STFU && RTFM

Spending as much time online as I do, Google is an integral part of my day to day routine. This is my top five list of Google apps:
 

• 5: Google Search
  • Google Search has been the market leader for search for years now, and that is not a situation that looks like it is going to end anytime soon. Being the driving force behind many of their other apps, it clearly deserves a spot on this list.
• 4: Google Documents
  • Using Google Documents means that most people can get away with not having any Office-suite installed, such as Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or others. It integrates excellently with Google Mail, and is, in my opinion, the best choice for Netbooks.
• 3: Google Calendar
  • Google Calendar is a perfect example of how a web-based calendar should work. It is simple, intuitive, and allows you to create as many different calendars as you could wish for, as well as subscribing to other calendars.
• 2: Google Chrome
  • The browser wars are definitely on, and one of the contenders is Google Chrome, running on WebKit. It is light-weight, and my second choice for browsers, beaten by Firefox, except for on my Netbook. It seems to run smoother than Firefox on low-end computers, and is yet another example of how a thing like tabbed browsing can be done. I also like the fact that there is no separate search field. Instead, search queries are prefixed “?” when you hit CTRL+K.
• 1: GMail
  • As far as e-mail goes, GMail is the neatest thing since bread came sliced. It is intuitive, simple and quick, and the use of labels rather than folders makes retrieving messages simple. With the power of Google Search behind it, finding an email, more or less any email, is quick and simple.

For the last month or so, I’ve been playing around with Google newest online toy; Google Wave. Billed as a “personal communication and collaboration tool”, it is designed to combine email, IM, wikis and social networking. Written in Java, using OpenJDK, Google has announced plans to release most of the source code as Open Source.
 
As a communications platform, it is fun, and I like the way it combines instant messaging with logs, meaning that you can see how a conversation has taken place. The playback function is simple to use, and allows you to see context in a nifty way. It also means that you can use Wave as a presentation tool, should you so wish.
 
As for using it for project planning and communication, which I think is likely to be one of its most used applications, it looks pretty good. Indenting messages could, and should be simpler – they now get automatically indented if inserted between two other messages, but otherwise they are not indented. That’s definitely a function I’d like to see.
 
Another feature I’d like to see, is an option to share a wave publicly, giving you a URL to post to a tweet, a blogpost or the like, so that people who don’t have a Wave account can see the discussion. I hope this is something that will be coming, and I think it’s likely that we’re going to see it, keeping in mind that this is a feature that the guys at Google are more than somewhat familiar with, as we can find it in Google Calendar as well as Google Docs.
 
The last thing that kinda irks me, is that there is no print-function. While I’m all for a Wave being a digital entity, it would be good, I think to have the option to print a wave. I’ve already had one situation where I wanted to do so, but ended up having to copy all the text over to a document, which somewhat makes the point of the wave go away.
 
All in all, I’m pretty impressed by Google Wave. I see a lot of potential in it, and I’m definitely going to keep playing around with it. I’m already using it to plan one project all by my lonesome, as well as communicating with a mate about the translation of his role playing game to English.

I’ve been looking for a sturdy, simple and preferably free solution to enhance the way I take my computers with me. I’vew recently found just that.
 
It all started a little while ago, with the discovery of the powerful tool Google Gears, which enables me to have my Google Documents, Google Calendar and GMail syncronized to my laptop. I’ve written about it here.
 
Then, I discovered Dropbox. Dropbox isn’t “just” an online storage solution, it is also the perfect choice to automatically syncronize your files across many computers. They offer three account types, Basic (2GB), Pro 50 (50GB) and Pro 100 (100GB). The latter two cost money ($99 and $199 per year, respectively). Basic is free.
 
Most of us don’t usually need to have more than 2 GB of files with us at any given time, meaning that the Basic account will suffice for most of us.
 
The best thing is the sync though. Simply drag and drop your files into the Dropbox folder, and off they go, to your account. Uploading and downloading large amounts of data takes some time, but boy does it work. The client works with both Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
 
Want to get it? Do me a favor, use this link. By doing that, you, and I, get an additional 250 MB of storage on our accounts.

Since its start in 1998, Google has grown to become one of the largest search providers in the world. Here are seven tips to using Google more efficiently:

1. Searching within a specific domain
   • You remember where you read something, but not the exact name of the article. To find all articles containing your search word, enter site: followed by the domain you want to search.

     E.g.: google site:blog.razumny.no

2. Search for a specific filetype
   • You know what kind of file you want, and you know what it’s called. Use filetype: followed by the filetype.

     E.g.: movie filetype:avi

3. Omit words for greater accuracy
   • If you’re getting many unrelated hits, try omitting keywords to increase te number of relevant hits

     E.g.: Paris -Hilton

4. Defining a word
   • You want to know the definition of a word. Use define: followed by the word.

     E.g.: define: recursion

5. Google Calculator
   • Google can be used for pretty advanced mathematical calculations. A list of commands can be found here

     E.g.: The search 1 a.u./c will yield the result
     (1 Astronomical Unit) / the speed of light = 8.31675359 minutes

6. Currency conversion
   • Simply use money code 1 in money code 2

     E.g.: NIS in NOK

7. Include synonyms in your search
   • By placing a tilde (~) before your search word, you'll include synonyms

     E.g.: ~concept will also yield hits for the synonym idea