Do We Really Need Google Plus?

I live in 2 different worlds.

Actually more than 2 it seems as we have different parts of our lives that sometimes don't overlap very much.

The Tech/Geek/Net-connected world is one.

The not connected world is the other.

I'm mostly in the connected world due to all of my online activity.

My wife is not. She is starting to check her Facebook page daily and her email daily. And she will text, but nothing like her daughter.

So I wonder about the continued growth of social networks and social channels and social platforms and social apps and social thing-a ma-gigs.

Facebook is now Mainstream.

Twitter is Mainstream Geeky.

LinkedIn is becoming Mainstream Professional.

Google Plus?

When they launched it last week, I was mostly away from my laptop all day and missed out on the limited edition roll out.

When they reopened it last night, I happened to be online and got started.

But why?

Will it go "Facebook Mainstream"? Will it make it to Mainstream Geeky like Twitter?

The real question is will the mainstreamers who embraced Facebook add Google Plus to their collection of Social Media Communication Tools or will we need a movie, aka The Social Network to push it over the edge.

The truth is it is way too early to tell.

It's like predicting who will win the 2020 election.

What are your thoughts?

Tech Tuesday Tip

Everyone seems to be changing and improving their "stuff".

Twitter, Facebook, and this week I found a guide to Google's latest upgrade to their email service, Gmail from the Mashable website:

Jennifer Van Grove

Gmail Priority Inbox: 5 Tips for Better Productivity

With the launch of Priority Inbox, a radical new way to sort mail, Google has hugely changed the way you can process and manage email. As Gmail Product Director Keith Coleman says, “Once you go priority, you never go back.”

The set-it-and-forget-it solution has actually existed in various states of completion for years, dating all the way back to pre-release versions of Gmail (). The feature was picked up again 18 months ago, and today we can finally experience it for ourselves.

At its core, Priority Inbox is an algorithmic solution to email overload. Gmail attempts to automatically process your email by factoring in variable such as who the email was sent by, how many people it was sent to and the keywords included in the subject and body of the message.

You can use Priority Inbox with its out-of-the-box default settings, or you can tweak it to your liking by using the plus and minus symbols atop the inbox to “teach” Gmail which emails are important.

We’ve also identified a few more complex tips for those of you looking to maximize productivity and use some of the less obvious features of Priority Inbox.

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1. Prioritize Filters

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With Priority Inbox, Google () has also enhanced the functionality of filters. This means you can define whether or not your filters are important and tell Gmail how to automatically process them in your new inbox.

When creating or editing a filter, you now have two new options: “Always mark it as important” or “Never mark it as important.” The former option will ensure that email messages meeting the criteria of your filter will always show up as important and hence in the “Important and unread” section. The latter option will ensure the opposite; it’s a perfect way to create and manage your own rules for less-than-important messages you’d rather not waste the time of teaching Gmail to ignore.

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2. Customize Sections

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Priority Inbox presents you with three default sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else.” These are great starting points for working with the new view of Gmail, but you can also tweak what each of the sections show. There’s even a hidden fourth section that you can create and define, if you so choose.

Next to each section title is an arrow. Click it to view a drop down menu of available options for that section. Here you can adjust your preferences for each section. Should you wish to view all “Important” messages instead of just the unread ones, you can specify that here.

You can click “More options…” to use the section to view messages with a particular label. You can also reconfigure the Starred section to show all Starred conversations, and not just the ones still in your inbox, from the “More options…” menu. Further, you can specify how many messages to show per section: 5, 10, 25 or 50 for each section.

To display the hidden fourth section, navigate to settings and select “Priority Inbox.” Here you’ll notice that the number three section is marked empty. Click the “Add section” arrow to create a fourth section for your Priority Inbox.

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3. Start With a Clean Slate

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Gmail designed Priority Inbox to be a better system for processing emails. In order to reap the full rewards, you’ll want to leverage the “Starred” section as an area for emails that require next actions. Whether you choose to leave the section as is (in inbox and starred), or customize it to show all starred messages (i.e., to include those that have been archived), the best way to start is with a clean slate.

To do so, click “View Starred” to the right of the Starred section, or type “is:starred” in the search field. Then use the checkbox drop down menu and select “All.” That action will select all the conversations shown on the page, but to grab all the messages you’ve ever Starred, you’ll want to click the “Select all conversations” option. From there, select “More actions” and hit “Remove star.”

It’s a drastic maneuver that will eliminate all starred conversations, but it could prove incredibly handy in helping you better mange your email via Priority Inbox.

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4. Use Your “Inbox” for Folders

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Just because you’ve switched to Priority Inbox doesn’t mean you have to completely ignore the traditional inbox. In fact, avid users of Multiple Inboxes, a nifty Google Labs () feature, can still employ their inbox-filtering skills to better sift through and organize email.

For these users, we suggest you try using the Priority Inbox as your main work center and using Multiple Inboxes in your regular Inbox to highlight action items or semi-important emails in a folder-like fashion. The goal would be to configure Multiple Inboxes to compliment your use of Priority Inbox so you can still keep an eye on messages based on their labels or level of importance.

For this approach, enable the Multiple Inboxes feature in Labs, and set up the alternate panes to appear above the inbox. Treat each of the five panes as folders for emails of varying significance. In each pane enter the search query to pull the appropriate emails. “Label:xxxx” or “is:xxxx” is an easy to way to create a pane or inbox for messages with particular labels or status. “Is:unread,” for instance, will show all emails that are unread.

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5. Test Priority with Multiple Inboxes

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If you want to test the Priority Inbox waters without fully committing to the new view of your Gmail, you’ll still want to start by enabling the feature and then configuring your regular Inbox to display “Important” messages. The idea here is to create a workaround to uncover priority messages in your standard inbox.

For this trick, you’ll need to enable the Google Labs Multiple Inboxes feature in your settings. Once that’s enabled, navigate to your Multiple Inboxes settings panel and create a pane to highlight just the messages that Gmail deems important. Enter “is:important” in the search query field and title the section. The end result is an alternate inbox inside your main inbox designed to filter just the important emails.

