Go Ga Google … a common user’s guide to using Google services!

Google has emerged as a true winner in past one decade as far as online innovations are concerned. May it be individual owners, may it be SME or large business outfits, Google has made difference in each of us in some or the other way. This post is a tribute to Google combining list of services they offer which not many of us may be aware of, but are cool, unique, nice and important.

Google, an operating system to the internet

Google, was initially looked upon as a search engine with a difference, I’ve talked in my earlier post about their history and the difference they have made in terms of tracking the links back to calculate the popularity of the URL, to measure the rank of the page on its merits.

Since then, Google slowly has moved towards becoming an operating system of the internet. Not only it allows you to create and store documents such as word, PowerPoint, excel, and gives you access to web based desktop like email system, it also enables you with host of other services which takes you to the next generation of information & application services. Lets examine the most coolest ones which has power to put you one step ahead of your neighbors …

Alerts – If you are searching for some keyword and wants to keep yourself posted about that information in the future also, Google alert is the key. All you set is the keyword in Google alert and it will keep sending you information on the stuff you are searching for and is important to you.

Google Docs – for those who still aren’t using it, try it at http://docs.google.com with your Google account, it is just amazing and has recently enabled storage of Microsoft Office 2007 format as well. And yes, it supports all Documents (.doc/.docx), Excel, PowerPoint formats.

Offline Gmail – for those who want to browse their email just as they would do it offline in outlook / Eudora etc after disconnecting from the internet, Gmail offline is the key. Google has recently launched Gmail in offline mode, which can be enabled from Labs option in their settings. This uses Google gears to store emails in your own machine and is super duper cool.

Google’s Gmail, docs, calendar for your office for your own domain name

Maybe very little population know that Google’s gmail and docs can work as a wonderful collaborator tool for your office. Yes, Google allows you to freely use Gmail and docs facility just as you would use Outlook and Microsoft office in your office. Gmail can be configured for your own domain name, and its free, just ensure that you do not click on the button which says ‘begin free trial’ there is a link below in plain text which says standard edition which is absolutely free, and then it enables you to use docs and calendar facility as well to schedule meetings, open documents, share documents within your office environment. I believe it has a limit of up to 120 people for a domain name beyond which a company has to purchase their services. But 120 is a lot too for small people like us … isn’t it :)

Google Talk – is perhaps the most popular chat facility, needs no introduction. Still if you need to know, you can simply click here.

Google Groups – Though many people still use yahoo groups as their primary groups, but Google also has Google groups. People love it because of its simplicity, clean interface, high storage and automatic sign in with your Gmail logged in.

Google Maps & Google Earth – created a buzz when they were launched few years back, Google Map was a true desktop like experience on browser, and Google earth was amazingly mapped to the entire earth to zoom up to a 100feet above level to the ground.

Apart from all these, Google has a Blog Search and a blogging platform, a cool browser called Google Chrome, which is really fast, Desktop Search, Image Search, iGoogle, Toolbar etc. Google gives whole lots of goodies in one stop with this Google pack. You can check out whole lots of options by just clicking here.

Google also is cool for developers and allows whole lots of goodies in terms of API’s, open source mobile operating system Android, Google summer of code research projects for students, free hosting and lots more.

Don’t forget to check out my earlier posts, which features Google.org and GE & Google’s collaboration on Energy Partnership and we also talked about Google reader and stuff here…

Needless to say, Google is Google!