6 июл. 2006 г.

Giant Google and its new toys - Google Desktop 2

Some time (years) ago Google was big. Just big, nothing else. Then it became the biggest and most used search engine in the world. I won't even talk about the profits. Google used to be a giant, however, it's growing bigger and bigger with every day. Just recently they have come out with a new product called Google Desktop 2.

he idea of it is rather simpler - it kind of surfs the web for you. It's a free program that gives its users access to the kind of information we need every day - weather forcasts, daily news, stock quotes, email alerts, task alerts. These features are all part of Google Desktop's Sidebar.

This tiny piece of software doesn't really require much from the user - you. Just sit back as the information is being displayed in the sidebar of your desktop.

This Google toy, Google Desktop 2 is about 1.4Mb to download and in addition to the features the Sidebar has, Google Desktop 2 has also a really great search module. You've searched your hard drive using Windows built-in search, right? It's slow, VERY slow. And if your computer actually has need a format c for a long time already, like mine does, then to search for ... lets say .avi files in your computer, it takes ages, up to 10 minutes I have discovered. And I have AMD 1700+. Google Desktop 2 does the search for me in a matter of seconds. Yes, new version of windows will allegedly also contain this sort of fast search. However, right now I don't really miss that anymore.

Simply put - Google rocks. I don't really want to sound like I'm the sales agent for the Google Corporation. Especially as I'm not getting paid for it, especially because of that. However, Google has provided us, the web users, lots of tools that make our lives easier. And most of their tools are rather good. So if you didn't know about them, you definitely should learn about them a bit more. Even Google search engine, their main product, is making waves and has done so already for a very long time. All SEO (Search Engine Optimization) forums are full of google related discussions. Everyone wants a piece of what Google has to offer.

Google satellite map
So what other services does Google provide? They offer local mobile search services - business listings and local driving direction through users cell phone service. They offer Google maps which includes satellite view. They offer email with 2GB of free storage. They offer video blogging service. And you all know google news, hopefully. News service that takes news headlines from over 4500 newspapers around the world. So as you can see, there's not much google doesn't offer.

Is Google really everything I say it is? Well, a really good example is a recent downtime of Google. Its domain went down for about 15 minutes leaving visitors wondering if Google has been hacked or something. It set the whole world wondering what has happened. Some even predicted the end of the world. Though I hope these guys were just plain stupid. But you can see that web without google…is web without google, I guess.

I’d be curious to hear what you have to say about the giant. For a change something negative will be only appreciated. After all, Google isn't really a non-profit organization, but rather does this all to generate massive profits.