Google for Christmas

35 Essential Computer User Google Links

The greatest advent of Google is that you are always connected wherever you go and able to access your account via the omnipresent Google cloud.

The list has been broken down into several sections to make it easier for those beginning their Google experience and those who want to augment their abilities.

Google has many well-known and some lesser-known products that everyone who uses Google should be familiar with. Whether you are practicing social networking as an Internet user, or as a professional you will need to know Google well to share information and continue to get others involved as Googlers.

These are just some of the Google Products that are designed to make your surfing of the Internet more enjoyable and productive for you. Many of these products are very useful aids for helping you to keep up to date with your postings on the Internet.

Google Basics

1. Google Account - Signing-up once here and creating a single Google account will give you access to all of Google's products, features, and services.
   
2. Google Mail or Gmail - For sending and receiving email.
3. Google Top Searches - More search options to help you research more accurately
   
4. Google Hot Trends - With Google Trends, you can compare the world's interest in your favorite topics.
5. Google Blog Search - Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs.
6. Google Web History - Keeps a record of your Internet use while logged into your account.
7. Google News Search - Need more information on a theme or topic? News Search will look for you.
8. Google News Archive Search Allows you to search and explore historical archives.
9. Google Image Search -Need an image for your project? Image Search will speed up the search for you.
10. Google Reader - Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites, RSS feeds, and blogs for new content.
11. iGoogle - Your own personalized Google user interface page that promotes searches and your selected content.

Google Intermediate

1. Google Video - A collection of 'User Videos' that may or may not be on 'YouTube.' And also a place where users can host their videos.
2. Google Alerts - Email updates (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
3. Google Calendar - A very useful aid that effectively reduces scrap paper and never gets lost, use it in combination with other Google products.
4. Google Docs - Create and share documents on-line. This product allows the creation of documents similar to Microsoft Word and Excel. Very easy to use and permits users work together at the same time despite time zone differences.
   
5. Google Custom Search Engine - Create your own custom search engine for your external hosted website.
6. Google Sites - Allows users to create and host their own website.
   
7. Google Talk - Instant communications, a simple fast chat and messenger program.
8. Google Chrome -Google's browser software, its fast, simple and secure.
   
9. Google Adsense - Google AdSense matches ads to your site's content, and you earn money whenever your visitors click on them.
10. Google Earth - Google Earth lets you travel almost anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, and terrain.

Google Advanced

1. Google Gadget Ventures - Google Gadget Ventures is a new Google pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets.
2. Google Grants - The Google Grants program supports organisations to help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy, and the arts.
3. Google Code University - Provides tutorials and sample course content so CS students and educators can learn more about current computing technologies and paradigms.
4. Google Ad Words - Display Ad Builder for website advertising.
   
5. Google Analytics - Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.
6. Google Data Protocol - The Google Data Protocol is a REST-inspired technology for reading, writing, and modifying information on the web.
7. Google Maps API -
8. Google Base - Simply describe your items on Base to make them as easy as possible for people to find when they search.
9. Google Research - Google’s mission and the enormous scale of Google’s operation lead to fundamental questions in Computer Science and Engineering; the technical excitement of this, and the real and practical benefit we can bring to Google’s users through our integrated approach, all contribute to the excitement of doing research at Google.

Branded Products Owned by Google

1. Blogger -Access thousands of blogs and search through them for useful postings - Or, start your own.
2. Youtube -A collection of 'User Videos' that may not be on 'Google Video'.
3. Picasa - An off-line | on-line tool for organizing and editing your photos and images.
4. FeedBurner - Great program to creating, directing and making feeds and blogged information go all over the place.Supports RSS 2.0 and Atom and more.
   
5. Gears - Gears is an open source project that enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser:

This is what love is all about...

Forwarded by email to me this morning.


This Is What Love Is All About...

It was a busy morning, approximately 8:30 am, When an elderly gentleman in
his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he
was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs
and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone
would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since
I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam it
was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies
to remove his sutures and redress his wound. While taking care of his wound,
we began to engage in conversation. I asked him if he had a doctor's
appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me
no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife.
I then inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a
while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer Disease.

As we talked, and I finished dressing his wound, I asked if she would be
worried if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was,
that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised, and
asked him. "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who
you are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said. "She doesn't know me, but
I still know who she is."

I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and
thought, "That is the kind of love I want in my life."

True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of
all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

"The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they
just make the best of everything that comes along their way."


-- Author Unknown --

Pedestrians Roulette

- This photovideo is was made this morning (15/05/2010) from 230 still photographs shot yesterday (14/05/2010 at 21:51 GMT+2) following utter disgust that motorists show for human life whilst pedestrians are crossing the road.

- Friday the 7th May 2010 a brilliant 23 year old student was killed on such a crossing, the image being made public is designed to pervert the law stating that both driver and victim were both crossing on a Red Light according to a Police camera.

- Even worse followed... Tuesday 11th May 2010 2 sisters aged 12 and 13 years old at 20:00 on a crossing outside the library, both badly injured by a couldn't care less motorist in a BMW driven by a 19 year old.