The only caveat with this method of testing out Gmail’s priority algorithm is that you’ll still need to use Priority Inbox to train Gmail to better distinguish between important and unimportant email messages.

Do you have other tips for using Priority Inbox? Be sure to share them with us in the comments!

Tech Tuesday Tip

Tech Tips for the non-techie:

Last week I was watching as the news broke about how Gmail was going to release a new Priority Inbox feature.

(Gmail is the free, almost never ending, email service that Google provides.)

I have a Gmail account, but I also have a Google Apps Account that I use to manage most of my ScLoHo Marketing Solutions business with. Friday, my Google Apps Gmail account gave me the option of adding the priority feature.

Of course I said yes, and here's the email they sent me:

Priority Inbox^Beta

Welcome to Priority Inbox! By automatically separating out your most important messages, Priority Inbox makes it easy for you to read and respond to the messages that matter.

Get through your email faster

Try reading and replying to the messages in the "Important and Unread" section first. Mark anything that requires follow-up with a star, then go through the "Everything Else" section. If you leave Priority Inbox, you can return to it by clicking the link next to Inbox on the side navigation of Gmail. How it works Gmail's servers look at several types of information to identify the email that's important to you, including who you email and chat with most, how often you email with these people, and which keywords appear frequently in the emails you read.

Train Priority Inbox

If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, you can use the buttons to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important, and Priority Inbox will quickly learn what you care about most.

And more...

• Customize Priority Inbox: You can change what type of email you see in each section (like switching the "Important and Unread" section to just "Important"). Just click on the section headers or visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings and choose to "customize inbox groups."
• Use filters to guarantee importance: If you want to be absolutely sure that some messages are always marked as important (like email from your boss), you can set up a filter and choose "Always mark it as important."
• Search by importance: If you want to see all the messages that have been marked as important, both read and unread, do a Gmail search for "is:important."
• Switching back to your old inbox: If Priority Inbox isn't for you, you can easily switch back to your normal inbox by clicking "Inbox" on the left or hide Priority Inbox altogether from Gmail Settings.

To learn more about managing your email with Priority Inbox, check out the Gmail Help Center.

- The Gmail Team

Google, Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

For quite awhile, I've been urging friends and family to switch to Gmail. I switched from Yahoo and Hotmail to Gmail due to Gmail's spam filtering was so far superior. I now recieve about 300 spam messages a day and over the course of a week, maybe one or two (out of 2000) aren't caught by Gmail.

For the past 8 years, I've worked for a group of radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana and have used Microsoft Outlook to manage that particular email account.

Well a couple of years ago, I set up my Gmail so my radio station email would also show up in my Gmail account. This gives me multiple ways to check, respond and organize email, which is still a necessity these days.

Tech Tuesday Tip

I have a co-worker who is pretty tech-savvy, however yesterday I discovered that they were using Microsoft's Internet Explorer as their one and only web-browser.

So, let's get down to basics here.

Unless your computer is an Apple brand, or a Mac, you probably were told to click on the blue icon and you could visit the World Wide Web.

That's because Internet Explorer is pre-loaded on nearly all computers that are Windows based.

The problem with being so popular is that there are others who are trying to take you down.

There are hackers and other "bad guys" who are looking for vulnerabilities in Microsoft programs that they can exploit, and since Internet Explorer is the most commonly used program to go online, that's where they focus their activities.

Every Tuesday Microsoft issues "Patches" or fixes to their programs which you should download and install in most cases to keep your computer safe and secure.

However, I have noticed that these are less frequent than they used to be. Maybe it's because I am one step behind Microsoft. I have Windows Vista on my laptop not their latest version which is called Windows 7.

There are several alternative ways to go online, and these alternative browsers are free.

FireFox is my default browser. That's the second icon. Click here to go to their website and install it on your computer.

Another popular newcomer is from the folks at Google. They call it Chrome. That's the third icon. Click here to go to their website and install it on your computer.

Generally speaking, Firefox and Chrome are safer to use than Internet Explorer and they have all the bells and whistles, sometimes more, than Explorer.

I have all three installed on my laptop. The only time I use Explorer is when a website that I'm visiting does not function properly in Firefox, which these days is very rare.

Tech Tuesday Tip

This comes from an email I get in my Gmail, (you have a Gmail account, right?!?).

The source is Windows Secrets:

Little-known beta apps enhance Gmail's usability

By Lincoln Spector

While there's much to like about Gmail, there's also much that's missing — such as multiple signatures, hierarchical tags, and the ability to embed pictures as part of your mail.

You might be surprised to learn that Gmail actually does support those features, and about 50 more, in a beta program called Gmail Labs.

Each lab adds something to Gmail, and some are truly worthwhile. Installing preproduction software is usually a bit dicey, but using Web-based beta products doesn't carry much risk. A Gmail lab might break, but it won't damage your PC.

The labs are browser-neutral; I've used the same ones in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome without any problems. Start Labs by going to your Gmail settings and clicking the Labs tab. On the Labs Settings page, enable the individual apps you want to try. Once you have saved the changes, a small green beaker will appear in the upper-right bar on your Gmail screen. (See Figure 1.) Click it from any Gmail window to add or disable Labs.


Figure 1. The Gmail Labs page, accessed by clicking the little green beaker (circled in yellow), is where you enable and disable Gmail's new beta e-mail tools.

Here are my five favorite labs, add-ons I now consider as essential parts of my Gmail experience. I'll finish with a wished-for sixth lab — it doesn't exist, but it should.

Avoid repetitive typing with Canned Responses

We all have strings of text that we enter into e-mails over and over again. They might include your mailing address, a common introductory paragraph, and two or three signatures. Enable Canned Responses, and you'll have to type each of these strings only one more time.

First, type something you'll want to use again; highlight the text; then select the Canned responses link below the subject field. Select New canned response and give your new response a name. (See Figure 2.)


