Like I talked about in part one, Google started off with a search engine. Today, they offer much more then just searching. I talked about one of them already, Gmail. Now for me, no suit is complete without a calender and a RSS reader. Well, Google has you covered with Google Calender and Google Reader. I will admit that I don't use RSS readers that much anymore but it is something nice to still have in my arsenal.
Google Reader is a RSS reader. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. This makes it easy for people to subscribe to a web site or a blog like you would a newspaper. This can be useful, but the down side is you don't get the whole site. You would get something like this:
If all you want is the article, then it works great. I find that Google Reader helps organize better then other readers do. When you first open up Google Reader, it takes you to a home page where it has the top stories of the sites you subscribe to right there. Then, over to the side at the bottom is all the sites you subscribe to. Above that is recommended RSS feeds that the reader thinks you might enjoy reading. Then there are statistic options and ways to share stories with your friends.
Adding somthing to your reader is vary easy, just go to the site you want to add and look for the RSS icon in your browser.
Then select, "Subscribe with Google" and it will be added in Google Reader. (This is used with the web browser, Firefox). Once you subscribe to their feed, you will receive updates to the site and you will be able to read it in your Google reader. Unlike a newspaper that you get once maybe twice a day, Google reader is not normally out of date unless something goes wrong with a sites feed.
Google Reader is a nice thing google offers so that you can have one place that you can go that has all the news you want in one place. Another thing you might want to check in the morning might be your calender. Wouldn't it be nice if Google had a calender that you could check online too... oh wait they do, and its called "Google Calender."
Google Calender is what won me over to use Google services. Google Calender is well what you think it is, it is a calender. Compared to other online calenders, I would say, Google calender is one of the best. Oh and like everything else, it is free. So let me share why Google Calender is so great.
I don't really think I need to explain how to use it but I will share a lot of what it can do. I enjoy that you can set it to remind you via e-mail. This works for me because I'm in and out of my email all day long, so I can receive reminders that easily. If you have an iPhone, an iPod touch, or any phone that supports Microsoft Exchange then you can have the calender sync to your phone. This allows you to have access to your calender wherever you are, online or offline. To set it up just go to google.com/sync where there are instructions on how to set it up on your mobile device. Once you have it set up, you can add events to your calender on your mobile device or even get rid of events. Everything you do will effect your Google Calender online so your calender is always up to date.
I believe just that alone makes Google Calender worth the little bit of time it takes to setup. It keeps me from forgetting inportant things. If you are a busy person and you want a calender that will just work and you don't have to mess around with it, then Google Calender is a good option for you. This ends part 2 stay tune for part 3.