Google Docs is Google’s version of Microsoft Office. Different from Microsoft Office, Google Docs resides on the web, is free, and offers great collaboration tools.

Benefits of Google Docs:

• It costs you nothing
• It’s fast
• If your computer crashes you don’t need to worry because your documents are stored securely on the web
• It’s easy to share documents
• If you write a document with a colleague or classmate, you can be sure to work from the latest revision
• It’s easy to create quizzes and polls for friends to respond to
• The options are easy to use

Those are just a few of the benefits.  It’s amazing how far it’s come.  I started using Google Docs back when it was called Writely and have loved it.

We just went down to the T-mobile store yesterday, and I believe our discount will be 14%.  You just need to bring your AAA card.  The store still had to call T-mobile to get the discount applied, but it was well worth it.  You’ll need to agree to an extension, etc., etc., but if you’re planning on sticking with T-mobile, it’s a no brainer.

I was also informed that if you have a smart phone, you can upgrade your phone each year at the discounted price.  This is a great surprise because for regular phone “upgrades” you have to wait two years.

So, two bits of good news to kick off the weekend!

Google Chrome (the browser) now supports extensions which are really cool. Extensions can help you block ads on pages, track information such as prices on Amazon.com, and much more.

The second great addition is bookmarking sync. With bookmark sync, you can create a uniform experience across the different computers you use, simply sync your bookmarks (click the wrench in the upper right to get started).

Cool stuff.

Amazon.com

• Amazon posts dozens and dozens of online specials, and for sure, they’ll be updated hourly on the big shopping days, below is the link to their special deals page.
• You can start now on the deals, or after Thanksgiving.  Amazon shows for how much longer or how much stock is left of the items.

Amazon Black Friday and After Thanksgiving Deals

LLG & Company

• Handstands CD/DVD Binders & Insert Pages
• Old Town Photo Albums
• Journals
• Discounts for bulk purchases
• Free shipping on orders over $25 (gift wrap available)

LLG & Company Black Friday and Deals Page

Rustic River Leather

• Refillable Leather Journals
• Gift journals
• Free shipping on orders $25 or more
• 10% off large orders (see site for details)
• Sports Logs (golf logs, hunting logs, fly fishing log journals)

Rustic River Leather Black Friday and Holiday Deals Page

REI

• Ski Equipment
• Coats, hats, etc.

REI Winter Sale & Clearance Page

Walmart

• Walmart is offering instore deals

Walmart instore deals link (enter you zip code once on the site for store deals)

• Online deals include TVs, cameras, toys, and a whole lot of other items

Walmart online deals page

NewEgg

• TV’s Laptops
• Contests

NewEgg Deal page

Target

• All sorts of home items
• Deals change on the page
• Free shipping on lots of items

Target deals page (2 day sale)

Enjoy!

Some of the coolest features are:

• Voice Search
• View your route by Satellite
• View your route by Street View
• Real time updates (maps are current)
• Find businesses, restaurants, with Google Powered search

If you’ve ever tried to use a regular GPS, it takes a long time to try to type in your destination, with The Google Navigator, you just say it.

I have to say that the Satellite and Street Views are awesome.  You’ll be able to see exactly where you are.

The Navigator works on Android 2.0 devices.  Let’s hope 2.0 rolls out to the rest of us in the very near future, because I need this app!

Google Reader can Save You Time

Think about all the websites you visit on a weekly basis (or even on a daily basis).  Once you start adding up how often you visit each site (CNN.com, Dilbert.com, etc.), the minutes start adding up.

Google reader lets you subscribe to your favorite websites, family blogs, etc. and view when an update occurs, you can generally read the whole article right within Google Reader and even view the images from the article.

Think of the time savings.  Instead of visiting dozens of different sites and poking around to see what is new or worth reading, you can at a glance view all the headlines from your favorite websites, and select the ones you wish to read.

Don’t Miss Out

Because the articles are stored in Google Reader for you stay there until you mark them as read/archive them, you don’t have to worry about missing updates while you’re away.

Save the Good Stuff

Google Reader lets you add a star to favorite articles.  You can also email an article within Reader and share it with others.

Just a favorite we thought we should share: Google Reader.

Alas, most people still ask, “What’s a browser? Is that Internet?”  Sigh.

I was visiting my sister’s family a few weeks ago, and she was complaining that her Internet kept crashing.  Well, of course, the issue was Internet Explorer (which is a web browser and how you “get on the Internet.” But it’s not the only way…).  I updated her version of Internet explorer and installed two service packs that were lacking in Windows Vista.

I then installed Google Chrome for her, and let her play around with it.  She liked Chrome almost instantly.  She noticed that Chrome downloaded/displayed pages much, much, much faster than her old browser (Internet Explorer).  She also liked how Chrome remembered what she typed (I’m guessing in the URL bar).

Chrome is a great browser, and I’ve been using it since it was released.  I even had the 3D version of it on April Fools Day.  Wow.

Now Google has released version 3.0 (which is an updated to Chrome), and the browser displays web pages even faster, has an improved new tab design, and the color scheme is even better.

