Google Maps…

I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I’ve decided that now is as good a time as ever to post a nice little series about all the various tools that Google offers. Tonight’s Google offering is Google Maps.

I have loved maps ever since I can remember. Every car trip, no matter whether it was an hour’s journey or a 3 day trek, involved me with the atlas on my lap, calculating distances, finding the shortest route, and seeing what town was in the most states (I seem to remember a lot of states have a Perry of some sort).

Fast forward to modern times and I can still be found browsing Google Maps (especially that Satellite view). But more than just find a route from start to finish or mapping out an address, Google Maps has a ton of tools that are not nearly as commonly used.

The following tools are located in My Maps link on the left side of the map area.

Distance Tool

It is great to be able to map out a route but it kind of fails if you want to map out a run around the neighborhood or the distance of a flight. The distance tool is nice because you get to use your mouse to map out the route as you see fit, on road or off. The picture below shows the distance from Indianapolis airport to La Guardia airport in NYC being 659 miles “as the crow flies.” If you were to map out the drive, it would be approximately 732 miles.

Customized Maps

For our honeymoon, Mrs. Digitante and I took a trip around Europe each toting a rolling bag that converted into a backpack. We journeyed to Dublin, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, Paris, and London. Although the memories of this epic outing are still fairly fresh in our minds two years later, they will probably begin to fade by the time our kids are old enough to enjoy the stories and pictures. One of the amazing things we can do with Google Maps is preserve the trip, including the route that we took, pictures along with the location they were taken, as well as restaurants, hotels, and landmarks we visited along the way.

Part of our trip was a day in the Slovak Republic capitol of Bratislava. While we were there, we saw a Hrad (aka Castle in English). We have some great pictures and I was able to post one of the pictures on Google Maps at its location on the map.

Other Stuff

In addition to the previous two features, which I’ve used extensively, there are numerous other Google Maps features including local gas price mapping, real estate search, and an internet hotspot locator. Of course it should go without saying that you can search Google Maps extremely well, since that is what Google does.

View Options

I prefer to view my maps in Satellite View, however, there is also a Topographical View which will show hills and elevation changes and a regular Map view. All views include an optional Traffic toggle button. The Traffic view recently got updated to include data on side streets in addition to the interstates and major highways which have had traffic reports for awhile.

On Your Mobile Phone

If you have a cell phone that includes a data plan, you can also download Google Maps for your phone because, let’s face it, it is really hard to break out your laptop every time you want to look up a location. Having Google Maps on your phone can be helpful for looking up the closest dance club, finding the address of the place you are 20 minutes late to, or getting directions from wherever you are to wherever you can think of to go.

Mobile Maps can find your location so when you search for that dance club, it is the closest one to you. Optionally, you can allow your friends to note your locations so they know when you are in the area. It is a neat social networking tool, if not a little scary that people might know where you are at all times.

Get to Mapping

If you want to learn to use Google Maps to its full potential or just want to learn to look up your house on it, you can call The Digitante and we can get you up and going. Just head to the About page and you will find contact information including email and the phone number to contact The Digitante.

Sign up for Gmail…

A couple of days ago, I showed you how to migrate from your current email provider to a supercharged Gmail account that has huge amounts of storage space, great spam filtering, and the power of Google search. As I thought about it, I realized that I forgot one crucial part of the equation: signing up for a Gmail account.

The first step is to head over to the Gmail home page. When you get there you should direct your attention to the bottom right corner of the page and look for the Create an account button.

This will lead you to the create an account page.

Before we move on, I just want to point out that all of this is free, so don’t bother getting your wallet out at any point. Do remember that Google doesn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to sell ads which will grace the page around your email. The ads are small and non-intrusive and can even be :gasp: HELPFUL!!! Also, while the ads will have to do with keywords in your email, Google doesn’t actually read or use any of the information in the emails. It simply uses a computer algorithm to figure out which ads fit best.

Back to the account creation page. On this page, you have a list of chores to complete which should be pretty simple. The first task you must complete is to find a username. This can be difficult because your proper name is probably taken, so you have to get a little creative. Some options for someone named The Awesome Digitante and born 12/31/1900 are:

• First letter first name and your last name: tdigitante@gmail.com
• First name, last name, birthdate or year: thedigitante1231@gmail.com or thedigitante1900@gmail.com
• First name, middle initial, last name: theadigitante@gmail.com

You’ll notice in the last example, it looks like my name is Thea. You need to look over your chosen username carefully to avoid confusing letter combination such as theedigitante@gmail.com which people might suspect contains a mistake (the second E) even though my middle name might actually be Excellent. It is also good to avoid names which could be construed as strange or inappropriate by those emailing you, such as choosing sexykitten1995@gmail.com which sounds like a 14 year old girl even though it might be a 40 year old woman who got married in 1995. If you have any questions, run your choices by a friend, such as The Digitante.

Once you have found a username that fits, choose a password. As usual, choose a strong password that isn’t easily guessed. Once again, you can head to my password post for tips on being secure. Additionally, you will need to add a secondary email address in case you lose access to your Gmail account and you will need to answer a security question.

