I'm a geek. I love the things that make living life online and working in a mobile world... a bit more "cool" than traditional existence.

With that said, I wanted to share a handful of my favorite Google tools and offerings for your perusal. Signing up for a Google account means you can keep all these things in one central (and easy-to-access) location. Because, no matter how wonderful the tool is... if you can't find it quickly and easily when you need it, you won't use it.

• Personalized Home Page - I love the fact that every time my browser pops open a new window (I use FireFox, of course), that my customized Google page makes it look the way I want it to look. To access this, click here, or go to www.Google.com and click on "Personalized Home" in the upper left-hand corner. I can add any number of cool and useful "widgets" to help keep myself more organized (or more entertained and distracted).Peruse the widgets by clicking on "Add Stuff>>" in the upper left hand portion of your personalized page. You can even add "tabs" to categorize your widgets and tools and keep your load time to a minimum. From this location, I can get to all my other cool Google tools in one or two clicks (via "My Account"). That's nice!

• G-mail - THE solution to a long-term, high-storage capacity online free email service. Although I keep my main business and a personal email address through my websites and hosting accounts, I like having a freebie account available. If you have a cell phone, you have access to set up your free account. (http://mail.google.com). Unlike many free email accounts, you aren't automatically spammed to death and you aren't in sensory overload due to advertisements and flashing banners. What a relief.

• Docs and Spreadsheets - Not just a wonderful way to be able to work online and access your documents and spreadsheets from anywhere -- it's also a fantastic collaboration tool. I use Google Docs and Spreadsheets for "live" work on client projects while on the phone with the client. I also use it for personal and professional peer collaborative projects. Once I'm finished with the document, I can archive it online for future reference, or I can download it to my computer in a multitude of formats including Microsoft Office, Comma Delimited, Open Office and others... even PDF! Use it once on a collaborative project and you will fall in love.

• Web Alerts - Want to know when someone says something about your website, your business, or YOU? (Or perhaps your competition?) Then sign up for Google Web Alerts and you can have this information delivered automatically to your inbox. You can also have certain topics "sniffed out" and delivered. It's easy to turn the alerts on and off, so you can determine how much you get and for how long. What a time saver!
  

• Google Reader - An easy "one click" way to keep all your favorite RSS feeds in one easy-to-review location. If you don't want to have your RSS feeds coming into your email account, but you want a quick way to read the latest from your favorite sites without all the hassle of many online "cache" services, give Google Reader a try.

• Google Analytics - One of the most comprehensive (and free!) tools to access information on how your website visitors find your site and how they interact with it while there. This is a great Internet marketing tool. Learn more at: http://www.google.com/analytics/ I've still not managed to use this extremely revealing tool at full capacity. But, if you want to decipher the particulars of your own web traffic, this may be just what the webmaster (or webmistress) ordered! 
  

• Google SketchUp - Want to "play house" in 3-D? Check out this CAD-style rendering tool -- and notice the price tag compared to other similar programs (online and off). You have the option to upgrade to a pro version of Sketcher, but you can have quite a bit of fun with this useful tool on the free version.
  

• ...and there are many others that have been released and several that are still in beta (including a few listed above). You may also want to check out Google Notebook, Google Trends, Google Calendar, Google Maps, etc. (Note: If collecting Google Tools on your own, stay away from the Browser Sync -- it's a great idea, but not yet ready for primetime and causes continual browser crashes and long load-time delays -- besides, the new FireFox has a 'restore session' option that works well.)

When reviewing tools like those listed above, be sure that learning to use them will not take more time than they are worth to you. I have tried to select the "cream of the crop" here to get you started, but there are many others available that you may want to review. Learning to take advantage of what is available for free can same you time and money.

Enjoy!