No more forwarding emails to my other computers, transferring documents back and forth...oh what a pain! My life is so much easier now that I've made the switch to Google's web apps. and gadgets.

Let me show you some of the applications that have simplified and organized my life.

IGoogle

For me, everything starts with IGoogle. I open my web browser and my IGoogle page pops up as my home page. This is a fully customizable and personalized home page or start page.

The great thing about IGoogle is that its totally web-based so I can access my IGoogle page from all 3 of my computers as well as any other computer with internet access.

The other thing I love is that I can organize all of my Google applications and gadgets in one place, on one page, and have access to them from anywhere.

I've always used Microsoft Outlook in the past for email and managing my calendar and contacts. Anyone with multiple computers understands how difficult this can be. Now, if I add an appointment to my Google Calendar, the appointment shows up on every computer. Same with email messages in my gmail account. It doesn't work that way with Outlook.

Check out the short video below to see how I've designed my IGoogle page.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free, web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users.

You can create documents and spreadsheets using Google Docs or you can upload Word Documents and Excel spreadsheets into Google Docs. When you do this, your documents are now available from any computer.

In the past, I would have my To-Do Lists saved on one computer as Word Documents. I could only edit the To-Do list from that computer. After uploading my lists to GoogleDocs, I can now edit my lists from any computer.

This eliminates transferring documents back and forth between computers.

Collaboration between users is also a feature of Google Docs. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time. No more emailing revisions back and forth while trying to keep track of changes.

Google Reader

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator that reads RSS feeds from various blogs, news services and social networking sites you may be subscribed to.

I'm not subscribed to a ton of different blogs, maybe 7 or 8, but this is an easy way to keep track of them.

This saves me from having to check the blogs for new posts. For example, I'm subscribed to Tim Thoelecke's blog for the American Academy of Landscape Design. Whenever Tim posts something new to his blog, it's automatically sent to my Google Reader (which is also on my IGoogle page).

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free service which automatically sends emails to you when there's news about a topic that interests you.

This is a good way to track trends, your competition and also what is written about yourself online. It's also a great resource for researching a topic you may be writing or speaking about.

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and sign up. You will type in the specific keywords you are interested in and also specify how often you would like to be "alerted". This can be once a week, once a day or as-it-happens.

Google will find and deliver the news to you.

These are just a few of the Google gadgets that I use. There are literally thousands more that you may be interested in. Check out the video below to see how I use my IGoogle page and gadgets.