After the first class meeting my head was spinning.  I was SO far behind the game already, and we hadn’t even started.  So many of the younger students already knew much of what was discussed, and seemed very familiar with the concepts.  I think I was the only class member that didn’t already have a Face Book page – I actually had to create one during the class!

While I’m still not going to win any awards for my techno-savvy skills, I have come a long way in ten short weeks, and more importantly, I have learned a ton.  Its been a lot of fun, but very challenging for me.  I know some of the students probably skated through this class with little frustration, but that was not the case for me.  I knew going in that it would likely take me twice as long to figure something out, and that was OK, as long as I got it.

I have truly enjoyed this course – it has made me look at my computer, online social networks, online advertising/marketing and overall use of the Internet much differently.  And, I’ve reconnected with SO many old friends and associates through Face Book – what a bonus!

I would highly recommend this course for virtually anyone – employed, not employed, computer savvy, computer illerate – you will learn regardless of your existing knowledge base, and you will walk out a much better person for it.  It is fun, educational, and enlightening – probably the best course I’ve taken at MSU!

During the first NMDL class I heard more Google terms in one day than I had ever heard before – I had to write them all down so that I could go back on my own and look them up to see what they were all about.  Initially, I couldn’t see myself using very many of them – I viewed them as redundant, since I already use (and was very happy with) Microsoft’s suite of products.  I already had an email account, contacts, a calendar, document software, and so on, and they all synced beautifully with my phone.

However, at the urging of my NMDL professor, Derek Mehraban, I opened a new gmail account (I actually had one from many moons ago that I opened after receiving an “invitation” from a friend, but I had never used it so I didn’t remember the user ID or the password).  I started using it, and as mentioned in a previous post, began to really like it.

So happy was I, that I ventured into another Google world – contacts.  Again, as mentioned in a previous post, this was a ginormous disaster.  I found them difficult to import from Outlook, and once I finally managed to get them copied, they were a huge boondoggle.  I was very frustrated, so I simply gave up.

Since I am a very stubborn person, I recently made yet another attempt to resolve my Google Contact issue.  Admittedly, one of the reasons is my incorrigible desire to get rid of Comcast.  Now that AT&T is offering their high speed products in my neck of the woods, I have an option other than Comcast.  But, I would really like all of my stuff SUCCESSFULLY moved to an all web platform before I make the move, just in case it is as unsuccessful as the last major computer change I made.

So, into the Google Contacts I go.  I made some changes to my Excel.CSV file in an attempt to “un-mangle” my contacts.  I re-saved this, and tried the import function again.  It was better this time, but I came upon some information that I simply couldn’t believe at first.  Google doesn’t give you the option to sort your contacts by last name!  I have never heard of anything so ridiculous!  Who doesn’t want all the “J’s” together in their phone book?  If I am looking for Joe Smith, I am of course going to go to the “S’s” – not the “J’s”.  So frustrated was I that I could not figure out a way to resort my contacts, that I headed to where else?  The Google search engine.  I did a search on “how to sort Google contacts by last name” and I was smacked in the face with dozens of results that were both informative and unbelievable.  I will say I felt much better after reading several, as I know knew that it wasn’t me, it was Google.  I was also pleased to see that dozens of others, probably hundreds, are just as amazed and upset at this blunder as I was.  I went back into my Excel.CSV file and simply changed the headers – I was sure this fix was far too simple to actually, so imagine my surprise when it did!  Of course, now I had to go back and fix all of the things that were wrong as a result of this change – Al’s Pet Grooming and Sierra Station restaurant were backwards, as were lots of others.  But, I no longer had hundreds of phone numbers floating in the abyss, and most of my names were correct.

I must say though, given Google’s success so far, this blunder really shocks me – I can’t believe they are OK with this as it is, and that more people haven’t complained – maybe not enough people are using Google Contacts yet – I will just have to be patient.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also imported my Outlook Calendar over to Google, and that process was blissful!  Everything worked just as it was supposed to, and my new calendar appeared in Google almost instantly.  I changed it to a beautiful shade of purple, and I love it.  Despite the fact that I’m still syncing my phone to my Outlook, I now get Google Calendar email reminders for all of my events, instead of the annoying “pop up” on my phone that I received from Outlook.  Well, I’m actually getting both right now, but at least I know that in the future I will only get the email reminders, because I am DETERMINED to have all of my “stuff” on Google soon, and then I will sync Google to my phone…..

