Google Free Tools Keep Getting Better

July 2, 2007

Google is the king of free web-based tools. I make routine use of Analytics, Gmail and Google Docs. I am also using Google Groups for a new group for WebbyOnline. I have used Google Webmaster Tools for site diagnostics. In short, I’m a big fan of Google.

Google Docs Sports New Features

This morning I logged into Google Docs and noticed it looks quite different than it did before. The most notable change is that you can now organize your documents into folders. The list of folders is now on the left side of the screen and the list of documents are on the right - pretty much just like Explorer in Windows. On the spreadsheet side of things, it is now much easier to create charts. The spreadsheets now support comments as well. For the full list of improvements, check this out. The beauty of Google Documents is that it allows easy collaboration. You no longer need all the fancy document sharing tools built into Microsoft Office. You can do it for free using the web at Google Docs.

Analytics Continues to Impress

I covered the re-design of Google Analytics back in May. Again, they have taken an already great tool and made it better. The reports are so much simpler to use than they used to be. All the graphs are Flash generated and load quickly. The put all the data people want most right in front of them, whereas it used to take many clicks and hunting to find what you needed.

Gmail for Business

Late last week, I decided to use Gmail for business. I needed to find a way to let my virtual assistant handle some of my email. I was thinking about installing a mail client to a second PC here in the office and providing remote access via Logmein.com. That would have worked, but with some of the recent webcam setup work I’m doing, that PC can be a little busy and I didn’t want my VA to unwittingly kick the cam offline. Next option was to hook it up with Kayako eSupport. Now, I own a license to this software and it really is killer helpdesk software. However, its almost too bulky and I was worried about the spam overflowing the thing. It then dawned on me - what about Gmail?

I already had a Gmail account for personal use, however I logged out of it and went to create a new account. After I had created the account, I was poking around the settings and was pleasantly suprised to see that Gmail now allows direct access to a POP3 account. Perhaps I’m just a latecomer to finding that one, but that’s incredibly useful! I thought I was going to have to set up forwarding accounts from my server to Gmail, but apparently now Gmail can actually log in to up to 5 external POP3 accounts and bring the email into your Gmail account. Gmail, in other words, is a full mail client - not just a box for your Gmail account which you then need to find other ways to pool your email into. And, of course, being that this was business email, I don’t want to use Gmail.com in my email addresses.

So, now my VA is able to check email for those accounts on the web with no hassle at all. It really gets me thinking if I want to use Gmail for my own mailbox. I’m still using Outlook here, and with the soon to-be-released version of Cloudmark Desktop for Thunderbird, I was thinking about a Thunderbird switch. But, I must say that having it online is elegant and convenient. And needless to say, if my hard drive ever dies again, my email would be fine. Only problem is I cannot import past email into Gmail.

Web-Based Computing

Perhaps someday we’ll all conduct all our computing needs in a web browser. It’s almost to the point now where you can practically get away with it. Software as a Service (SAAS) is very real.