Google

Google has made the world a better place. I hope that everyone that can read this Blog is familiar with Google, but just in case, check it out - and you will want to after reading this! Google is a  Portal website that offers many services to it's users all in one site. At it's homepage www.Google.com, the simplistic design makes it user friendly and clutter-free(which is especially good for those aging eyes). When I want a search engine that will return many results - most of which are "just what I was looking for" - I turn to Google.

What you might not know about Google...

Gmail is Google's email service. Although Gmail is gaining popularity and many people have a Gmail account, there are many things that make Gmail the best email client I have ever used.

1. It's free! What's not to like?

2. It's chat feature. After signing into Gmail, the page returns most of the view showing the inbox messages, but the bottom left side of the page shows all of the contacts that have been manually added to the list. Contacts who are online are marked with Green, idle are marked with yellow, and offline are marked with gray. This chat option can come in handy. I have had team projects that were solely web-based and when you are working with a deadline, sometimes that instant answer is what makes all the difference.

3. You can personalize it! There are many different settings and themes that you can choose to make your email just like you.

This is a screen capture that I created 3/27/11 of my personalized Gmail account.

4. Filter, Filter, Filter! Gmail's filter options allow you to filter your emails by sender, words included, words not included, etc... Not only that, but once you have applied a filter, you can apply a second filter on the filter that you have already created which allows you to really narrow down your search results. The screen cap pictured above shows the top portion of Gmail's home page. As you can see, to the right of the search bar, there is an option to "create a filter". Once clicked, you should see something like the image below:

Here is a screen capture that I have cropped using Paint 3/27/11 on my own computer to demonstrate the Filter option in Gmail.

I have applied a couple filters here in this image. I am planning to shop at a beauty retail chain tomorrow and want to see if there are any free offers or coupons that I should bring to the store. I set a filter for the "From" because I want my filter to only return emails that have been sent from that retailer. Next to the filter "Has the Words" I wrote "free" because I only want results that return a listing of promotions or a coupon for a free item somewhere in either the subject or the body of the message. Next to "Doesn't Have" I entered the words "today only" because I plan to shop tomorrow once the store is open again.

Filters can also be added to future postings. Gmail makes it easy to color-coordinate frequent senders in your inbox to prioritize emails quickly at a glance.

5. Google Documents. Google Docs allows users to upload documents onto the website which can then be shared, reviewed and/or modified by contacts who are granted access to those documents. Using the online project example again, being able to edit and save rough drafts of our project right there over the internet saved the hassle of ensuring we all had the most accurate and up-to-date draft to look over. Google Docs also shows the date and time of the most recent edit to the document was made and it shows who made the changes. These documents can also be viewed straight from an email on most smart phones now. Since the most complex document software my phone comes with is an application called "Notes", I count on Google docs to convert word files into a Google doc  so that I can read important documents straight from my phone.


I hope that this information will encourage you to either set up a Gmail account or use your portal account to it's full potential. There are many functions that I just recently learned about that could have saved me countless hours in the past. Even if you do not use Google, but you use another portal style website, having the inter connectivity between all of your internet needs has proven to be quite useful to me and I assume it will do the same for you.