By Monte Ferguson Google has quietly become a prolific Mac software developer. Yet many
folks have only heard of one or two programs that they produce. We
dedicated a meeting to showcase all of the Mac apps that Google has
released. (And better yet they are all free.)
Picasa is a program that lets you organize your photos. It also has some
editing tools. The tools aren’t going to give Photoshop a run for it’s
money but they do cover most of the basic fixes people need. It also
directly connects with the Picasa online photo sharing service, a
competitor to Flickr.
A companion product is the Picasa Web Albums Uploader. It helps you upload photos and videos to the web from your
desktop and iPhoto.
If you’re a Gmail user you might appreciate Notifier. It is an application that provides a menu bar icon alerting
you when a new message arrives in your Gmail account. It also lets you
check out upcoming events in your Google Calendar. When you use Notifier
you don’t have to go through the web site.
By far we spent the most time going over Google Earth. Google Earth is just one of those cool programs
that you just have to see it to get it. It is a 3D model of the globe.
You can zoom into any point on the globe, thanks to satellite images.
Thanks to recent additions you can go under the sea, in certain places
such as well documented ship wrecks. You can even explore Mars. You can
even add 3d buildings for many citiies to bring the close up view to
life. They are constantly adding new content all of the time: such as
historical imagery from around the globe.
Following closely on the heels
of Google Earth is SketchUp. SketchUp was a commercial professional 3D
architectural modeling program. Google bought it out and has made it
available to anyone. (Consumers can use it for free. Business’ have to
pay for a commercial license.) A lot of consumers use it to create the
3D buildings you can see in Google Earth. You can also add your own
creations from SketchUp to a clearing house so they can be used in
Google Earth. There are many examples of buildings, look at Chicago or
New York in Google Earth. It is just amazing and beautiful to see them
spring to life. Of course you can also use the program for your own
uses. Such as planning a remodel of a home, or building a home. Or maybe
redecorating a room. You can also download other peoples models from the
Google 3D warehouse, which is searchable.
We had a great deal of fun
going over the programs. Especially Google Earth and SketchUp. Attendees
were calling out requests to try features or passing along their own
experiences. Posted: Monday, October 5th, 2009 | 
