Some time (years) ago Google was big. Just big, nothing else. Then
it became the biggest and most used search engine in the world. I won't
even talk about the profits. Google used to be a giant, however, it's
growing bigger and bigger with every day. Just recently they have come
out with a new product called Google Desktop 2.




The idea of it is rather simpler - it kind of surfs the web for you.
It's a free program that gives its users access to the kind of
information we need every day - weather forcasts, daily news, stock
quotes, email alerts, task alerts. These features are all part of
Google Desktop's Sidebar.

This tiny piece of software doesn't
really require much from the user - you. Just sit back as the
information is being displayed in the sidebar of your desktop.

This Google toy, Google Desktop 2 is about 1.4Mb to download
and in addition to the features the Sidebar has, Google Desktop 2 has
also a really great search module. You've searched your hard drive
using Windows built-in search, right? It's slow, VERY slow. And if your
computer actually has need a format c for a long time already, like
mine does, then to search for ... lets say .avi files in your computer,
it takes ages, up to 10 minutes I have discovered. And I have AMD
1700+. Google Desktop 2 does the search for me in a matter of seconds.
Yes, new version of windows will allegedly also contain this sort of
fast search. However, right now I don't really miss that anymore.


Simply put - Google rocks. I don't really want to sound like I'm the
sales agent for the Google Corporation. Especially as I'm not getting
paid for it, especially because of that. However, Google has provided
us, the web users, lots of tools that make our lives easier. And most
of their tools are rather good. So if you didn't know about them, you
definitely should learn about them a bit more. Even Google search
engine, their main product, is making waves and has done so already for
a very long time. All SEO (Search Engine Optimization) forums are full
of google related discussions. Everyone wants a piece of what Google
has to offer.


Google satellite map
So what other services does Google
provide? They offer local mobile search services - business listings
and local driving direction through users cell phone service. They
offer Google maps which includes satellite view. They offer email with
2GB of free storage. They offer video blogging service. And you all
know google news, hopefully. News service that takes news headlines
from over 4500 newspapers around the world. So as you can see, there's
not much google doesn't offer.

Is Google really everything I
say it is? Well, a really good example is a recent downtime of Google.
Its domain went down for about 15 minutes leaving visitors wondering if
Google has been hacked or something. It set the whole world wondering
what has happened. Some even predicted the end of the world. Though I
hope these guys were just plain stupid. But you can see that web
without google…is web without google, I guess.

I'd be curious
to hear what you have to say about the giant. For a change something
negative will be only appreciated. After all, Google isn't really a
non-profit organization, but rather does this all to generate massive
profits.