RickScheibner.net

I use a few of Google’s services for more than just simple searches, and I’m willing to bet you do, too. Here are a few things coming out of Mountain View:

• I’m a day late running this, but they just announced the winner of their k-12 contest to design the Google logo. The one you see pictured here was created by Grace Moon, a 6th grade student from Castro Valley, California. Nice work, Grace!
• Google Sites is now open to everyone. I have to admit, I don’t use Google Sites as I have my own WordPress install, but apparently it teams with Google Gears and comes with some slick features. I may have to give it a test drive later this summer when I have a little free time.
• Print layout is now available in Google Docs. This is probably the most significant story here for me. As much as I’ve really been impressed with Google Docs, the one thing that has me not using it on a consistent basis is the difficulty with viewing what the online document will look like in print form. Web media, in general, looks vastly different on the screen than it does on the printer. I used GDocs to design a flier for an education forum I put together last year, and I got it to look fine, but it took more work than it should have. I look forward to putting this new feature to use on some upcoming projects.
• New GMail features, including the ability to set basic HTML as your default GMail view, rather than the AJAX-based view that tends to hang up on slower connections. I use Thunderbird to sync to my GMail account, so this is less important for me. However, it’s nice to know it’s there for those occasions when I’m on a slower line.

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