Useful Google Tools You Should Know About

Signing in to Google has become the norm for most people: finding all your email, files, web history, researching sites; checking the scores and stats of favorite sports; printing out detailed maps for directions, and so forth. However, Google offers many other useful tools which can be beneficial and user friendly. The key is being aware of the products Google offers.

For instance, did you know you could travel around the world without ever leaving your home? From space to street level, Google’s Earth uses satellite imagery and mapping technology to allow you to find and see any location in the world through an attractive and easy to use interface.

And then there is Sky for those hampered by bright city lights or clouds, you can still enjoy looking at the night sky with this program from Google. It provides easy access to images from the Hubble telescope through the Space Telescope Science Institute, allowing users to look through planets, stars, galaxies, satellites and more.

For web browsing and development Google’s SketchUp is a simple but effective 3D drawing tool designed for both Macs and PCs that can be a handy tool for architects, designers and even game developers. The program is loaded with some innovative tools and also allows users to upload their drawings directly into GoogleEarth.

Social networking and communication hasn’t escaped Google either. Check out Friend Connect this new feature offered by Google allows users to easily add social networking functionality to their sites. You can integrate the program with sites like Facebook and Orkut and best of all it requires no in-depth programming know-how.

Christina Laun actually delineates a summary of 57 useful Google tools. Take a look at her article for products ready to use at the click of your mouse!