I’m not sure how long this has been around, but I noticed that Google Maps now has the ability to show alternative routes when using directions. This is great when you know that you want to avoid a particular area but do not know the next best route.

To use this feature, get directions using google maps and then hover over the alternative routes. The new route will be displayed on screen at the same time as the original one. See the screenshot below for more details.

That you can embed in to your blog spreadsheets, documents, and forms created with Google Docs?  I didn’t, until today.

It’s actually quite easy.  Take for example this simple form below.

To generate such a form, log on to Google Docs, create a new document, and select Form. Create the fields you wish to receive responses to then select Embed. The code necessary to embed the new form within your blog is then presented.

Now, to get it in to your blog you’ll need to ensure that you are in HTML mode before pasting the content in to the body of your post. That’s all there is to it!

Any other tips and tricks with Google Docs? Please share.

I’m sure that many of you have seen the Experts Exchange website and sometimes had the frustrating situation where the site insists that you log into the website to see the result. Other times the results are shown to you if you scroll down to the bottom of the page. Thanks to Channel9 forums I’ve discovered that this only works if you came from google.

For example the dns query result shows this resulting page. By clicking on the first link in the google results and scrolling down you will find the answers. Clicking on the saved url will only give you the option to login.

Hopefully this little trick will help you get the answers you need.  Is this tactic sneaky? Yes. Is it justifiable to get the answers without joining? In my opinion yes – as they are gaming Google to get to the top of the search engine, then it’s fair game to use this tweak to access the results.  If Google had the option to personalise the results so that I could ignore Experts Exchange (or other sites without specifying the ignore option for every search) this would be great ,but as this feature doesn’t exist this tweak should help.

There are times when you want to give out a phone number but you do not want to give out a live direct number. This happened to me when making some contact information cards for the library classes I volunteer teach. I certainly did not want to be giving out my cell phone number to just anyone who showed up for the classes. So I dusted off something I setup a while back. Grandcentral.com.

Grandcentral is now a Google owned property. It lets you pick a phone number you can keep effectively for life. The fun then begins. You can import the contact information from your computer and teach it how to route calls based on who is calling. So you could setup one number and if it is your spouse it rings your cell number and work number effectively forwarding the call. If it is an unknown stranger you can have it go to voicemail instead. Then Grandcentral will even email you a link you can click to play any recorded voicemail. Optionally you can have it SMS your cell phone to notify you of voicemail.

You can setup rules so certain contact numbers only get forwarded to certain real numbers for you such as home, work and cell. You can do this by grouping those contacts as well.

So if you have need to share a common number but want the control to protect your direct number privacy then Grandcentral is a great tool. It is free so create an account and give it a whirl.

PS You can even change the routing rules based on callerID from the call logs. So if someone starts bugging you, just route them to call blocked… =)

Did you know that you can update your company information that Google displays?

For example where I work the information that Google displays was for an employee specifically and his direct line. Not the proper company address and phone number, least I say that this is not ideal. I imagine that Google culls that information from several sources and pieces it all together and each employee’s number is posted on the website under their bio. So I am sure that this is were Google is getting it.

There is a way to fix this! Do a search for your business and you should see the information at the top with perhaps a Google map thumbnail along with other search results below. Under your address you will see “More Information”.

If you click on the “More Information” link, and at the bottom (Very Bottom) of that next page, there is an “Edit This Listing” link. Click it and Google walks you through asking for Address information Phone, etc…Business Type and picture with a wizard type setup. They then provide you with a 4 digit pin number, and wanted to initiate a call to the main number you listed to confirm the details you submitted. Hint * I had to give reception the pin so they could confirm it.

Google said that it could take up to 4 weeks to update it.

So there you go, it wasn’t as difficult as I imagined to update incorrect business information in Google’s database.

Technorati Tags: google, business, information

As some of you may have experienced, sending mail from your email program might not work when you are using public WiFi networking hot spots, such as those in hotels or coffee shops. This is usually due to port restrictions on the network, put in place to prevent anonymous users from using the network to send SPAM or attack other network systems.

Unfortunately, sending and replying to mail is often one of the most-used features when you are on the road. So what are you to do? You could always use the web mail access provided by most ISPs or use web-based services such as Gmail or Windows Live Mail (formerly Hotmail.com). Of course, this can be cumbersome when you simply want to reply to email you receive.

So, in my own laptop setup, I have done the following:

• Set up a free Gmail account
• Configure a new email account in your email program
• For this new account, set the Reply-To address to your standard email account, i.e. me@mydomain.com

Now, when I am confronted with an error when I try to send mail, I can change the outgoing email account to my Gmail account and, since Gmail uses different, usually unblocked ports, the mail will be sent. Also, by setting the Reply-To address, any replies will automatically be re-directed back to my standard email account. This allows me to work in my normal fashion, even when the local network puts roadblocks in my way.

Gmail recently added IMAP services to their offering, so now it is even easier to send and receive email while you are on the road.
For more great information on Gmail, check out fellow Friends in Tech member, The Gmail Podcast, hosted by Chuck Tomasi.