Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0789738201 ISBN-13: 9780789738202

 

 

The all-encompassing book about everything Google. Not only will you learn advanced search techniques, but you also will learn how to master Google’s web and software tools. It’s all inside!

 

Blogger-create your own personal blog

 

Gmail-Google’s web-based email service

 

Google Web Search-the most popular search on the Internet

 

Google AdSense-put profit-making ads on their own website

 

Google AdWords-buy keyword advertising on the Google site

 

Google Product Search-find hot deals without ever leaving your office chair

 

Google Book Search-search the full text of selected books

 

Google Calendar-a web-based scheduling and public calendar service

 

Google Checkout-pay for your Web goodies and collect payments from people who buy from you

 

Google Desktop-search documents and emails on your PC’s hard drive

 

Google Directory-the best sites on the Web, picked by Google’s editors

 

Google Docs & Spreadsheets-create and share web-based word processing and spreadsheet documents

 

Google Earth-a fun way to view 3D maps of any location on Earth

 

YouTube-view and share videos over the Web

 

Google Groups-a collection of user-created message forums

 

Google Image Search-search the web for pictures

 

Google Maps-maps, satellite images, and driving directions for any location

 

GOOGLE MAY BE THE INTERNET'S MOST POPULAR SEARCH SITE, BUT IT’S ALSO MORE THAN JUST SIMPLE WEB SEARCHES.

 

     •    Use Google to search for news headlines, scholarly articles, and the best prices on the Web

     •    Read and respond to blog postings and create your own blogs with Blogger

     •    View the latest viral videos with YouTube

     •    Create maps and driving directions with Google Maps

     •    Use Google’s free web-based email service Gmail

     •    Create your own custom Google Maps mashups–and put customized Google search on your own website

 

Michael Miller has written more than 75 nonfiction how-to books, including Que’s

Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Computer Basics, Tricks of the eBay Masters, and iPodpedia: The Ultimate iPod and iTunes Resource.

 

Category Internet
Covers    Google
User Level    Intermediate to Advanced

 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #827408 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

Review

Google is much more than a search engine, but most people don't know how to access the other features. This is a big, big book and it will show you the ropes. Get high altitude photos of almost any urban area and have Google label the roads. Have Google show the names and locations of the restaurants. Add driving directions. Read and respond to blogs; create your own blog. And on into the night.

- Bob and Joy Schwabach, On Computers Column/Universal Press Syndicate 10/16/06

About the Author

Michael Miller has written more than 75 nonfiction how-to books over the past 20 years, including Que’s Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Computer Basics, Absolute Beginner’s Guide to eBay, YouTube 4 You, and iPodpedia: The Ultimate iPod and iTunes Resource. His 1999 book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Search Secrets, was one of the first books to cover Google (then in beta testing).

 

Mr. Miller has established a reputation for clearly explaining technical topics to nontechnical readers, and for offering useful real-world advice about complicated topics. More information can be found at the author’s website, located at www.molehillgroup.com.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

I use Google every day. I've been using it every day since it first launched—before it launched, actually, when it still had the word "beta" on its home page. I use Google because it's easy to use, and because it delivers quality results.

I'm not unusual, of course. Google is the most-used search site on the Web, and most people choose it for the same reason I do—ease-of-use and effectiveness. That's not news.

What is news, for a lot of users, anyway, is that Google is more than just simple search. Most users don't know that they can fine-tune their search in a number of interesting ways, or that they can use Google to find pictures and news articles and compact discs, or that they can use the Google search box to perform mathematical calculations and conversions, or that Google can function as a spell checker or dictionary.

It's also news to most users that Google offers a variety of products and services that have little or nothing to with web search. Google runs the largest blogging community on the Web, hosts an archive of Usenet news articles, distributes a top-notch picture-editing program, and provides free web-based email services. You might not get all this from looking at Google's attractively austere search page, but it's there, nonetheless.

