The Machets’ Blog

Google Maps lets you explore the world from a bird’s eye view. You can view a lot of Sydney, some of Melbourne and also other areas. For those that know their way around, America and the UK have excellent maps that include names of various places.

To view Google Maps, simply go to machet.com.au/blog/googlemaps.html. If you would like to search for various locations, you can go to maps.google.com.

If you’re impressed with Google Maps, you should try out Google Earth. Google Earth is a great program with better quality images and many more features. Also, parts of Sydney are marked with maps, and a lot of the world is much clearer. Like almost all of Google’s inventions, Google Earth is completely free for the home user. To run this program, you need a relatively new computer (Ideally a PC no older than 4 years or a notebook no older than 2 years) but many computers should work. Google Earth can be downloaded at earth.google.com

To get going and download this amazing program, simply go to earth.google.com.

Update: For a more recent version of the maps, go to machet.com.au/blog/googlemaps2.html

Google is always coming up with new programs and additions to its site. To see what they are working on, you can go to labs.google.com and click on something you want to see. Please be advised that the new projects are in BETA, meaning that they are being tested and are not completely ready for release or have not been fully intergrated into their services. BETA projects may have bugs or give errors, but generally these problems are small and the services can be used quite well.

The Microsoft Network (MSN) also have a technology playground which showcases Microsoft’s latest projects. You can visit the MSN Sandbox at sandbox.msn.com. You may notice some of their projects are quite similar to Google’s. Take a look and let us know what you think by leaving a comment to this post.

UPDATE: Yahoo! also has such a page, with some original and innovative ideas. Simply go to next.yahoo.com and have a look around. Most of the new technologies on Yahoo! Next are online at the time of writing so you won’t have to install anything.

gmail.com - an email service by google

Gmail is one of the best web-based email services that are around today. Gmail is very user friendly and comes with more than 2600mb of storage space. Gmail was made by Google around two years ago, and encourages users to archive their messages instead of deleting them. This is because there is so much space available that you don’t need to get rid of anything.

Gmail, like Hotmail can be used anywhere in the world, and has a relatively good spam filter. Each month, new features are added to the service, but it hasn’t yet finished the standard features column. It is quite new, so I’ll give it a break. Currently, you cannot just go and sign up an account online. You need to be invited to the program because it is in a beta, or being tested, phase. However, you have come to the right place! If you want a Gmail account, simply email us and we’ll invite you. Gmail is a very good web based email service and is worth a look.

Gmail can be found at www.gmail.com. If you would like to register a yourname@gmail.com, simply email us and we’ll send you an invitation shortly.

Update (16/8/06): For those living in Australia or New Zealand, you don’t need an invitation, as you can now sign up from the homepage.
Update (9/2/07): Gmail has opened its doors to the world! Now anyone can sign up for the service, without invitation or phone sign up. I have closed the comments for this post as there is no need to ask for an invitation.