Finally a UK version has been launched. Google Maps and Google Local provide high quality maps, directions and addresses for all things local. Here’s my address, how to get to Shakeels and also the essentials in my area. Click and drag the maps to move them around. I really like clicking on the pins in the directions map which gives you a pop-up of the end-point in detail which can also be zoomed and scrolled. Just need the Google browser now.
Tag: google
Gmail Upgrades
Nice – now you can store up to 2Gb with your Gmail account. Text formatting is also available and attachments up to 10Mb. I wonder if Gmail drive still works?
Gmail
I’m guessing they are either about to open this up to everyone or are at least in the final stages of doing so as most users have now got 50 invites to give away. I’ll never use them up and most folk I know have one now – if you need an account drop me a mail.
MSN Toolbar Suite…
…is it’s official name but it includes MSN Desktop Search, Microsoft’s entry into the desktop search market. First impressions were very good. It quickly indexed (my recently formatted) drives and allowed me to content search Office App files, Outlook mail, Text files and also title search all files including music and pictures. Results returned were quick and accurate. It also worked across a network. Great – as fast as Google desktop with a lot more content. Annoyingly you also had to install the MSN Toolbar at the same time which meant IE and Control Panel etc. had a MSN search bar – once installed you can remove.
However after a reboot it stopped working. Only logging in as administrator allowed the desktop search to work – anything else failed. So it’s uninstalled but one to keep an eye on. MS have created a Wiki to track developments.
MSN Search
Now up and available in Beta form. Certainly returns more different results than Google and this search – more evil than god – returns some very surprising results. Yes, its a beta but Firefox? Google? Coincidence?
Want to join Google?
Was looking through the Google Blog (what else is there to do when you’ve played Halo 2 all night….oops) and stumbled across a test which you can complete and send to Google. The prize? A job at Google Labs.
Google Desktop
Beta now launched and can be downloaded from the Google Desktop site. First impressions are good. Quick to index my files using less system resources than Windows in-built indexing and search results are fast. Also searches Outlook . Option to integrate with Google web searches which is nice. Finally its as quick to find my files as it is to find others peoples files on the web.
*Update* Couple of alternatives for searching. One is Filehand which also searches mp3’s and pdf’s and the other is Copernic Desktop Search. Both are standalone search engines – I’ll give them a whirl over the weekend.
G-Mail
I’ve got 5 invites. If you want one let me know.
Picasa
Got lots of photo’s? Want to try and manage them? Don’t want to spend cash (Mr Lawrence jumps to the front of the queue)?. Try Picasa. Google have bought them and the software for the moment is free. It was linked off the front of Google but thats now gone – probably the number of downloads. Free software equals flies round shit.
It works pretty well and is nice on the eye. Abobe Photoshop Album 2 is nicer in my book with slightly better feature set…for the moment but it does cost…allegedly. Free edition of the Adobe product can be found here with slightly reduced features.
I’ve got GMail
I finally managed to blag an invite into the GMail Beta. First impressions are good. It’s claim to fame is the 1Gb storage available altough I struggle to see how I could fill 1Gb. Since Google announced this, others have been quick to catch up or overtake. Hotmail now makes available 250Mb instead of the measly 10Mb and Yahoo has gone to 2Gb for it’s broadband users. Yikes – lots of mail.
A nice feature is the way the mail is held as ‘conversations’ so that the mails read like a forum posting rather than discreet entities within your inbox. Also, there is no concept of folders. Instead you tag your mail with labels (can be done automatically via filters) and the inbox is then split accordingly – the mail can have more than one label. Searching the mail is also easy and quick, although if it was anything else you’d be pretty shocked. All in all, very nice and certainly better then Hotmail. If you want to mail me, try the mail link bottom right and if your interested in getting an invite then let me know and when I get one I’ll be sure to pass it on. The next test is to see if it’s been blocked by the company firewall yet.