Google remains king of search.Google, at least, provides its products free to the consumer.
Often, free software requires paid upgrades to get the “full” version, or there is a time limit on how long you can use it without buying.
Here are five totally free Google products that will help you a lot.
iGoogle
iGoogle is Google’s own customizable home page much like MySurfPad, Netvibes, Pageflakes, My Yahoo! and Windows Live Personalized Experience.You can add a Google gadget for virtually everything: news, tools, games, shopping, affiliate accounts, and, of course, all of your Google stuff: Gmail, Google docs, Google notebook, Google reader, etc. For you internet moguls, you can access your adsense account right on your homepage. And, if there isn’t a gadget for it, you can create one.You can set up iGoogle as your homepage on any brower, and you can add an almost infinite amount of information accessible immediately from your home page. If that’s not enough, you can add tabs for more stuff.
Google Docs
Admittedly, Google Docs is not as robust as its competitors, yet. For most of my legal stuff, I still use WordPerfect, but Google Docs is more than sufficient for the average user.Where Google Docs is better is that it is, or can be, completely interactive and is accessible from anywhere you have internet access. You can allow multiple users and editors, and you can publish your documents in a variety of formats, online, hard copy and otherwise. You can upload most document formats to Google Docs and you can save Google Docs documents in multiple formats. This service really is remarkable for the price.
Actually, the fact that it is less rubust is probably beneficial to users who do not need all of the bells and whistles. Although, Google is continuing to add stuff, and Google is much more nimble at it because it is online and not out of a box.
Google Calendar
If you are willing to be unfaithful to yours, or if you need to coordinate multiple calendars, or if you need to publicize a calendar, Google Calendar is worth checking out.I realize everyone is particularly loyal to their calendaring program, especially if you use a PDA or smartphone.With Google Calendar, you can see your friends’ and family’s schedules right next to your own; quickly add events mentioned in Gmail conversations or saved in other calendar applications; and add other interesting events that you find online.
You can share all or part, you can send email invitations or reminders, and you can integrate with Gmail or Google Maps.You can also search for events that interest you. And visually, it puts Outlook to shame.Google Calendar is great for individuals, families and organizations and companies. Try it, you will be pleasantly surprised.
Picasa
Picasa is Google’s photo editor and organizer. It is slightly different that the products discussed above in that you install Picasa on your computer. You still have the online functionality because you can link with Picasa Web Albums, but this is not automatic.It should come as no surprise that you can readily use your web albums to embed slideshows into your Blogger blogs, Google pages or other Google products. Here is an example of a simple slideshow embedded in my blog. You can use this feature many other places online, not specific to Google.
Again, Picasa is not as robust as other commercial applications, but for simple photo editing and organization, it is quite good. You can share any, all or none of you photos, and if you publish online, you can link to or embed your web album photos in your blog, website, or just about anywhere else.
Let see what’s new in picasa>>
Why use Google?
As far as I know, Google is the only provider of such a wide range of products across multiple platforms that integrate this well. Microsoft is close, but the components are sold separately and don’t have the same level of integration. Nor do you have the level of online storage available with Google.
These are however practical, user-friendly, and well-integrated with each other: a one-stop shop, if you will.Think about it, all your photos, documents, spreadsheets, email, presentations, and calendars housed online and taking up ZERO space on your computer, if you choose. I am not so bold as of yet, I still have duplicates on my hard drive, but one day I hope my hard drive will be lean and mean. Actually, at this rate, thanks to Google, one day, my computer may be little more than a portal to all of my stuff.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It would be nice to see post about web-based project management softwares, like http://centraldesktop.com, http://www.comindwork.com, http://www.huddle.net etc, because i really don’t think that google has the tools needed to manage your projects online, project management tools all have their specifics.
thnx Godzheas for commenting and providing nice piece of information abt online project information softwares,bt google docs is more than sufficient for average users who runs their small business firms.