Jeff Wiggins

As many people know, Google is one of the world’s leading search engines. But did you know that Google can do almost everything else as well? Yes, I mean everything. Over the next week I’m going to tackle some of Google’s other products and tell you how they can be useful for average needs.

Today I’ll tackle the first line of communication Google Reader:

This is your RSS reader, it will be one of your best friends and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it (once you figure out what it is!). RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Why does that matter? It doesn’t really. Most sites today with constantly updating content (news sites, blogs, and most other sites) use RSS and produce an ‘RSS feed’ which users are able to subscribe to (usually by clicking on an orange button similar to that located on the right of this page). This is like subscribing to a newsletter or magazine, and you’re notified when the site is updated.

But how do you get the notification? You use a feed reader, such as Google Reader. Like most other Google products, you can access it through your Google account at the address http://www.google.com/reader. You’ll see that you have no subscriptions, so let’s add a one to it. Remember the giant orange button on the right of Blogging for Apples? Click it. You should have an option to subscribe to the feed, do it. You’ve now subscribed to your first RSS feed.

Now go have a look at your Google Reader again (it may take a minute or two, refresh the page) and you should be subscribed to Blogging for Apples. Whenever the site is updated with new posts, the new posts will automatically be added to your reader I’m sure you’re thinking around now ‘but couldn’t I have just visited the site?’ and the answer is yes. But the key is to subscribe to more sites. There is no limit to how many feeds you can subscribe to with Google Reader, and all will be displayed in the reader, so you don’t have to visit each site one by one. It saves a ton of time and allows you to get the most out of all the resources out there.

Now that we have the basis covered, why is Google Reader great? Well first off it has a great user interface. You can access all your feeds by just clicking the title of the feed. Each post allows you to star (favorite) a post so it’s easier to find later, share it (put on your public feed page), email it to somebody or add tags to it (so you can search for it later in your feeds) with a simple click on the footer located at the bottom of each post.
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Reader also allows you to use keyboard shortcuts for even faster reading of your feeds. On top of that it allows you to view your feeds on your mobile phone as well, never be disconnected. If you’ve never used RSS before give it a try, you won’t be disappointed and you’ll catch on quicker than I made it sound.

Some helpful links:
OSX Style Google Reader: A Firefox plugin to make Google Reader prettier.
Google Reader Notifier: Firefox plugin that notifies you when a feed is updated that your’re subscribed to with google reader.
50+ Google Reader extensions and scripts for Firefox @ Mashable

Everybody uses maps, but not everybody uses them right. Google Maps is a great alternative. No need to get a GPS or yell at your wife “I know where we are”, just use Google.

GMaps are great for 3 reasons: 1) You can have fun finding your house using the ‘satellite’ mode. 2) Directions tells you where to turn and where, as well as how long each step in getting there to take. 3) You can plan your bank heist without having to leave the house!

First lets play with Searching: Just type in an address. This can be In the form of ‘City, Province/state’ or you can go all out and find a specific place such as ‘Road City, Province Postal Code’ (in most places just putting in the postal/zip code works, but the more information you put in the faster it will find the place you’re looking for. Remember, it’s searching the whole world). You can also try writing names of stores and the city/province that you’re looking for and Google is usually pretty good at finding them. Once you find your location try clicking the ‘Hybrid’ button located on the top right of the map. This will display both roads and a satellite image of the map, you can then zoom in (using a scroll wheel or the bar on the left of the map) and try to pick out your location’s image. The search feature is more a free-for-all locating tool, directions work better, so lets head over there.

To get into directions mode, click Get Directions just under the search bar. You’ll now have 2 search bars, a start and end address. Once you find the two places you’ll see a green marker (start) and red marker (end) connected by a blue line, this is your path. You’ll also notice some new information show up on the left of your screen: How to get there. There will be total KM, time it takes to get there, any additional info (toll bridge, crossing a nation’s border, etc) and what signs to look for. It’s as if somebody was sitting beside you reading a map (correctly!).

