Recently Google released Google Dashboard which tells you “what Google knows about you”.

The dashboard lists some of the information associated with the Google services you use: your name, your email address, the number of contacts, the number of conversations in your Gmail inbox, your Google profile, the most recent entries from the web history etc. It’s a long answer to the question: “What does Google know about me?”.

If you have a Google account, you can login to Google Dashboard and you are presented with pretty much everything having to do with Google.

This is actually a pretty useful tool as it gives you a gateway all of your Google services. This is also a great tool for the paranoid because you can see what Google lets you know they know about you.

Google seems to have an odd way of deploying their Chrome browser. The first reaction when it appeared was, "Hey! Where’s the Mac and Linux versions? What gives?"

It was nothing short of strange why Google seemed to concentrate on Windows so much concerning their own browser offering. Granted, Windows is the most-used desktop operating system in the world, but hey, there are plenty of Mac and Linux users out there.

So now the 64-bit version of Chrome is available for…

Linux.

And nothing else.

I’m not kidding. Linux people can build it right now if they want to in all its 64-bit glory.

Windows people still get the 32-bit flavor only.

As for Mac OS X? It’s still in development. Sorry, Mac people.

In all seriousness, this is why so many people stick to Firefox. When Mozilla has a release of that browser, it’s worldwide, has almost every conceivable language version available and has versions ready for Windows, Mac and Linux that are ready-to-run.

And yes, there’s 64-bit Firefox just in case you were wondering (as well as several other Mozilla products).

I’m seriously trying to like Chrome.. but.. well.. um.. no.

To our Linux users in the audience, if you’re able to build a 64-bit Chrome and get it to work, please feel free to comment on your experience with it. Many would be interested in your thoughts on it.

Some sites make it easy (more or less) to delete your account if you don’t feel like using it any longer. Others however make it exceedingly difficult.

Recently I was going thru my password manager and realized there were a ton of accounts I simply didn’t use anymore, so I figured I’d get rid of them. Some I was successful with, while others.. not so much.

Deleting a Gmail account

Google has their services set up in such a way where Gmail is a product attached to your primary Google account. For example, FeedBurner, Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs, Google Alerts and so on are all products.

You have a few options here. You can either delete just the Gmail account, or delete the Google account entirely.

• Go to https://www.google.com/accounts (and yes, the https must be present).
• After logging in, click the Edit link next to My products.
• If you want to delete Gmail alone, click Remove Gmail permanently.
• If you want to close the entire account, click Close account and delete all services and info associated with it.

Deleting a Hotmail account

Microsoft is similar to Google in the respect that Hotmail is deemed a product attached to your Windows Live ID.

• Login to your Hotmail/MSN/Live account at http://login.live.com
• Click Close account
• You may be told that the system is unable to do it and that you have to "Close your Microsoft account". Go ahead and do it.

Is the Hotmail account truly closed at that point? No. The account will be treated as if you haven’t logged in for a few months. After a few days, all information will be removed, so I guess that’s the closest definition of "closed" you can get with a Windows Live ID.

Closing a Yahoo account

Yahoo makes it easy. Follow the steps here.

Closing an AIM account

I could not find a way to close an AOL/AIM account. After a Google search, it would appear the only way to "deactivate" one is to not login to it for six months. Not an elegant solution by any means, but it’s at least something.

Finding links to close other types of web accounts

All web services should make closing your account easy, but unfortunately they don’t. Everybody does it differently. But there are a few common threads.

• Names: It can be called "Close Account", "Remove Account", "Delete Account", "Terminate Account", etc.
• Links: I’ve seen several instances where the "Close My Account" link is black and non-underlined making it look like plain text when in fact it’s a link.
• FAQ: Try searching the FAQ for the web service you’re trying to close.
• Profile: Sometimes the link to close an account will be listed under "Profile".

If you cannot close the account, what do you do?

You will run into some instances where there is no way to close the account (like Identi.ca and AIM). Chances are the reason you want to close it out to begin with is to stop getting those stupid emails from the service. The easiest thing to do is to edit the profile and change it to use a throw-away address. Once done you won’t get anymore crap from them in your email.

One of the best RSS feed readers out there is Google Reader. However one (very) longstanding complaint is that it has no ability to change the name of folders/tags. However there is a workaround, that being to "move" subscriptions from one tag to another. It’s sort of a long roundabout way of doing it, but it least it can be done.

