Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource (Third Edition)
Author: Michael Miller
Publisher: Que Publishing (www.informit.com/que)
Published: October 2008
ISBN-10: 0-7897-3820-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-789-73820-2
Format: Soft cover, 744 pages.
Price: $29.99
Making the Most of Google
It’s a safe bet that most IT professionals pride themselves on their knowledge of Google. After all, just how difficult is it to use a search engine?! I know only too well that sentiment because that’s exactly how I felt too until I started reading the third edition of the book “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource.”
By reading this book you will not only become more efficient in searching the Net, you will also gain invaluable insights into Google’s diverse range of web and software tools. Mastering Google like this has the potential to have a significant impact on your IT career in a number of different ways. For instance, you will be able to find answers to technical problems more quickly than you have in the past. You’ll also be able to better communicate your ideas and thoughts to fellow IT professionals, as well as get feedback from them, for example, by setting up a blog and keeping people up to date with the progress of your latest IT project. Be warned though - “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource” is a demanding read simply because of its sheer size alone. It consists of 46 chapters that have been organized into major sections, plus a further three appendices. But despite its length, the good news is that the book has been written in a style that makes it both easy to read and digest.
Here now are the titles of the book’s 10 major sections, along with a brief summary of each one of those sections:
1) Getting to know Google: after an introduction to Google as well as finding out how typical searches are carried out, the value in reading this introductory part of the text is that you will know how to create a personalized home page with iGoogle; you’ll learn too how to create a custom workspace with Google Desktop; and you’ll also become totally comfortable with using the Google Toolbar.
2) Searching with Google: just about everything that you’ll ever want to know about searching with Google is investigated here, ranging from both basic and advanced searching techniques through to specific search strategies for blogs, blog postings, books, libraries, products, and scholarly information. Another chapter in this part of the book is devoted to searching for more specialized types of information such as people and phone numbers, facts, government information, weather details, and so on.
3) Communicating with Google: Google can do much more than just help you find information. It can also significantly improve the way that you communicate with others. This is achieved through the following: Gmail (for sending and receiving email); Google Talk (for instant messaging); Google Groups (for facilitating the exchange of information with like minded groups of people); and Blogger (for blogging).
4) Working with Google applications: just about all of the applications that are necessary for working not only in an office environment but for online collaboration as well are provided by a set of Google applications. These applications are Google Docs (for word processing type functionality); Google Spreadsheets; Google Presentations; Google Calendar; and Google Reader (used for reading blog postings and subscribing to feeds).
5) Viewing images and videos: the three chapters that comprise this part of the book respectively cover searching for pictures with Google Images; organizing and sharing photos via Google Picasa and Picasa Web Albums; and viewing and uploading videos with YouTube (Google acquired YouTube in October 2006).
6) Working with Google Maps: this part of the book provides an in-depth investigation into how to find your way around with Google Maps; how to create Google Map Mashups (a mashup is where you overlay your own personal or company data on a Google map); and how to navigate your way around Google Earth.
7) Using other Google services: example of two other services provided by Google are first, Google News, that keeps you stay up to date with all the latest breaking news from around the globe, and second, Google Health, that provides the functionality that’s needed to set up your own health profile.
8) Using Google on the go: for mobile road warriors who spend most of their time out of the office, the chapters in this section of the book describe how to best communicate with Google, for example, by signing up for Google Mobile or by using Google on the iPhone and iPod Touch. A brief overview of a new mobile platform, “Android”, has also been included here.
9) Making money with Google: a total of three chapters that potentially could help you or your company to find additional sources of revenue.
10) Google for Web developers: this part of the book is reserved for the more “nuts and bolts” type IT professionals who want to experiment with Google’s APIs and developer’s tools, or who would, maybe, like to create their own Google gadgets (a gadget is, according to the book’s author, Michael Miller, a “small, simple, typically single-purpose application that can be embedded in web pages and other applications”).
The first of the three appendixes in “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource” consists of a Google site directory. This lists the names of each of the different Google sites, such as Blogger, Gmail, Checkout, etc., and its respective URL. The second appendix contains a handy list of Google’s advanced search operators, with a couple of examples being an operator for restricting a particular search to the titles of web pages and another operator for restricting a search to blog titles. The third and final appendix is an introduction to Google Chrome, a newly released web browser for Windows.
You may be wondering why such an important product like is has been relegated to just an appendix and is instead not covered in an entire chapter in the body of the book in which it is then fully investigated and discussed. Miller explains that “writing a book about Google is like shooting at a moving target. Just when you think you have everything nailed down, the folks in Mountain View come up with something new that needs to be covered. In this instance, that something new is Google Chrome, a brand spanking new web browser that was announced as this book was getting ready to go to print. Chrome is so important, however, that it had to be covered in this book, so we’ve added this appendix to present the basics about this exciting new product.” Sample content from “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource” is provided on the Que Publishing web site (www.informit.com/que). It is the complete 37th chapter titled “The Google Phone: Understanding Android.” On its official web site, Android is promoted as being the “first complete, open, and free mobile platform.”
How you decide to read “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource” is entirely up to you. Some people prefer to tackle a book by reading its preface or introduction first, and they then like to read each of the subsequent chapters sequentially through to the end. But because the chapters in this book are self-contained, just like the different Google applications themselves are, you can pick up this book and start reading wherever you like.
Two web sites associated with “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource” that are worth including in your list of web favorites are the personal site of the book’s author, Michael Miller (www.molehillgroup.com). This is where you’ll find details of some of the 90 or so other non-fiction books that he has written over the past twenty years. The second site is also one of Miller’s, and it’s the official blog linked to his book – “Googlepedia: The Blog” (www.googlepedia.blogspot.com). Visiting the blog on a semi-regular basis represents an easy way of keeping up to date with what’s happening with Google. For example, one of the recent blog entries there provides information about a range of applications that Google has dropped. The other advantage of this blog is that it keeps you informed about any content in the book itself that has now been superseded. For instance, there is an entire chapter in the book devoted to “Lively”, a Google inspired virtual world type environment inhabited by avatars living in virtual rooms created and maintained by Lively users. However, Miller reported in a November 2008 blog entry that Google was intending to shut down Lively at the end of 2008 (which it did do).
If you are keen to make the most out of all the different features and functions offered to you by Google, I strongly recommend that you read and study the contents of “Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource.”