Google has dozens of undiscovered, yet excellent products, people don’t know about. In Google Labs itself you can find plenty of useful tools and products for web designers and developers. Furthermore all Google services are free to use and that makes them appealing alternatives to paid products of a similar nature. For example, Google Docs can be a great alternative for Microsoft Office since it’s free, light and easy to use. This article presents 30 useful, practical and smashing products, tools and services from Google that you should consider using daily.

1. News

Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader’s personalized interests. The articles are selected and ranked by computers that evaluate, among other things, how often and on what sites a story appears online.

2. Reader

Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won’t miss a thing. With your Google Reader public page, you can share your favorite items with your friends, simply by sending them to relevant links.

3. Bookmarks

With Google Bookmarks, you can save shortcuts to your favorite webpages and navigate to them in seconds. Unlike browser bookmarks that are stored on a single computer, Google bookmarks are stored in your Google Account. This means you can access them from any computer with an internet connection.

4. Alerts

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you’ll receive.

5. Sites

Google Sites is a free and easy way to create and share web pages. With Google Sites you can easily create rich web pages, collect all your info in one place and control who can view and edit it. You don’t need any knowledge of HTML and it’s free to use.

6. Blog Search

Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Blog Search helps users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you’re looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.

7. Trends

With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.

8. Gmail Labs

Gmail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for primetime. While you may find some awesome stuff there, you have to keep in mind that these features can break at any time or disappear altogether. However they may work so well that they graduate and become regular features.

9. PubSubHubhub

PubSubHubbub is a simple, open, server-to-server publish/subscribe protocol as an extension to Atom and RSS. Parties speaking the PubSubHubbub protocol can get near-instant notifications via WebHook callbacks when a feed they are interested in is updated.

10. Contacts

Google Contacts is a place to import, store and view all of the contact information that’s important to you. You can also create your own groups of contacts to easily email many people at once.

11. Knol

Knol is a Google project that aims to include user-written articles on a range of topics. Knol allows you to communicate, collaborate and share your knowledge with the world.

12. Moderator

Google Moderator is a tool that allows distributed communities to submit and vote on questions for talks, presentations and events. Suggested questions as well as user votes are seen in real-time.

13. Tasks

With Google Tasks you can add new tasks, set due dates or add notes, and (most satisfyingly) check them off as you’re done. Your task list stays up to date no matter how you access it. It’s a simple list that’s with you everywhere you go. You can access Google Tasks from your Google Mobile, Gmail, Calendar or iGoogle.

14. Docs

With Google Docs you can create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. Manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, and more all in one easy to use productivity suite. What’s handy you can embed your created forms and use them in websites.

15. Checkout

Google Checkout allows buyers in over 140 countries to purchase goods and services using a credit or debit card through our fast, secure checkout process. Google Checkout also helps you increase sales with the Google Checkout badge that can be displayed on your AdWords ads and Product Search listings.

16. Fusion Tables

Google Fusion Tables is a modern data management and publishing web application that makes it easy to host, manage, collaborate on, visualize, and publish data tables online. There’s also a gadget that that helps you create animated flash charts & graphs for your web pages, blogs & Google Pages.

17. Double Click

Google’s DoubleClick products provide ad management and ad serving solutions to companies that buy, create or sell online advertising. The world’s top marketers, publishers, ad networks and agencies use DoubleClick products as the foundation for their online advertising businesses. With deep expertise in ad serving, media planning, search management, rich media, video and mobile, our DoubleClick products help customers execute their digital media strategy more effectively.

18. Art Project

With Google Art Project you can explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.

19. Shopper

Google Shopper helps you find information on millions of products. Google Shopper recognizes products by cover art, barcode, voice and text search. You can find local and online prices, reviews, specifications, videos, and more to help you make the best purchasing decision. With one click you can save items to your shopping list and share with your friends.

20. Voice Actions

Voice Actions for Android lets you control your phone using your voice. Call contacts and businesses, send messages, browse the web, and complete common tasks. You can do pretty much anything with it –  send simple text messages or get directions.

21. Code Search

Google Code Search helps you find function definitions and sample code by giving you one place to search publicly accessible source code hosted on the Internet. With Google Code Search, you can use regular expressions to search more precisely, restrict your search by language, license or filename and view the source file with links back to the entire package and the webpage where it came from.

