google voice--one phone number to rule them all

I'm happy to say that all the phones in my life now use google voice.  The gist of GV is that google gives you a number which can route to your cell, home, or office.  Depending on who calls, you can have google ring any or all of your phones.  Alternatively, if you don't really want to talk to the person, you can have it go straight to voice mail.  Think spam filter for the telephone.  There are lots of other little bonuses including:

1. Free domestic calling
2. Cheap international calling
3. Machine voicemail transcription that is sent to your email (not super accurate but usually good enough)
4. Do not disturb mode
5. Free text messages
6. GV widgets for website like the one at the bottom of this page (I have it set to go to voicemail) 

The list goes on and it seems like they keep adding features.  As a science hack we are setting it up to receive calls in the lab so that the person responsible for checking messages can do so very quickly on their computer and we can block unwanted calls.  Right now the service is invitation only and I have a couple of invites to give out, so anyone who's interested can shoot me an email and I'll hook you up.  If you want more info, check out this link and video:

Chris Pepper at Macworld.com also wrote a good article on this.  Click here to check it out. 

igoogle gadgets

I wanted to suggest afew useful gadgets for igoogle as folks get their feet wet.  To find or browse gadgets, all you have to do is go to the add stuff link toward the top of the igoogle page.  It's so nice to have all of your important information on one screen.  I also like arranging all these little gadgets to get a little Feng shui action going for information flow.  I'm sure you'll find lots of other cool gadgets and I would love to hear about any that you can't live with out.

Here are the gadgets that are loaded every time my browser opens:

Google Calendar

Gmail

Remember the Milk

Weather

Google Translate

World Clocks

Google Reader

Digg

Journal RSS Feeds for Google Reader

Here are some feed links that I use to get daily updates on what's new from these journals.  Just pop each address into your google reader (under add subscription) and you are off to the races.  If you click these links in firefox it should take you directly to google reader.

Neuron

PNAS

Science

EMBO

JBC

JCB

J Neuro

Cell

nature

Developmental Cell

Molecular Cell

PLOS Biology
MCB
Nature Genetics
nature medicine
nature neuroscience

My favorite science productivity apps--igoogle

This is a fairly simple and really useful idea from the good folks at google.  Create a home page where you can see all of your favorite stuff (including several of the things described above) on one web page.  I have this set as my home page and it is the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing I look at before going to bed.  I can see what's going on with my calendar, task list (remember the milk), gmail, weather, and rss feeds (google reader) all on one screen.
Key features:
1. Tons of different gadgets that you can add and arrange on your page.
2. Select a theme to reflect your personality
3. Keep one eye on the news of the day while keeping track of everything else going on in your life.
Science use case:
All of the use cases described above rolled into one easy to use platform

Video Tutorial:

My favorite science productivity apps--google docs

This is my favorite word processing app right now and is in fact what I'm writing this post on.  You can generate word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations in this suite of products.  The best part is that you can collaborate with people by giving permission to others to view and edit your document.
Key features:
1. Work on the same document simultaneously with colleagues
2. Access your documents from any computer
3. Edit your documents offline using google gears
Science use case:
I have found collaborating on manuscripts in this way much more satisfying and efficient than passing 30-40 drafts back and forth between folks.  Getting real time feedback from collaborators is not only a faster way to work, but I think it also results in a better end product.