| • Power Tips • Recent Google Launches • Miscellany Welcome, readers, to this late summer issue of the Google Friends Newsletter. It's a monthly effort describing a selection of Google services that you might enjoy, or might not yet know about. Details about subscribing or canceling your subscription can be found at the bottom of this email. Power Tips * Never mind describing how Google SMS works - we'll show you. The new interactive web demo lets you type SMS queries on your computer, and preview the results as they'd appear on your phone. With Google SMS you can look up local business listings, driving directions and more on your phone. It's currently available on all major U.S. and U.K. carriers. http://www.google.com/sms/demo.html * When you want prints or photo gifts from any of the scads of photos residing in your Picasa photo albums, they're easy to order. Just choose the photos you want (use the CTRL key to select multiple images) and click the "Order" button. Then choose your favorite photo finisher among such companies as Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Shutterfly, Walmart.com and others. Sign in to your account on that site, and Picasa uploads all your photos in seconds. Shop for prints, photo books, mugs, mouse pads and more. http://picasa.google.com Recent Google Launches Personalized Homepage We've added some new features to the way you can personalize your Google homepage. Now there's a section for bookmarks, as well as a way to add custom sections with the content you want from across the web. Note that you must be signed in to your Google Account to create and use your personalized homepage. http://www.google.com/ig Google Toolbar for Firefox The Toolbar is kind of the "Swiss Army knife" for computing, making it easy to search and do other tasks directly from your browser. You can check spelling, autofill web forms, translate English words into other languages, and lots more. Now the Google Toolbar is available for the Firefox browser. (It's already out for Internet Explorer.) http://toolbar.google.com Google Maps Hybrid Mode We've got Maps, we've got Earth, and now we've got a way to view satellite images with map data. It's the "Hybrid" mode. Very handy for seeing the lay of the land with, for example, street names on top. Look in the upper right hand corner of the map image to switch your view from Map to Satellite to Hybrid (and back again). http://maps.google.com/ Google Groups Alerts "Alerts" are a great way to inform you when keywords you have selected appear in news stories, web search results, and now, are mentioned within Google Groups topics. If you're tracking several subjects, this is far easier than reading through a (possible) boatload of messages. Just sign up to track Alerts of interest to you. There's a pull-down menu under "Type" where you choose among News, Web, or Groups notifications. And you can choose to receive Alerts daily, weekly, or as they happen. http://www.google.com/alerts Miscellany Ten years ago the World Wide Web came into being for most of us, and Wired Magazine is marking what has been a remarkable decade of life- changing technology with a series of articles in its August issue. It may seem obvious now, but those who first imagined the Web had an uphill battle to persuade people that it was possible - and would be useful. Kevin Kelly's "We Are the Web" details the public and democratic nature of what we now rely on daily. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html The Google Blog features insights from Googlers on technology, our products, and the company at large. http://googleblog.blogspot.com If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, share it with a friend. Google Friends on Google Groups (including subscribe/unsubscribe): http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google-friends Google Friends archive: http://www.google.com/googlefriends/archive.html To unsubscribe from the Google Friends Newsletter, send an empty message to: google-friends-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 |
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