22. Code Labs

In Google Code Labs, you’ll find developer products that are experimental. Some of these will one day graduate out of labs, others may remain experimental or even be shut down. That’s what a lab is for. Likewise, graduating from Google Code Labs is a big step that indicates our long-term commitment to that product.

23. Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools provides a free and easy way to make your website more Google friendly. With webmaster Tools you can see how Google crawls, indexes and ranks your website, see how many people found your site in search results, and how many people clicked on it and much more.

24. Browser Size

Google Browser Size is a visualization of browser window sizes for people who visit Google. For example, the “90%” contour means that 90% of people visiting Google have their browser window open to at least this size or larger.

25. Page Speed

Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates.

26. Web Toolkit

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a development toolkit for building and optimizing complex browser-based applications. Its goal is to enable productive development of high-performance web applications without the developer having to be an expert in browser quirks, XMLHttpRequest, and JavaScript.

27. reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that protects your site against spam, malicious registrations and other forms of attacks where computers try to disguise themselves as a human; a CAPTCHA is a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart. reCAPTCHA comes in the form of a widget that you can easily add to your blog, forum, registration form, etc

28. Web Elements

Google Web Elements allow you to easily add your favorite Google products to your website. It’s a great alternative if you don’t want to create your own search engine, for instance.

29. Installable Web Apps

Installable web apps are a way of making Google Chrome treat certain websites like apps. People can find installable web apps using the Chrome Web Store. Many installable web apps are hosted apps—normal websites with a bit of extra metadata. You can build and deploy hosted apps exactly as you would build and deploy any web app, using any server-side or client-side technologies you like.

30. Dashboard

Google Dashboard is an online tool that allows Google Account holders to view all their personal information Google is storing on their servers. It’s pretty handy to manage all your Google service accounts at one place and keep them up to date.

Discover more

There are actually many more products, especially for you designers and developers. Like I mentioned before, Google has a great number of lesser known, yet powerful, development and coding tools. Listing them all would be useless, however there’s no reason why you shouldn’t check them out yourself. Here are some websites where you can learn about Google products and their features.

• Demo Slam
• Google APIs & Developer Products
• Google New

Read on to see whats coming next in the 2nd iteration of tablet’s world Giant iPad.

Apple's Invite sent to Media outlets (Showing the iPad screen in background)

Some expected updates for new Apple iPad 2 are:

1. The iPad 2 is expected to be slimmer and airier as compared to its predecessor, also with larger speakers and an “improved display”, which will provide better experience in vivid sunlight. But Retina display is not expected as it won’t be economical provided the display screen size but we are not certain of it as there are so much rumors about display of to be announced iPad..

2. It is expected to have both front and back-facing cameras for FaceTime and Photo Both. Not having a front facing camera was a super let down in the original iPad. We are sure Apple wont let iCustomers down this time.

3. Some sources are also expecting iPad 2 to have Verizon support. So there will be a Verizon iPad along with the original AT&T iPad. Three versions of iPad 2 are probable. One will be Wi-Fi only, other will feature Wi-Fi and UMTS, the 3G technology utilized by AT&T and the third model will support Wi-Fi and CDMA, used by Verizon, reported by DigiTimes.

4. DigitalDaily reported that “iPad 2 will likely run on a 1.2GHz, dual-core, ARM Cortex-A9 chip and Imagination’s SGX543 GPU architecture–a big improvement over the SGX535 Apple uses today. And it will have double the RAM–512MB, same as the iPhone 4. ”

An iPad 2 listing has been briefly spotted at Amazon Germany, potentially revealing the technical specifications of Apple’s next-generation tablet via Softpedia

Along with iPad 2, it is believed that new iOS5 will get its preview at the start of the show, which is expected to present new voice navigation features, certainly new map applications and probably Cloud/MobileMe/iWork/iLife integration. And notifications have to be getting updated.

We will be posting news after the event but if you want to see the live stream of show, you can head to Apple’s official website (For Mac and iOS users). In case you don’t have one, you can always stop by Engadget’s live blog here.

Conference will start  at 10 a.m. PT!