All these "hidden" features are what makes Google so interesting, at least to me, and are why I wrote this book. I wanted to show other users all the cool and useful stuff I've discovered in the Google family of sites, and to share some of the tips and tricks I've developed over the years for getting the most out of Google's various products and services.

That's what Googlepedia is—a guide to everything that Google has to offer. It's not just web search (although I cover that, in much depth); Googlepedia also covers Gmail and Google Maps and Picasa and every other application and service that has come out of Google's headquarters—as well as services that Google acquired along the way, such as Blogger and YouTube. There's plenty of how-to information, of course, but also a lot of tricks and advice that even the most experienced user will appreciate.

I should note, however, that while I know a lot about what Google does and how it works, I'm not a Google insider. I don't work for Google, and had no official contact with Google while writing this book. That means I don't always take the company line; I'll tell you, as honestly as possible, when Google gets it right, when Google needs improvement, and when Google just plain sucks. (The company isn't perfect.) I'm not obligated to put on a positive face, which means you'll get the straight poop, good or bad.

What's in This Book

Google isn't just web search; the company offers a lot of different products and services, all of which I discuss somewhere in this book. Because of everything that Google does, this is a long book—46 chapters in all, organized into 10 major sections:

• Part I: Basic Searches provides an inside look at Google (the company and the technology), and then shows you the best ways to use Google web search and the Google Directory.

• Part II: Specialized Searches discusses all the many narrow searches Google lets you conduct, from phone number lookup and blog searches to searches for scholarly information and word definitions.

• Part III: Additional Search Features shows you how to customize Google, use SafeSearch content filtering, use Google in different languages, and use Google as a calculator and a converter (really!).

• Part IV: Shopping and Product Searches guides you through using Google Product Search (formerly known as Froogle), Google Base, and Google Checkout.

• Part V: Maps and Directions is all about Google Maps, Google Earth, and creating your own Google Maps mashups.

• Part VI: Communications shows you why Google isn't just about search; we'll discuss emailing with Gmail, instant messaging with Google Talk, and blogging with Blogger.

• Part VII: Multimedia is all about pictures and videos, courtesy of Google Images, Google Video, and the uber-popular YouTube video sharing site.

• Part VIII: Other Google Services discusses a variety of Google's search-related and nonsearch services, including Google Book Search, Google Groups, Google News, and Google's services for mobile phones.

• Part IX: Google Applications presents Google's software and web-based applications, including Google Toolbar, iGoogle, Google Desktop, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Picasa, Google Pack, Google Apps, and all the upcoming applications being developed in Google Labs.

• Part X: Google for Your Website discusses Google's tools for developers and businesses, including how to improve your site's PageRank, make money with Google AdWords and AdSense, analyze your site traffic, add Google search to your website, create your own web pages, and even develop your own custom search applications.

There are also three appendixes that present useful reference information. Appendix A is the Google Site Directory (a complete listing of URLs for all of Google's websites), Appendix B present's Google's country-specific sites, and Appendix C lists Google's advanced search operators. Handy references, all.

If you're wondering what's new in this second edition, the answer is "a lot." That's because the Googleverse is constantly changing; not a week goes by without some new feature being added or some old function being improved upon. To name just a few examples of new features covered in this edition that weren't around when the first edition was published, one needs to look no further than YouTube, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Checkout, Google Notebook, Google Reader, iGoogle, Picasa Web Albums, Google Analytics, Google Page Creator, and Google Gears. And that's just the new features; I've updated all the coverage in the book to reflect Google's current status quo.

Who Can Use This Book

Googlepedia can be used by any level of user; you don't have to be a search expert or application developer to find something of value within these pages. That said, I think this book has particular appeal to more experienced or interested users, as a lot of advanced features are presented. Still, even if you've never used Google (or Gmail or Google Maps or whatever) before, you'll find a lot of useful information here.