Figure 2. With Gmail's Canned Response lab, you can enter frequently used text and quickly insert it into future mail.

The next time you want to insert those words into an outgoing message, select it from the same Canned responses pull-down menu.

I do have one complaint about Canned Responses: You can't organize your responses or even sort them. It would, for example, be nice to pull several signatures together, collect them into one group, and arrange them in a convenient order. However, they remain listed in the order in which you created them.

Embed photos and illustrations in your e-mail

It's almost pathetic that Inserting Images has to exist as a Lab. It should have been part of Gmail's default features from the beginning. After all, photos and illustrations have been a standard part of e-mail for a very long time. I'm not talking about attached images — I'm referring to images, such as a company logo, that are embedded in the body text.

Before Inserting Images was added to Labs, people had to resort to all sorts of tricks to place a photo inside a Gmail message. A method I used was to create a Google Docs document with text and an embedded image, then copy and paste it into a message.

Once you've enabled the Inserting Images lab, that problem is over. You'll find an image icon in the Gmail editing toolbar. Click that, and you can insert a picture from a local file or from the Internet.

Organize Gmail labels with the Nested Labels lab

The creators of Gmail had a brilliant idea when they replaced the folders metaphor used in most other e-mail programs with labels. But you need the Nested Labels lab to turn those labels into a real organizing tool.

Labels behave much like folders — they are a convenient way to group related e-mails. Click on a label, and you'll see a list of all the messages you assigned to that label, just as you would with a folder in most other e-mail programs.

Labels have one big advantage over folders: you can assign multiple labels to any single message. In most e-mail clients, a message discussing two different projects can be placed into only one folder. In Gmail, you can give it both labels.

As originally conceived, labels also have a big disadvantage. You can't, for example, put a label inside another label, as you can with folders. Think how unruly your hard drive would become if every single folder — My Documents, Windows, System32, Microsoft Office, and thousands of others — all sat directly in the root directory.

This is where Nested Labels becomes essential. With this lab, labels can live inside other labels. (See Figure 3.) If you name one label Projects and another Projects/Conquer World, your Conquer World label will appear nested inside Projects in Gmail's left panel. (It's the slash that tells Gmail what goes in what.)


Figure 3. Use Nested Labels to place one label inside another, as you would folders.

It's not a perfect solution. You can't put one label inside another with a simple drag-and-drop. And the Move to and Labels pull-down menus don't show the nesting. But it's a big step in the right direction.

Mouse around more quickly within Gmail

The Mouse Gestures lab gives you yet another way to navigate around Gmail. It's not a full navigation system, but it nicely augments the basic technique of clicking the appropriate links and icons as well as the keyboard shortcuts.

Finished reading one message and want to go to the next one? With Mouse Gestures enabled, simply hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse slightly to the left. (Moving it to the right brings you to the previous message.) Move it up, and you leave the message and get back to the inbox, where mouse gestures no longer work.

That's it — just those three gestures. But hey, it's free and you don't even have to install anything. And once you're used to them, you won't want to give them up.

Organize e-mail priority with colorful stars

The Superstars lab is an easy way to organize your top-priority messages.

Normally, Gmail displays a little white star outline next to every e-mail. Click it, and it turns bright yellow — a convenient way to make high-priority items stand out. You can even click the Starred link near the top of the left panel to see all your starred items.

With the Superstars lab enabled, clicking that white star will still turn it yellow. But click it again, and it turns blue; click a third time, and you get a green circle with a check mark; a fourth click produces a red circle with an exclamation point. The fifth click starts the cycle over again. (See Figure 4.)


Figure 4. Superstars lets you add both color and organization to your Gmail inbox.

The different icons don't actually change any Gmail behavior — you can't, for example, filter your messages to show only those with a red circle. But they do help you categorize and prioritize e-mail conversations. For instance, you could use the green icon for financial issues, and the red one for top priorities. The result not only gives you more information at a glance, it also makes your screen more colorful.

A lab is needed for managing Gmail conversations

Gmail Labs offers a whole lot more than the five I've described. You can customize keyboard shortcuts, display appointments from Google Calendar, and stop a message seconds after you sent it. You can even put the old Beta notice back into the Gmail icon.

I really like Gmail's conversation metaphor (an enhanced type of e-mail thread); it's one major reason I switched to Gmail in the first place. By keeping each original message and all its replies together as a single unit, Gmail shortened the inbox list and logically connected your various mail discussions. The result made managing e-mail much, much easier.

But you can't separate a message from a Gmail conversation, nor can you put one in. Gmail is only a program, after all, and occasionally it links a message to the wrong conversation. Gmail doesn't offer any way to correct these errors. When a message lands in the wrong conversation, there's nothing you can do about it.

So this is the lab I want to see: Remove from/Add to Conversation. I hope someone at Google is reading this.

Tech Tuesday Tip

What Browser do you use to surf the web?

If you have a PC with a Windows operating system, Internet Explorer is already installed on your computer.

If you have an Apple product, a Mac, then Safari is the default browser.

But there are others you should consider. Firefox is very popular and Google even has a browser that is also free. Read about it from the DLM Blog:

8 Reasons To Use Google Chrome As Your Primary Browser

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 07:52 AM PDT

Google Chrome, the web browser by Google, has been gaining market share steadily since the day it was introduced. And rightly so. It's by far the best browser I've used (and I have used a number of them). I think my productivity has increased significantly since I switched to Google Chrome as my primary browser.

In this article, I give 8 reasons to persuade you to switch to Chrome if you haven't yet. Now, nothing is perfect and there are some caveats here too, but, the pros definitely overshadow the cons and hence I recommend using Chrome.

• It's Very Fast
  Yes, it is. You realize how fast it is when you click on the chrome icon to open the browser. It comes up in a flash, much faster than any other browser. As you start using it, you will find that the webpages also take less time to load.
  
  Chrome is based on Webkit. The Chrome team recently talked about the factors that make it so fast. Sounds convincing and I see it in action every time I use it.
  


