If you’re concerned that Google is starting to know a bit too much about you, you might be interested to find out that Google has released Google Dashboard, a window onto the data that Google stores about your accounts. All you need to do is go to www.google.com/dashboard and log into your account. You’ll be presented with a list of all of the Google services that you use, and the data that is stored in them.
It’s interesting just browsing through the dashboard to see the Google products that you use. More than 20 products are covered by the Dashboard, although my account lists several products that I use that aren’t yet supported (including Feedburner and Google Analytics).
Do you think the Dashboard provides greater transparency?
It seems to be new Google features discovery week, with new search parameters for searching the web in real time, and now a Labs feature called Fast Flip making an appearance. Fast Flip is a visual browser of online publications, designed to give you a quick snapshot of what’s being blogged and talked about at many major news sources at a glance.
If you’re looking to take the pulse of the web at any given moment (and you don’t want the static or excess sensationalism that goes along with using Twitter), Google Fast Flip is as good a place as any to start. It sort of feels like a concise, pre-filtered Alltop that provides a macro level view of some of the web’s most influential and respectable news sources. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, I shared some tips to help you get more out of Google Blog Search. I prefer Google Blog Search for vanity searches, where I want to see every mention across every blog talking about any of my various efforts. I generally use it as my starting point, but for some very broad topics, I just get too much noise and not enough relevancy. When that happens, I have three fallback search engines that allow me to filter out the less popular blogs and focus on ones with more authority.
Ask Blog Search Read the rest of this entry »
Last month, I made the switch to Google Quick Search Box from Quicksilver on my Mac. While Quicksilver improved my efficiency and cut the time I spent searching for files, Google Quick Search Box has upped the ante even further by adding in the ability to speedily access all my Google services through the same interface. I’m very impressed with it. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m in the middle of moving to new computers. Two of them. The laptop is easy. The desktop, well, that’s a story for another post. New and faster computers with a fresh install can compel a person to look up applications, plugins and other tools to boost web worker efficiency. Browser add-ons are a perfect example.
Quick overview for those new to Firefox: Add-ons are little free tools that make your application experience better and easier. Add-ons don’t stop at browsers, either. Email applications like Thunderbird have them, too. They’re very easy to install. Just go to Firefox add-ons, browse, click “Add to Firefox” and click “Install” in the popup window. Once installed, you’ll need to restart Firefox to complete the process.
Here’s my list of current favorites (note: if you like this list, be sure to check out the WebWorkerDaily Firefox Add-ons Collection): Read the rest of this entry »
Many of us have been using the Release Candidate of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 browser, which is a major upgrade to previous versions. Now, Mozilla has released a third Release Candidate, available for download for Windows, the Mac and Linux. Mozilla also has a post up about the release, although there aren’t a lot of clear details as to what, exactly, is new.
Mozilla’s post says only that the updates in Release Candidate 3 are in response to “user feedback.” The organization intends to move quickly toward a final release of Firefox Version 3.5. In all likelihood, the differences between this version and RC2 consist of bug and/or security fixes.
I’ve been steadily using both the betas and the Release Candidates of Firefox 3.5, and it’s both speedy and substantially more feature-rich. It’s stable, too. If you’re already running a Firefox 3.5 beta or Release Candidate version, you can obtain an update to RC3 by selecting “Check for Updates” from the “Help” menu. Here are the official Release Notes for more information.
Google announced that it has made some changes to Gmail Contacts, increasing the number of fields that it supports to be more in line with those commonly found in other contact managers.
Until these changes, announced yesterday, Gmail Contacts was quite limited in the number of fields that it supported. It didn’t have fields for “web site” or “birthday,” for example, both of which are commonly used in other email clients and contact managers. This meant that if you imported contacts from another program, Gmail would have to use the all-encompassing “notes” field for that extra information. That wasn’t ideal if you did a one-way import, but was especially problematic if you were trying to sync data between Gmail Contacts and another program or device that did support those extra fields. These new fields, as well as being useful in their own right, should make syncing much easier. Unfortunately, if you’ve already imported all your contacts and want to use these fields, you’ll need to wipe your Gmail Contacts and re-import them.
The additional fields have been available in standalone Google Contacts for over a month; it’s surprising that it’s taken this long to roll out these changes to Gmail Contacts, too.
Do you use Gmail Contacts as your primary contact manager?
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