By default, Google will choose the quickest route from A-B, but you can change this. There is an option you can check on the left that says ‘avoid highways’ which is good for you older people who drive slow. You can also change your route yourself by dragging the line. For example, if you were going from Kingston, Ontario to Saint John, New Brunswick you’d be going through Montreal, Quebec by default. If you don’t want to do that, drag the path down to where you do want to go through, in this case Vermont. You can drag down parts of your path to avoid the French province completely (it just adds about 5 hours to the trip, minor details). This can be useful also if you want to stop by somewhere that isn’t on your route, you can go there without getting completely lost.

Another nice feature is ‘My Maps‘. This allows users to add content to Google Maps, just as businesses, real estate for sale and many other features that could prove helpful for people in the area. Google is available on many mobile phones now as well. It has implemented a street view feature in some cities where you can ‘virtually walk’ along the street, but it’s still very limited. You can also embed or send your maps to friends by clicking on the buttons located on the right just above your map.

More Helpful Links:
Google Maps Nighttime: A nice view of lights from space at night.
Cool Google Maps

Google Docs, Google’s version of the popular Microsoft Office suite. The difference between the two though is that with Google there is no need for a download, you can access it from anywhere with a net connection and it’s free. So you can spend the $400 on something that’s actually worth the cost.

Spreadsheet (Excel)
This is a very basic spreadsheet application but from my experience seems to cover all of the basics. Some features include color coating cells, quick sorting (A-Z, Z-A), charts (Columns, line, pie, bar, scatter), and easy use of popular formulas (Sum, count, average, etc). The formulas are very intuitive of what you want done which makes use a lot easier.

Document (Word)
It’s a word processing application. It has all the normal word formatting, comments (footnotes), tables, separators, bookmark (anchor) features. As well, it also includes the ability to quickly upload and insert pictures and links.

Presentation (PowerPoint)
Google’s newest addition to the Doc package, and in my opinion the most impressive (or at least showing the most potential). This application proves its simplicity in form of slide creation and organization, as well as modification. It does this most prominently by supplying a variety of default themes and formatting for the user. As with the other Document applications, the ability to upload and add text/pictures is found here as well. Aside from the creation features there is also a ‘Presentation mode’. This allows you to invite users to view the presentation with you as you move through it. Beside the slides there is a chat window allowing easy conversation. This would be good tool for virtual meetings (voice would make it amazing!)

What makes all of these stand out though is the way they’re used by groups. Each document can be shared or published to allow groups to view or even edit them. This saves from having a million copies on everybody’s computers, as there is only one copy that is being edited. Google also makes backups of the file, so you can easily review the changes that were made and who made them. The only issue I find with this is that both collaborators as well as viewers must have a registered Google account. This is understandable for those editing, but the service would prove better if this was not needed for visitors.

All office files you already have are easily uploaded to Google without any need to play around with converting or reformatting, so the switch is completely painless. Give it a go, you’ll be glad you did or your money back (Oh wait, it’s free!)

More Helpful Links:
Fun explanation video by Google
5 things you probably didn’t know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets by Josh Lowensohn

We’ve covered RSS feeds with Google Reader, your mail with Gmail and news with Alerts over the past few days; but what good is that if you never have time to do it with your busy schedule? In comes our next product: Google Calendar.

Google Calendar (GCal) is a great product, it has all the needed elements that most people look for in a calendar. We have the different view types (Day/Week/Month/Agenda) but that’s nothing new for calendar programs. When you add an event it has all the routine What/When/Where/Description, again nothing new. One of hte most useful features about GCal however is the ability to have multiple calendars as one.

By creating a new Calendar (Click the Add button located on the left of the screen) you can easily categorize events by type, or by who is doing them. For example, I’ve added the work schedules of some of my friends, so I know when they’re off (Yeah, I’m a stalker like that), dates jotted down when I plan on blogging about a certain topic and even when I should go get groceries or do laundry (insufficient memory). Adding all of these things are colored-coated and all appear on the same calendar so you can see when things over lap. If things get too crowded, you can always uncheck a calendar to make it invisible on the calendar. All events are also Drag-and-drop once created, which helps for people with rotating schedules.

