Superficial Intelligence

Google has a whole bunch of awesome web apps. I use many of these daily. Here are just a few of them that you should be using:

Google Reader

Google Reader has become almost as indispensable as email for me. It is the best way to stay up to date with what's happening in the tech world and in the rest of the world. Also a good way to get updates on my favorite webcomics! You can register RSS feeds, share posts with friends, and see friends' shared items. A lot of websites now offer to send notifications via RSS feeds, which you can read with this app. Google Reader is an excellent companion to email.

Google Maps

I don't have to explain why online maps are so helpful. They speak for themselves. But one of the features that I really like about Google Maps is Street View. I'm lucky enough to be living in a city where Street View is supported. It is immensely helpful to be able to see what a street or a turn looks like before getting there.

Google Docs

I started using Google Docs last year for group projects and it proved to be really useful. Being able to work on the same document at the same time with different people is just very efficient. (Plus, it stores all the revisions so that you can go back to an older version if you don't like a recent edit). I now use it not only for group projects, but also for family planning. Awesome tool!

Google Calendar

This one is especially helpful for families. Google Calendar makes it easy to edit and share many calendars. I share my main calendar with my wife and have a second calendar for sharing with classmates usually for group projects. Really easy to use and very convenient for figuring out scheduling stuff.

Google Analytics

If you have a blog, I highly recommend this app. It is an excellent way to track traffic to your blog or site. It gives you detailed information about users, their browsers, their countries, how they got to your site, how much time they spent, etc. That is how I know that most of the repeat visits to this blog come from Minnesota (where I live), New York (where my sister lives), and Puerto Rico (where the rest of my family lives).

There are many more great Google Apps around, such as Picasa for sharing pictures, Google Scholar for searching for academic papers (very useful for grad students), and even YouTube, which is now part of Google. It is no wonder why Google is loved by so many. And the best part, they're all free!