With the new release, you can even install themes.  To add a theme, just click on the Settings Wrench in the upper right corner, select Options, and under the Personal Stuff Tab, select “Get Themes.”

Go ahead, give the Google Chrome Web Browser a try.  It doesn’t replace the current browsers you have, so you can always go back to the slowness and the crashing of Internet Explorer if you prefer.

In a nutshell, here’s what Google Voice can do (given to me in my first voicemail from Google):

Welcome to Google Voice! Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they are being left and the ability to make low cost international calls. To start enjoying Google Voice, just give out your Google Voice number. You can record custom greetings for your favorite callers or block annoying callers by marking them as SPAM. Just click on the settings link at the top of your inbox. We hope you enjoy Google Voice.

Having a transcribed voicemail is awesome!  How many times do callers leave very long messages and you listen all the way through to make sure you don’t miss something?

A few notes and tips right off the bat as you start using Google Voice:

1. Choosing your number on Google Voice – I put in my area code and tried all sorts of word combinations to come up with a cool number, but none were available.  I then started to wonder if my area code was even open.  It took a little bit of searching online for a list of area codes that Google Voice accepts only to not find the list!  However, all was not lost.  I saw on the Google Voice help page that you can type in your area code AND/OR a number or letter combination.  If you type only the area code, you’ll get the list of numbers available.  I did that, and snatched up a number.
2. Setting up voice mail – Have your phone ready when you click add a phone because Google wants to place an automated call to verify your phone you’re using.  Once you’ve done that, you can set up your voice mail.  The connection quality didn’t seem all that great.  We’ll see if it was the connection or the service as I use it more.
3. Next Steps: Configuration - You’ll next want to visit the settings option once logged in to set the “Do not disturb” function, call screening, add phones, etc.  You’ll most likely stick with the defaults at first, but it’s good to know.

Notifications – I turned off the option to send a text message when I receive a new voicemail. Email is enough for me since I receive email on my phone anyway.

Call Screening – If you enable this option, callers that are not in your contact list will be required to state their name during their first call.

Call Presentation - If you turn off this options, calls can be answered by you without the “Press 1 to accept option”

If you leave the “Call Presentation” option turned on, you can do the following while an incoming call is ringing (an you pick up):

Press 1 - Will accept the call
Press 2 – Will send the call to voicemail
Press 3 - Will let you listen to the voicemail (if the caller leaves one) as it is being left
Press 4 – Allows you to accept the call but also record the call contents

Other basic options:

Want to change your Google Voice Number? Just go to Settings > Phones > and click the “Change” link next to your number.

Want to have different voicemail greetings depending on who called? Go to Settings > Groups

Want to change which calls get forward to which phones? Go to Settings > Groups

Below are more Google Voice videos for your viewing pleasure:

Google Voice Mobile.  You can install the Google Voice App on your Android Phone (or BlackBerry) which will give you the option to have all outgoing calls show to the receiver as your new Google Voice Number.  I installed the app and tested it out.  Works great.

Google Voice Conference Calling (how to)

The spam filter is great, but one of the best features is the ability to access voicemail on the web.

Bytheway, the service is free for calls in the continental US.  If you want to make an international call, check the rates.

It’s 2 cents/minute to call your buddies in France or the United Kingdom (if you’re calling a cell phone over there though, it’s a little more, so check first). If you want to go the other way way, calls to China are 2 cents/minute.

The service is a great idea for people in the workforce with multiple phones as well as a line of defense against unwanted calls.

You don’t have to deposit money to start using the free service, because, hey, it’s free.  In fact, my account started with 10 cents already in it.  That means I could call China for 5 minutes courtesy of Google Voice.  The great rate for international calls will make holding a skype phone connected to your computer not look so good.

Below are some of the FREE products they offer. The tools are built with Flash, so it had no trouble running in my Google Chrome browser. With the talk about the New Google Chrome Operating System, Aviary is more relevant than ever.

Phoenix

Phoenix is Aviary’s image editor. Bye bye Photoshop! Again, simply awesome that it’s being offered for free, and the pro version is a very small yearly subscription. I’m pretty cheap, but the yearly subscription price looks very good if you want to use it commercially.

Peacock

Peacock can be used to create backgrounds, effects, etc. It’s pretty amazing and even more amazing that it takes place within the browser.

Raven

Raven is the Vector editing program. Simply awesome.

Do these tools replace Adobe’s suite of tools that cost thousands of dollars? Perhaps not right now, but that’s the thing about disruptive technologies; Aviary may very well replace the need for the user that doesn’t need all of the features of the Adobe suite.

So, go Aviary! Sign up if you have the chance for a free account and test it out. If you really like it, sign up for the paid account. I’m sure they’d appreciate it, and that would help the community to keep going.

There’s a tool that’s been around for a while that more and more, people are becoming aware of. OpenDNS is a free service that can help speed up your Internet connection while providing free content filtering. Simply follow the instructions to point your home computer or your home wireless (or regular) router to the OpenDNS servers.

Every time you enter a website to visit in your web browser, OpenDNS will route the traffic back to your computer most often much faster than your ISP can do. Create a free account at OpenDNS to enable the content filtering and block specific websites or groups of websites.