Things Google

I'm a big fan of Google and all of the services they offer for free. Of course they only offer things for free because in the long run, it generates revenue for them through their AdWords / AdSense pay-per-click advertising systems. But I'm still glad they offer such great services for anyone to use. Two things in particular that I like:

Google Gadgets: Gadgets are little frames of dynamic html that can be embedded in any webpage, and can be used to display almost anything: clocks, calendars, stock quotes, news feeds, maps, etc. The offer a lot of gadgets ready to use, or you can create your own. I created one to show a random image from my painting archives. You can see a small version of it in my sidebar. Anyone is free to use this gadget in their own website or blog if they wish to, just follow these instructions. It can be customized to display at any size you wish. I doubt if anyone but me will ever use it, but it was fun to make.

Google Calendar: Google's new calendar system is pretty slick. I used to use Yahoo's calendar for my personal use, but recently switched to Google's. I like how I can have multiple calendars in my account - one for my private life, which only I can see, and one for my art events, which the general public can see. Once nice feature is that public calendars can be embedded in any webpage - I added my Art Events Calendar my sidebar, so anyone can see what shows I have coming up. Anyone who uses Google Calendar for their personal use can easily add my public Art Events to their own calendar. (Of course, I'll need to become famous before anyone would want to do that, but I'm ready!)