Our January General Meeting was well attended for Jamie Yates’ presentation on Google (www.google.com). The material covered can be viewed loosely as a follow up, but mostly an extension, to the searching with Google presentation of three years ago.

Jamie started off the evening by telling the audience that they would be amazed by the products and functions that Google has introduced in the last several years and by the end of the evening it appeared they were. He also explained that there was no way to cover all of Google’s areas in the time allowed.

One thing you should note is that Google now requires you to sign up for an account for many of the new services offered. The account sign up is free but does not automatically allow the use of Google’s email functions (Gmail).

Gmail is still in beta and can only be accessed by a Gmail account which you can only get by invitation. It also has been improved over the past year.

Initially some of Google’s new search features such as weather, movies, Q & A, recipes, and Music Trends were described. All were straight forward except for Music Trends, which is based on collecting and analyzing the background music playing on Google Talk users’ computers so it is not necessarily reflective of music industry numbers.

He then went on to talk about the following:

• Google Music Search which allows you to search on a popular music artist/group and then click the “more music results” link on the results page to display album titles, song titles, artist’s pictures, reviews and links to online stores.
• Google’s new facility that allows you to enter your phone number in an ad and connects you to the company free of charge without passing your phone number to that company.
• Google Books that lets you download PDFs of public domain ”full view” books.

But there is still more to Google:

There are several new customized search facilities that are now offered. One is Personalized Search, which analyzes prior searches to determine the results of future searches. For example, if you search on “fly fishing” for one of your searches and then search on “bass” Google will assume you are looking for fish and not an instrument or singing voice.

The second new search capability is the Custom Search engine. A user can name and create their own search engine. This search engine can contain a list of web sites that you want Google to search as a group without using all the sites that are in Google’s database. This search engine can be shared and updated by people you select.

A very interesting new feature is a beta version of a search engine called SearchMash (Searchmash.com). The result returned shows web sites, images, videos, blogs, and wikipedia entries related to your search, all on one screen separated into each category.

Google alerts allows a user to setup predefined searches that are done a number of times a day with the results sent via email once a day.

Google Maps provides directions to places/addresses you specify and provides the ability to zoom in on specific areas, down to almost treetop level, if low level photographs are available. These photographs are normally provided for major metropolitan areas and tourist attractions. The result can display images, streets, or a combination.

A novel new beta product from Google is Google Earth. It requires a download and behaves similar to Google Maps but in addition you can pan, tilt and zoom. You can also rotate the image and see personal pictures taken by individuals posted at various locations on Google Earth. In addition, you can see information on various tourist locations, different kinds of business establishments, and see three dimensional structures. It is amazing to use so you should consider trying it out.

Google Notebook allows you to save different snippets from any web site you visit along with its URL and personal comments. This can be helpful in the future when you need this information for various reasons or want to go back to the site. Collecting this data is easy with provided browsers add-ons for IE and Firefox. This information can be kept private or shared with various people.

You can also search 200 years of news archives using the News Archive search engine and Google also provides a sharable online calendar function that you can update and share with friends and family.

Google Reader is an online RSS reader that can collect information from various sites as it becomes available. You tell Google Reader what sites you are interested in and that’s all there is to it. You can now get all you current information from one place without having to visit individual sites to see if they have updated information or having to subscribe to their newsletters. It acts as a clipping service.

The number of different functions seems endless because it is. One of Google’s capabilities that tie them all together is Google’s Personalized Homepage. Here you can set up your own homepage with the Google search engine on it and with the use of Google Gadgets can add many of the above personalized functions so they are viewable in one place. It can show your local weather, custom search engines, RSS reader content, notebook(s), alerts, maps, Gmail (if you have an account), bookmarks, news, and other information such as stock market numbers and more. There are hundreds of Google Gadgets that can add function and content to your Google homepage.

Google also provides a word processor and spreadsheet program that allows you to create and edit files online and share them with others for collaboration or distribution. It can accept Microsoft formatted files, as well as other file formats, uploaded from your machine. When a file is completed to your satisfaction it can be left on Google’s servers or downloaded to your machine in a format you select. It can then be used in you local word processor or spreadsheet program.

You would think that Google has everything you need and there couldn’t possibly be more but they are still coming out with new functions on a weekly basis. It’s almost possible do all you normal day to day activities using Google instead of the software on your personal computer. All you need is a web browser.

If any of the areas described above are of interest to you go to Google (www.google.com) and give them a try. You’ll even find many things that haven’t been discussed here such as: Youtube, Google Toolbar, Google Desktop Search, Google Mobile Maps, Sketchup, Google Page Creator, Picassa, Google Patent Search, Google Pack, Blogger, Froogle, Google Talk, and more……..

Enjoy