Shock Notes

Notes on Creativity, Technology, and Life

Google Life

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Photo by Danny Sullivan
Photo by Danny Sullivan

 

As Google grows, the products they produce are continually changing my life by changing how I organize and gather information.  The next decade should be even more exciting, as Google and its parent company Alphabet continue to push their boundaries into new fields such as home automation, artificial intelligence, and life sciences.  Here is a list of the Google products that currently affect my life the most:

  1. Drive:  a complete office suite that stores your documents online so you can access them from anywhere.  I no longer use office software (like Microsoft Office or LibreOffice) on a day-to-day basis because Drive gives me everything I need.
  2. Gmail:  the only email I ever need.  I have abandoned my Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail accounts for Gmail.
  3. Calendar:  I used to use the iPhone Calendar app, but switched to Google Calendar.  I’ve been happy with the switch so far.
  4. Chrome:  The only web browser I use now.
  5. Photos:  I once had 30,000 photos on my hard drive, collected over 15 years.  I was paranoid about losing them, so I was always backing them up onto CDs and external drives.  It was a huge pain.  Then Google Photos came along and offered to store it all online and make it easy to browse and search the entire collection.  No need to worry about backups anymore.
  6. Maps:  Before the Internet, everyone used paper maps.  Then people started printing maps from MapQuest.  Then Garmin GPS devices became popular.  Now all I use is Google Maps.
  7. Keep:  Google Keep is the Evernote killer.  You can digitize all your paper using this neat app.
  8. News:  I used to have a list of websites for getting general news.  Now Google News is my only source.
  9. Translate:  This is the closest to the Rosetta Stone we have today.  In the app version, you can use your phone’s camera to view text, and the app will magically translate everything in view.
  10. YouTube:  There are a lot of places to find video, but YouTube is often my first stop.
  11. Search:  Of course, Google remains the best source for web searches.  This is a feature I use multiple times a day.
  12. Voice:  I give a Google Voice number to strangers.  It forwards to my regular phone number but gives me more control in blocking unwanted calls.