Tools I Can't Live Without (Part I)

Do you have any tools that are almost as required as your pants to get you through the day with the minimum of hassle? I have a bunch of them (both necessary tools and pants), and I'm going to start a small miniseries here featuring each one. Well, the tools, not the pants.

The first tool I can't live without: Google

Okay, I can hear the groans. "Really? Google? Come on, I thought this was going to be interesting". Well, hang in there with me, there's a lot of ground to cover here. Hint: It's not just searching. I have been using a ton of Google products for well over a year now... This is what I've picked up along the way.

First, let's get search out of the way. I have just about completed a project to outsource all of my long term memory to Google. Highly personal stuff stays in my head, pretty much everything else gets forgotten until it can be searched again on Google. I'm really glad they don't charge anything for it, because if they did I'd just have to pay it. The search is powerful, filterable, and fast. For some things, it is quite literally faster for me to "Google it" than to spend the time trying to remember. Get acquainted with the Advanced Search tools. They will certainly help you narrow your focus until you find your desired answer.

Next up is Google Apps for Domains. Any email to my company passes through Google's servers. I access it all via the web and my cell phone syncs with my calendar, mail and contacts. The spam filtering is phenomenal. I went from a ~100 spam per day habit to 2-3 a week. There are a number of sites that will help you get the most out of GMail (you guessed it, you can Google that phrase) and you can start here. The Apps suite also includes document, spreadsheet and presentation creation / editing software. Additional applications are available through the new Apps Marketplace for Google. They key here is that you get a *lot* of functionality for about $50 per user per year. Update: Mashable has offered 6 Great Apps to Try Now.

Once set up, Google Apps for Domains just works. Apart from the regular suite of products, Google is also forging relationships with Zoho and others in order to extend functionality. For instance, Zoho and Google announced availability of Zoho CRM through Google Apps, and you can bet that I'm already testing it. Google has also purchased DocVerse to further help people that cannot make the break from Office products. 

The reason that I cannot live without these products is their portability. You do not need anything more than a web browser to reach any of them. This means that no matter where I am or whose computer (or smart phone) I am in front of, I can get at my data. This becomes important when I need to get at information while I'm in front of a client's server.

There are, of course many many other products (Google Maps, Google Earth, various other cloud-based apps) that Google offers - however the applications listed in this article are the ones that I can't live without. 

More to come, stay tuned!