The Cold Turnkey

These days Google is much more than a search engine, and although their search engine is by far their most important product, more and more Google is coming out with by products which are generating a lot of interest. During the course of this article I am going to cover a number of these by products in more detail.

Google Earth

Google Earth is a free to use program that allows users to explore a virtual world with incredible detail. Google Earth streams satellite images over this virtual Earth and allows users to zoom in on any part of the world. All of the major cities are covered in detail and it is possible to zoom right in on a place of interest.

Gmail

Gmail is Google’s answer to hotmail, Yahoo mail or any other web based email program. Rather than being your run of the mill web based email service, Gmail offers a number of unique options such as searching emails instead of sorting them, huge amount of storage space and a top notch Spam filter. If you don’t already have a gmail account, get one.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is Google’s newest product, and while it may seem to be a strange one, there is no doubt that Google has revolutionised calendars. You can import your Outlook calendar into Google Calendar, Google Calendar has many more features. Among the best feature in my opinion, is the ability to share calendars with friends and family and allow them editing privileges. You can now keep in touch with friends and family from your Gmail account.

Among the other excellent offerings from the Google Plex is the Google Toolbar, Gtalk which works excellently with Gmail and Google Desktop which allows you to search your computer while giving you relevant information such as the weather conditions in your location.

Ronan Menton is the webmaster for a number of travel related websites and has been for some time in Ireland, associated with search engine optimisation in the Irish travel industry. He spends two months a year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and now sees it as his second home. Among the many sites he is currently working on are the following: hotels in Galway and hotels in Cork.