Here’s how:

Above: I have two tags, that being Florida and keywords. These are two tags I custom made. I want to change keywords to tech keywords.

In Google Reader, I click Settings at the extreme top right.

On the next page I click the Subscriptions tab (in yellow-orange).

After that I type in keywords at the top right (where it says Filter by name, folder or URL).

All my subscriptions show up for that tag, like this:

On the first subscription, I click the Change folders… button and choose New Folder, title it tech keywords and click OK. The reason we do this is because the new tag must exist with at least one subscription in it before we move the others.

Now I see this for my first subscription:

Next to Select there is a link for All (in this case All 8 subscriptions since there are only 8). I click that to put a checkbox in all of them.

From the More Actions… drop-down menu I do two things:

1. Under Add to folder I choose tech keywords.
2. Under Remove from folder I choose keywords.

I click Back to Google Reader, and…

Success! I’ve "moved" all subscriptions from keywords to tech keywords.

The only thing left now is cleanup.

I click Settings, then the Folders and Tags tab, then delete the keywords tag as I’m not using it any longer.

And that’s it. Done deal.

Since Google Chrome has a new version I decided to download and check it out to see what’s new.

Here’s what happened:

First, on attempt to load in a YouTube video, the plugin crashed. Not a very good start.

After that I had to manually go into my Task Manager to stop the browser processes because it would not shut down on its own.

Then I found out that on install the browser put in a resident file called GoogleUpdater.exe without telling me (or if it did, I never saw the option to choose, "NO, DON’T DO THAT") and has it run on every Windows startup. Not cool. Not cool at all. I had to manually edit my startup sequence just to get rid of the stupid thing.

After all that crapola, here’s the good stuff. Well, not really.

Do web pages load faster?

Yes. All sites seem to load quicker.. that is when Flash "agrees" with the browser and doesn’t hose it.

Do tabs load faster?

No. Firefox still beats it because Chrome has a dippy animation that slows it while Firefox does not. And of course there’s no way to shut the animations off. Firefox gives you instantaneous gratification. Chrome does not.

And the Chrome animation is not like those super-cool ones you see in Mac OS X, Windows 7 or Ubuntu with Compiz (which can all by shut off by the way). Instead you have totally unnecessary animation that just wastes time.

Why does this matter at all? Because if the browser is supposed to promote speed, those animations shouldn’t be there, period.

Is it easier to manage your bookmarks?

No. Here’s why:

Bookmark a site in Google Chrome. Oh wait, silly me.. I forgot.. the browser didn’t tell you how. You have to click the star icon next to the web address.

Okay, so the star lights up. Cool! But where did your bookmark go? Where is it?

Oh wait, I forgot.. you have to press CTRL+B or the wrench icon at far right, click Always show bookmarks bar and THEN it shows up – something else the browser didn’t tell you how to do either.

Firefox has an ingenious way of handling bookmarks. Ready? It’s called "Bookmarks" at the top of the browser. Wow! Oh wait.. that’s been in web browsers ever since they were invented.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but the Google Way of mucking up something as stupidly easy as bookmarks just plain sucks.

Can you extend Chrome like you can with Firefox?

Yes, but not in the way we’d hoped.

With Firefox there is a central location for this, addons.mozilla.org.

With Chrome, well.. you’ve got third-party sites.

But then there’s no plugin/add-on manager in Chrome, so you don’t know what’s being installed, and furthermore don’t know how to get rid of an add-on afterwards.

The only saving grace to Chrome is its speed

You’ve probably seen many web sites saying, "Yeah! Chrome rocks! Fast! Speed-speed-speed! Woo-hoo!", provided with a bunch of benchmarks flexing it’s muscle, so to speak.

Is Chrome fast? Yes, obviously. The fastest? No, that honor still belongs to Lynx and always will. Fastest GUI-based browser? Quite possibly.

However all this speed comes at the expense of anything else that would make a browser better for you, the user.

If you want a barebones browser done the Google Way where you have to relearn simple things like Bookmarks, then yeah, you’ll like Chrome.

I know there’s going to be some Chromeheads that will gladly tell me I’m wrong, and that Chrome is the bestest super-duper-pooper awesomest browser ever.

I beg to differ. Benchmarks does not a browser make. Ease-of-use and extensibility does; that’s why Chrome loses.

If you hadn’t heard, Google had an outage last week. And, of course, it put the general internet community in a state of outright panic. Then Google fixed the problem(s) it had and life went on as usual.

