Three New Google Apps

I seem to find myself using Google’s services more and more. I use gmail for all my personal e-mails, I have Google Analytics for my websites, and I am a big fan of Picasa for organizing my photos. So it is no surprise that I have started using three more of Google's services. The three new services are:

 Google Calendar (obviously an online calendar.)
 Google Page Creator (Google’s new webpage design service.)
 Google Notebook (sort of a place to put notes from webpages.)

Here is a simple breakdown of the three services.

Google Calendar:
Most of you are probably saying, “yea another calendar program?” And you would be correct. Google calendar is just another calendar, it does have a few features that I like. For starters, it integrates well with my e-mail client of choice, gmail. I can set it up to e-mail me reminders of events I have scheduled in G-Cal. There is an online sharing aspect that can be good for families, ministries, and anytime people need to see what you are up to. You can decide who can see your calendar and what details they can see. You can make it so that people can see what event you have scheduled or simply see you as busy.

You can also create invitations, send out reminders and keep track of RSVPs inside Google Calendar. There are also many public calendars available to integrate into your. For example, I have added into my calendar: 2006 World Cup schedule, Christias holidays, and both US and Brazilian holidays. Each calendar category is color coded, so I will never get Brazilian Fathers Day and US Father’s Day confused. Another feature I like is the ability to uncheck a category. If, for example, you only wanted to see events for a particular family member, then you could uncheck all but that person’s, comes in handy if you have an active family.

Google Page Creator
This is a new one for me, so I am still learning the features, but basically, this is a very simple WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) webpage creator. It comes with about 45 templates (most are variation of the same theme) and four basic layouts that can be applied to each page. The templates have the feel and look of blogs and in fact are quite a bit plainer than what Google offers in Blogger. Your account is limited to 100mb at this time, probably more than enough for a family webpage. I was limited in what I could do. For example, I wanted to turn an icon/photo into a hyperlink, but to my knowledge, that ability is not present in Page Creator. In fact, the controls available in Page Creator are not much more than what you find in Blogger. Over all Google Page Creator is a very basic program and is probably best used by people who know next to nothing about HTML or web design. For those with a bit more knowledge, I recommend Nvu. A free alternative to FrontPage and Dreamweaver.


Google Notebook:
Now this is an app I think I can get behind. So far, Google Notebook is a Firefox only plugin, but I hope you all are using the far superior Firefox web browser. You could file this under “note taking” or “sermon/lesson prep.” If you are like me, then you spend a lot of time surfing the web. Many times, when I am researching material for a lesson, sermon, project, blog, etc., I will visit dozens of websites and do tons of Google Searches. Keeping all that information organized has always been hard for me. In the past, I have simply bookmarked a page for future reference, but then my bookmarks folder just get more and more cluttered. (I even have a folder labeled ‘websites to check our later.’ It currently has 14 link!)

Enter Google Notebook, a sort of note storage system for the web. As you surf through the web and find information you want to use later, Google Notebook allows you to simply highlight the information, right click and select “Note this.” They are then added into your Notebook, sort of like clipping an article from the newspaper or magazine. You can choose to make them public so that other might see them or not.
Since this post is getting long, I think I will be a bit lazy and simply cut and paste Google description:

 Clip useful information.
You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.
 Organize your notes.
You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.
 Get access from anywhere.
You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
 Publish your notebook.
You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.

While these services are good, none are great, and by themselves, I probably would not use them much. However, I hope, pray and anticipate the day that Google seamlessly integrates these programs together. I want to be able to check my e-mail, click a tab and review my notebook, click a second tab and be updating my blog. Since these projects are all still in beta (I sometimes wonder if a Google app ever leave beta!), I expect improvements. Who knows, we may see a Google app suite that rival MS Office. And if it remains free….then wouldn’t that be sweet!

eBible.com invites to hand out.

Mark Sears over at eBible was very generous and hooked my up with an invite to eBible.com! Not only that, hey has given me 10 invites to hand out. So if you would like one, e-mail me at jasondgardner AT gmail DOT com. First come, first serve. When you e-mail me, please include where you live and what kind of ministry you are involved in. If you are a mission (or preparing to go to the mission field) let me know. I am not planning on using this information in handing out invites, I am just curious and would love to see what kinds of folks read this blog.

May the Lord Bless you all.

Jason

eBible.com invite up for auction on eBay.com

The guys over at eBible.com have set up an auction on eBay for an exclusive Beta invite to their new program. The great news is that this is not some stunt to make some cash on their recent popularity spike, but rather a charity auction to raise money for their mission trip to Nepal.

The money from this auction will go towards the purchasing of stoves for families in Nepal.
Many homes in Nepal have very unsafe stoves, or no stoves at all. In homes without stoves, cooking is often done over an open fire. This leads to very poor air quality, and as a result, children develop respiratory conditions very early on in life. By providing stoves to families, we hope to improve their lives in a very practical way.

So if you really want one of those invites OR you have some tithe money you would like to give, then this would be a perfect opportunity for you to further the work of Jesus Christ in Nepal. Not to mention you can get in early on what will likely be a pretty cool web/bible app. Oh, and did I mention you also get a really swank t-shirt?

eBible Blog
eBay Auction page

God Bless
and as soon as I get an invite for myself, I will hand out any that I am given here.

New online Bible tool

I have used several of the various online Bible sites. I really like the NET bible as a new and modern translation that has the readability of the NIV and the accuracy of the NASB. But there is a new evangelist on the block and he is preaching the Word with a host of Web 2.0 goodness and his name is eBible
TechCrunch has only a slightly blasphemous article describing some of the features that will be incorporated into eBible.

Search any of a number of versions of the Bible with eBible by keyword (and switch between Bible versions once you’ve selected text you are interested in). eBible pulls additional information relevant to your query from a library of Bible reference sites, such as dictionaries, topicals, encyclopedias, handbooks, etc. Expert commentary is also included in the margin of Biblical text.

Currently in Beta and by invite only (anyone want to pass me and invite pretty please) eBible will hopefully offer more resources than your average online bible site. The idea is to allow a person to search passage of scripture, have eBible pull up your query as well as bring up extra biblical resources such as commentaries, bible dictionaries, lexicons and various other bible study aids.

The one problem I anticipate is a lack of mainstream modern resources and bible translations. Almost anyone can include Strong’s numbers or the KJV in a program because they lack any licensing fees. The NIV, Bible Knowledge Commentary, the Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich Greek/English are all excellent translations and/or bible reference, but each has a fee for use. I did notice that the screen shot at the TechCrunch article has the NASB listed.

UPDATE: The article got "dugg" at digg.com, so expect some heavy traffic and possible the websites to be down. This happens a lot to sites that get "dugg" and were not prepared for it.

Who's linking to me?

Ever wondered who, if anyone, was linking to your website? After reading a Digg.com article this afternoon, I did a little Google search and found some free services that can tell you what websites are linking to yours.

• WhoLinksToMe.com
  
• www.wholinks2me.com
  

They are both prety much the same website, with only slight variations. Drop me a line or add a comment if you know of other ways to find out who is linking to your website.