• Most Secure Browser
  Not that security vulnerabilities aren't discovered in Google Chrome, but, it is considered to be more secure than its counterparts like IE and Firefox. In fact, it was the only browser that survived the Pwn2Own competition where security experts tried to exploit all the browsers in search for bugs.
  


• Simple Searching
  The address bar in Chrome also acts as the Google search bar. Hence you could just type your search query there and hit enter. It will quickly pull up the relevant Google results. You don't need to first go to Google in order to search. This saves time.
  


• More Screen Real Estate
  One of the best things about Chrome is that it's minimalistic. The browser options are tucked away on the extreme right and that enables it to get you more screen real estate by providing a bigger browsing space.
  
  This feature is quite useful when you are on long webpages and need to scroll down frequently. It also helps bloggers like me to take better screenshots.
  


• Quick Incognito Mode
  The incognito mode in Chrome is a nifty feature. Although private browsing mode was later introduced in Firefox and some other browsers too, Chrome's incognito wins hands down. I particularly like how quickly you could go incognito by pressing Ctrl+Shift+n.
  
  Apart from the obvious use of private browsing, there are several other uses of Chrome's incognito mode. Like, you could log into two Gmail accounts at once using this feature.
  


• Default Bookmark Sync Option
  There's a "Synchronize my bookmarks" feature in Chrome which you can access by clicking on the wrench icon on the top right. You could use this feature to synchronize your Google account. That way you can access your bookmarks if you are using Chrome on a different computer.
  


• No Restart Required When Installing Add-ons
  Yes, unlike Firefox where you need to restart your browser whenever you install a new extension or uninstall an old one, Chrome doesn't require that. And as someone who plays with a lot of add-ons, I can tell you, this feature saves a lot of time and frustration.


• It's from Google!
  Right, I love Google. They are known for their quality products and hence I believe Chrome has better days ahead. Now, some would argue that it's giving too much power to one firm, but, considering that most of us are pretty much dependent on Google and its services, it doesn't harm to try out their browser too. Oh, by the way, I did write an article on how to free yourself from Google in case you are interested.
  

So that was about it. If you've been using Chrome as your main browser, I'd love to know how's the experience and what made you switch. Let's hear them in comments.

Cheers,

Abhijeet

Written on 4/3/2010 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Randy Zhang

100 Google Tips

No, I didn't write this.

And I haven't tried all 100 yet.

Here's my source: http://blog.rnicusan.ro/?p=172

Now, have fun:

Search Tricks

These search tricks can save you time when researching online for your next project or just to find out what time it is across the world, so start using these right away.

1. Convert units. Whether you want to convert currency, American and metric units, or any other unit, try typing in the known unit and the unknown unit to find your answer (like “how many teaspoons in a tablespoon” or “10 US dollars in Euros”).
2. Do a timeline search. Use “view:timeline” followed by whatever you are researching to get a timeline for that topic.
3. Get around blocked sites. If you are having problems getting around a blocked site, just type “cache:website address” with website address being the address of the blocked site to use Google’s cached copy to get where you are going.
4. Use a tilde. Using a tilde (~) with a search term will bring you results with related search terms.
5. Use the image search. Type in your search word, then select Images to use the image search when trying to put a picture to your term.
6. Get a definition. If you want a definition without having to track down an online (or a physical) dictionary, just type “definition:word” to find the definition of the word in your results (i.e.: “definition: serendipity” will track down the definition of the word “serendipity”).
7. Search within a specific website. If you know you want to look up Babe Ruth in Wikipedia, type in “site:wikipedia.org Babe Ruth” to go directly to the Wikipedia page about Babe Ruth. It works for any site, not just Wikipedia.
8. Search within a specific kind of site. If you know you only want results from an educational site, try “site:edu” or for a government site, try “site:gov” and your search term to get results only from sites with those web addresses.
9. Search for a specific file type. If you know you want a PDF (or maybe an MP3), just type in “filetype:pdf” and your search term to find results that are only in that file type.
10. Calculate with Google. Type in any normal mathematical expressions to get the answer immediately. For example, “2*4″ will get you the answer “8.”
11. Time. Enter “what time is it” and any location to find out the local time.
12. Find a term in a URL. This handy trick is especially useful when searching blogs, where dates are frequently used in the URL. If you want to know about a topic for that year only and not any other year, type “inurl:2009″ and your keyword to find results with your keyword in URLs with 2009 in them.
13. Use Show Options to refine your search. Click “Show Options” on your search result page to have access to tools that will help you filter and refine your results.
14. Search for a face. If you are looking for a person and not just their name, type “&imgtype=face” after the search results to narrow your results to those with images of faces.

Google Specifically for Education

From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school.

1. Google Scholar. Use this specialized Google search to get results from scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, and academic publishers.
2. Use Google Earth�s Sky feature. Take a look at the night sky straight from your computer when you use this feature.
3. Open your browser with iGoogle. Set up an iGoogle page and make it your homepage to have ready access to news stories, your Google calendar, blogs you follow in Google Reader, and much more.
4. Stay current with Google News. Like an electronic clearinghouse for news, Google News brings headlines from news sources around the world to help you stay current without much effort.
5. Create a Google Custom Search Engine. On your own or in collaboration with other students, put together an awesome project like one of the examples provided that can be used by many.
6. Collect research notes with Google Notebook. Use this simple note-taking tool to collect your research for a paper or project.
7. Make a study group with Google Groups. Google Groups allows you to communicate and collaborate in groups, so take this option to set up a study group that doesn�t have to meet face-to-face.
8. Google Code University. Visit this Google site to have access to Creative Commons-licensed content to help you learn more about computer science.
9. Study the oceans with Google Earth 5. Google Earth 5 provides information on the ocean floor and surface with data from marine experts, including shipwrecks in 3D.
10. Learn what experts have to say. Explore Knol to find out what experts have to say on a wide range of topics. If you are an expert, write your own Knol, too.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a great replacement for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so learn how to use this product even more efficiently.

