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Author Topic: Leveraging what Google has to offer  (Read 8437 times)

40hz

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Leveraging what Google has to offer
« on: April 09, 2010, 03:13 PM »
Just ran into two useful articles about tools and info sources that are available from the giant that is Google.

The first is a Maximum PC article written by Gina Trapani that gives a very good overview of Google Apps worth being aware of.

Link:   www.maximumpc.com/article/features/power_users_guide_google   

googleapps.jpg

The second is an Hongkiat.com article entitled: 31 Useful Google Blogs To Keep Yourself Up To Date.

Link:  http://www.hongkiat....yourself-up-to-date/

Without a doubt Google is one of the largest company in the technology industry and the largest influencer on the Internet. We use Google product and services on daily basis, and some us are depend on it so much that if any of the services are down, we become helpless, resulting things to be put on halt.

...

Using Google services and following the news & updates are equally important. Almost every Google services (excluding the ones in Google lab) have a blog and that’s where the staffs update us on latest development, maintenance, future enhancement and a whole lot more. Sure, some of us might argue that we can get updates from newsletter, but keep in mind newsletters aren’t frequent and if you compare to what you can get in the blog, newsletters merely summaries.

In this article, we sum up a list of Google products’ blogs we generally used and we categorize them by different professions so you can get an overall view what you are likely interested. We’ve also added the hyperlinks to both the blog and RSS feeds so you can subscribe at ease. Hope you’ll find it useful.

If you use or are are thinking about using Google services, this article merits a careful read.

 8)



superboyac

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2010, 10:40 PM »
40hz...nice!  I'm only 10% through those articles and I've already learned a lot!

cyberdiva

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2010, 03:09 PM »
The Living Room is beginning to feel a bit schizophrenic. I just finished reading this thread here:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22379.msg201232

superboyac

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2010, 05:44 PM »
The Living Room is beginning to feel a bit schizophrenic. I just finished reading this thread here:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22379.msg201232
Ha!  Well, the truth is rarely black or white.  Usually, it's in the gray area.  I heard a great quote by Stephen Fry in one of his documentaries where he says it's a very American thing to greatly desire explanations to be black and white.  I believe it was during a conversation with a Harvard professor.

kartal

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2010, 07:12 PM »
The Living Room is beginning to feel a bit schizophrenic. I just finished reading this thread here:

That is very uneducated use of the word "schizophrenic".  I do not remember people on that thread having halucinations or denying real events or their surroundings

Also you can always enlighten people with your real insight to Google.

cmpm

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2010, 10:43 PM »
"just google it"

has become the standard for search
to which they branched out
teaming with Firefox and IE (until Bing)

indexing every word on the net
google will not disclose what they do with that
although some of it is obvious

and they have the nerve to accuse those who see it as
"having hallucinations" basically

of course they pioneered search results based on page ranking
which is based on what?

40hz

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2010, 10:45 AM »
@cmpm - Um...sorry, maybe I'm denser than usual today, but you completely lost me with that one.   :( ;D

40hz blinks once.
Then thinks and blinks one more time.
All meaning missing.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 10:49 AM by 40hz »

Josh

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2010, 10:55 AM »
and they have the nerve to accuse those who see it as
"having hallucinations" basically

Do you have any sources showing what they are doing with this? I see this claim all the time but rarely see any evidence to back it.

cmpm

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2010, 11:21 AM »
My post should have been in another thread.
Anyway, where do you want to start?

http://www.google.co...amp;client=firefox-a

They have everything from medical records to what movies you watch.

But, I didn't mean this to be as google bash, sorry 40hz.
You are showing what google services we are missing....

40hz

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2010, 01:46 PM »
But, I didn't mean this to be as google bash, sorry 40hz.

No apologies needed. I didn't think you were.

And even if it were a Google bash, I wouldn't have a problem with that.  ;D

Google is one of those perpetually frustrating organizations as far as I'm concerned. They have (or by now it's maybe more like had) a golden opportunity to become something truly great and ennobling as far as web technology was concerned.

Unfortunately, they seem to have turned away from that vision over the years. Maybe it was inevitable that they had to do so. But it still makes me wonder what things might have been like if Google kept to the high road as much as they claim they try to.

You are showing what google services we are missing....



Ah...thank you for seeing that! :Thmbsup:

There's a big difference between an FYI - which is what I intended this to be - and a personal endorsement. This is not an endorsement. It's just an acknowledgment (probably more to myself than anybody else) that things like Google and cloud computing are too big to ignore - and here to stay. And to simply go about your life ignoring them accomplishes little other than to put you at a disadvantage.

The thing that motivated me to post this in the first place was an article by Michale Lankton on the Connected Internet site.

I'm one of those people that doesn't really like the idea of doing all my important things up on the web. I could write an essay on why, but most people here are savvy enough to see the obvious risks (security, accessibility, service downtime, etc.) that there's little point in writing about what's already well understood.

all_your_base.gif

One line in Lankton's article, however, triggered what amounted to an epiphany (of sorts) for me. In answer to why he finally embraced Google Apps he said:

Because my need for synchronization finally outweighed my need to be a software connoisseur.

And the truth found in that simple statement forced me to reevaluate my entire way of thinking about web-based technologies. Lankton chose to use the word "synchronization." But what I think he was really getting at was the need for something I prefer to call ubiquitous access.

Ubiquitous access is the unrestricted ability to get at "your stuff" without regard to access platform or the technology employed to store your data. Think of it as "Anything-Anytime-Anywhere" and you've got it down.

We used to be told that it wasn't necessary to know everything so long as you knew where to go to find the information you needed. Ubiquitous access has a lot in common with that philiosophy.

But enough of me! Read Lankton's article for yourself.

It might not make you happy. But sometimes being unhappy is also the sign of being aware.

Why 2009 Was The Year I Broke Down And Sold My Soul To Google

Michael Lankton | Feb 03, 2010 |

I am somewhat obsessive compulsive. I spend a lot of time researching things that I am interested in. It may be an upcoming electronics purchase, or perhaps I just discovered Malaysian food and now I am methodically visiting all the Malaysian restaurants within driving distance to determine who has the best Char Kway Teow. It is something that usually maddens my spouse, but on the odd occasion gets me a pat on the head for being a genius.

My obsession with operating systems and GUIs has been going on for about 16 years now. I suppose I am no different with software than I am anything else, and a great deal of time goes into deciding which software I use for a given task.

I have been using a Mac at home since early 2002. I have felt that the apps I use on the Mac are superior to their equivalents on the Windows and various unix platforms running X. Better in function, better in form, just better. In the case of my mail client, this is the same mail client I’ve been using since 1997. I have tried other programs over the years, but nothing has supplanted it on my desktop.

Until recently that is.

In 2009 I abandoned the email, calendar, and feed reader applications I’ve been using and started using Google’s web apps.

Why would someone who values good design, simplicity, visual elegance, and good performance switch from using local apps to web applications? Especially when I have always been one for taking functionality out of the web browser and reducing it to the bare function of being simply a web browser?

Because my need for synchronization finally outweighed my need to be a software connoisseur.

...


Link to full article: http://www.connected...d-my-soul-to-google/

 :Thmbsup:


40hz

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Re: Leveraging what Google has to offer
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2010, 02:14 PM »
That is very uneducated use of the word "schizophrenic".  I do not remember people on that thread having halucinations or denying real events or their surroundings

Speak for yourself...  ;) ;D

Now please excuse me. I've got to go tell the driver of that freekin' UFO to get his bloody spaceship off my front lawn!

 :P

« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 02:36 PM by 40hz »