StigmergicWeb

I love Google Docs and I love the videos made by Common Craft. The combination of the two makes me positively giddy:

Video: Google Docs in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English Our second client production was for the Google Docs team. For the first time, we got a chance to work on a product that we use every day. This video was timed to accompany the release of Google’s new presentation product.

These guys produce the best videos to explain some of the basic web technologies. Their video on RSS is a must view. When I want to explain some of these things to teachers, I’ll point them to these videos. Thanks to MColeman for the link via Twitter.

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We knew this was coming when Google acquired Tonic back in April. And now its here. {Happy dance}

No longer shall we be held hostage by Microsoft. From now on our allegiance shall be with Google. That’s an improvement, right? :^)

The presentation looks pretty good, especially if you go into full screen mode. I don’t know if it handles really complex powerpoint but the straightforward, page-turner stuff looks pretty good. Now we just need an interface for making the presentations and I won’t need to deal with Microsoft Office ever again! Or at least, not so much.

One of the problems that always comes up at my school is students want to be able to work on essays and such at the school and at home. The usual solutions are e-mailing back and forth (tedious, but at least there is a degree of revision control built in) or putting the files on a portable medium such as a USB drive or a CD-ROM. I showed Google Docs to a student the other day, and I could see the light bulb go on over his head. With the Google Apps suite available to schools for free, this is a service that a school or college could offer all students with zero cost to the institution. This is done without students seeing any ads - I’m glad google gets it that it is clearly unethical to use the offer of a free technology service in order to force students to watch ads.

Again, I find myself being a Google fanboy. I know that there is a cost attached - TNSTAAFL, after all - but they seem to be creating/acquiring the web applications that are most valuable for individuals, and for schools.

My name is Rob Wall, and I for one welcome our Google overlords!

I’ve just been using Google Reader to read Wes Fryer’s Using Google Notebook, Google Reader, and Firefox and it made me think about how much I use Google, and how I use Google. Shortly after reading this, I was using Gmail to read and respond to an e-mail from Donna confirming our plans to work on another Ten Things to Know podcast, our next one being about Google services (and Google’s information dictatorship, but that’s another discussion). Google is everywhere in my life! A big chunk of my information is managed using Google through Gmail and Google Reader, not to mention the personalized Google home page.

Every time I open a web browser, the first thing I see is my Google home page. From Google Addiction

I’ve always wanted a Star Trek like console that consolidated all the information I needed to know - and here it is!

While I’m on my Google home page, I might take a look at some of the recent posts from various RSS sources on my Google Reader. From Google Addiction

I can choose to look at all unread items from the RSS feeds, items that I have starred, or items from sources that have been given tags.

One thing I absolutely love about Google Reader is that when I click on the title of any of the posts, a widget opens up where I can read the post, or even go to the original page. From Google Addiction

From Google Addiction

I could list all the ways in which Google Reader has it all over Bloglines, but that’s another post for another day.

As for Gmail … well, its just the best. Nuff said (and I have no screenshots currently).

All the above photos, by the way, I’ve uploaded to my Picasa Web Albums, another cog in the Google machine. When I was using Windows as my primary OS, I used Picasa to organize my photos. Its a great app - whenever someone asks me about an iPhoto equivalent for Windows, it is my first suggestion. If it was available for the Mac, I’d have to give it serious consideration as an alternative/supplement to iPhoto. Once Picasa was acquired by Google, Picasa Web Albums was created. It’s designed, I suppose, to be a Google competitor to Flickr. A main difference between the two services is that Flickr is based around sharing and social networking, whereas Picasa Web Albums seems to be set up as a place to put digital photos online so they can be embedded in web pages, with sharing via albums as a secondary function.

It’s tough to know how to feel about Google. Their control over so much of our information is scary, despite their motto of “Do no evil” - I feel comfortable with their use of my information so far, but what happens when there is a change in management that decides to use the information to do evil. As an open source, open content, open thinking kind of guy, I have mixed feelings about the Goog. I’m uncomfortable with a lot of their proprietary web services (or any web services) since my life is pooched if they ever go out of business or I am unable to access the services. I don’t have a universally usable data archive of the work I have created, since it’s all stored in their servers. At the same time, when I am asked what my favourite operating system is, my response is Firefox. With web based services like those provided by Google, I don’t need many additional apps for my day to day work.

Maybe we need a support group to help people come to term with their Google addiction. I’ll start - my name is Rob, and I’m a Google-holic.

UPDATE - Google has failed me. The default formatting they provide for inserting pictures into a blog puts the picture in a table, which makes the thumbnail really small. Sorry for being in your Google Reader twice for the same post.

Google has acquired JotSpot

Fear the Google-plex. They know all, they search all.

But I’m still keeping my Gmail account. And I’ll probably use the wiki when it is available. I’ve always liked JotSpot but didn’t feel it was worth paying for with so many other free wiki spaces available (like wikispaces or pbwiki). Now I’ll have to give it some deeper consideration. My preference is still to host my own wiki when available, but when I make recommendations to teachers they need something quick, easy and accessible for free. Do we see the outlines of Google Office starting to take shape here?

It has been talked about around the internet for quite some time, but finally it is here (as also noted by Alec Couros). I’ve only played with it for a little while, but so far it looks very good. A lot of the best functions in it are also found in Zimbra, which is probably better suited to an organizational e-mail/calendaring suite (and has the added bonus of being named after a Talking Heads song), but for individual users Google Calendar and Gmail are a killer combination. I’m sure I would have noticed it earlier but today was the first day of Easter vacation, so the day was filled with relaxation, running some minor errands, and time with family topped off with a rousing frisbee session out in the park behind the house. I expect that my disregard of the blogosphere will continue for a few days!

Google is a strange company in the technology world. There are a lot of companies that people either love or hate - Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Intel - but Google is unique in the reaction it provokes. I love it and fear it at the same time.

There’s many reasons to love Google - great search and best web mail experience ever, to name two - but here’s the latest: Gtalk integrated into GMail. This is what I saw when I logged into Gmail today:

Hmm - kind of interesting. And when I moved my mouse over the name, a little box appeared (Holy AJAX, Batman!) with buttons for me to e-mail or chat with that person (if they were using a Gmail account, natch).

Cool! I decided to see if I could chat with Dean, since he was logged in to Gmail talk. Here’s the result:

And when I click on that little pop-out link, I get a brand new chat window like this:

Afterwards, I can look through the whole conversation in the new “Chat” section in my Gmail. Fear not, privacy fear mongers, for I can choose to go off the record while chatting, which prevents the chat from being archived (hopefully on either end).

OK - chat integrated into webmail. That’s definitely cause for some love. But here’s the fear - Google’s new Google Desktop version 3. One new feature in this version is the ability to install Google Desktop on multiple computers and perform a search across all computers. There are some valid reasons for this - many people will have a home PC and a laptop, or a home PC and a work PC, but the electronic frontier foundation is urging consumers to beware the new Google Desktop:

Google today announced a new “feature” of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new “Search Across Computers” feature will store copies of the user’s Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google’s own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user’s computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who’ve obtained a user’s Google password.

The Google Desktop is only available for Windows. This seems as strong a reason as ever to migrate over to linux!