After the recent release of Google Calendar, Google has decided to make navigating through their most popular products easier. Google has placed a small toolbar at the top left of Google, Gmail, Google Calendar, and a few other pages. Therefore, if you do wish to navigate between Google Calendar and Gmail for example, you no longer have to go through the hassle of opening a new window/tab and typing in a URL. This new feature is very handy and useful tools that will help people using Google’s products navigate to where they want to go faster. Not all Google Accounts have the feature added to them yet, but expect to see this feature on you Gmail or Google Calendar page within a few weeks.

Links: Google Calendar | Gmail
Related: MSN Calendar | Yahoo Calendar

On Wednesday (04/13/06) Google unveiled their latest product, Google Calendar. The new web-based application is open to the public, but is expected to remain in beta temporarily. Google Calendar, code-name CL2, helps track events, schedule appointments, and share them with others. This new service is completely intergraded with Gmail, allowing users to add events mentioned in messages to their calendar or emailing scheduled events to contacts. Google Calendar will also notify the user by email and/or SMS notifications if requested. Since Google Calendar supports iCal standards, it can import content from applications such as MS Outlook.

Main Features:

• Gmail Intergration – send events to contacts or save mentioned events
• Calendar Sharing – create public calendars or grant users permission
• Data Importing – import data from other applications (Outlook, etc.)
• Multi-Calendars – manage seperate calendars for work, home, etc.

Any calendar can be easily shared among others by either giving specific users access or by making it open to the public. The application will even schedule appointments with others not using Google Calendar through email. This new service is amazingly better and faster than both MSN’s and Yahoo’s services, which have existed for many years. Google Calendar will work in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, but not in Safari. I suggest trying or at least testing this new service, as it is completely free.

Links: Google Calendar | Press Release
Related: MSN Calendar | Yahoo Calendar
Coverage: BetaNews | Weblogs Inc | TechCrunch

1) Google Calendar screenshots have been revealed by TechCrunch, a popular Web 2.0 blog. (Yahoo! apparently fed them the info) Anyways “to be launched” service is an online AJAX based calendar service, which is suppose to be called CL2. The service has a gmail-like user interface and will have plenty of colaboration features, including RSS. It should also become intergrated with many of Google’s other services.
Links: Tech Crunch | CL2 Login Screen

2) Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have been added to the iTunes Store. The “season pass” will cost only $9.99 and will download the current episode plus the next 16 shows when they become available. Epsiodes can still be purchased individually for $1.99.
Links: Daily Show | Colbert Report
iTunes Links: Daily Show | Colbert Report

3) Microsoft has announced that their code name “Origami” Tablet PC should be available by the end of April. This is a new line of products, influenced by Microsoft, which are ultra-portable machines that are powered by Windows XP. Samsung’s version has a 7″ touch screen display, an extendable keyboard, Bluetooth, and WiFi. They can also run standard apps such as MS Office as wells as support playing videos, listening to music, and viewing photos. (Pricing will be around $600-1000)
Links: Origami Project | Microsoft’s Preview

4) MSN Live (aka. Windows Live) has just gotten a full AJAX makeover. Although still in beta, the service looks simple and clean. It has support for custom RSS feeds, as well as a selection to choose from. (weather, horoscope, email, news, etc.) The interface looks much better than Google IG. One neat feature that other services don’t offer that MSN Live does is Feed Search. For example search for “CNN” and when the results appear, if a feed is available a “add feed” button will be displayed.
Links: Windows Live | LiveCom Offical Blog