After performing these tasks, you can simply click to create your new Gmail account. You are lead to a page congratulating you on your success in setting up a Gmail account. It will also give you a few pointers on managing your new Gmail account.

After that, you can simply click on Show Me My Account.

You can now start handing your brand new email address out to all your friends and use some of the handy tips from the prior Gmail post to get started with your new account. And as usual, explore! There are many hidden treasures in your new email account including a features called Labs, fun and customizable themes, and powerful tools like filters and labels.

If you are having troubles getting signed up for a new Gmail account or are signed up and want to know where to go from here, head over to the About page to contact The Digitante to help you get emailing.

More pictures…

You’ll notice in my most recent post about Mint that I included a couple of screen shots to illustrate some of my talking points. I hadn’t included anything like that prior because it was difficult to do a screen capture, edit it down, and the post it. However, in true Digitante style, I found a very easy way to do this, cutting my time per picture from 5-10 minutes to about 1 minute.

In addition to adding pictures to new posts, I will be going back occasionally and adding pictures to a few old posts that could use some further illustration. I’ll post those updated posts as I complete them.

Mint…

If there is one subject that more Americans struggle with than anything else, it is probably astrophysics. However, number 2 on the list is probably personal finances. And who runs into astrophysics on a daily basis anyway? Personal finances on the other hand are a daily thing that affect everyone.

The sorest subject when talking about personal finance is that dirty word: budget. All the tracking receipts and adding up totals and paying attention to your spending. It truly makes you want to smack yourself in the shin with a hammer. But there is a super helpful tool out there called Mint.

Mint is a website that fixes the hardest parts of personal finance and budgeting specifically. It automatically downloads your transactions from you debit card and credit card accounts. It shows you where you are in your monthly budget compared to where you are in the month (eg: halfway through the month you should be half way through your budget).

Mrs. Digitante and I set up an account with Mint about 8 months ago and it was missing some very key features: annual expenses, budgeting income, irregular income, and an everything else budget category. Now that those features have been added, Mint is a nearly complete. I’ll touch on a couple of the big pluses of Mint, but realize that using it is pretty intuitive and simple and the best way to learn about Mint is to start using it.

Most of us need to save up for those annual (semi-annual, quarterly, etc) expenses such as auto insurance, family vacation, and that embarrassing subscription renewal for US Weekly. As you’ll notice, you can enter the frequency of the expense (12 months), how much it is ($67 for a year of US Weekly? Yikes!), and when the next payment is due (January of 2010). You will notice that it indicates that you must save $13 per month which equates to 5 months of saving. The reason being that you need to have the $67 by January. For the payment due in January 2011, it will tell you that you need to save $6 per month since you have 12 months to save for that payment. Very convenient.

Transaction listing is another huge plus of Mint. When you sign up for Mint, you will go through the process of entering your online account information. Mint will then automatically pull in all your transactions and label them in various categories. When the transaction for your US Weekly subscription is processed, Mint will mark it as being in the category Entertainment and the sub-category Newspapers & Magazine as can be seen in the above screen shot. This then loads it into the budget accordingly. You are also allowed to make up custom categories for items that Mint doesn’t list by default such as home owners dues and bulk gummy bears. You can also exclude certain items from your budget such as business expenses.

Another newly added feature to Mint is the addition of an “Everything Else” category. Before, Mrs. Digitante and I would look at our budget thinking we were doing so well because we were $100 under for the month. Yet we still were short by a couple of hundred only to realize that we didn’t have a budget category set up for “Frivolous Funtimes.” Now the category Frivolous Funtimes goes into the Everything Else bucket and we can instantly see that we are over budget and take corrective action. Cancel that frivolous funtime for the rest of the month. Boo.

The biggest roadblock that stands in the way of people using Mint is the fact that all your financial data is in one place. From a security standpoint, that can be very scary. However, I would like to give Mint the Digitante’s seal of approval for security. On their privacy page, they give many ways they keep you safe. The biggest security feature is that Mint is all read-only. That means you can’t move money, make deposits, or withdraw money through Mint. Someone can see how much your paycheck is or how much you spend on toilet paper, but they cannot steal your money or even your bank information. My only caution would be to be sure you choose a strong password that will keep out any intruders.

As is usual, if you want help getting signed up for Mint or even getting signed up for your own bank’s website, The Digitante can help. You can head to the About page for contact information (email and phone) for The Digitante.

In addition to offering my own services, I would like to recommend an expert in the area of personal finance: Susie at Truly Life Financial. She has all the tools and skills to help you with your budgeting concerns whether you are in debt over your head or whether you just want to streamline the budget you have. As it says on her website:

Mission: To help others take hold of the life that is truly life.

When personal finances are hanging over your head, either because they are confusing or the amounts are overwhelming, you need a professional to help you through it. If you car breaks down, you don’t just pretend it isn’t broken, you call a mechanic and get it fixed. Susie is the mechanic that can fix the broken car or just tune up the sports car for you. Call or email her for a free consultation to get you started.