Going Green!
The first time I saw those little green dots when I signed into chat in my gmail was quite something. It was late at night, I was in a hurry to send work off and lo and behold, there were two green dots there, telling me, unblinkingly that there were two friends working late as well. And no, I guess we were all so busy, we didn’t chat, not then….but it just felt good to know that I wasn’t alone, that there were others there, just beyond a thin Google wall, working like me.
Of course I chat now…with friends around the corner who I don’t call for weeks sometimes, with my husband whose office is downstairs, with friends half-way round the globe who are just waking up as I am about to turn in, with family, with clients, with acquaintances. But more often than not, I don’t chat. I just look at those green dots as I go about sending out my mail for the day and smile almost as if to say, “ OK pal, I know you’re there and we don’t need to talk, just knowing you’re there is fine!’ True, as everyone tells me, the chat on gmail is so basic when you compare it with Yahoo or MSN. But it also means that you don’t need so many windows opened. You can see who’s there while you’re busy with your mail!
I log on and it’s great to see
Someone who’s awake like me
There on the left, green as can be,
Friend, it’s great to see you there!
Those green dots are so very dear,
My gmail friends from far and near
Not out of sight, but right here
Friend, it’s great to see you there!
The Power of Plus
Going back to the way things were and the way I was, the excitement then lay in bringing up the Google bar and typing a word or a phrase into it. It never ceased to amaze me how pages and pages of info could be accessed by a single click.
The someone told me how I could search even better. And they gave me the power of the plus sign. ‘Make your search more focussed,’ they told me. For me, it was magic. The power that little addition sign held. Suddenly, I could pinpoint what I really wanted and from all those millions of pages, there it was before me! And I did something I had done as a child. I typed in ‘Universe+Earth+Asia+India…….’ I felt like Alice in Wonderland and that rabbit hole in front of me held the most exciting possibilities!