San Francisco— Search engine goliath Google Inc. has recently made a lot of advancement with Google Apps in 2008. Meanwhile, in an attempt to further improve its services, on Friday released a new feature that enables users to find and access their Google documents straight from the desktop — that makes us wonder if Google Desktop is a hidden gem we have overlooked.
Dubbed Google Docs Gadget for the Desktop, as a bonus, the new tool enables users to drag and drop spreadsheets, presentation, and word processing files right into the gadget for immediate uploading it to your account.
According to Google Desktop programmers Ronald Ho and James Yum explain why this is useful:
There are times when we just need to bring up the same few documents continually throughout the day. Some examples are a data entry spreadsheet, a technical manual, or that steamy romance novel you have been secretly penning during work hours. You can instead bring up the gadget and, in an instant, search and open your Google documents.
For example: pressing the shift key twice brings up all your hidden Desktop gadgets.
The handy drag-and-drop uploading feature to convert file to Google Docs is truly a wonderful addition because it allows power users to upload a bunch of files quickly by dragging and dropping instead of converting them one at a time.
The developments of Google gadgets for its Apps make work tasks so much easier. The Google Desktop creates cached copies of your files on the fly, making it an easy way to find a previous or accidentally deleted version of your document. They incredibly accelerate the work because users do not have to manually type commands. They just point click, hold down the mouse button, drag the files to where they want them, and release the button.
Along with the recently-released Gmail gadget, this one is making Google Desktop gadgets worth another look. Google Docs Gadget is a free Web-based suite that includes word processing, spreadsheets and presentation applications. The new feature may give Google’s Docs a needed popularity boost.
The gadget works with Linux and Windows versions of Google Desktop Gadgets, according to Ho and Yum. No word on a Mac version from Google yet.
In fact, there are some excellent gadgets available for use with Google Desktop. So expect more of such gadgetization in 2009. This will help Web apps makers retain users and snag new converts.