Be Positive :)

Picture by Robert Aichinger

When you are trying to sell a design/service/product you have to remember to smile. It sounds very easy, but it’s also an easy thing to forget. By being in a good mood and talking in positive words, you can affect the client to feel the same way about what you have to offer. Clients soon notice it if you seem to love what you do and be a positive person. It’s contagious!

Be satisfied

Picture by Jos van Galen

By always doing your best, you will be able to present offers and samples that you are satisfied with yourself. This makes everything easier to sell, as clients pick up any attitude you have towards your own work (like mentioned in the previous point). Selling something you really believe in is always easier. Anyone can tell when you love what you do!

Never take feedback personal

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Even though you are the creator of what you’re trying so sell you have to remember to not take all feedback personal. We all do good and less good pieces of work and we can all become better. Clients have different preferences to what they like. Something that’s being very much-loved by one client, can be disliked by another. This doesn’t have to mean that it’s a bad piece of work though. Always aim to use all feedback in a constructive way.

Don’t sound like a “know-it-all”

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Make sure to adjust your language to fit whoever you’re talking to. If you use too many difficult words and terms you could end up pushing an interested client away from you, and you don’t want that.

Give all clients something unique

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As all clients are different you can often win extra points by fitting what you offer to suit that client. It doesn’t have to be huge changes from your original service/product but it can mean a world of difference. It can be simple things as adding an extra feature to a solution, changing settings and colors or downsizing something. By being able to custom-fit something for a client they will feel more special and better taken care of. It’s always important to make the client feel that he’s being heard. This might just be that final touch that will sell your product and have clients come back over and over.

Know your field

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You have to keep updated on what going on in your niche. Not only will clients notice, but this can separate you from the less serious competitors. By gaining a reputation as being someone who knows their field you will quickly get new clients as the rumors spread fast.

Give something extra

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When you calculate an offer to a new potential client, adding something extra for free is a huge bonus for them. By throwing in free business cards, extra pictures, a month of free support and so on you can earn the value of this back many times.

Use a set-up that is easy to understand

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Make sure that the offer you give is easy to understand. Don’t add too much information and never leave any important parts out. Include every cost to avoid an unhappy client that gets a bigger bill than he signed up for. If you can’t set 100% the price for everything its a good idea to add a point informing of a possible 10% ± change in the final price.

Give deadlines (even if you don’t have the work yet)

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Make sure to also tell the client exactly when you expect to have finished his product. Every piece of exact and correct information added to an offer will leave you looking both honest and professional. Both two abilities clients value a lot.

Show the ability to adjust

Picture by Zsuzsanna Kilian

Always be open to make adjustments to a project along the way, and tell this to the client beforehand. This shows good will from your side from day one and can be a strong force in your sale.

Be human

Picture by Ariel da Silva Parreira

Never give the impression of never having made any mistakes, it’ll seem cocky and unappealing. Instead of putting that mask on, you should be honest and mention how you always aim to do better at everything. Tell them that you appreciate all kinds of constructive feedback and that you are flexible.

Showing your portfolio

Picture by Guillermo Ossa

No matter how good you are with words, they can never fully replace showing your portfolio. This way clients can see examples of your previous work and see what you are capable of. Putting hours into having a good and versatile representation of your work in the portfolio is definitely worth it as it can give you extra sales. A portfolio can also give clients new ideas to things they would want to order from you.

Make sure the portfolio is accessible for later

Picture by Omar Franco

So you’ve made a great portfolio, but remember that it needs to be easy to show too. My tip is to have three versions:

1. One that you always carry around with you to meetings
2. Another one online as part of your website
3. and a third one as a pdf file that can easily be mailed to someone

Have references

Picture by Ratnesh Bhatt

In a market with many competitors that clients can choose from its always a good idea to have some references. These, along with your portfolio, should represent the versatility of your work. Good older clients can help you make new deals just by being there as a reference. Never underestimate this.

No pressure

Picture by Bob Smith

Always give the client time to think through your offer. If you push too much to get an answer you can also here push the client away from you. No one like people who put too much pressure on them, so don’t do that mistake no matter how excited you are.

Give the client some time to think over things and compare it to other offers, then contact them. If they think another offer is better, offer adjustments if you can and/or ask how you should improve to maybe be a better option the next time around.

Don’t forget to share your input via comments section.:)