Google’s new stuff
While I prefer not be an eary adopter I like new stuff. We all know Google’s been pushing the production of its own software and it’s been a good while since they’ve proven themselves as the creators of the best search engine ever. Let me tell you what do I think about some Google stuff I’ve tried.
Googlemail aka Gmail
What do you get?
A fast and reliable mail service with a vast size that actually grows by time, so there’s no way a normal person will ever exceed that mailbox. All on Ajax basis, all nice and preloaded, fast, handy, easily searchable, etc…
Also yo ucan use it with an external client… I use Thunderbird. And THE TOOL for backing up Thunderbird is MozBackup. I am using Thunderbird since a long time… took some time for them to make it really valuable but now it really is 
Drawbacks?
Well, if you’re used to the classic way people organize stuff then you’ll be disapponted. All mail is in one big bag…pow! BUT you can make your own filters, that work as folders. But they are not real folders, because Unkle Google thinks folders are redundant… so don’t dare call them folders! They are filters 
Oh, one very important thing. Your username is actually smart. It means:
- user.name@gmail.com
- user.name@googlemail.com
- username@gmail.com
- username@googlemail.comuser_name@gmail.com
- user_name@googlemail.com
etc… are ALL THE SAME.
Google Earth
What do you get?
You get a powerful and fun tool to check places on earth, linked with all the community stuff, user-related content, Panoramio shots and other really cool things. I won’t try to name all of them because it’s growing day by day but it really is powerful. Don’t know what does the Pro version cover as I have never ever had the urge to purchase the full software.
Drawbacks?
What really is well done and covered is the U.S. The rest of the world is left -in my opinion- to evolve itself, aka by the users.
Next thing is the reliability of the SW. It crashed on and off on my PCs, different types of Windowses, different SW installed - never knew the reason why. Sometimes you switch off a layer and never switch it on again. Also, e.g. I tried to draw the path in Vienna, Austria from the Naturhistorisches Museum to the Schoenbrunn Castle and the map disappeared. It just disappeared. Tried on 3 PCs… all the same. Don’t know why…
As they upgraded Google Maps so that they are able to display satellite images and vice versa with Google Earth, these two seem to me the same.
Google Talk aka Gtalk
What do you get?
If you have a google account yo can have Google’s chatclient. A barebone as almost all Google products but works as a clockwork. Can’t do much but that works all the time and reliably. If you need to chat this is the tool for you.
Drawbacks?
What’s in it is in it, what ain’t stays out. That means you can write chats, call somebody, send files or mail. That’s it. Finito. No skin, no games, no fancy stuff no nothin’. But who needs ‘em?
Google Reader
What do you get?
You get a powerful feed reader. Supports all known (to me) formats of feeds, is customizable, has some nice features, e.g. it suggests you new subscriptions based on your current subscription profile (I have subscribed to many feeds on GR’s recommendation). Has two interfaces - youwill be asked to choose when you add a new feed.
Drawbacks?
Don’t know about any.
Picasa
What do you get?
You get a very usable fancy working picture viewer utility, the so-to-say country sister of Adobe’s LightRoom. It is capable of doing some standard tasks like red eye reduction, cloning (not that good), color corrections (quite good), etc.
Is able to log in with your google account and upload your photos to your Picasa Web Albums.
Can change the pictures while still leaving the original material untouched, then you can decide to apply the changes and save a new file. Also has some other good features I leave for you to try
The really cool stuff is in the new beta version and that is the picture viewer that is awesome.
Drawbacks?
I still need some REAL picture editing software.
Chrome beta
What do you get?
Here we go again. Please check out this presentation at first.
What do you think, that the messiah of all browsers appeared? Then we’re the same. But the problem is that reality tells about something else. But I’m supposed to mention the pros here, ain’t I?
When you open you get a big white page with a pale blue header. Two “masked” icons with the options/settings on the right and that’s it. You get all the display for the webpage. That’s cool.
When you re-open Chrome, you see the thumbnails of your recently/most used pages. That’s cool, too.
It is able to create application-like stuff from simple webpages…it’s quite usable.
But that’s it! Now let’s see the
Drawbacks!
Remember the header? That’s it. No toolbars, no nothing. I know it’s not the Chrome Team’s job to write them…but I miss ‘em anyways.
You surely remember the ’sandbox’ from the presentation. They promised the tabs to be as separated processes, not affecting each other. Well, I managed to freeze Chrome completely by viewing a simple YouTube video (isn’t youtube also a Google Geekery? Hm…) I know it was the Flash Plugin bu still that was to be separated and we see it wasn’t.
My verdict? It’s a good beta but still has miles to go to be a valuable product.
Google Desktop
What do you get?
You get Google Desktop Search a powerful search engine that seraches everything and everywhere. It also has additional plugins so like they say the fascination never ends 
Just tap Ctrl twice and a search window pops up that finds your files, webpages, web history, whatever!
Has also the Google Sidebar with all thos cool gadgets (as Google calls his little widgets). The basic WMP gadget is very cool, it runs WMP in the background and so you can listen to your music and save some space on your taskbar - and it scrobbles for last.fm
Drawbacks?
Depending on the amount of data you decide to make searchable (aka how much stuff you have on your HDD) it can take up to 8-10 hours to make the index.
Summa summarum
In my opinion Google is the future. They think different, they make good stuff and their products are really usable, They’re not different like Apple (Apple just sucks) they do not make shiny fancy bling-bling software. They make really innovative things. I like Google.
I hope my collegue balazs to comment as he infected me with these and he’s the real Google Geek…
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September 30th, 2008 at 6:05 am
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October 18th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Well not too much, that could be a new post then
Put Reader for example doesn’t support Atom authentication.
Google Desktop is also slowing down some configurations heavily, it simply does NOT find some files, and it doesn’t find folders, which is quite annoying for me.
And the Picasa picture viewer does not animate gifs…