Ode to Google. As a college student, Google is making my life a lot easier with all of its services. It's not only saving me money, but Google is MAKING me money. If you know how to use Google efficiently, it can help you too. In my Information Science classes, we often talk about how Google is transforming how computers are used. It is removing the desktop from the users' daily tasks and becoming the platform on which work is done and information is exchanged. Google isn't just for search anymore, people.
First off, throw your USB thumb drive in the trash. With Google Docs & Spreadsheets you'll only need it in the rarest of occasions. In college, it's best to use your resources, one being the school computer labs and their printers. Instead of wasting your ink and paper at home, you print your stuff in the labs. But what happens when you forget your USB drive and you have an assignment due that day. You have to go back to your dorm or home and print your assignment; or go to your dorm, upload your assignment to your usb drive, go to the lab and print it there. You can save yourself a lot of hassle by doing your work online with Google Docs & Spreads
heets. This article is being written right now in Google Docs. It has all the functionality of Microsoft Word and much more. It frequently saves on its own, so there is no fear of losing work and it saves it all online so that you can access it from any computer with internet access. It's pretty much like every computer is your computer and has all of your work saved on it. Another cool feature is that you can collaborate on documents, other people can work with you simultaneously from anywhere in the world. And although its not really encouraged, if you have a class in a computer lab, you can work on your important paper while the teacher is talking about other things.
Now, how do you remember to turn in all of these assignments that you have saved on Google Docs? With Google Calendar of course! Google Calendar allows you to keep track of all the various things you need to remember throughout the day. A color coded calendar with unlimited space to write on and it still manages to keep a clean interface. Go to the computer lab between classes or check your calendar from your laptop when you got a minute. There are now even third party programs that will allow you to sync your Google calendar to your Smartphone or PDA.
G-Mail was pretty much the catalyst for the Google online suite. It really is an amazing service and there are so many reasons to choose it over the competition. For the sake of this article, I'll look at it from the student perspective. The headliner of G-Mails show is its massive 2.5 Gigabytes of storage. As a student, I keep everything sent to my school e-mail address. Messy? No way! You can apply tags to keep e-mails organized or you can search to limit the results you see. "What time is my advising appointment?", just search for the most recent e-mails from your advisor and you're set. Another cool feature is G-Mail's ability to send an e-mail from any e-mail address that you own. That way, instead of 1supercoolstudXBOX@gmail.com sending an e-mail to your professor, you can change it to send from your name@school.edu address and save embarrassment.
Not all of a students life is work, work, work. Google can help you play too. While not the most entertaining website itself (although who doesn't Google their own name every once in a while), it is a great resource to figure out details on something to do. With Google Maps you can find stuff to do. Search "bowling" near your zip code and you got a night of entertainment. Luckily, at my school, we ride the city buses for free. And twice as fortunate, there is Google Transit for the city I go to school in. So when I want to go to the movies, I can check the movie times on Google's Personalized Home Page, or Google "showtimes", choose my time, enter the location of the theater in Google Transit as well as the time I want to arrive and Google Transit will tell me the next time a bus is leaving and where to catch it with great accuracy. Although I said Google isn't entertaining on it's own, it does have entertaining sections. Google owned Blogger can be a source for your entertainment though, as you can start to express yourself easily and privately. GoogleVideo or the Google owned YouTube are also some great stops on the internet for your entertainment.
"He said Google is MAKING him money, right?". Yeah, I said that. If you're low on funds, you can scrap up some change by using Google's advertising service Google Adsense on your personal website. If you set up that Blogger I mentioned in the paragraph above, Google has Adsense capabilities built right in, all you have to do is turn it on. With a few clicks from your visitors, you got some free money with very little effort. Don't expect to become a billionaire from advertisements, but like I said... it's practically free money, so don't complain.
Of course there are alternatives to Google's products, but the massive respect that Google deserves for creating an entire suite of services must be proclaimed. Before Google Calendar was created, I was happy using Microsoft Outlook. However the fact that Google Calendar integrates G-Mail and Google Maps so well, I made the switch. I'm very glad I made that switch, because now instead of my schedule being stuck at home, I can access it on the go and I was introduced to the online office. I hope you learned a little bit from this blog and strive to make a switch to an online office, as I have done myself.
heets. This article is being written right now in Google Docs. It has all the functionality of Microsoft Word and much more. It frequently saves on its own, so there is no fear of losing work and it saves it all online so that you can access it from any computer with internet access. It's pretty much like every computer is your computer and has all of your work saved on it. Another cool feature is that you can collaborate on documents, other people can work with you simultaneously from anywhere in the world. And although its not really encouraged, if you have a class in a computer lab, you can work on your important paper while the teacher is talking about other things.