Have You Tried Google Desktop and Notebook?
July 20, 2007 by Lillie
In addition to being the largest search engine, Google offers a number of tools. You can find them at About Google.
I find two of the tools especially useful.
- Google Desktop lets you search your own desktop just like you search the Internet. I prefer this to the search function in Microsoft Windows. Searching on Google is second nature, and the searches include Web pages you’ve visited as well as documents on your computer.
- Google Notebook makes it easy to clip information from Web sites and make notes to yourself. You can create numerous notebooks and organize your information the way it works best for you. I have notebooks for articles I want to return to read later, blog topics, tech tips, and others. When I’m browsing the Net and reading blogs, I make a note of blog topics to write about in the future. I clip the title of the article or post that caught my attention, and Google automatically saves a link to the site. I can also make notes of thoughts generated by the idea. When I’m ready to write a new post, I just open the blog topics notebook and choose my subject. I can also add notes that are not associated with any Web site, so the notebook is a handy place to keep all my blog topic ideas.
Recently, I made notes on a post about ethics in writing. That sparked ideas for four posts, which you can read here next week.
Have you tried either or both of these tools? Do you like them as much as I do? Do you have other favorite Google gadgets?
[tags]Google Desktop, Google Notebook[/tags]
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Congratulations on joining Gack Ink Lillie. I love being part of Gack Ink, and am sure you will too.
Hi
I dont mean to spam, but I am slightly concerned about how technology is taking over and so most new and interesting things seem to be gadgets.
For those interested in a more down to earth approach, I recommend you look here: http://www.birchbolete.com, and look for the Aug 1 2007 post.
technology simply doesnt solve all our problems.
All th best
Sami
Google is the best. I like all their products. Let it be search engine or the picasa or google earth. They are the big brother of internet.I can’t even think about internet without google.
Tania,
Google is the “big brother” of the Internet.
I can’t say I love all their products. Gmail doesn’t work for me though I know millions of people swear by it. I’m really glat that Blogger doesn’t have a monopoly on blogs because I like WordPress much better.
But I do like most of their products, especially search and the products mentioned in this post.
I never really went into actually trying google’s web2.0 software i just always found it easier to use real software, and then to use something like live mesh to keep all the PC’s in sync.
Chris´s last blog post..DNS Problems…
Chris,
As an individual working alone, I don’t need to keep PCs in sync. And I don’t have frequent need for desktop search and notebook. I wouldn’t spend money on software for those functions because the little use I had for it would prevent it from being cost-effective. So these tools work great for my situation—they’re free, convenient, and perform services that I like to have from time to time but could get by without.
Hi Lillie,
I found you with Google and wanted to give my two cents to your post. I have actually used both of these applications but wasn’t too keen on having an external software “peek” into my desktop. I suppose I’m a little paranoid with giving G permission to sneak out my stuff and rather do not use them anymore.
Notebook however is kinda cool and allowed me to keep handy notes all in one location. You might also look at Evernote.com because they are worth looking at.
Walt´s last blog post..How To Customize Vista Themes
Thanks for the input, Walt. You make a valid point about letting Google “peek” into my computer.
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