Pedestrian Roulette Photovideo

- The photovideo has been slowed to half speed of 0.63secs per picture from 0.31 seconds.

So far this year in the County of Cluj... 109 serious road accidents, 32 killed and a further 90 seriously injured.

- The Police dedicated a whole 6 hours to sorting the daily carnage out, not one is to be seen on the streets today, the whole 6 hour period they swarmed everywhere.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4139088/dramatic-boat-fire-in-florida/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.025795:b32605838:z6

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4139088/dramatic-boat-fire-in-florida/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.025795:b32605838:z6

You know you live in 2010 when...

You know you live in 2010 when...

1. You go to a party, sit down and take MySpace pics.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. The reason for not staying in touch with your friends is that they don't
have AIM/LiveJournal/MySpace/Facebook etc.

4. You'd rather look all over the house for the remote instead of just pushing the button on the TV.

6. Your evening activity is sitting at the computer.

7. You read this list, and keep nodding and smiling.

8. You think about how stupid you are for reading this.

9. You were too busy to notice number five.

10. You actually scrolled back up to check if there was a number five.

11. And now you're laughing at your stupidity.

12. Put this in your profile if you fell for it.

Admit it, you know you did.

Passed on to me by a fellow Travian player

The Non-Recycled Plastic Bottle

The Non-Recycled Plastic Bottle

Hands up who carefully recycled the plastic bottles they used in the last year.

Each and everyone of us throws into ever decreasing landfill sites enough plastic bottles for us all to be proud owners of one of these giant footballs!

Great 'Electronic' Wall of China

The Newest Wall against humanity is up, freedom of information is blinding 30% of the world's Internet population.

This entry is taken from the Times onlne and can be followed up by you dear reader anytime you like...
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6996738.ece

Hillary Clinton guards Internet freedom in attack on
China’s new ‘Berlin Wall’

Hillary Clinton has deepened a row over freedom of expression in China by warning Beijing that its alleged attack on Google would have “consequences” and comparing its censorship of the internet to the Berlin Wall.

The US Secretary of State’s criticism — coming days after the internet company said that it would withdraw from the world’s most populous nation in protest at curbs imposed on its users — is a serious intensification of the dispute that now threatens relations between the two powers.

“Countries that restrict free access to information, or violate the basic rights of internet users, risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century,” Mrs Clinton said, adding that the US and China “have different views on this issue, and we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently.

“Countries or individuals that engage in cyber-attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an internet-connected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all.

“We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas,” she told an audience in Washington, in a speech that also named Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam as nations that censored the internet or harassed bloggers.

About 30 per cent of the world’s internet users had restricted access, she said. “No nation, no group, no individual should stay buried in the rubble of oppression.”

Mrs Clinton challenged China to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the recent cyber- attacks on Google, which also targeted dozens of other US companies. She warned that China’s economy — now second only in size to the US — would ultimately be harmed by its attempts to control information.

Google said that those behind the computer attack tried to plunder its software coding, and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Chinese citizens find information about sensitive subjects such as the Tiananmen Square uprising filtered on google.cn and other search engines.

The social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, as well as the video site YouTube, are blocked. Throwing the US Government behind Google’s new stance on China, Mrs Clinton urged technology companies to refuse to support censorship, and called on US businesses not to support suppression in search of quick profits.

Its rival search engine Yahoo! has come out in support of Google’s move since it was announced last week.

“I hope that refusal to support politically motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply the prospect of quick profits,” she said.

The State Department is to hold a high-level meeting next month with companies that provide network services, for talks on internet freedom. Mrs Clinton wants technology companies to help to provide new tools that will “enable citizens to exercise their right of free expression” by circumventing censorship.

Relations between the US and China are already troubled by quarrels over trade, Taiwan and human rights. Earlier a senior Chinese minister sought to contain the row, saying that Google’s dispute should not be over-stated. Beijing has until now treated the spat as a commercial matter, declaring that the search giant must obey China’s laws and traditions.

Hours before Mrs Clinton’s speech, He Yafei, the Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister, told the official Xinhua news agency: “The Google incident should not be linked to bilateral relations, otherwise that would be over-interpreting it.” However, two state-controlled newspapers yesterday accused Google of allowing itself to be used by the US Government for political purposes, and warned that it would pay a high price for doing so.

Google, which informed US authorities about the cyber-attacks before going public, praised Mrs Clinton’s words. “Free expression and security are important issues for governments everywhere, and at Google we are obviously great believers in the value to society of unfettered access to information,” it said in a statement.

Wen Yunchao, a prominent blogger based in Guangzhou, southern China, said that the speech would boost the morale of those who sought greater internet freedom in China, but that more details of America’s efforts to advance the cause around the world were needed. China is home to the world’s largest online population of 382 million people.

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Postscript

Many of us have friends in China, Expats as well as Chinese friends on the various sites many of us network on. It is not a case of them ignoring our messages, it is simply a case oftheir access to the Web has been removed against their own free will.

Expats have and are finding ways to get past this Electronic Wall by gaining access to VPN networks (In a nutshell), an escape tunnel avoiding censorship and monitoring by use of virtual networks.