A Look Into Google: Part 1
Google. 10 years ago, barely a soul could claim to know this name. Since then Google has turned into a powerhouse for web searches. Google has continued to evolve and establish itself in many services and provides many uses. Though you may only think of Gmail and Google Search, they are offering dozens of new useful tools that you should perhaps take a look through.
This guide will provide some details into Google’s uses, services, and customizations. Google is an incredibly powerful tool that many people don’t seem to fully grasp, or take the time to explore it’s rich features. So, I’ll take the time and try to outline some of it’s more useful features in this 4 part guide.
- Part 1 - Advanced Searching & Customizations
- Part 2 - Personal & Professional Organizational Tools
- Part 3 - Communication Tools & Desktop Enhancement
- Part 4 – Advanced & New Features at Google
Advanced Searching & Customizations
The best place to begin is, well, Google. You’re probably already quite familiar with the page, but go ahead and look it over. You’re also probably familiar with the Advanced Search feature, which offers many options to refine any searches you make. As you scroll down, you’ll likely get less and less familiar with the tools it is offering. Eventually, you’ll see these:
Google Book Search – Search the full text of books
Google Code Search – Search public source code
Google Scholar – Search scholarly papers
Google News archive search – Search historical news
All of these tools are quite useful. Google has set a goal for themselves to simply collect as much data as possible, so when you are looking for historical data or for text, Google is the first place you should start your search from. Just set a mental note in the feature, as Google saves a lot of your time using these tools.
Let’s try an example of one of the tools. Open up books.google.com and type in Ender’s Game. Now, press on the book and you’ll bring up the first page. You can:
- Read the text, looking through a preview text.
- You can view the table of contents, title page, and copyright.
- You can pull up the synopsis and reviews of the book.
- You can do a search for a specific text in the book, and go directly to that page.
- You can buy the book through retailers, or use Froogle.
- You can look up libraries in your area that have the book, with listings of the distance you are from that library (by using a non-Google tool, however it is exceedingly simple).
And that is a sample, there is still additional features and information you can find by using the tools of that particular search site.
The above example is a fairly extreme detailed look at just one of the features Google offers for advanced searches. Now, take a look at this page. As you’ll notice, there is far more features and tools that Google offers you. The best way to find out if you like them is to explore through that page and gather your own impressions. However I will be going over quite a few of the more useful features, but not as explicitly as the example above.
Before moving onto customizations you can make to Google, let’s take a quick look at all the different types of searches. You are probably familiar with all of these, but if not here is some quick explanations:
- Image Search – Search for images throughout the Internet. Note that most of the images have copyright, and this is not a stock photo search.
- Video Search – Even though it is still in “Beta”, it is available right off of your searches. Basically, you search a database of uploaded video available on Google, not the actual Internet. Still, it provides a fair amount of results, even if the quality is low in most cases. You can also purchase TV shows and music videos, much like iTunes. And finally, you can also upload your own videos to share with the world.
- News - You can search news, view the top stories, and view the latest headlines in various areas of interest. This is also a customizable page, which we’ll go into shortly.
- Maps - An incredible tool that you can use to zoom up on your house on satellite view, find out where just about anything is located, or get some specific directions for a road trip.
- Froogle - A shopping comparison service, that also is still in Beta. The advanced feature set makes this a useful tool – especially for some Christmas shopping.
Google is far more than just a search engine with some bells. And that is really what the core of this guide is about, finding the incredibly useful tools Google offers beyond just searching. Before we wrap Part 1 of this guide up, we’re going to be looking more specifically at your Google account and a few customizations you can make.
First things first, you need to create an account. You can do a lot of things with this account, and we’ll be digging a lot into that over the next 3 guides.
For now we’ll be looking at your customizable homepage. This tool has provided me with updated headlines & weather, flexible tools, and an incredibly easy to use interface. Don’t like where something is placed? Just pick it up via drag and drop, and move it where you want. Don’t like a particular item? Just X it out, and if you want it back that is easy too. Too much info on a particular item, but still want it to be accessible within a click? Just minimize the toolbar. It’s all very flexible, and entirely easy.
Your starting tools probably aren’t what you are looking for. Just exit out the tools you don’t want, or edit them to try to fit your needs. Then, head to the “Add Stuff” link (far right of the page). First you’ll be created with the popular “stuff”. Just press on what you want, and it’ll start heading to your homepage. Do a bit of digging, and get what interests you.
Head on back to your home page just by pressing on the Google logo. You likely got a fair bit of stuff, and your homepage is start to get a bit congested. Just organize to your heart’s content, and get it sorted out in a way you are comfortable with.
You may come to realize you just can’t fit everything you’d like on your homepage. You can press “Add Tab”, and then edit the name by pressing the tab itself.
For example, I have three tabs. One called Home, one called Fun, and one called Other.
- Home – To-do list, Sticky notes, Calendar, Weather, and a few other things.
- Fun – Quotes and jokes on the left, puzzles in the middle (such as crosswords), and minimized flash games on the right.
- Other – things like NFL standings, IP address lookup, a top freeware listing, and other sort of items.
Now, it comes down to the “stuff” that you use. Do you think you will use a To-Do list? I use it all the time, it’s simple and easy to keep track of everyday stuff, and I always glance on it as soon as I open a new browser. Sticky Note is useful for just quickly jotting something down. Dictionary.com is useful for the obvious reasons, especially the thesaurus. One last useful feature is you can log into your Google account from any computer, and get access to the same exact homepage. This is useful when you have multiple computers, have a work computer, a laptop, etc. These customizations are also apparent in Google News, you can customize the placement and the number of stories each area of interest has.
I’ve just scratched the surface of the dozens of tools Google offers, and I’ve gloss over many details already. I’d strongly suggest you spend your own time looking through Google and finding tools and features that you would use, and jot them down mentally if anything.
Hopefully I’ll get the next guide out shortly, and hopefully we’ll go over some of the better tools Google is offering, that are both new and quite useful.
Good read… but i knew about most of the features you explained
Dean – this was more a starting point before I jump deeper into Google’s huge library of services. I wanted you to get a base feel of what Google offers at an early level, but perhaps at a level people aren’t too aware of.
I’m planning to hopefully turn a few rocks you aren’t aware of, but it’s up for you to decide. I’m hoping to have Part 2 up by Monday.