1. Use premade templates. Use these 50 pre-made templates to track spending, keep up with your health, and much more.
2. Collaborate on group projects. Google Docs allows for real-time collaboration, so make easy work for everyone next time you have a group project due.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts. Use this handy list of keyboard shortcuts to save lots of time while using Google Docs.
4. Create online surveys for research projects. Quickly and easily create online surveys for any research project that requires feedback from others. The answers are saved to your Google Docs account.
5. Add video to your presentation. Learn how to seamlessly add video to your Google Docs page to really give your presentation or project a boost.
6. Use the school year calendar template. Have an easy to use school year calendar through Google Docs by following these instructions.
7. Create graphs from spreadsheets. Once you have populated a spreadsheet with data, you can easily create a graph. Google Docs allows for pie, bar, line, and scatter graphs.
8. Create a new document with shortcuts. Learn two ways to open a new Google Docs page with these tricks.
9. Right click to use save-as. Use the right click save-as option to save a Google Docs document on your computer.
10. Send invitations. School shouldn�t be all about work. Find out how to send party invitations using Google Docs.

Gmail

The super-popular Gmail is full of fun and fast ways to make your life and communications easier.

1. Use the Tasks as a to-do list. Use the Tasks available in Gmail as a way to stay on top of assignments, exams, and project due dates.
2. Use the Archive feature. One of the great features of Gmail is that it allows you to archive emails to get them out of your inbox, then you can use the search feature to find them if you need them again.
3. Highlight mail with labels. Use labels to mark your messages. You can find them easily while in your inbox and do a search for all the messages with that label after you archive them.
4. Never forget to attach a file. By signing up for the Labs, you can select to have the Forgotten Attachment Detector. This feature notices if you have typed something about an attachment in the body, but are sending without actually attaching anything�a great tool to save time and embarrassment.
5. Use keyboard shortcuts. Go to Settings and enable keyboard shortcuts so you can perform common tasks at the touch of just one or two keys.
6. Add multiple attachments. Use the Control (or Cmd on Macs) and Shift keys to select more than one file to attach to your email at one time.
7. Use the https option. Google recommends using this option if you use your Gmail in public places like a dorm or coffee shop to add an extra bit of protection to your Internet activities.
8. Incorporate Google Calendar and Docs on your Gmail page. Have access to recent documents used in Google Docs and get an agenda of upcoming activities you have on Google Calendar with small boxes added to your Gmail page. Go to Labs to select this option.
9. Add a “Waiting for Response” label. If you have emails in your inbox that you are holding until someone gets back to you, creating this label keeps you from forgetting to follow up on it later.
10. Use Canned Responses. If you find yourself writing the same type of email over and over, use the Canned Responses feature in the Labs to create a template that you you can use without having to type out the entire email every time.
11. Consolidate email accounts. If you have a Gmail account, an account through school, and any other account you are juggling separately, combine them all into Gmail to cut down on time spent checking all those accounts.
12. Use AIM in Gmail. If you use AIM to IM friends or partners on projects, add it to the chat feature already in Gmail to have access to both.

Google Calendar

Save yourself some time by keeping track of appointments, assignments, and more with Google Calendar.

1. Sync up with others using iCal or Sunbird. Google lets you sync your calendar with others using Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird.
2. Customize reminders. Set reminders in your Google Calendar so that you never forget an appointment again. Choose from email, pop-up, or SMS reminders and even set when the reminder comes.
3. Learn some basic keyboard shortcuts. Change from daily to weekly to monthly view, compose a new event, and more with these simple shortcuts.
4. Use Quick Add. Click on Quick Add and type the day and time and what you are doing to have the calendar create the event with the correct time and date.
5. Use multiple calendars. Create separate calendars for school work, personal information, important due dates, and more to stay ultra-organized.
6. Get a text message with your daily agenda. Keep up with all that you need to do for the day without ever having to log on to your Google Calendar.
7. Set weekly repeats for any day. The drop-down menu only offers M/W/F or T/Th options for repeating events. Go to “Every Week” and customize which days you want the event to repeat.
8. Get upcoming events while away from the computer. Check out #8 in this list to learn how to access your upcoming events via your phone.
9. Add events from Gmail. If you receive an email with event time and date information, you can easily add this event to your calendar by clicking “Add to calendar.”
10. Invite others. If you have events on your calendar that you want to invite others to join, just add their email address under Add Guests within the event.

Google Mobile

Whether riding the bus or walking to class, use Google Mobile to stay productive while away from your computer.

1. Sync your calendar. Never be far from your Google Calendar when you sync it to your phone.
2. Check your email. Keep your email right at your fingertips with Gmail for mobile.
3. Access your blog subscriptions. Keep up with your blogs and news feeds that you subscribe to through Reader right on your phone.
4. Use Google Voice to consolidate phone numbers. If you have a phone in your dorm or apartment, a cell phone, and any other phone numbers, consolidate them into one number with Google Voice.
5. Easily find friends. Find out where your friends are and even get a map with directions for how to get there with Google Latitudes.
6. Find out information easily while on the go. Whether you are looking for a great place to eat dinner, wondering what the weather is like, or want to know what the Spanish word for “bathroom” is, just text your information to Google (466453â��spells Google on your phone) to get the answer texted back right away.
7. Access iGoogle. Get your iGoogle page formatted just for the smaller screen size of your phone.
8. Read your Google Docs. Have access to all your Google Docs items right on your phone.
9. Keep a to-do list on your phone. Use Google Tasks for mobile so you can access your to-do list any time�and check off what you�ve finished, too.
10. Never get lost again. Google Maps is an interactive program for most smart phones that offers tons of features so you will never have to be lost again.
11. Do a quick search anywhere. Find information with a Google search from your phone to impress your professors and your friends.
12. Access Google Books. Android and iPhone users can access Google Books on their phones.
13. Post to your blog. Use your mobile to post to your Blogger blog.

