Google Sidebar Centralizes Workplace Procrastination

Gone are the days of having to quickly hide your email, news, blogs, etc. when your boss walks by. The compact, customizable, unobtrusive Google Sidebar now puts a variety of workplace procrastination tools at your fingertips. The tools are actually useful for work stuff too, so nobody can say you are just slacking off. Here?s my quick evaluation.

It took a while for the Google sidebar app to index my hard drive, but now that it is up and running I can officially say that the Google Sidebar rocks. In addition to indexing and allowing search functionality for your entire hardrive, it offers: easy access to Gmail, news, RSS Feeds, a scratchpad, Photos, Google Talk, and other widgets.

I?ve used similar apps in the past like Microsoft?s taskbar, however the Google Sidebar is clearly the best of breed for the quick launch genre.

Being a Mac user I was disappointed to see that the Google Sidebar has not been released for Mac. However, it seems that Google and Apple are taking chapters from each other?s playbook. Many of the features offered in the Sidebar add functionality to XP that has been obviously missing, since Apple introduced OSX Tiger in May.

Apple?s Spotlight search technology was certainly inspired by Google?s foray into PC search, and the Google Sidebar is very remindful of the micro app concept seen in Apple?s Widgets.

Until Windows Vista debuts this may be the best upgrade to XP that we are going to see, and if Vista is delayed any longer Google might just launch their own operating system.

—Rumors—

Is Google creating an operating system one component at a time? Could they eventually release a complete operating system? Some geeks think so.