We are all familiar with Google.com. But did you know about Google.org?

Google.org is Google’s charity branch working towards all sorts of good causes including renewable energy, improving public services and using technology to predict and prevent possible threats like climate change and pandemics.

It is part of their efforts to track the spread of disease. They have compiled flu trends and track the spread of the flu across the whole world. They have data for lots of countries, like US, Canada, Mexico, most of Europe and even Australia and New Zealand. You can even compare the data for the past years with this year and see how the trends show up.

But here is the most interesting point. All these trends are based on the what search queries people type into Google, just like any other Google trend. So just because the numbers are high doesn’t necessarily mean that many people are actually sick. But Google says they found a consistent reliable co-relation between what people are searching for and the rate at which the flu spreads.

Google loves to get creative with its logo on holidays and special occasions by customizing their logo for a day. But what if you love one of those logos so much that you want to keep it all through the year.

Favorite doodle is a Greasemonkey script, which though developed by a Google employee,  is not an official google project. You can download the script from http://code.google.com/p/gmsearchscripts/.

Once installed you can browse the gallery of all Google logos (google.com/logos)for all the past Google logos, dating back to the year 1998. Once you find your favorite doodle, just click on the “Make This My Favorite Doodle” button below the logo and you will be redirected to the Google homepage, now showing your favorite doodle instead of the regular Google logo.

By default, your favorite doodle will be overwritten by any special doodle that Google assigns for that day so that you never miss any new ones. But you can change this in the options.

Requirement: Firefox, Greasemonkey

Google is a great source to search for images. But sometimes when you are searching for a particular image, you find an image that is related to what you are looking for but not exactly the one you are looking for.

However, Googles new labs feature called similar images, which you can find at similar-images.googlelabs.com, makes it easy for you to find the image you are looking for. Just type in your search keyword and load the results. You will find several results matching your search term.

Now, locate an image that is close enough to the one you have in mind and then click on the Similar images link at the bottom of the image. You will get a whole new page of results with images that resemble the original image you selected.

For instance, if your original image is a night shot of the golden gate bridge, you will end up with a bunch of similar images from which you can make your pick.

How many times have you come across web pages where you find only a portion of an  article  on the first page. The remaining portion of the article is spread over several  other  pages, and you have to click the Next button, sometimes several times, to  read  the rest of the story.

Splitting a long article across multiple pages could be helpful for the bandwidth-  limited, but if bandwidth is not a problem for you then you might prefer to see the  entire article in one go instead of waiting for the pages to load pieces at a time.

Enter PageZipper. PageZipper is a free tool the eliminates the need to view one  page at a time and fetches the entire article in one go. PageZipper is available  both as a bookmarklet  and as a Firefox extension.

Once PageZipper is activated, just scroll down to the bottom of a page and  PageZipper will automatically add the next page to the end of current page you  are viewing saving you the trouble of repeatedly clicking on the next button and waiting for the next page to load. With PageZipper, as you read the first page, the remaining pages get downloaded and are ready for you to read. You can scroll through each page, or you could click on the arrows that appear or use the Ctrl + Down Arrow combination to move to the next page.

PageZipper doesn’t stop with that. PageZipper also makes it easy to browse  pages full of images like image galleries. What it does is, it resizes the images to fit within the screen  so that you don’t have to scroll to view images that are too big for your screen.  You could move to the next image by clicking the arrows or using the Ctrl+Down Arrow.

Visit PageZipper

Quite often some game or application alters your computer’s screen resolution, and when the screen changes back afterward, your carefully arranged desktop icon layout is completely messed up.

Fortunately, there is a little free tool called DesktopOK that can come to your rescue. This nifty freeware lets you save and restore icon layouts. Just set your icons the way you like them, save the layout, and then restore it later when the need arises.

What’s more, you are not limited to on layout, either. You can save as many arrangements as you want, which is perfect if you need different layouts for use on, say, your laptop with and without an external monitor.

Download DesktopOK.

Many of us have multiple accounts with one web site. Whether it be several gmail accounts or two separate twitter accounts or any such multiple accounts. But it is always a hassle to have to log out of each account to access another.

Internet Explorer

The newest version of Internet Explorer, IE8, already includes this feature.

In Internet Explorer, click on File and then New Session. This opens up a new browser window that will allow you to log into different accounts across the sessions.

Firefox

Firefox does not have the feature built into it, but you can add it with an extension called CookiePie. CookiPie is a Firefox add-on that manages cookies on a per tab basis. Once installed, you can enable CookiPie on individual tabs and then log into a different account in each tab.

Here’s a video demonstrating how you can log in to two Gmail accounts simultaneously using CookiePie.

The Windows 7 taskbar consists exclusively of icons, even for programs that are currently running. While at first it may appear to be inconvenient to identify the tabs with just the icons, you quickly get used to it and importantly it frees up lots of extra space on the taskbar.

However, in Windows Xp or Vista, there is no option to show only the icons. Fortunately, with a little tweak to the Registry you can instruct XP’s or Vista’s taskbar to show only icons.

Note: Be sure to back up your registry before proceeding.

Once you are ready, proceed with the following steps.

1. Click Start, type regedit, and press Enter.
2. Locate the value listed at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics and click on it.
3. In the right pane, right-click in an open space and select New>String Value.
4. Name the new string value MinWidth, and set its value to –255.
5. Exit the Registry Editor, and restart your system.

Henceforth, only icons will appear in your taskbar. If you decide later that you don’t like the new look, you can return to the Registry and delete the entry that you created above.

Have you ever wanted to give someone access to your Windows computer but wanted to make sure that they couldn’t access certain applications? While you could create a guest account, many of the applications would still be accessible across all the users.

This is where AppLocker, a free utility, can come in handy. It’s a simple program that locks down any application you specify.

When you first run applocker, it gives you a list of common programs that you might want to restrict, but you can click on the configure button to add any number of applications that are installed on your computer. Just run the application and then select the checkboxes beside the corresponding  applications and hit Save. You can then close AppLocker.

Anyone trying to open a locked application will be denied access to it and would be shown a message that the application is locked.

Of course, if the person is savvy enough, he/she can find AppLocker on your machine and just change the settings back to gain access to the application. So, it may not be a 100% foolproof system, but AppLocker could prove to be useful. Just make sure you don’t leave a conspicuous shortcut to AppLocker on your desktop.

Download AppLocker

If you are a regular Google Docs user, then you might have considered keeping a copy of all of your documents offline.

GDocBackup is a free utility that will download a copy of your online files to your hard disk for you. Run the software and it will check whether a back-up exists. If not, it’ll download one for your.

Download GDocBackup

Google calendar can be a great way to keep track of your events. But since it is web based, you need to be online to keep the website open to check your events. This can be annoying if you do not have an always-on internet connection.

Fortunately, there is a free tool that can bring Google Calendar to your desktop and let you view your events even when you are offline.

GMinder is a free reminder program that waits in your system tray and alerts you when you have an upcoming Google Calendar event. Any time you need to check your schedule, click on the icon on the system tray, and it will give you a run down of what’s coming up. If you have multiple calendars you can even choose which ones appear and dismiss individual events so that you will have more room to view the ones you need to see.

Download GMinder