Google Chrome Tips and Extensions

If you are using the Google Chrome browser, then you will love these time-saving tips and extensions.

1. Use a “Pin Tab”. If you have multiple tabs open, use a “Pin Tab” to make the tabs the size of the little icon on the left side.
2. Don�t overlook Paste and Search and Paste and Go. These two features are available when you right-click to add a word or URL to Chrome and will save you an extra step.
3. Reopen a closed tab. Oops! If you didn�t mean to close that tab, just press Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen it.
4. Use the Chrome shortcuts. Open a new tab, see your history, maximize your window, and much more with these shortcuts.
5. Take advantage of the address bar. With Google Chrome, you can use the address bar to perform a Google search, quickly access pages you�ve already visited, and get recommendations for places to go.
6. Go incognito. If you don�t want to leave traces of where you were browsing, use incognito mode instead of having to go back and delete your history and cookies.
7. Use the bookmarks manager. Stay organized, rearrange bookmarks, search for bookmarks, add folders, and much more with the bookmark manager.
8. ChromePass. This tool will give you a list of all the password information stored in Google Chrome.
9. Save as PDF. Save any page as a PDF with this bookmarklet.
10. ChromeMailer. If you�ve lost valuable time when having to manually enter email information from a website because Google Chrome doesn�t support the mailto: function, then you will love this extension.
11. Google Chrome Backup. Back up your personal data, bookmarks, and more with this simple tool.

Google Books

Learn how Google Books can save you time and trips to the library with these tricks.

1. Search full text. Google Books offers full text for over 10,000 books, so look here the next time you are researching something at the last minute.
2. Use “About this book”. At the top left of the page of a book, clicking this link will give you helpful information such as the table of contents, related books, and a map of places mentioned in the book.
3. Create a personalized library. Click on “Add to my shared library” to start your own personalized library where you can label books to keep them organized for each class or project.
4. Find books in your college library. Each book in Google Books has a link to find the book in a library. It can tell you exactly where to look at your own school.
5. Use the Advanced Book Search. If you can�t find the book you are looking for, try the advanced search, which provides you with many more detailed options.
6. Access text books. Many text books are available on Google Books, so see if you can save a trip to the bookstore next semester.
7. Search for magazine content. Select Magazines in the Advanced Book Search to locate information from magazines.
8. Read the blog. Google Books is constantly evolving, so stay on top of all the latest news with the Inside Google Books blog.
9. Find books to supplement your assigned texts. Search by subject to see what books you may be able to read to get the extra leg up in your classes.

Handy Google Services and Apps

These other Google products will help you save time by offering you everything from alerts to online collaboration to help working with data sets.

1. Google Alerts. Sign up to get email notifications any time a topic you designate shows up in Google search results. This is a great way to stay current with a project or news story.
2. Google Desktop. Keep a clock, weather, news stories, Google search box, and more all within easy reach when you use Google Desktop.
3. Google SketchUp. If you need to draw 3D figures for class, use Google SketchUp to do so easily and free of charge.
4. Google Talk. This versatile app is more than just for IMs. You can switch to voice, do a video chat, and send texts, too.
5. Google Images. Google has an incredible image search feature that will provide you with tons of high-quality images you can use in presentations.
6. Google Translate. Don�t spend time looking up stuff in books, use Google Translate to get foreign words translated right away.
7. Google Wave. This brand new Google product shows great promise for anyone collaborating, but especially for those in school. Communicate, create documents, and more�all in real-time.
8. Google Finance. Business students can keep track of markets, news, portfolios, and more in one place.
9. Google Toolbar. Have easy access to Gmail, Google search, bookmarks, and more with this toolbar available for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
10. Picasa. Manage your photos and even incorporate them into your blogs and emails with Google�s streamlines photo manager.
11. Google Squared. Find facts and organize them with this search feature from Google Labs.
12. Google Fusion Tables. If you are working with data sets, then you will love this program that will allow you to upload data, create visual representations, and take part in discussions about the data.
13. Blogger. Create a blog as a part of a project or just to stay in touch with friends and family in an easy way.

Be a Better Googler

I sort of forgot my afternoon update.

So here you go from the MakeUseOf.com website:

6 Ways To Reduce Irrelevant Results On Google Search

The internet is not your library and if you thought a ton of books was an overwhelming amount of information, think again.

The internet doesn’t contain just a few dozen or hundred relevant sources, no, it contains millions or billions or even more. To make things worse, there is no friendly and intelligent librarian to help you sort through all this information. It’s only you and a stupid search engine. You better act smart.

The challenge when searching online is to find only relevant information or – in other words – avoid irrelevant results on Google search. In this article I will show you 6 ways to reduce these false hits, so that you get better overall search results.

Surprisingly, the most effective way to reduce irrelevant results on Google search, may be not to use Google’s search engine in the first place. Read on to understand why.

1. Use Multiple Keywords

Use multiple keywords to receive more specific results on your first search engine results page (SERP).

2. Use Google Suggest

When you enter the first letters of a keyword into the search bar, Google will suggest popular keywords other people have used in their searches. Follow these suggestions and see whether they can help you gain better results.

3. Use Operators to Properly Connect Keywords

This is a whole article of its own and fortunately it has already been written. Please have a look at my article on Google Operators for an overview. You can use each of these “commands” to improve your search results. Here I will mention only the three most helpful ones.

• Use Negative Keywords

If you’re seeing irrelevant results, identify a keyword that has nothing to do with what you’re looking for and make it your “negative keyword”. Simply add it to your search query with a minus symbol in front of it, for example if you were looking for the band Gossip, you would search for [gossip -celebrity] (without the brackets).

• Use Quotes

This is most commonly used to find an exact match. Since Google already uses the AND operator to connect single keywords per default, you won’t need quotes to find exact matches in most cases.

However, if you find that Google returns results with highlighted keywords that are spelled completely different from what you entered, try to put these single words into quotes and try again. This will prevent Google from “finding” more popular keywords that are only vaguely similar to your search term.

