Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » Google

7 Google services you have never tried

Rick — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:36:08 +0000

Google started as a college project 12 years ago, then as a startup search engine just 10 years ago. Today, Google owns more than 60% of all web search traffic and employs close to 22,000 employees worldwide. You probably interact with Google via their search engine primarily. However, you are missing out on some truly great services that Google also provides in addition to their fast and accurate search engine. Today, I will tell you about 7 of the many other services Google provides.

Google News

When you arrive at google.com, click the link that says News at the top of the page or you can directly visit news.google.com. Google News is an auto-generated news page that refreshes automatically every 5-10 minutes and displays headlines from more than 4500 news sources around the world. To me, it is the ultimate newspaper?unbiased and unfiltered. And even more helpful, starting a search at Google News instead of

Choosing a smart password, from the Gmail Blog

Rick — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:27:42 +0000

I’ve written many times about passwords and their importance in keeping you safe online. Search the site for passwords to read them and also take a look at this article from the Gmail Blog at Google. Official Gmail Blog: Choosing a smart password. Related posts:Password ManiaPassword Problem at TwitterGoogle Docs privacy leak

Picasa brings face recognition to the desktop app

Rick — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:18:38 +0000

Google continues to make Picasa the photo orgainzer to beat. Not only is it fast, intuitive, and clean, the feature set continues to grow. Today, Google released an update to Picasa, Picasa 3.5. They brought in the face recognition feature that was available in the online photo album version of Picasa and enhanced it for [...]

Computer Help Show Podcast – 09-16-09

Rick — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:00:03 +0000

This month’s show was packed with information about the Google services that you may not know they offered. Have a listen or download it to your MP3 player or iPod to listen to later. Related posts:Computer Help Show Podcast – 07-15-09

Google buys reCaptcha

Rick — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:37:37 +0000

Google just announced that they have bought reCaptcha. reCaptcha has been a leading company in helping to thwart comment and account spam by requiring a human to decipher characters and words scanned from books before continuing on in a posting or sign up process. Check out the article here: Official Google Blog: Teaching computers to read: [...]

Do everything online…for free!

Rick — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:43:34 +0000

Some people believe that I drink too much Web 2.0 Kool Aid. That’s ok though because I love drinking it! Web 2.0 refers to computing on the web versus your desktop. Instead of installing an application and then starting it from your desktop, you head to a web site instead. If you use HotMail (MSN email), [...]

Google Strikes Deal with Sony

Rick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:09:53 +0000

The Financial Times reported that Google and Sony agreed on a deal that will result in Google’s Chrome browser (barely a year old) being installed on new Sony computers sold in the United States. Google hopes to add more similar deals with other manufacturers. FT.com / Technology – Sony to distribute Google browser. Related posts:Chrome gets even [...]

Business and Education Save Money by Moving to the Cloud

Rick — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:50:38 +0000

Since joining Twitter last spring, I made it a point to follow industry leaders and pundits that post interesting and breaking tech news and information. Two of my favorites are GoogleAtWork and Zoho. After nearly 15 years in the computer help and training business, I firmly believe in the mission of these two organizations…cloud computing. Quickly, [...]

Yet another reason to ditch Microsoft Office for web based apps

Rick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:35:06 +0000

This news story has flown mostly under the radar of most computer users for weeks. In a nutshell, it’s a patent infringement suit brought upon Microsoft by a Canadian company called i4i. The suit alleges that Microsoft knowingly used proprietary technologies in Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Last week, a judge in Texas, ruled in [...]

Beware of fake security software

Rick — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:24:32 +0000

I write a similar article every few weeks not because I’m not creative, but because too many people aren’t listening yet. These past few weeks have been awful for folks getting fake security software on their computers. It often times gets on a computer as a result of other things you are trying to download [...]