One of the features I love about the Google calenar is the “overlap” feature (I’m not sure what the official name for this is).  In Outlook, if two events overlap, you get parts of each that are visible, and you get to guess at what the rest of the event says.  Google actually prints both events, in different shades of purple on my calendar, on the day so that both are completely readable, and you can easily see that they overlap.  With our crazy schedules, we have lots of overlaps, but this makes it easy to see when I have to have a Plan B in place.  Love this feature!  I also love that I can have more than just my calendar on my cpomputer.  My husband doesn’t use Google (yet), but it would be awesome to have his calendar at my disposal too, so I would be able to tell when we had conflicts in advance.  This would give me many other advanteages too, but they don’t really apply here so I will leave it at that.

Since I have not yet finished going through all of my contacts to “fix” them (I’m only on C), it is too early to tell if I will be glad I invested all of this time.  But, given that this is really the only app that I don’t really like, I’m willing to keep working at it – so far I’m hooked on Google!

So, I started looking on-line for articles about Google, and its history.  Wow!  Talk about a never ending stream of information!  Some pieces were short and to the point – others went on forever.  Some of the details varied from article to article, but for the most part the “bones” of the story were consistent.  But all provided interesting and impressive information, and I now have an even fonder affinity for my new best friend.

Believe it or not, Google was started by two college students!  Wow – so was Face Book – is there a pattern here?  Clearly I am missing the boat, and my “Oprah” moment.

Two students from Stanford came up with the idea for Google while working together on a project.  One story I found claimed that Larry Page actually started the project in 1996, and then Sergey Brin joined him after.  This info was only mentioned the one time, so I don’t know how true it is.  Regardless, the two of them had been working together on a search engine they had dubbed “BackRub” since early 1996.  Yahoo co-founder, David Filo, encouraged them to start a company in 1998, and helped them look for financial investors to back them.  The “business” was started in a friends garage!  Do you believe that?  What started in a garage in September of 1998 is now, ten years later, one of the most well known companies in the world.

Google was soon handling over 10,000 search queries a day, and the company grew quickly through word of mouth as more and more people found it to their liking.  Press coverage, awards and other recommendations contributed to Google’s continued growth, and people really liked its quirky nature – Google didn’t want to be taken too seriously.

In 200o Google made a major step forward when it replaced its provider of supplementary research results on Yahoo(which was company by the name of Inktomi).  It then provided search data to Yahoo, AOL, Netscape, Freeserve and a company in the UK.  Google had great coverage and was soon established as a reliable and accurate search engine, resulting in it becoming a clear market leader.

In the UK, Google now accounts for 70% of web searches – very impressive!  Google and Search Engine have become synonymous terms, and Google is now considered by many to be a verb – “I will Google it and let you know”.

Google is a true example of a success story – two buddies doing something they love and turning it into a world wide phenonomen.  Certainly an “Oprah” moment – I wonder if they have ever been on the Oprah Show?

Along comes Google, offering the same (and in many cases far superior) type of applications for no or very low cost.  Anyone (personal or business) can get Google Apps for free, and an upgraded version is available (no ads will appear and support is provided) called the Premier, for $50 per year, per account.  That is a no-brainer in my book, but as with most things, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Google allows collaboration on digital files in real time by all your employees, it is easily integrated with other established office tools, and it is easily sync-able with many hand held devices.  Additionally, since Google is web based, it can be accessed from anywhere, and is automatically backed up almost instantly.

After reading through several articles, it seems that while Google has mastered many areas, they are still falling short in some.  The majority of things I have seen have indicated Google Docs Spreadsheet can’t hold a candle to Microsoft Excel, and Google Docs is a far cry from Microsoft Word.  But, what if you only care about the email/calendar/contacts aspect of Google, in an attempt  to simplify your company’s communication channels?  There are apparently some problems there,too.

What if your employee, Johnny Smith, uses gmail at home on his personal computer.  Apparently this is problematic when he comes to work and logs onto his work gmail account through www.google.com/a.  Contrary to initial glance, this “a” is not a typo (as I initially thought) but rather a very important component that differentiates the work email account from the personal email accounts.  But, it seems that Google has not yet come up with a good way to differentiate, and thus the system often confuses the two, and in some cases, merges both accounts together.  Worse yet, it has also been known to simply delete entries altogether, causing more than one unhappy manager to miss an important meeting.

So, if you’re the small business owner, what do you do?  Do you spend a ginormous amount of money on the “sure thing” and install Microsoft applications on all of your company computers?  Or, do you save money initially by using Google applications, but pay your employees to spend a good amount of their “work time” playing with and figuring out the quirks that seem to still exist in Google?  Also keep in mind, if your company elects to go with Google’s free version, support is not easily attainable, and is certainly not timely, so factor that into both your decision and your financial statements.