• Search Within a Specific Website

If you don’t want to search the entire internet, but instead a specific URL, this operator is of great help. Type [site:URL "your search query"], for example [site:http://wikipedia.org "brandenburg gate"].

This MakeUseOf Poll compiled by Aibek features some more Best Google Search Tips & Operators.

4. Use Advanced Search

If you can’t be bothered with manually typing operators, you can use Google’s Advanced Search. It allows you to exclude words, search for results in a specific language or specific files, and search within a site or domain. As you enter the details, the search query is automatically composed for you.

5. Use Google Chrome With Quick Scroll

One of the most annoying parts of following a search result is finding the relevant part within the page that opens. The Google Chrome extension Quick Scroll helps you tackle this issue as it provides a quick way to scroll to the parts in that website that are relevant to your query.

We have profiled Quick Scroll in the MakeUseOf Directory.

In Firefox you could simply use Quick Find, i.e. “find in text as you type” to quickly find the keywords again. However, if you’re into Google Chrome, you should check out these 8 Cool Google Chrome Extensions for Google Services, an article written by Tim earlier this month.

6. Ditch Google

Google is the most popular search engine and as such it has a lot of power. Google naturally has full control over its search algorithm. This in turn has a great impact on what results you will see, i.e. those you actually want to see or those that Google wants you to see.

There are two major variables that determine which results are recognized as relevant for your search: Link Authority (a.k.a. PageRank) and Keyword Relevance. Keyword relevance is straight forward. How well do the keywords you entered match the result, how often do they appear throughout the website, are they included in links pointing to that site, etc? Actually, this is all that you’re looking for when using a search engine.

Google, however, is biased towards link authority. The number of links pointing to a certain page determines its “authority” or PageRank. The more, the better. Unfortunately, this means that keywords only remotely related to a high PageRank site may cause this site to appear on your SERP, no matter how relevant it really is. The advantage is that you’ll see a lot of results from reputable high impact pages like Wikipedia or MakeUseOf. On the other hand you may miss out on many more relevant results from smaller pages. That’s not necessarily what you want.

So what can you do? You cannot change Google’s algorithm. However, if you keep seeing irrelevant search results, no matter how well you tune your search, there is one more thing you can do to get better results: don’t use Google’s search engine in the first place.

Yahoo’s search engine, for example, is less biased towards link authority and will thus provide you with much better search results. For a detailed analysis and examples, please see Troy Philis’ article on More Irrelevant Google Search Results.

What are your experiences with Google search and what has helped you to get the most relevant results?

Video Time: The Google Story

11 years in 2 minutes:

Another Google Post

It seems like this is getting to be a weekly habit. But I use Google for a lot of my work and internet activities, and when I saw this a few days ago, I wanted to pass it on to you too. Drew wrote this:

Why every business needs a Google account

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 12:07 PM PDT

I am pretty sure that Google will someday rule the world. And while my "less governance is better governance" belief runs through every vein...I do have to say, "hail to the king!"

Here's why your business needs to have a Google account:

Google Local Business Center (www.google.com/lbc): The LBC is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their business listings as they appear in Google Search and Google Maps. All you have to do is claim your listing in the LBC and go through a quick verification process to get access to the following kinds of data:

• Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
• Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.
• Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee"?
• Zip codes where driving directions come from: Which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/): Google Analytics is a web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.

Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Google Docs (docs.google.com): is a free, Web-based word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and form application offered by Google. You can import your existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, or create new ones from scratch. You can invite people to your documents and make changes together, at the same time.

Google Calendar (calendar.google.com):

• Share your schedule- web based
• Get your calendar on the go
• Never forget another event again with built in reminders via email or text
• Send invitations and track RSVPs
• Sync with your desktop applications(Outlook, iCal and Sunbird)
• Work offline

Google Mail or GMail (mail.google.com): Gmail is the Google approach to email and chat. Practically unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail's simple but very smart interface lets you find them precisely and see them in context without effort. POP and powerful IMAP access bring Gmail to any email program or device.

And I'm not even going to get into Google Wave, AdWords, or AdSense. If you want to read more about ALL of Google's tools, check out their Google Business Solutions page.

Bottom line -- no business but especially no small or local business can afford not to take advantage of Google's free tools. Don't miss out.

More Google Search Tips

this is from RBR.com:

Must-Have Google Search Skills

Most everyone uses Google search these days, but most people never get beyond the basic technique of putting words in the text box and pressing the search button. While this search method will usually find the result you need, it may require a time-wasting journey through page after page of results to actually track down the specific information you had in mind.

The goal with a Google search is to find the link you want on the very first page of results. If it isn't there, then you need to narrow your search parameters. Don't go through the time consuming task of searching page after page of search results. Instead, laser your search criteria and let Google do the hard work for you.

So how do you do that? Below are some simple tips that will help you find specific information more efficiently.

1) Quotes
When searching for terms that are conveyed with multiple words, put them in quotations. If you search for information on the movie Princess Diaries, you will get results for every princess who ever traipsed through a child's storybook, and every personal diary that was ever posted on the web. Include quotes around "Princess Diaries" and it will exclude entries that do not have those two words appearing right next to each other.

This is especially helpful when searching for quotes from other people. Do you have a few words from a quote in your head but you aren't sure of the context or who said it? Put "four score and seven years ago" in quotes and the Gettysburg address appears right at the top of the search list. Entries that include a football score, the Four Seasons hotel and The Wonder Years will be excluded.

2) Negative keywords
Put a minus symbol in front of a word to exclude it from the search results.
Let's say you are searching for information on "Barney Fife" from the Andy Griffith show. Google will go out and find every occurrence of both the word "Barney" and "Fife." This means you'll get results about that famous purple dinosaur and the musical instrument used in marching bands. To exclude these results your search should include:
Barney Fife -dinosaur -music

This will exclude entries that have these two words on the page. It is important that the negative sign be right next to the word. Make sure there are no spaces. Use as many negative keywords as you like. This is especially helpful when searching for people's names on Google. For example, there is a real estate professor at the University of Sydney with my identical name. When I search for hits on my name, I include the negative keywords:
"Graeme Newell" -Sydney -"Real Estate."

