Google Apps Hacks | 
 enlarge | Author: Philipp Lenssen
Publisher: Make Books
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 45286
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 374
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 8 x 1
ISBN: 059651588X
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.76
EAN: 9780596515881
ASIN: 059651588X
Publication Date: April 16, 2008
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.
The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google's web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite's unique network functionality. You get plenty of ways to tinker with:
- Google Documents -- Share and edit documents with others in real time, view them on the run with Google Docs mobile service, and use Google Notebook for web research
- Google Spreadsheets -- Add real-time data to spreadsheets, and generate charts and tables you can embed in web pages
- Google Presentations -- View them on a mobile phone and save them as video
- Gmail -- Send email to and from a mobile phone, adjust Gmail's layout with a style sheet, and a lot more
- iGoogle -- Create your own gadgets, program a screenscraper, add Flash games, and more
- Google Calendar -- Add web content events, public calendars, and your Outlook Calendar to this application
- Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google SketchUp: the new 3D modeling software tool
- Picasa, YouTube, and Google Video -- discover new ways to customize and use these media management apps
In addition, Google Apps Hacks outlines ways you can create a simple web site with nothing but Google tools, including Page Creator, Blogger, Google Analytics, and content from other Google apps. This amazing collection just might convince you that Microsoft Office is not the last word in business applications. The price is certainly right.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
A collection of hacks and tricks September 6, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Philipp Lenssen's GOOGLE APPS HACKS provides a collection of hacks and tricks to offer different ways of customizing Google Apps, from its email and spreadsheets to some of its desktop applications such as Google Earth. Owners of Google Apps learn all about document sharing, embedding web pages into Google Calendar, adding photos to its mapping system, and more.
Great intro to many different Google applications August 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While this book wasn't chock full of the kind of insider information that you usually get from a "hacks" book, it did offer a lot of good information that I haven't seen altogether in one place. Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware of all the different tools that Google is making available: from Google Docs to Gmail to iGoogle and more. This book does an excellent job showing how to use these tools and how to get more out of them than you probably thought possible.
The book spends the first 4 chapters going through the various applications within the Google Docs family--which is essentially an online, non-Microsoft version of the Office suite. Subsequent chapters are then dedicated to Gmail, iGoogle (a customization of the Google home page), Google Calendar, Google Reader, Picasa, blogging, Google Maps (and related programs), and analytics. Even with all this information, there are still Google applications that were left out--but I suppose that is to be expected, otherwise this book would be well above its current 400 pages.
I found each chapter to be well written, and I felt that each "hack" was something a real user would try/want to do. The author includes lots of screen shots and includes extra HTML and javascript within the text where appropriate. The author goes so far as to show (in a few cases) some 3rd party applications that rival the Google offering. For example, in discussing Picasa, the author shows some non-Google alternatives.
I thought this was a great book that was well-written and easy to follow. It opened my eyes to many of the possibilities that currently exist within Google products. If you're looking to get more out of your Google experiences, this book is highly recommended.
Useful and Fun To Read Book About Hacking Google August 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed reading this book and found many useful tips to enhance the Google search experience. Some of the things I already knew about, like Picasa, Google's photo organizing software. Other Google features were completely unknown to me until I read this book.
One reason I think this book works is because the author is young, born in 1977. Most of the technical book writers are old guys who go back to the first generation of personal computers, which was two years before author Philipp Lenssen was born. The author definitely brings a young attitude towards using Google, tweaking it and making it your own.
Book level: Advanced computer user. Not for the beginner.
 Not what I expected July 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The word 'Hacks' implied secrets, insider information, or the ability to do something others cannot. I checked the index before I bought it. I wanted some insight on how to program my own Google Apps. I thought this book had some. But there was really nothing useful for a programmer here. The book gave little more than what you can find online in tutorials. Nice book in terms of explaining what Google Apps are and how to use them in a Google domain, but no insider information here.
Opened my eyes to quite a few new Google tricks I haven't tried... July 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I happily take advantage of a number of Google applications such as Gmail, iGoogle, Google Calendar, and a few other things. But there's more to the Google Apps family than that, and I know I'm not getting all I can out of the offerings. After going through Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen, I have a number of new tricks to try out both on stuff I already use as well as a few other apps. Fun stuff!
Contents:
Meet The Google Docs Family; The Google Docs Family - Google Documents; The Google Docs Family - Google Spreadsheets; The Google Docs Family - Google Presentation; Become a Gmail Power User; Customize Your Google Home Page; Manage Your Events With Google Calendar; Keep Up On News With Google Reader; Manage Your Photos And Videos With Picasa and YouTube; Create Your Own Home Page, Blog, or Group; Dive Into Google Maps, Google Earth, and Sketchup 3D; Google Analytics And Beyond - Market Your Site, Track Visitors
Credits; Index
This book follows the same format as other O'Reilly Hack titles. For each of the chapters, you get a number of tricks, or "hacks", that show you how to do things that may not be intuitively obvious. There's a difficulty meter after each hack title that gives you a clue as to whether its something that is easy to pull off or something that takes a degree of technical skill. The first couple of hacks in each chapter tend to be introductory in nature. They explain the package and get you started. For instance, the first hack in the first chapter is "How to Get Your Google Account". Likewise, the first hack in the iGoogle chapter has you adding Google tools to your iGoogle home page. The hacks get more in-depth after that, such as "Backing Up Your Email" or "Create Google Maps Overlays On the Fly". I personally was intrigued by some of the possibilities in the Google Spreadsheets area. "Add Live Data to Your Spreadsheet" was interesting, as was "Automatically Complete Lists of Related Items". That one is completely unexpected, and shows the power of integration with the Google search engine results. There's also a way to import data from web sites into a Google spreadsheet. That has some particular interest for a project I'd like to do. Finally, there was a *really* cool hack to show how to track packages via RSS using Google Reader. That one will be getting some significant use with my next Amazon order...
As with all Hacks titles, some items will be absolute gems for you, while others will hold no interest. That's OK, and it's to be expected. All it takes is one or two hacks to make a radical change in the way you do things. In terms of usefulness, Google Apps Hacks ranks up there with the best of the Hacks titles.
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