Came across this Cool Tool From Google.
Hard to expalin really, but it’s a nice way to read online newspapers and magazines.
Website: Google Fast Flip
The new software released Wednesday will enable people with mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.
The feature, dubbed “Latitude,” expands upon a tool introduced in 2007 to allow mobile phone users to check their own location on a Google map with the press of a button.
“This adds a social flavor to Google maps and makes it more fun,” said Steve Lee, a Google product manager.
It could also raise privacy concerns, but Google is doing its best to avoid a backlash by requiring each user to manually turn on the tracking software and making it easy to turn off or limit access to the service.
Google also is promising not to retain any information about its users’ movements. Only the last location picked up by the tracking service will be stored on Google’s computers, Lee said.
The software plots a user’s location — marked by a personal picture on Google’s map — by relying on cell phone towers, global positioning systems or a Wi-Fi connection to deduce their location. The system can follow people’s travels in the United States and 26 other countries.
It’s left up to each user to decide who can monitor their location.
The social mapping approach is similar to a service already offered by Loopt Inc., a 3-year-old company located near Google’s Mountain View headquarters.
Loopt’s service is compatible with more than 100 types of mobile phones.
To start out, Google Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and devices running on Symbian software or Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile. It will also operate on some T-Mobile phones running on Google’s Android software and eventually will work on Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iTouch.
To widen the software’s appeal, Google is offering a version that can be installed on personal computers as well.
The PC access is designed for people who don’t have a mobile phone but still may want to keep tabs on their children or someone else special, Lee said. People using the PC version can also be watched if they are connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi.
Google can plot a person’s location within a few yards if it’s using GPS, or might be off by several miles if it’s relying on transmission from cell phone towers. People who don’t want to be precise about their whereabouts can choose to display just the city instead of a specific neighborhood.
There are no current plans to sell any advertising alongside Google’s tracking service, although analysts believe knowing a person’s location eventually will unleash new marketing opportunities. Google has been investing heavily in the mobile market during the past two years in an attempt to make its services more useful to people when they’re away from their office or home computers.
Website: Google Latitude
Well it was inevetiable I guess. Google has created a new Web Browser called Chrome.
I’ve had a chance to install it and kick the tires. So far it seems pretty slick.
What’s New and/or Different?
Without getting all techy let’s stick to the basics. According to Google it’s faster (faster is always good). Also a bad website won’t crash the whole browser (stability is also a good thing), if you have other tabs open. The reason is that each tab is like a separate program is running, and each tab is unrealted to the other. In techy terms, each tab runs it’s own independent process. Google Chrome has an “Icognito” Mode. This means that your browser doesn’t store cookies, or keep any history.
Google was good enough to keep many of the same keyboard shortcuts found in Firefox and Internet Explorer. I found that was nice, since I do use a couple. For instance Ctrl+T opens a new Tab, Ctrl+N opens a new window.
Where are my Bookmarks?
Google has always tried to make things simple and less cluttered. When Google Search came out (and to this day), the page is very clean and simple, unlike it’s competitors which made their searches busy with a lot of extra stuff you didn’t want to see. Google has taken the same approach with Google Chrome. It’s very simple and basic, with little clutter. This is great, but one of the things they made the default was not to show you the bookmarks (or links) you are used to seeing in header bar. You can see them when you open a new Tab, but for me that’s a little annoying. Getting them to show is simple though.
To get Bookmarks to show in Google Chrome use the shortcut Ctrl+B
I’ve tested Google Chrome now on several sites, from very simple ones, to those that stream music and videos, with great success. Seeing as how it’s so new, I’m sure there are sites that will not work, particularly those that use plug-ins. This is just part of the development curve.
It does appear to be pretty fast though. Keep in mind that speed is relative, if your connection is slow, your computer is running slow, or the site you are accessing is slow, then of course things will appear a little slow.
I’d recommend downloading it and giving it a try.
Website: Goolge Chrome
If you are in need of a basic Photo Editor for FREE, Google has a nice one called Picasa. This is for the average snap shot taker, who needs some software to fix up their photos as well as help organize them.
Previously I mentioned some FREE Online Photo Editors, which is fine for fixing up the occasional photo, but if you have a lot. Googles Picasa is an easy and simple to use editor for the casual snap shot photographer.
Website: Google Picasa
If you use Google Search regularly, you’ll notice the Big Google Graphic changes regularly. Sometimes the graphic is obvious like for St. Patricks Day, but sometimes it’s strange. Want to know what it is today - just click on it. It will bring you to search that will enlighten you.
Google has kept an archive of all it’s previous Holiday Graphics.
Check them out - Google Holiday Logos
Searching the web has gotten easier and faster over the years, however most of the times your search returns numerous pages. After you click on the link to a page, you then have to locate the words you originally searched on within that page. This can be often be a tedious task.
Well if you’ve been carefully looking at your search return from Google, you’ll notice that next to the URL or Link for the website, there is often a link called “Cached”. This is a copy of the page that Google has kept for you, from sometime in the past. This can be useful for several reasons, but the one I’m going to introduce you to is the fact that these “Cached” pages will have your search words Highlighted. This can really expedite your searching since you can quickly get to the area in the web page with the words you were searching for.
Here is an Example Search: FREE site: KevinsTips.com
Remember, click on the word “Cached” on one of the pages it returns.
Here is the computer that hosted the original Google! Yes those are legos - no kidding!
For more details: Stanford Website
OK, this stuff isn’t really a secret, however for many it’s hard to find and little known information.
I am a huge fan of Google (in general). Most of their products are pretty easy to use and do what they are meant to do.
One of Googles downsides, is that they have a lot of things to offer, yet most are not well advertised to the general public. Even being as tech savy as I am, I still discover new Google products or features all the time.
Over time, I will be introducing you to many Google products, and features within their products.
Here are a couple…
For example, say we wanted to search “Kevins Tips” for any page that has the word “free”.Go to Google and type in…
free site:kevinstips.com
This will search JUST KevinsTips.com for the word “free”. So you search like you normally would search, but now you can narrow your search to a specific website by simply adding “site:<URL>” at the end of your search phrase. Note, there is NO space between the word “site” “:” and the URL