I’ve been using the internet long enough to where I remember what it was like before Google. Even though the site made its appearance in 1998, people really didn’t start switching over to it until after 2000.

Speaking of which, the big G currently commands 63% of the market in the United States. Yes, that’s an overwhelming number, however, it still proves that Google doesn’t rule over all of it. It also proves that people are willing to use something else when necessary.

What I do remember about internet searching in the pre-2000 era is that the playing field, search engine-wise, was more even. If you first went to Yahoo and couldn’t find what you wanted, you headed over to Lycos. Or Hotbot. Or WebCrawler. And there were more. Each had its own way of getting the information you needed. Each had its own "personality", so to speak. And people liked it. But that’s a bygone era now.

Or is it?

I do purposely try other search services just to see what’s out there. Instead of using Lycos or Hotbot like I did years ago, I now use a combination of blog, messaging and video searches.

One of my personal favorites is Icerocket for blogs and messaging searches.

Example: If you search for nintendo punch-out (a game being released today for the Wii today, site), you not only see what people are saying about the game, but also immediate references for each result as well, including the number count (something Google’s blog search doesn’t do). The interface is a whole lot more inviting and it’s just easier to use compared to "The Google Way".

So can you live without Google?

Yes.

As long as you’re aware of alternatives like Icerocket or others like Kosmix (which is really nice by the way), A9 and so on, you’re in good shape.

Granted, some try some crazy ideas, like Faroo does, but hey, alternatives are good because sometimes they bring around great things.

If you are a user of Google Calendar, one thing you can do is share your calendar with others and add other people’s calendar in yours. This can definitely be useful as you can see what your friends and family are doing (assuming they use Google Calendar). Additionally, there are lots of informational calendars Google offers, such as holidays, which are ideal to link to yours.

For a small businesses, if you do not have a vehicle to do this already, you could use Google Calendar to show conference room bookings, view vacation schedules, etc., etc. (be creative).

You can easily toggle different calendars being displayed by simply clicking them in a list so add as many as you like.

Over the course of the weekend I used the internet to find places most of you out there are aware of to get good stuff cheap. Most of you will know what these places/events are, but it’s how you find them that’s the important part.

Using Google Maps, with the category operator you can quickly find what you’re looking for in or near your local area.

For this example we’ll use Flea Markets, Thrift Stores and Estate Sales.

Flea Markets
(International visitors: flea market defined)

Usage: city state category:Flea Markets
Example using Tampa Florida

Thrift Stores
(International visitors: thrift store defined)

Usage: city state category:Thrift Stores
Example using Boston Massachusetts

Estate Sale
(International visitors: estate sale defined)

Usage: city state category:Estate Appraisal & Sales
Example using Dallas Texas

How do you find other categories in Google Maps?

Instead of using the category operator, just use your town/state and what you’re looking for when searching. Any category that appears in the list (there may be several) will sort by that category only.

Example: If I search for Tampa FL cars, I get a ton of listings.  But at the top left, I see the categories, and they look like this:

Note where it says Categories: Auto Repair, Auto Dealers Used Cars. Clicking one will sort by that category only.

Almost anything you search for in Google Maps will have a category for it. Use it and use it often. You will most likely discover many businesses you didn’t know existed that in turn give you more choices to shop for better deals.

Google claims with its Street Views that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about concerning your privacy because license plates/tags and human faces are blurred in order to protect privacy. But obviously it’s not a perfect technology and some stuff doesn’t get blurred out periodically.

And some people just don’t want Street Views of their town, period. As one of the more memorable attempts to stop Google Street Views, a group of villagers sprang into action and formed a human chain to stop one of the Google Street View cars with its 360° camera. And wouldn’t you know it? It worked – for now.

When the local village mob tells you, "GET OUT", you listen.

As Street Views gains more coverage across the world, people are now literally watching for these cars in order to stop them.

It would probably be a good idea for Street View car drivers to start wearing crash helmets. Y’know.. just in case.

Ask anyone who invests in tech stocks for a description of what they’re like and the answer you’ll most likely receive is that they’re volatile, meaning to vary often or widely.

One of Yahoo’s oldest web sites, Yahoo! Finance (YHOO), is a good place to check on how tech stocks are doing. You can also perform quick stock searches by searching for the symbol on Google, ex. searching for GOOG.

Side note: Speaking of the GOOG, they might be purchasing Twitter, so that will be an interesting one to follow.

