Source: blogs.zdnet.com

The new version of Google Toolbar for Firefox, available at tools.google.com, has very tight integration with Google Docs and Spreadsheets.  It’s not enabled by default, but for people who want to keep a copy of their documents online it’s as easy as enabling a few options.

There are three levels of integration:

1. Drag file into browser window
2. Open a file with the correct file extension by clicking a link on a website
3. Double click a file in your operating system.

If you enable all three, you can pretty much rid yourself of Microsoft Word and Excel if you can put up with a few annoyances.  First, Google Docs and Spreadsheets doesn’t do Macros or Charts in Excel, so any file with those cannot be imported correctly.  I have also had rendering issues in the past, so I’m not sure I can trust this service enough to render documents identically in both. When you select the third option (double clicking a file), every time you perform that action a new copy is uploaded to Google.  I normally wouldn’t have a problem with that, but it doesn’t overwrite the old one — a new identical file is created each time.

As for the other new features of the toolbar, most already exist in the Internet Explorer version, they include:

• Custom Buttons
• Bookmarks
• Send To
• Google Account Sign-in

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By: Garett Rogers | Source: blogs.zdnet.com

Google just launched their newest search tool — Google Patents. Anyone who has used the official USPTO search engine, you will appreciate what Google has done with this new product.

You can view full text patents and all their drawings using the same technology being used for Google Book Search. The new service lets you search over 7 million patents — from the "litter box" to the "golf club".

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