More Things - Nbr 29 Google Tools

Here's the most complete source I've found for Google products.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/


I thought I was finished with Thing 29 Google Tools. I had set up Google Desktop long ago, and continue to explore new gadget. I have explored more gadgets from iGoogle. I prefer My Yahoo plus Firefox toolbars. I tried Alerts, and got an incompatibility error message from Firefox 3.0. Likewise incompatible Web History, and Firefox has it's own history Library Tool.

Gmail deserves plenty of effort and exploration. One thing that is easier on Yahoo Mail is feeding the Contact file directly from an icon following the sender's address.

Picasa is my favorite application. It works very well from the software I downloaded to the sluggish old Dell desktop pc.

USA Today had an article yesterday, March 13, about Google phone and voicemail over the web. Looks like a promising alternative to Vonage and Skype; easy to set up conference calls. Don't see it on the Google options lists anywhere.

Alternatives to Google Reader. A Facebook invitation from the Association for Baha'i Studies, a very high level, global scholarly group with strict standards for blogs, brought a recommendation to try NewsGator Online. After an hour setting up, I manage more easily and filter better with Reader. NewsGator is appropriate for those who use iTunes or the iPhone, because that's what they are promoting, and they are enhancing service. For the web, it's a very long list of commercial media news sources, and a lot of duplication of NewsGator's own feeds.

I'll try to put the standards for blogging in the sidebar.

More password problems consumed hours as I set up new accounts on Google related options. Within Blogger itself was the worst of it, wanting to confirm new passwords with my original Localnet.com email (now my secondary email) and with gmail. The password validation word pattern in these confirmation steps are the most difficult to read. One password change does not immediately apply to all Google accounts. Even Picasa did not get it, and it uses a short form of the username instead of an email address.
Solution: Surprise! I went to the desktop pc in the next room, and Picasa already had the new password on the pc software and was ready to run in tandem with the online application. The laptop where I was doing all the work was the problem. Get out of Firefox; get back in. Everything worked.

Not quite as serious as passwords, but along the way while setting up various Google accounts and the primary Google profile, the profile information was not shared by all. Profile photos were blank or unique to each profile, some had a photo, others I had to upload. If you are trying to market yourself uniquely by application, you can be more focused in what you list in each profile.