You might want to bookmark this page for future reference - This is an updated article form last year's article on Google Labs.

Are you looking for something different on the internet? Did you know that there are a lot of useful things being tested and produced that will help you with searches and projects? I decided to give the net a look and see what I could come up with. The question was where to start? I decided that the best place to check Google Labs, they seem to always be developing new applications.

Google Labs:

Google Webquotes - When a search is performed a specified amount of comments are added from other websites. The site wasn't working at the time I tested it, but it may be working now. While not a new application, it is little known and that is why I listed it.

Google Local - This is a great search engine if you want to find entertainment, restaurants, museums etc. in a specific area. All you have to do is type in what you are looking for and the area you want to search. For example you can type in under the 'what' column 'Museum' and under 'where', 'New York City, NY' and you will get every museum in the area along with the phone numbers. This is a great resource. Try and be specific when entering data. I entered 'movies' trying to get movie theaters and instead got everything to do with movies including Rehearsal studios, tv stations, movie companies and everything else that was even remotely connected to movies.

Google Alerts - Did you ever want to keep up to date with a breaking news story or an industry product? Well Google Alerts is the way to go. You will have to create an account, but it is free and it is worth it. Be careful that you don't ask to be alerted on something that is very common, else you might get too much email.

Google Compute - If you are like me, you leave your computer on all the time. When you are not actually using it, it just idles along. Years ago SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, figured out that all this idle computer time across the world could be put to good use working out calculations. It is painless, and uses a screen saver while working in the background. As soon as you use your computer, the calculations stop and everything returns to normal. Well Google also allows you to donate computer time to what it considers worthy scientific projects and this is done through Google Compute. Google states that it has chosen "carefully selected worthwhile endeavors."

Google Sets - This is an interesting application. You enter up to five terms and the application will supply many more terms that seem to be on the same topic or close. This is almost like a thesaurus but seems to supply more matches. An example they show is the entry of a list of three automobile brands which brings up a list of many more.

Google Glossary - want something defined? How often do you come across something and you are not quite sure what it means? With Google Glossary you can type in 'define (item)', without the brackets and you will get a search page with the definition link on top. Quite handy!

Google Desktop Search - Google has decided to get into the desktop search business. Their new search engine will find anything created by the following apps:
Outlook or Outlook Express, AOL Instant Messenger, Internet Explorer, Text, Word, Excel or Power Point
Before you can use this app to its full potential it must index your files, this could take awhile depending on the speed of your machine.

Google SMS - Do you want to search from your cell phone? Here is the way to do it.

Google Groups 2 - This is Google's version of a News Group Reader and Posting program.

Google Personalized - Are you tired of getting search results about things that don't interest you? Google Personalized allows you to pick what you are interested in ahead of time by entering a profile. When you get your search results they will only contain the subjects you selected.

Google Deskbar - Google's deskbar puts a small search window on your task bar. You can now receive search results without opening your browser. I am not sure if I feel this is really helpful since it is easy enough to click on the browser and Deskbar is just another running application and the results are returned in a small window.

Many of the above applications are still in Beta, which means that there might be a few bugs that could cause them to crash or affect your computer but they all seem to run fine on my machine.

Many people don't realize that Yahoo has a Yahoo Labs also. It can be found at http://research.yahoo.com/ . It is not set up like Google, but take a look just to see how it works.

You might want to bookmark this page for future reference