This is a new google Labs product. It is basically a table based search product. You run a search and it compiles data by categories and fills in a chart with your info. Yo9u can add columns or rows of data to what Google finds to start with. You can also start from a blank table and add your search categories and develop your data as you go.

I did a search for “American Presidents”. It returned 6 entries based I believe on # of web pages. (George Washington, John  F Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George W Bush, Jimmy Carter and Frnaklin Roosevelt) for those presidents it returned the following pieces of info Religion, IMage, Description, D.O.B,  and Political Party. A subsequent search for “United States Presidents” produced a completely different set of presidents and data points.

Google squared is an interesting tool that they need to put a little work into. It is best used to organize basic data about a subject in an easy to use chart. I would suggest skipping the search(after trying a sample one of two to see how it lays out data) and building your chart from scratch. Google will make suggestion on what data to add in either rows or columns after the initial column is filled in.

This free website is great for making student created animated comic strips online with voice narration and sound effects. Currently we are waiting to get a school account so your students can save their work.  (send me an email and I’ll let you know the details). In the meanwhile you can setup an account to save your work using the “other” school choice.

Currently the content preloaded into Story Creator 2 is Myth’s and Legends. All of the backgrounds, people and objects have a decidely medieval flair to them. You can upload your own clip art and sounds to use as part of your story. Once stories are completed you can save them and then download them for viewing offline or in class. You can also view stories created by other users from around the world, but primarily from England.

 http://myths.e2bn.org/create/tool527-new–story-creator-2–beta.html 

Microsoft won the browser wars when they beat Netscape. Of course nature abhors a vaccum so Mozilla Firefox rose from the ashes to offer Microsoft some competition and force them to make IE better. Now both IE and Firefox have a challenger to push them to innovate and its Google Chrome.

Chrome has quickly become my default browser. It has a few websites that are written in such a way as to not be 100% compatible, and then I load up IE and wait for the page to load.

Why Chrome over the others? Speed, Chrome loads pages much quicker then any of the other options. The interface is clean and simply while still allowing for most necessary features. The quick access to new tabs and the most commonly used websites feature also are big pluses. Typing a word/phrase into the address bar triggers a google search instead of a page not found, or having to type it in a different box.

You can also search websites from the address bar (by hitting tab after typing the address). What this does is executes a search of that website as if you used the search box that is on the website (ie: a book search on Amazon). In order for this tab search to work you have previoiusly had to use the search box on that website at least once.

Chrome includes a browse in incognito mode so that no cookies, or other traces of your viewing are saved locally.

Download chrome at http://www.google.com/chrome

Yeah I know I said it was way too cool for words, but this is a blog after all words are what defines it.  Google desktop is available for download from http://desktop.google.com/  

Google desktop is two distinct products rolled/wrapped into one juicy morsel. First is the widgets sidebar. Sidebars are nothing new they eat up screen real estate so you can have a larger clock, weather forecast and other kitsch. Eventually the depth of widgets available for the Google sidebar will astound me and force me to re-evaluate losing and inch or two of screen but for now they are only an amusement/occasional diversion.

The power of Google desktop is in it’s desktop search. Properly configured this tool will index all of your local and network drives compiling a search database of all of your files and their contents. This desktop search uses Googles vary same search algorithms and is almost foolproof. By hitting the ctrl key twice quickly a search box pops up for you to enter you query. The search executes in no time flat and produces a short list of relevant matches. (You can click the more button to see a detailed web page of results which is further sortable by file type.) The best part is one of the file types it also searches are your Outlook emails.

You can click on any of the results to launch the files or right click the result to open the folder it resides in. I can do a Google desktop search, find my file and open it, quicker than I can click my computer and drill down through the folders to where I know the file is and open it.

I know others think Google will one day defeat Microsoft and become ruler of the world, I for one  look forward to that day! Next up I’ll review Google Chrome. Chrome is Google version of a web browser.

Another ace in the hole for supporters of allowing some (guided) cell phone use in the classroom, polleverywhere allows students to weigh in on issues, as well as communicate thoughts and concerns with the teacher in a medium that they know well – their cell phone. Students can text answers to teachers’ queries which will automatically be tallied and viewable in real-time on the web. Check it out at:
http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Hey Folks! Do you need to tweak your photos or create fun and interesting projects with them. Do you not want to pay for photoshop or photoshop light, or install picasa on your machine? Try picnik, a free and web-based application for photo editing.
Thank you Derek Dayton for the tip.

“Have a file you don’t know how to open? Think you need an expensive piece of software to open it? Chances are there is a great free program that’s just as good as the expensive one, and you’ll find it here.”

This website as you can see from it’s own splash statement links you to software that is free on the internet to open files that you have received that you don’t currently have software on your machine to use. It does require a small install, which adds a link in your right click menu to their site.

You’ll right click on the file you can’t open and choose openwith… and then you are off and running.

Http://www.openwith.org

Looking for some excerpts or complete audio books for your classes or car rides?
http://librivox.org/
provides free readings of books in the public domain.

This one falls into the category of once in a blue moon. Every so often I have several pdf files that I’d like to combine together, to do this you need adobe acrobat (not reader which is free). 

http://www.mergepdf.net/

This website allows you to combine pdf’s but does have files size limitations and it isn’t nearly as quick as doing it with acrobat if you have it available.

I know there are lots of these out there on the internet, but this one had a few unique features and some neat presentation methods so I thought I would share it. There are over 1,000,000 quotes in this website that are searchable by tag or by author.

http://www.quotesdaddy.com/