Thing 29 - Google Tools

Looking through the options for thing 29, I'll admit I wasn't all that excited about this thing. I didn't want to use Web History because of the privacy issue. I clear all the private data off of my home computer at least once or twice a month. I don't necessarily think that anyone's gonna steal my information, but I just don't like having it there in plain sight.

The Google calendar has been really useful here at the library. We use it to set up a schedule for the use of our meeting rooms, since it's easy to access at any of the staff computers. In my personal life, I have a pocket calendar that's always in my purse. You don't always have access to a computer when trying to schedule things, so for me - a hard copy is better.

I already had a Google account that was automatically created when I signed up for Blogger last year, and I've used gmail for a computer class before. Thing is, I've been using hotmail since 1998. I'm usually resistant to change, but hotmail has been acting up lately and has big ads all over the place, so I'm giving in and switching to gmail. Everyone here at work tells me that this is a good thing.

I've also set up Google News. I already use an aggregator and have both CNN and InForum feeds, but I'll use both and see which one wins out.

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

The sites that we looked at in this Thing seemed like they would be more useful than others we've seen during this process, but there was kind of an information overload. There were so many different sites to look at, I felt overwhelmed. It might be good for me to look at one different site a day so I can actually comprehend the differences.

Since I already had a Google account set up to use Blogger (and have a hatred of all things Yahoo!) I chose to set up a Google start page. There were some things that seemed to be useful - I liked having my weather right there! But some others seemed extraneous. One thing I really like about Google's original homepage is that it was so simple. You could go to Google and find what you were looking for without any distractions. I'm very very very easily distracted, so I think I'll probably not ever sign into that homepage again.

One tool that was talked about on one of the links was TinyURL. I've used that a few times. Sometimes the addresses for sites get so incredibly long that there's no way to remember them, no way to write them down, and no way to copy/paste them into anything. When you use Tiny URL to shorten the address it saves a lot of time and brain power.

I won't use an online calender - I'm too afraid that I'll forget my password or forget where I put it. I use a paper calendar and that is what works best for me. However, at the library we do use a Google calendar to set up the meeting room schedule. We used to use a paper schedule and then it would be constantly erased and changed and things were moved around all the time. Now we have a Google account just for meeting rooms that everyone has a password to - it saves a lot of time and effort.