Alert!! Your daily news is arriving

Imagine this, you are following the news of Earthquake in China, and every morning when you open up your email, there are latest news/blogs of your choice arriving.

You want to know the latest release of Justin Timberlake, and you got your mail instantly once there are latest news and press release on him.

You are studying the technology of Ruby on Rails, and you get the summary of what's happening with the technology everyday. You are updated with the truly latest happening news, blogs, opinions related to this technology.

Below are the screen shot taken from my GMail - showing the news on Ruby on Rails.

Sometimes, you might found that some company is hiring peoples to work with the technology, and sometimes you get free ebook recommended in some blogs. Yeah, it's a lot of fun and rewards!!

So, you want to setup you personalized daily or instant news alert?
Follow these simple steps:

1. Go to Google Alert website.
2. Put in the search term. That means the keywords of your news. Eg: "Andy Roddicks"
3. Choose the type (of the alerts). Choose "comprehensive" for maximum coverage.
4. Choose how often you want to received it.
5. Finally key in your email address. The alerts will be sent to this email.
   

Are you powered by Google?

How much do you know about Google free service? Please help me complete this survey. Just 2 question. The result will be share out.

Some of you might have already know Google Docs, where you can create words document and excel spreadsheet and share it for free. However, instead of inviting your friends or colleagues to collaborate and write on a topics, you can create a survey forms and ask the public answer it. The answer will be stored into the spreadsheet and can be edited or downloaded. Just like what I did with this.

Here is a screen shot of how you can create a new form.


This can be a marketing tools to collect the data you need. For example, you are going to launch a new product, and you not sure what is the right price. So, create a simple survey form and email to all your customer and collect the data so that you can make the best decision.

Tips: Keep your survey short and simple. Most people won't spend more than 10 minutes to complete it. They will just browse away. Keep it to less than 5 question with at least 3 question on MCQ instead of asking them to write.

Form are great to collect data, it's not just used in survey. For instance, you and your groups is doing a research on collecting website that are related to pets, and you want to categorize your collection into groups such as Dogs, Cats, Bird, Fish, Turtle and others. What you can do is create a form with 2 questions,

1. Enter the website (text)
   
2. Groups (Multiple choice or choose from list)
   
• Dogs
• Cats
• Bird
• Fish

Thus, everyone in your groups can key in the data once they found the a website related to pets.

By using this form, you can collaborate with your group member instantly instead of combining data after that. Moreover, you do not need to key in each entry manually, because you can just click on the multiple choice answer or choose from the drop down list. collaboration

It's very easy to create the form, what you need is a Google Account, and then click on this link spreadsheets.google.com/newform.

Introducing Sandy, my new personal assistant.

Dear friends, please meet my personal assistant Ms. Sandy. Now, I can afford to have my own personal assistant to help me organizing my schedule, contact, reminding me for appointment.. etc.

Look at the following scenario.

=====================
To: someone@email.com
CC: ms-sandy

Dear Someone,

We shall discuss the matter over the lunch on next Monday. See you then!

Regards,

Leow Tze Wei

ps:
Sandy, please remind me the meeting with Mr. Someone on next monday 1pm.
=====================

Thus, Sandy got my mail and she will remind me about this meeting through email, sms or twitter.

Cool! How much do I pay for her services? Free. Yes, it's free.
How can you have it? Just shout "I Want Sandy!!" and log on to iwantsandy.com

The concept is simple, I just need to email to her and ask her to remind or remember for me. More example how Sandy can help me organizing.

Reminder:

• Remind me about yoga class on Friday at 8am
• Remember to pick up dry cleaning in 3 days

Contact:

• Remember Jack's number is 012-012012021 and address is 3-1, Jln Malaysia, Tmn Malaysia.

Birthday:

• Remember Jeff's birthday 8 June @birthday

Make a list:

• remember groceries @weekly
  * eggs
  * milk
  * bread

and a lot of interesting stuff... find out more at iwantsandy.com