects, export your pics to a blog, create a collage, or quickly create a slideshow video to upload to YouTube.
Google Search Power ToolsOnce upon a time, search was all Google did. Life was simpler then, and Google Search’s simplicity beat out the growing bloat of rival Yahoo in the span of a year. Does anyone ever say, “Let me Yahoo that for you”? No, they don’t. The Search feature set is constantly changing, but generally consists of six integrated services.
To get the most out of Google Search, it’s still best to familiarize yourself with the engine’s operator strings, such as quotes to find an exact phrase, “site:” to search only a specific site, or “–” to exclude a term from your results. You can also use the Advanced Search interface to add criteria like reading level, language, file type, and date, and turn SafeSearch (the content-filtering option) on or off.
As its name implies, Image Search scours the web for pictures that match your search string. The results appear as a cascading page of thumbnails that enlarge when you hover over them. To narrow results, use the options in the left sidebar to select a size range, image type, or dominant color.
Like Image Search, Video Search looks only for online videos that match your string.
Google Directory is a throwback to the early days when sites were indexed by category and presented in a browsable topic tree. It’s an absurd way to surf the 21st-century web.
Looking for stats on what the world is searching for? Google Trends tracks the most popular search terms to give you a barometer of what’s hot on the web. It’s very handy for search engine optimization.
Whether you’re a blogger or a business with a large site, you can add Google’s search engine to your pages with Custom Search. Enter your site’s URL and Google will give you some code to embed on your site, complete with text autocompletion in the search box (if you enable it). The free version includes Google ads in the results. An ad-free version is available for $100 per year.
Explore More with Google EarthGoogle Earth is loaded with cool data, but to make it personally relevant, you should add your own places to it. To add any location to your list of places, punch the address into the Fly To field to zoom to it, then right-click the crosshairs on the map and select Save to My Places.
All data in Google Earth is presented in layers laid over the base map. Major cities and other frequently visited locales will tend to house dense layers of data. You can make the map more navigable and useful by enabling or disabling layers of data. For instance, if you’re trying to get a feel for the layout of a city you’re about to visit, but the map is covered with little data points for all the pictures people have uploaded to Google Earth, uncheck the box for the Photos layer to get a clearer view. To see what the climate is like in the location you’re viewing enable the Weather layer.
Google Earth now includes Street View images wherever they exist on Google Maps. Just zoom down to street level to activate them.
At the top of the Layers box you’ll find a button marked Earth Gallery, which will take you to a large collection of additional layers you can add to your app. Some of them are really practical, like the near-real-time snapshots of active flights in the U.S., which can actually help you locate your inbound flight or track a friend’s flight. Others are just plain awesome, like the Shipwrecks layer that shows you the exact locations of known shipwrecks.
You can add your own photos to Google Earth’s Photos layer by geotagging them in Picasa and exporting them to a KML file that you can open in Google Earth. To contribute your pics to all Google Earth users, upload them to Panoramio in Picasa and, if Google approves, they’ll eventually appear in Google Earth’s Panoramio layer.
Google Earth includes 3D models of significant buildings in many major cities, and you can add your building to the map with Google Building Maker (google.com/buildingmaker). Based on SketchUp, Building Maker lets you select a building in Google Earth, then drag shapes onto the image to line up the various facets of the structure. When your 3D model is complete, submit it to Google for approval to have it added to Google Earth.
Comments are closed on this article
Eoraptor
April 26, 2011 at 10:24am
Well I have used google stuff for a while now. Did not know about Aardvark, so will have to try that out. I do keep Reader, Gmail, and News tabs pinned.i messed with igoogle, but honestly, I don't use it.
However, I have found that bing maps seems to be faster and more responsive than Google Maps, so I switched to that service.
Send and Archive and Move to Next Message are two great tweaks to Gmail. I hate hot it defaults by making you go back to your inbox when you are done with a message, and wish they would turn those two features on by defualt.
-=GNO=-
April 26, 2011 at 5:27am
Just want to let you know your link to Picnik doesn't work. You have a K between the C and N that doesn't belong. Just an FYI.
Phrish
April 25, 2011 at 5:24pm
I would just like Google to concentrate on making the basic PIM apps as best as they can be, and fully sync'd with Android services.
-Contacts
-Calendar
-Tasks
-NotesMail...
They have the mail thing down VERY well. Great service. However, they still don't have a way (that I know of) to mark messages high/low importance. I'd also like to see inline graphics as well as attachments. There is also a very capable Android app for Mail.
Contacts...
Contacts is getting better. Interface-wise, it opens in the same window as mail, via link on the left. It stores great data for contacts, the search is good, and the types of data are very flexible. Each type of dropdown (email, phone, link) has a custom selection where you can write anything you want (e.g. this number isn't "work" or "home" or "mobile" but it's "workshop"). One thing that does scare me, though, is that changes you make in Contacts are IMMEDIATELY saved. Whoopsiedoodle, I just messed that number up. Crap it's already saved, I don't have the option to "cancel." Still Contacts is very serviceable, and it's my main contacts list and backup right now (Outlook used to be my main backup, with stuff mirrored in Google Contacts... now Contacts is my main). Android also has a very good Contacts app, though with some trouble showing full addresses.
Calendar...
Google Calendar is also very good. Interface-wise, it's not on the left side with Mail and Contacts. It's on the top of the browser window. Nor does it open into the same space as Mail and Contacts, but opens a whole new browser window or tab. Nothing wrong with that functionally, but it's a poor interface choice that's slightly confusing, since it's not in the same place as Mail and Contacts. Any human interface designer would tell you that this is bad form. BTW, Outlook has the interface for all the basic PIM apps nailed. The buttons to access each app are in the same place (in a button array on the lower left of the screen), and they bring the app up in the same "space" so you know what to expect. Beyond interface, though, Google Calendar is very capable, and I love the fact that it can work with multiple calendars, yours or public. Android has a very serviceable Calendar app.
Tasks...
Google Tasks needs some work. It's very, very basic. Interface-wise, you access it from the same place as Mail and Contacts (link on the left), but like Calendar, it doesn't use the same "space" as Mail and Contacts. It's a strange popover window over Mail or Contacts, whichever happens to be active at the time. It's a basic list outliner, but in a style that I like. Works a bit like MS Word's outlining function, type, enter, tab, shift tab... for very fast task entry. Despite simple, I would like to see the interface for it improved a bit. Android doesn't have any Tasks equivalent, which is a glaring omission on Google's part... shame on you Google. Fortunately, apps like Astrid are starting to "sync" with Google Tasks, but still Google should have a dedicated app for it itself. This is a BASIC PIM APPLICATION, and Google needs to get on the stick.
Notes...
Google doesn't really have a notes service. Well, in honesty they do, but no one knows about it. Now, by Notes, I do NOT mean Google Docs, which is NOT a note app. Think again to Outlooks notes, small, sticky-like notes you can keep for yourself. If you are an avid adventurer, you can spelink into the dark, stinky bowles of Google and find Google Notebook (www.google.com/notebook), and this is my idea of notes. However, Google neither advertises it, nor practically supports its use. There is no Android equivalent that will sync. As for the PC it's almost impossible to even find it unless you type the URL directly into the address bar. Again, Google, this IS A BASIC PIM APP and you need to have this supported with the others, in the same basic interface, with full sync compatibility and a dedicated Android app. What's wrong with you? Even Windows Mobile and Palm have been doing this for years... do you even have a human interface expert on staff?
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Well that's my rundown on Google Services. I have no hope that anyone at Google will read this and say "oh hey... dugh!" but you never know. Here's to dreaming the dream...