3) Positive Keywords
By putting a plus sign in front of a word, you're telling Google to give that word extra importance. Let's say you live in Cleveland and you're doing a search for daycare in your area. You really want something close by. Your search might include: daycare, Cleveland, and your zip code. By putting a plus sign in front of your zip code, Google will give that term more weight. So the search would look like:
Daycare Cleveland +44104

This will bring up entries that move results with this zip code to the top of the list. Again, make sure that plus sign is tucked up right next to the word that requires added attention.

4) Combine these techniques to create search criteria that use many words
Don't waste your time going through page after page of search results. Weed out the garbage by spending a few extra seconds composing a laser search criteria. You will make up the time on the back end. Google's search box can handle up to 32 words and it automatically ignores common words like "and, the, a, to." Let's say you're looking for information on a 2004 Ford Taurus. Your search should be long and detailed:
+Taurus Ford 2004 -Henry -"Model T" -"Model A" -bull -astrology -sign +car

Remember, if you don't find what you want on the first page of search results, don't go to page two. Instead, narrow your search and try again.

-- Graeme Newell, President of 602 Communications, is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. gnewell@602communications.com
www.602communications.com
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell
Twitter: gnewell

A better way to Google It

Last week I featured some G-mail Tips.

Today, let's learn how to Google and get better search results.

From the DLM Blog:

20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searches

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 08:35 AM PDT

For millions of people Google is an indispensable search tool that they use every day, in all facets of their lives. From work or school, research, to looking up movies and celebrities to news and gossip, Google is the go-to search engine.

But instead of just typing in a phrase and wading through page after page of results, there are a number of ways to make your searches more efficient.

Some of these are obvious ones, that you probably know about. But others are lesser-known, and others are known but not often used. Use this guide to learn more about, or be reminded of, some of the best ways to get exactly what you're looking for, and quickly.

1. Either/or
   Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator -- or use the "|" symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke. [dumb | little | man]


2. Quotes
   If you want to search for an exact phrase, use quotes. ["dumb little man"] will only find that exact phrase. [dumb "little man"] will find pages that contain the word dumb and the exact phrase "little man".


3. Not
   If you don't want a term or phrase, use the "-" symbol. [-dumb little man] will return pages that contain "little" and "man" but that don't contain "dumb".


4. Similar terms
   Use the "~" symbol to return similar terms. [~dumb little man -dumb] will get you pages that contain "funny little man" and "stupid little man" but not "dumb little man".


5. Wildcard
   The "*" symbol is a wildcard. This is useful if you're trying to find the lyrics to a song, but can't remember the exact lyrics. [can't * me love lyrics] will return the Beatles song you're looking for. It's also useful for finding stuff only in certain domains, such as
   educational information: ["dumb little man" research *.edu].


6. Advanced search
   If you can't remember any of these operators, you can always use Google's advanced search.


7. Definitions
   Use the "define:" operator to get a quick definition. [define:dumb] will give you a whole host of definitions from different sources, with links.


8. Calculator
   One of the handiest uses of Google, type in a quick calculation in the search box and get an answer. It's faster than calling up your computer's calculator in most cases. Use the +, -, *, / symbols and parentheses to do a simple equation.


9. Numrange
   This little-known feature searches for a range of numbers. For example, ["best books 2002..2007] will return lists of best books for each of the years from 2002 to 2007 (note the two periods between the two numbers).


10. Site-specific
    Use the "site:" operator to search only within a certain website. [site:dumblittleman.com leo] will search for the term "leo" only within this blog.


11. Backlinks
    The "link:" operator will find pages that link to a specific URL. You can use this not only for a main URL but even to a specific page. Not all links to an URL are listed, however.


12. Vertical search
    Instead of searching for a term across all pages on the web, search within a specialized field. Google has a number of specific searches, allowing you to search within blogs, news, books, and much more:
    
    • Blog Search
      
    • Book Search
      
    • Scholar
      
    • Catalogs
      
    • Code Search
      
    • Directory
      
    • Finance
      
    • Images
      
    • Local/Maps
      
    • News
      
    • Patent Search
      
    • Product Search
      
    • Video
      
13. Movies
    Use the "movie:" operator to search for a movie title along with either a zip code or U.S. city and state to get a list of movie theaters in the area and show times.


14. Music
    The "music:" operator returns content related to music only.


15. Unit converter
    Use Google for a quick conversion, from yards to meters for example, or different currency: [12 meters in yards]


16. Types of numbers
    Google algorithms can recognize patterns in numbers you enter, so you can search for:
    
    
    
    • Telephone area codes
      
    • Vehicle ID number (US only)
      
    • Federal Communications Commission (FCC) equipment numbers (US only)
      
    • UPC codes
      
    • Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airplane registration number (US only)
      
    • Patent numbers (US only)
      
    • Even stock quotes (using the stock symbol) or a weather forecast regarding the next five days
      
17. File types
    If you just want to search for .PDF files, or Word documents, or Excel spreadsheets, for example, use the "filetype:" operator.


18. Location of term
    By default, Google searches for your term throughout a web page. But if you just want it to search certain locations, you can use operators such as "inurl:", "intitle:", "intext:", and "inanchor:". Those search for a term only within the URL, the title,
    the body text, and the anchor text (the text used to describe a link).


19. Cached pages
    Looking for a version of a page the Google stores on its own servers? This can help with outdated or update pages. Use the "cached:" operator.


20. Answer to life, the universe, and everything
    Search for that phrase, in lower case, and Google will give you the answer.

For more on Google's search syntax, see this guide, and this one.

Written for Dumblittleman.com on 06/07/2007 by Leo Babauta and republished on 10/3/09. Leo offers advice on living life productively simple at his famous Zen Habits blog.

Photo Credit: manfrys