Overall I think Google is onto something spectacular, but like anything else, it has some issues to work through.  If I was a small business owner today I believe I would have a tough time with this decision; everyone wants to save money, and in today’s environment that is more desirable than ever, but in this case there seems to be a hidden cost.

Not long after this class began, I created a Gmail account for myself, and started using it instead of my Old Faithful Microsoft Outlook.

As I have dug further and further into Google, I am seeing a common thread – ease of use, logical features, and time savings.  Since all of these things are on the top of my priority list, I have made Google a bigger part of my daily computer life.

Now that I have been using Gmail for awhile, I am really pleased with it for the most part.  I have become more comfortable with the screens and the format.

I think my favorite feature is the “grouping” of emails to/from the same person from the same thread.  Gone are the days of scrolling through pages of emails (I tend to hang on to my emails for a very long time) to look for one particular one.  They are all grouped together  – sort of in a neat little stack, and I simply click on the particular email I’m looking for and it opens up.  Genius.

I also love the huge amount of space I have – I think it says 2500 megabytes.  While I have no idea what that means from a technical standpoint, I do know that I have an insane amount of space to “hoard” all of my emails forever.  I also know because as of today I am using a mere 1% of my allotted space and I have lots of emails just sitting in my inbox – it’s very promising! And, if I do decide to move them out of my inbox, I can simply archive them instead of deleting them – music to the ears of a digital pack rate like myself.

Since my Gmail account is still fairly new, I haven’t had to use the search feature yet, but after reading about it, I’m looking forward to the day I finally do.  Gmail allows you to search all of your emails by key words – both from your inbox and your archived emails!  What a great idea!  Microsoft missed the boat on that one.

I don’t like the fact that my original email doesn’t automatically close after I reply to the sender, and I can’t seem to figure out a way to change that as I can do on Microsoft Outlook, but in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that big of a deal.

The other ridiculous thing that I find myself missing is the ability to have a “:)” replaced with a “real” smiley face.  As goofy as it sounds, the fact that Gmail doesn’t do that bums me out.  I know – get a life.   I guess I just figure since Google is so forward thinking in so many other aspects of their applications they should have gotten this one taken care of way back when.

So happy am I with my new Gmail account, that I decided to import my contacts in from Microsoft.  HUGE, GINORMOUS MISTAKE!  Not only was it incredibly difficult to do (and perhaps I still have not done it correctly, which is why my contacts are so screwed up) despite following the simple instructions to the letter, my contacts appeared in Google completely messed up.  I have literally hundreds of phone numbers with no name or address associated, and hundreds of names/addresses with no phone numbers.  I spent over three hours the first night looking up phone numbers manually in my Microsoft contacts and then transferring them (again, manually) into my Google contacts.  What a pain!  I finally gave up to go to bed – I haven’t touched them since because the chore is so daunting, and I have to believe there is an easier way and I don’t want to waste my time.

To further frustrate me, Google is virtually unavailable to answer questions relating to their applications.  They offer lots of places to “look it up”, either on their help site or via other users and their posts, but I want a real, live person to help me – I’m weird like that.  At least Microsoft has a phone number with people on the other end – Google needs to work on that.  In the meantime I keep looking for someone who actively uses Google contacts, in the hopes that they can help me fix my mangled contacts – I’m still looking.  Maybe one of these days (when my class has concluded!) I will go through the contacts one by one and pair them up with phone numbers – as soon as I clean out every sock drawer in the house and rearrange my food pantry!

I would like to eventually resolve this issue; in part because I’m just stubborn like that and I don’t give up.  Also because now that I’m weaning myself from Microsoft, I would like to complete the break and have all of my information under one umbrella.  I also like that I can access my Google “stuff” from any computer, regardless of where I am and if I have my own laptop with me.  That is very handy.

So, its a split decision on this one – LOVE the Gmail, HATE the contacts.  If and when I can finally figure the contacts out, I MIGHT have my iphone sync to Google instead of Microsoft Outlook.  That is one step I’m not yet prepared to make.

Given that I am not currently working in my career field, I am limited in how I can use these tools.  While I have had a GREAT time reconnecting with old friends via Face Book, that is strictly personal and doesn’t even touch on using the tool on the career side.

Enter my brother in law.  He is a poet, and has been for many years.  He earned his MS in Creative Writing, and has been teaching workshops and mini-camps around the state, but he has always filled in the gaps (and the checkbook) with odd jobs totally unrelated to poetry and/or writing.  He has been published in several small poetry publications, and has written two books of his own, but despite his success stories, he is still relatively “unknown” in the larger world of poetry.  His ultimate goal is to write full time, but as of now that has not been possible.  He loves teaching and has taught at several schools around the state, but has yet to obtain a full time, permanent position.

