Friday, November 03, 2006

Day 3: I Heart Google

Google is so commonplace now that I often hear people say, "You should Google that." Have I told anyone how much I love Google? No? Oh, well, ok then.



I have everything I can feasably use that Google makes. I have Gmail. Love, love, LOVE that. Trust me when I say that (I think) Gmail is better than anything else. Mostly. I've tried Hotmail. I've tried Yahoo!. I've had many an OutLook account with the various companies I've worked for. I have nothing against any of these reputable companies. I still use all of them even. I use Hotmail for people that I rarely talk to. I don't know why. I guess it's because it's the first email of my own that I ever had. Call it sentimental. I use Yahoo! for spam. If I ever have to register for something online and they want my email, I give them the Yahoo!. I have to use OutLook for work, and it serves it's purpose well. However, Gmail is the only one that makes me happy. For one thing, no more having to create several different folders for storing my old mail. Instead, I just hit "archive", and poof! It dissapears. But there's more! Let's say I want to find that long ago forgotten-about message from Auntie Edna. I just use Google's handy-dandy search feature built right into my email, and poof! Any and all messages from Auntie Edna magically appear on my screen. I don't know where they've been hiding, nor do I care. They've just appeared when I wanted them to. Ok, let's get more complicated. What if my best friend and I send each other no less that 30 emails to each other every single day, but I need to find a very specific conversation about, oh God, I don't know...nail polish. Now, with any other email account, each and every email that she and I send back and forth would be stored separately from each other, and for one week that would be something like, 150 emails, easily, that I'd have to check one by agonizing one for that one crucial detail about nail polish and how it could cause World Peace or something. If that were the case, I don't think I'd ever find that dang email. I'd be too frustrated by the endless sea of email. But, no! World Peace can be found within Gmail quite easily! See, in Gmail, when you and a friend are sending messages back and forth to each other and they have the same subject line, each response gets tacked onto the end of the conversation. All the previous messages are condensed, so they're not "in the way", and the new message is on top. Neat! That's why I love it. Now, back to nail polish and World Peace. I would just type in the search box "nail polish, world peace" and it would find that one email and highlight the part I'm looking for! It's such a smart mail server. Now, it's not perfect, mind you. It's relatively new and theoretically it's still in Beta. I'm not happy about the fact that it doesn't support smiley faces (emoticons, or whatever). I mean, how can I convey real feeling if I can't go :)? Or :D? Frustrating, I tell you! But, all that aside, I love it.



...walks away from computer, thinks about it till after work*...



I also really like Google Earth. That is single-handedly the.best.program.ever. Also, Picasa Photo Editor. Easy enough for someone who's never done much photo editing.



Google Personalized Homepage is also another of my favorites. You should see it. See, I'm a celebrity gossip (and blog) junkie. Shhhh! Don't tell anybody, especially my boss. I have no less than... (number removed out of shame)(*hangs head) a certain amount of links that I can always keep track of updates. Favorite blogs, news feeds, things like that.



Meh. I'm tired. I was going to put up all kinds of links to give Google and it's fine features the props it deserves, but no.



What kind of computer programs do you recommend?







*never try to half-write something and then go home. Inner Critic nightmare.

2 comments:

Katrina said...

Ooooh, you are making me want to take my husband up on that gmail invitation he's always offering me! I had no idea it did so many cool things. Also, my other address which I thought I had guarded with my life's blood from getting out on the internet has now been so inundated with spam that if I miss a day of cleaning out my email box, I easily collect over sixty messages advertising stocks, bonds, and viagra.

Also, don't get me started about Picasa. BEST photo editing program EVER.

Amy said...

I "google" things, but I haven't gotten as engrossed in google as others. I don't have gmail, I have hotmail and yahoo but now I am feeling left out. hmmm... And I'll have to check out this picasa thing.