If you have not yet discovered Google Docs, you might want to take a look at what the latest free Google tool. Google Docs (and Spreadsheets if you work with them as well) offers the following:

* Use the online editor to format documents and spell-check
* Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text
* Download documents to your desktop as Word, PDF and in other common formats
* View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version
* Invite others to share your documents by e-mail address.
* Edit documents online with whomever you choose
* Publish documents online or to just who you choose
* Post your documents to your blog

This is actually also a useful tool to use to back up documents. You can store up to a 1000 documents of up to 20 pages each. It's not going to replace your normal back up systems, but is still potentially very useful. And a super useful tool is the ability to upload simply by emailing the document as an attachment to a special address Google provides you.

The New York Times reports this morning on a very cool technology development involving a building material containing titanium dioxide. By accident, the company that produced the material has learned that it actually absorbs pollution from cars and heating units. Tests have shown that some pollutants could be reduced by 20 to 70%. Aside from buildings, the material is now being tested in road construction with very good results.

Big time. USCIS has managed to take one of the best government web sites in the world and turn it in to one of the worst. Half of the features from the old site are gone. The new site is difficult to navigate. The graphics look amateurish compared to the old site. Where are the FAQs? Where are half the legal resources? Where is the "What's New" page? The new web site has some nice features (such as a search field to track a case right on the front page). But it is pretty sparse.

The anger at the removal of the old site was so strong that USCIS agreed to put back the old web site for a few days.

I spoke to an inside source at USCIS who tells me that the web site was put up with not only no input from the public, but with very little communication at USCIS either. This is the public's major source of information on immigration law and procedures. The public should have been closely consulted in the process of updating. Were focus groups consulted? How about the immigration lawyers who visit the web site every day? Why was no beta site put up to get feedback before taking down the old site?

USCIS should be embarrassed by not only the site it put up, but also by the process it went through prior to putting up the web site. I remember poking fun at the old INS a number of years ago for having a web site that included nothing but a biography of former INS Commissioner Doris Meisner. I used to praise the agency for how far they had come. Unfortunately, they've just taken a major step backwards.

Lifehacker reports today on this cool new service that allows you to call up Frucall while you're in a store to see if there is a cheaper price at an online store. Just type in the bar code of the product and Frucall tells you if you can find it cheaper with one of it's member stores and even allows you to buy it over the phone automatically.

It's also a cinch to post a picture to my blog using Blogger. You can upload a picture from your computer or simply link to a picture on someone else's web site.

I timed it and it took me less than five minutes to create this blog on Google's Blogger. I simply had to give the blog a name and choose a template. And, voila, I'm blogging for you. Once the blog was set up, I was taken to a template page and all I need to do is type a message much like I would in MS Word. I can bold, italicize, make my words colorful, and link to all sorts of interesting places on the web.

I can also indent to show that I'm quoting someone else,

I can create a list:

1. thing one
2. thing two
3. thing three

And I can change the font and size.

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