To those interested in tech stocks, or any stocks for that matter, but have no idea how they would perform or how to go about investing, I always suggest playing fantasy stock market. This is fun, easy and most of the time free so it requires no investment on your part.

Here’s a few suggestions if you want to play the market fantasy-style:

• FantasyStockMarket.com – Simple site, easy to navigate and get started.
• Virtual Stock Exchange – This is run by MarketWatch, a well-known finance site.
• Wall Street Survivor – This one has an interesting twist because you can actually win real cash and prizes here, so the game itself can actually be profitable.

Why play fantasy with tech stocks instead of doing the real thing?

The answer is to gain experience before taking the plunge, so to speak. Some people say tech stocks are totally worth it while others say it’s a complete waste of time and money, and far too unstable. However with the experience gained from fantasy playing, you can answer the question for yourself whether or not they’re worth it – free.

What’s your take? Would you or do you invest in tech stocks?

Does it sound like a boom or bust? Let us know in the comments.

I’ve mentioned this before but it bears mentioning again: Google Street Views freaks a lot of people out.  And I mean a lot of people.

This time it’s stirred up privacy concerns in Baltimore where some are getting a bit perturbed at the fact that no matter how much effort you put into your personal privacy on the internet, your house is still visible to anyone who wants to see it if in Street Views. And if your cars are in the driveway, those are visible as well.

The most interesting part about the article is that it states yes, you can make a request to have Google remove images of your home from its database, but technically they don’t have to; that’s the scary part. Fortunately the big G does honor requests without complaint.

Personally I feel it’s all too easy for a burglar to case properties using Street Views. All he or she has to do is go online and look for homes with obvious security flaws (which are plainly visible most of the time), mark target homes and that’s that. That’s just way too easy.

And for those who say, "I don’t worry, my home is secure!", that’s what most people say before their houses get broken into.

I do sincerely appreciate what Google Street Views does as a public good, however I can totally understand the privacy concerns.

Is your house on Google Maps Street Views? And if yes, does it bother you?

Let us know in the comments.

I learned about Google Latitude the day it was introduced but didn’t see it as particularly a news-worthy item primarily because other companies have already done this before, that being to "see where your friends are in real time".

What is news-worthy is that privacy advocates have already stated (yelled would actually be more appropriate) that the system it could could be a potential privacy minefield.

I can see the potential benefits of tracking where people are but I can also see its drawbacks.

An example benefit would be for tracking your children. Your child has a smartphone and you want to have an easy way to know where they are. Latitude would serve you well in that respect.

An example drawback: Google knows physically where you are whenever you use it. That’s a bit scary. I don’t see this technology as "cool" or innovative in that respect.

Hopefully people will understand the difference between "cool" and personal privacy when using this service.

A lot of us who use Google as our primary search engine probably know a trick or two with how to utilize the powerful search engine as more than just a web search engine. If you are not familar with these tricks or are looking for a few more then check out this article: 10 Most Amazing Google Search Tricks.

Some of these tricks I have actually run as tips in the past, but listed here are some functions you may not know about and can take advantage of. Additionally, be sure to checkout the follow up articles at the bottom which points out even more functions you can use.

Something which is not readily obvious in Google Maps is the ability to find real estate listings. And no, it’s not just for new houses. It also includes rentals, foreclosures (good for the bargain hunter) and so on.

Here’s how to do it:

Load up Google Maps and click “My Maps” to the left.

Looks like this:

Continued

Remember all those "web accelerators" from the days of dial-up internet which basically acted like a filter and/or cached more to appear as if you were doing things faster on the web? Maybe you do.

Google had their own version of it called the Google Web Accelerator and have officially killed it.

Yes, I did try one several accelerator-style products during the old days of dial-up, and they were all terrible. Most of them slowed down your computer to a crawl which actually made your browsing slower.

In the modern day of broadband there is no need for accelerators anymore. And if you’re using dial-up I still wouldn’t use one.

The way to browse faster today is the same way you browsed faster back then:

• Try not to use plugins or add-ons in your browser. Keep it minimal or alternatively don’t use any.
• Use an email client instead of web-based mail and download "headers only" for each mail received.
• Use alternative lightweight instant messengers that don’t load ads.
• Avoid sites that make extensive use of Flash.
• Use RSS to get content for web sites.
• Use things on the internet that require minimalist bandwidth (like IRC).

If you have "slow broadband", what do you do to save bandwidth?