As I worked through this class I began to think of how Social Media could help my brother in law – I remembered the story Derek Mehraban told the class about the attorney his company helped create a presence for.  During his next visit to our house I discussed it with him.  After I outlined several of the new tools I had become aware of, he started to show some enthusiasm.  I suggested he create a blog, and post some of his work, along with the stories behind the pieces, on his blog.  This would allow people to post comments and provide some great feedback for him.  I also suggested he create a page on LinkedIn and post some of the same information, as well as his teaching and writing credentials, and his desire for a permanent teaching position.  I explained the “groups” on LinkedIN as well, and told him I thought joining several of these would be very helpful.  Not only would that introduce him to others in the industry, it would get him additional exposure.  After quite a long talk, he agreed to let me get him started on “Project Introduce Johnny”.

I created a blog for him, and showed him how to post on it.  While it is very simple (he is a writer after all), it is full of content! But, we can’t officially publish it right away.  He is currently in the middle of another book and is shopping it to publishers.  I don’t know anything about this industry, but apparently it is somewhat secretive, so he has asked me to hold off on making his blog “live” until this process is wrapped up.  He continues to create blog posts, but the real “reveal” will have to wait just a while longer.

Since I can’t create an actual Facebook page or LinkedIn page, I drew each up on paper for him, and have been making notes for myself so that when the time comes I will be able to build them quickly!  I have looked up lots of different groups on LinkedIn, and I think I have found some great ones for him.  I also found him some groups on Google Groups, and am anxious for him to join and see what happens!  I also showed him my Delicious and Digg pages and explained how they work (with my limited knowledge and experience).  I told him once we’re able, we’ll have everyone we know “Digg” his blog and see what happens!

He will be the first to tell you that he is extremely computer challenged – he even prefers to record his writing and have someone else (read: me) type it for him – computers slow down his creative juices!  Despite his technological handicap, he is doing well.  I still help him frequently, and he often sends me stuff to post/add for him (as well as proof read, revise, correct grammar, etc), for if it was all left up to him it may never happen!

I would love to post some links on here to my new “project”, but given the top secret status I can’t do that yet.  Regardless, I have had lots of fun recreating my brother in law, and am very excited for everything to finally hit the big web and see what happens!  If I have learned anything at all, his name will appear at least 20 times when we Google it!

Fast forward a few weeks.  My husband asked me if I would look up a potential new client for him while I was “playing” on my computer (I HATE when he says that) and see what I could find out about them before his upcoming meeting/presentation.  As I dug and dug for information on this company, it occurred to me that Google Alerts may come in handy in a situation like this.  I mentioned this to my husband and got the cursory nod, and that was it.

So I continued to think about this.  What if you entered EVERYTHING and EVERYONE you were interested in into your Google Alerts – you would constantly be alerted of any news related to any of them (sent to your inbox at intervals determined by you; as they occur, daily, weekly).  If I actually had clients/customers, I could enter all of them and be appraised on a regular basis about anything newsworthy they do or are involved in.  I could do the same for a competitor – what a great way to keep the upper hand, or at the very least keep up with the industry.  Since the Tournament is coming up in a few weeks, I could enter Michigan State University Basketball in my alerts and be updated at all times – what a great idea!

Google Alerts would also be great for a news story that was ongoing, and continued to have new developments; something huge like September 11/World Trade Center would probably not work well, as your in box would likely blow up, but smaller issues that were ongoing would work nicely, and would prevent you from having to constantly check the Internet for updates on your own.

Finally, on a much more frivolous level, you could create a Google Alert for your favorite (or least favorite) celebrity, athlete, or public figure and keep up to date on their comings and goings and all of the other super important things they do on a daily basis – who needs People Magazine?

Since finding Google Alerts I have added and deleted several alerts.  I have also changed the frequency in which I receive some of the alerts, depending on the alert.  It definetely takes a little tweaking to get them all right!  I see this being a very useful tool for me going forward – something I will use long after this class has concluded.  Anything that can provide more information in a better format with less wasted time is a huge win in my book!

Enter the customizable Google Start Page or Home Page.  I spent way too much time playing with this, making it “mine”, but now I LOVE it!  First, I had to make it pink to further discourage my husband from using my laptop.  Then I added some polka dots, just because I like them.  Polka dots was something I didn’t see much of on my “work” computer back in the day, so its a fun change of pace.