Google Calendar also allows users to make the calendars public. If you wanted users to your site to know for instance when an event was going to happen, you could allow that calendar that it’s attached to be set as public. This does not mean your entire calendar will be public, just the one you’ve set as public. Because Google permits you to do this, they’ve also made it so you can ‘play’ with it a lot. This includes being able to have notifications on your Firefox browser, having your GCal show up on your desktop and much more. I’ll include the links at the bottom of this post.

GCal also has some nice features like emailing you before an event, which is handy for having time to prepare and access from mobile phones (which is all the rage these days). More than features though it’s simply, which Google is best at.

Some Helpful Links:
Tweak Google Calendar @ Firefox Facts
How to make your Google Calendar your PC’s desktop wallpaper @ LifeHacker
Best of Google Calendar (Addons + Tips) @ Makeuseof

I have to say I almost creamed in my pants at this, I was expecting something that completely sucked. Pagii is classifying itself as a new ‘social site’, but I wouldn’t quite call it that just yet. Instead, I’m going to call it a “website designing site on crack hit with a stupid stick”. And I mean this is the best possible way.

First, the interface rocks. It’s all click and drag (or double click) functions from a sliding sidebar. Text, speech bubbles, shapes (with text inside), video and ‘insert html code’ are all included with click and drag functionality. No need to remember HTML or screw around with finding the image. You upload, you apply and it’s there. Once the item is there you can drag it around the screen, stretch it by clicking the corners and even rotate it (I love this, takes the blockyness out of sites, yay!). Users can also ‘layer’ content to give it a 3D feel. Content such as images can also be clicked and using PHP shown their full size so users can see the whole image. It’s very easy to set up and I’m sure a child could master it in under 20 minutes.

You’re able to create more pages by simply clicking the ‘Add Page’ button. Users are given a ton of templates depending on what they plan on putting on the page (photo, diary, profile, video, etc) or they can start fresh and just have at it however they like. All pages are linked using a menu that pops down from the top of the page when hovered over, which saves a lot of time for people that are used to creating navigation pages (and most people suck at it, such as myself). This keeps it simple and consistent throughout all Pagii sites.

As far as the ‘social site’ part goes. I don’t think it’s prepared for that. All I can tell is that they have a comment widget and a messaging system. Aside from that, the only flaw I find with it is that non-members of the site are unable to view the member’s sites. I hope that fix that soon. Though I love this site for it’s uniqueness in allowing people to create useful sites like this so easily.
Be sure to check out my Pagii page, it’s purdy ^.^

Sticking with drama reviews, lets have a look at Interview.

To spice things up, lets have a look at the actors before we get into the plot details. Going into this movie I was expecting to see Steve Buscemi be funny. When I try to make a note of where I know him from some of the first movies that come to mind are Mr.Deeds and Armageddon, both of which he played a fool. This role however wasn’t funny and because I haven’t seen enough of his work it came off as a change for me to see him in such a serious position. Not to let my ignorance take from his performance, he was a very believable journalist.
I’m ashamed to say on that same point that I’ve only seen Sienna Miller once previously in Stardust as a minor character so I can not give much say on her abilities there. As for her role as an actress in this film I don’t feel it leaves much to say that an actress should be able to portray an actress fairly well.

That brings us to the plot, which I’m going to attempt to write without spoiling. Pierre (Buscemi), a political journalist, is forced by his editor to interview the leading soap opera actress Katya (Miller). After getting off on the wrong foot when Katya shows up over an hour late, Pierre calls off the interview and leaves only to end up needing her aid after hitting his head. The two then conduct a very social, unprofessional interview throughout the night questioning each other on very personal subjects. As both characters are found to be ‘not all there’ and neither living the life the other expected, the movie ends on a twist that the viewers didn’t see coming.

That’s about all I really want to say about the movie, as I think it would be best if I didn’t spoil too much of it. The movie is simply very well done and entertaining. Unlike many recent films where multiple locations and scenarios are needed to advance the plot, this movie focuses on one instance that is played by strong enough actors to carry the movie through to the end without ‘beating a dead horse’; an admirable quality from any director that can pull it off as nicely as was done here.

Final: 8/10 “You have to change that ringtone.”