Great Google Gadgets

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Stefanie Henderson

Stefanie Henderson Revisiting a comment I received from last week’s “Friday Fives”, I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s blog to great “Google Gadgets”. In addition to being (in my opinion) the best search engine in the world, Google makes my life easier on a daily basis. Everyday I open my web browser and iGoogle greets me with multiple “Google Gadgets”. This one-stop-shopping-for-Google-Gadgets incorporates my local and national news, movies in my area, latest and greatest technical deals, web links to my favorite sites, as well as a gadget I created with pictures of my daughter.

In addition to my personalized portal of Google Gadgets, one username and password allows me to utilize even more collaborative tools such as:

Google Reader: Amazing reader that pulls in your RSS feeds. You can share feeds with friends as well as use this reader offline. For example, add the UMassOnline Blog to this reader!
Google Docs: Perfect for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Google Photos (Picasa): Upload photos, organize into albums, and share with family and friends.
Google Maps: Not only can you find and view specific locations, you can also construct custom maps, directions to and from locations, as well as view an area using the “Street View” feature.
GMail: Hands-down the best web email application available with no spam and unique message sorting ability.

What other Google Gadgets are you using? Please comment on this week’s “Friday Fives” and share!

Comments

One Response to “Great Google Gadgets”

Carrie Saarinen on March 6th, 2008 3:14 pm

Hi Stephanie-
I, too, am a huge fan of Google.

My Top 5 Google apps:
1) Gmail - absolutely a can’t-live without item
2) Google Calendar - by far the best free calendaring tool; schedule events, send invitations & track responses; mobile phone or email reminders; integrate with iCal and Microsoft Outlook.
3) Google Reader - my list of feeds grows (I just added UMassOnlineBlog); great for sharing hot topic posts with friends & colleagues
4) iGoogle - every morning I login and on one screen I read my horoscope; learn the ‘word of the day’; am inspired by a ‘quote of the day’; glance at my Google Calendar agenda; and view my Gmail inbox
5) Blogger/BlogSpot @ Google - being able to manage my 3 blogs with one login via a single dashboard makes recording my life more manageable

An honorable mention for Google SketchUp, a free 3D drawing tool which great fun to play with.

I’m not a fan of GoogleDocs. For sharing documents with a select few people, I use Google Groups.

Keep me posted on UMass usage of Google apps!