Next, I added some truly functional things; weather, my Google Groups (more on those later – another really fun thing!), my ESPN updates, my Gmail, local news updates, CNN and of course, the date/time box in the middle.  My start page covers so many of my needs in one glance.  The best thing is the fact that I can change it, add, delete and tweak it so many ways – the options offered are endless.

As soon as I log on in the morning, I see what the current weather is (important so I know how to dress the kids to leave the house), what the weather will be during the day (so we know what to plan to wear outside for recess) and the expected weather for the next several days.  I can get a glimpse at the big stories in the news, glance and get the latest sports scores (Go Spartans!), and see if there is anything important on CNN.  I can do all of this in a matter of minutes – I can click on the item should I need more than just a quick glance, but in the morning craziness of my house, a quick glance is all I’m usually allowed!

I have just entered the world of Google Reader, so I’m not well enough versed on that application yet to warrant adding it to my start page – I’m reserving that for when I can use the application like an intelligent person, which shouldn’t be too long from now.  But, it is nice to know that once I know what I’m doing, I can add the reader to my page too, which will only increase the value to me.

Finally, I like my Google start page so much, I added it as my Internet home page on my iphone (I just keep impressing myself with all my techno advances).  In some cases it is redundant (I have a weather application on my phone, as well as a news app and my gmail) but nonetheless, it is a cool feature, and one that is so easy to use.

My Google Start Page has changed the way I start my mornings, and has certainly made my initial computer foray of the day better and much more interesting!

I am a huge news junkie, but these days I have very little time for news – in any format.  Sitting down (or even standing in the kitchen) to watch an entire thirty minute news show is out of the question – never happen.  Our daily delivery of the Detroit Free Press collects on our front porch – we usually bring all five days worth in on Friday evening.  Unless I hear it in the car on the rare occasion I’m able to actually listen to an adult radio or satellite station, I usually hear about newsworthy events from eavesdropping on other peoples conversations these days.

So you can imagine my delight when I found Google News during one of my many recent delves into the Google World.

Imagine one home page LOADED with newsworthy stories and events from everywhere!  The homepage shows small snapshots of dozens of various stories that are making headlines around the country and around the world.  Click on one of them and you can read the entire article, as well as see relavent links to other articles that are related.

You can go to the left hand column and select a specific category that you’re interested and narrow down the subject matter of your articles.  Topics include US, World, Sports, Health, Business, Entertainment, Most Popular, and more.  If you want all of these topics, but some interest you more than others, you can rearrange the order in which they appear by using the “customize this page” option.  See everything, but in the order that you want.  Genius!

You can also search for a particular article or event.  Wondering what Brad and Angelina are doing for the Emmy’s?  Interested in finding out where Obama will be tomorrow?  Search for it and you’re bound to come up with more information than you could ever read.

Additionally, you can alter your preferences in the column along the side – select what type of information you want, the publications you are interested in, areas you are interested in, and the options continue.  Basically, in true Google Fashion, they have allowed you to customize this page like you can all of the others in the Google Family (see a trend here?) to make it as useful for you as an individual as it can possibly be.

So, I added the Detroit Free Press, “local” events using my zip code, and all three counties in the area.  I figure if I can make it through all of these, I will be very impressed with myself!  At the very least I should be able to skim over enough relavent news to hold up my end of a conversation without eavesdropping on others first!

Having said all of that, I have taken a HUGE, GINORMOUS first step, and opened a Gmail account for my email.  While I admittedly have not discontinued my Microsoft Outlook deal, I have had all my emails from my old life forwarded over to my new gmail account.  Now, its still early, so to some extent the jury is still out, but I have to say my initial thoughts are very positive.

I like the way my entire conversation with someone is shown in each email, preventing me from having to go back and look at past emails that were from the same person, just a different thread.  Very nice feature.  I also like the labels and the ease of adding to them.  As a side note, I do not like that if I delete an email from my iphone, it also deletes it from my Gmail inbox.  I don’t always want two million emails on my phone, but I do hang onto quite a few on my lap top for reference purposes.  But, that is more of an iphone issue thanGmail, according to the sources I complained to at the Apple store.

I also like the archive feature, as I tend to hang on to lots of emails for a very long time – I am a digital pack rat too.  This feature makes me seem like less of one, and I like that.

Finally, I am enjoying the ease in which I can take a person from my inbox and add them to my contacts.  I have not yet imported my contacts into Google, but given that my email venture went smoothly, I just might try that.

So sure am I that I ‘m going to really like my gmail account, I have begun, albeit on a very small level, to change my email address with some of my favorite online shopping venues – little by little my “old” email address is showing up in my gmail account a little more infrequently.  Who knows – by the end of this course I may just be a total convert!