iGoogle, Do You?

I’ve been using Gmail and Google search engine for several years. In the last six months I started using many more of Google’s fantastic and free tools.

Google Calendar: I especially like this because I can share it with other Google users, specifically my husband Norm. We each have our own personal calendar and then we share them with each other so that whenever I look at my calendar on Google I also see appointments that Norm has scheduled as well. Something that could be useful for businesses is also great for families. The neat thing is that I can create separate calendars within my own Google calendar so there are personal things that I want to notate on my calendar view that I don’t necessarily want to share with Norm. All of these different calendars are color-coded so they’re easy to keep track of. If I wanted to I could share any or all parts of my calendar on a webpage. It probably won’t happen anytime soon, but I wanted you to be aware of that useful function. Oh, and least I forget, you can import public Google calendars from the Internet. I did that for US holidays. That function would be useful for community groups.

Google Homepage: it’s the home page for my Firefox browser because of all the Uber cool things I can use there and it has several pretty themes to choose from. Google had tons of “stuff” that you can put on your home page, but I’ll focus on the ones that I find most useful.

Gmail and Google Calendar are both listed on my homepage so I can see at a glance if there is unread e-mail in my inbox and my agenda for the day or the next few days.

Google Bookmarks allows me to add bookmarks my most frequently visited websites. It’s a much shorter list than going to the bookmarks or favorites menu in the browser.

Web Stickies Mod v3.1: customizable sticky notes you can move around your home page. I absolutely adore this because it’s so much easier for me to use than trying to find that little tiny sticky notepad and pen when I’ve got an idea I want to note. There’s no paper clutter because they are virtual. Talk about Green computing.

Google Notebook is very, very useful and you don’t even need to use it with Google home page. It’s a tool that makes research on the Internet fun. For example, I ran across a website that got some very useful information I want to refer to later. I could use the browser bookmark or favorites tool, but Google notebook allows me to make notes about this particular webpage. You could highlight text on the page and it will added to your notebook entry. You can then type your own notes on the entry in your notebook.

I have only scratched the surface on how useful the Google Homepage and other Google tools can be. Using Google’s tools is environmentally friendly because of all the paper you aren’t using and you can login to your Google account from any computer with Internet access so it’s with you wherever you go. Check it out for yourself and see what all the buzz is about.