I’m a big fan of Google Earth because frankly it lets you do things that no other software has ever allowed before. That, and the fact that it’s completely FREE! (Thanks Google!)

Google Earth will allow you to plan trips, see the planet from a satelite view, and generally waste time. It is also required for some of the posts on my blog which offer a virtual tour of famous places.

Here are a few quick videos that demonstrate exactly why you should download and install this free software if you haven’t already!
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Now, I’m a bit hesitant to recommend this Google service yet because I have noticed a few very minor bugs which all revolve around using sites that you have to log into. I’m going to go ahead and tell everyone about this because I think the benefits outweigh the costs.

The Google Web Accelerator is a little application that you download and install which will signifigantly speed up your Web surfing experience. In a nutshell, it works by pre-fetching linked pages from the one you are looking at so that it’s ready in case you do actually click on a link.

As you can see from the attached screen shot, after running it for a few weeks on my machine it’s saved me about 37 minutes of wait time. That may not seem like a lot now, but when you break it down to every page that loaded a bit quicker it seems faster than it is.
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Sketchup is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects – even space ships.

Once you’ve built your models, you can place them in Google Earth, post them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies.

You can also check out the top 100 most popular sketchups including a 3d model of a hot chick, a Lamborghini Diablo, the Statue of Liberty, and the White House.
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Is there a particular topic that you’d always like to receive notification of if it hits the news wires? Well, Google has the service for you!

Just go to Google Alerts and enter the search terms, frequency and your e-mail address. After you click on the verification e-mail you’ll begin receiving notifications. So plug in your name, or Pamela Anderson, or Brangelina, or whatever turns you on!
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Frisco Style magazine recently published an article that I authored, which has my top tips for digital photography.

The article is geared towards those who are getting started and need some good tips to point them in the right direction. Among those tips, I advise people to use Google’s free Picasa for image management and FastStone’s free Photo Resizer for adjusting image sizes and watermarking.

You can download Google’s Picasa separately by selecting the link above or you can download the Google Pack which includes it as well as several other Google apps that I highly recommend.

Google offers a great little download which I highly recommend. It includes several of Google’s best freeware offerings and, most importantly, an automated service to keep them all up to date.

Select the following link to download the package:

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