There is a debate raging all over the internet about the omnipresence of Google. Some argue that we are giving too much of our information over to the insatable hunger of the cloud, for diminishing returns. Soon, privacy will simply be an atiquated concept, held only in the quickly fading memory of our senior citizens. Full disclosure: I am one of the harbingers of the information apocalypse; an early Google convert who has been brainwashed (read: forcefully lobotomized) into a mumbling evengelist for the NGO (New Google Order). So I am in a unique position to teach you how to use Google’s tools for our… I’m sorry, your benefit.

G-Mail - http://mail.google.com

Google’s flagship product has become so much more than a place to check your messages. With the right add-ons, your inbox can become your communication hub. First of all, G-mail makes desktop mail clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, OS X’s Mail) obsolete. You can use G-Mail’s accounts settings to unify all of your e-mail accounts into one.

It now supports Yahoo, MSN and any other e-mail provider you can think of, and it makes setup pretty simple. Just input your address and password and it does the rest. You can even send e-mails from any one of your accounts by using this dropdown from the compose window.

As for incoming mail, G-Mail’s label feature is useful for distinguishing what message came to which address. During the setup process of importing a new address, you can choose to have a label automatically applied to incoming messages. For example, every message that comes to my college address automatically has a colored tab attached to it.

If you are a bit more obsessed about keeping your messages compartmentalized, G-Mail Labs has a feature called multiple inboxes that displays all of your accounts in separate frames.

Which brings me to G-Mail Labs. The labs features can be accessed by clicking on the little green beaker on the top of the inbox screen. From there you can turn on or off all sorts of experimental features that allow you to customize your e-mail “experience.”

-My favorite lab feature is “superstars” that allow you to mark your messages with a variety of little reminder icons. I mark bill alerts with that red exclamation mark to remind me to ignore them for as long as possible.

-Another great lab experiment is “forgotten attachment reminder.” I am criminally forgetful when it comes to remembering to hit that “attach” button. This gives me a pop-up reminder to do so.

-A brand new feature is “inbox preview” that gives you a simple text sneak-peek as your inbox while G-Mail is loading. This is good when you are somewhere that has a less-than-fast internet connection.

-“Undo send” is a miracle invention for anyone who is a little too trigger happy with that SEND button. This feature gives you a couple of seconds to rethink that vulgar missive you decided to send to your boss at 3am.

G-Mail labs have all sorts of helpful features that allow you to change the organization of your inbox, quickly search, and customize your e-mail.

The Google Mail inbox also adds quick access to Google chat for IM-ing and Tasks, which I will get to next.

Google Calendar - http://www.google.com/calendar

Along with a super-dooper mail application, Google provided a super-doooper Calendar application.

G-Cal supports multiple calendars (one for work, one for personal events, etc.) and allows you to share events with others (when that mandatory meeting is, for example).It also lets you set reminders for specific events and send them to you as a pop-up, a text message, or an e-mail. You can even import other calendars into yours. I have the schedules of bars and venues around town in my calendar, so if I get the urge to see some live music, I can see who is playing where at a glance.

But the newest and most important feature of G-Cal is the incorporation of Tasks. Tasks allow you to quickly add and tick-off to-dos. If you add a deadline for a task, it will show up with a tick box next to it on the day that it is due. This has saved my life more than a few times. All you need to do to enable tasks is click on “Tasks” in the top-left section of the Calendar screen.

Google Docs - http://docs.google.com

Google Docs was introduced a few years back as a way for people to access and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from anywhere, but it has become a great storage space for all of your important stuff.

G-Docs allow you to upload office documents of various file types (MS Office 2007 file types are still not supported *hmf*) and organize them in folders just like you would on your desktop. It has a labeling system similar to G-Mail so you can quickly find specific documents. And as you can see from the image above, it has a search box (just like any other Google app) so you can search inside of documents. This is useful if you can only remember a few of the words of that report you wrote a year ago, and you forgot to label it as “urgent.” G-Docs also allows you to share and publish documents for others to collaborate on, read over, or proofread.

There are various upload tools that allow you to batch send files to G-Docs, but the most helpful method I’ve found it to just e-mail it. G-Docs assigns you a unique e-mail address that you can use to upload attached documents or to just save text in an e-mail.

G-Docs recently added a “Download Your Documents” button that will download all of your documents—all at once—back to your hard drive should anything catastrophic happen to your computer.

Google Profile (Google’s “about profiles” page here)

Google has become the ubiquitous search tool for everything—even people. If you are applying for a new job, getting into a new relationship, or just offering to volunteer, chances are good that someone is going to Google you. The internet has so much dirt on you, it could write a tell-all book about your life. Google Profiles allow you to have some semblance of control over what people find about you. You can publish links to your blogs, social networking sites, and photo albums, and you can choose to omit any embarrassing or salacious material that may be floating about. Unless you want your potential employer to know that you are into that kind of stuff.

Once you have a Google Account setup, go to Profiles and edit your information like you would on Facebook or MySpace (remember the purpose of a profile though. Keep it clean). You can upload a profile picture, add links to your page, and update your contact info. You control who gets to contact you and how, so consider your contact info as what would appear on a business card. Once you have all your info plugged in, don’t forget to click “publish” so people can find you. Google will give you a public address that you can send people.

Here is mine as an example: http://www.google.com/profiles/arj.a01

I’ve really only scratched the surface of what Google has to offer, but I hope that this overview has eased you into the idea that the death of your privacy is inevitable. So you may as well get some productivity tools out of the deal. All hail our Google overlords.