How to Use This Book

I hope that this book is easy enough to read that you don't need instructions. That said, there are a few elements that bear explaining.

First, there are several special elements in this book, presented in what we in the publishing business call "margin notes." There are different types of margin notes for different types of information, as you see here.

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Note - This is a note that presents information of interest, even if it isn't wholly relevant to the discussion in the main text.

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Tip - This is a tip that might prove useful for whatever it is you're in the process of doing.

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Caution - This is a caution that something you might accidentally do might have undesirable results.

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In most chapters you'll also find some personal commentary, presented in the form of a sidebar. These sections are meant to be read separately, as they exist "outside" the main text. And remember—these sidebars are my opinions only, so feel free to agree or disagree as you like.

Obviously, there are lots of web page addresses in the book, like this one: http://www.google.com. When you see one of these addresses (a...

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Customer Reviews

Antidote to Google Burnout
As webweaver and search optimizer for my company, I'm always on Internet information overload. There's a lot to be said for any book that gives me ready access to the many topics I need to access only occasionally, as well as the many others I didn't even know I needed to know about. This book excels at taking you into the confusing fine points of using Google. Blogger tags vs. HTML? I finally got it. Self-hosting your blog? Got that, too. The subtleties of sitemaps ... at last! Yes, with a great deal of effort and eye strain you could find much of this information on Google itself. I, for one, am happy to have so much information compiled and printed next to my workstation and to have the author's knowing voice guide me over the speed bumps. A good investment because of the hours of searching it saved me, though probably doomed to a short shelf life. I only wish the book came with an update feature ...

Comprehensive and High-Level Bird's Eye View
Comprehensive and High-Level Bird's Eye View of an impossibly huge collection of:
* Basic, Specialized Searches, and Additional Features,
* Shopping and Product Searches,
* Maps and Directions, Communication Services,
* Multimedia,
* Other Services,
* Google Software Tools,
* Google for Business and Developers,
* Into the future,

This is an impressive work of trying to summarize (even though it took 800 pages) of an impossible huge number Services and Products that are offered by Google. Some of these are totally disjoint, and some really related and extensions of each others.

This is an excellent comprehensive Reference Book to have next to your computer. I was very pleasantly surprised by many things, for example:
* Searching for Financial, University, Technical, and Government information,
* Google alerts and Updates, Making Google Safe for Kids, and other Languages and Translation Capabilities,
* I refined my ability to use to use Maps and Directions,
* I was impressed with Google Answers and Book Search, Tools for desktop, Calendar, and Google Pack,
* Was really happy to find Picasa, which is good image processing Application,
* Found out things about Google Labs, and found the Advanced Search Operators to be extremely helpful for navigation into the book and understanding of it.

Again, as one of the Google Mottos, Michael Miller has made the Impossible, Possible with this book. And not only he has done "No Evil", he has done an excellent job.

Bruce Razban,
President/Founder, Razban Internet International
Silicon Valley, CA, USA

But ... why?
I would be the last person to complain about turning to books for information, and am even willing to argue that reading a well-done book about something can in some cases be an adequate substitute for experiencing it directly. But after looking through the nearly 800 pages of the "Google-pedia," I am still not entirely sure why it's necessary or for whom it is intended.

In my experience (and I admit to being a heavy user of Google products), Google specializes in two things: online searches -- obviously -- and also in making their products easy to understand and work with. I frankly saw very little in this "Google-pedia" that a user couldn't find in Google's own help documentation, or even figure out intuitively just from poking around the various sites and programs.

Perhaps it is easier or less intimidating for people less comfortable with the 'Net to have this kind of information readily available in book form instead of having to search for it online. In that case, this might be a decent enough introduction to the wealth of ways Google can facilitate (or monopolize, if you see it that way) your online experience. But I would suspect that more experienced users won't really find a whole lot in these pages they didn't already know or couldn't figure out with a minimal amount of curiosity and effort.