Freebies
I’m a sucker for anything free. I just get this wonderful feeling that I’ve got the better of someone – so who cares if it’s a nameless, faceless someone? If there’s a sale, that’s where I am and when I’m back home I wonder what on earth made me give into temptation and pick up the things I did!
Can you wonder how my eyes lit up when I saw that Google was giving away free websites? Not one but 5 of them. Sure there are a number of places in the virtual world where you can go get a free website. But this was Google! I just had to be there. So off I went and registered. It’s called Page Creator and you’ll find it if you go to your Google Accounts – you know where there’s more freebie stuff like Picasa and the calendar and more.
Well, it’s as easy as pie! Just go in there and pick a template and start writing. Then hit publish and whoa! you’re out there making a mark in the virtual world!
So many people who write swear by their blogs. But if you have something to sell – say, like me, you’re a freelance writer – the Page Creator is a good place to start. No hosting fee, your choice of templates is right there in front of you and all you need to do is type in or copy-paste your stuff and in a few minutes, your whole portfolio is on the Internet for anyone to see.
Now any work I apply for, I add a link. My Google link. I know all the person has to do is to click on it and it will take him straight to my site and it will give him a fairly good idea of what I am capable of writing for him. And of course, it’s free. Major advantage!
Oooooooh…Orkut!
The green dots on Google chat were bad enough. Then I had to go and discover the pleasures of a message board where everything you said could be seen by the whole world. Was that why it’s become so hugely popular? It’s not just the ‘scraps’ that are a magnet – though I must admit that as soon as I get a message on my gmail that I’ve got one, I just can’t resist going there and replying. It’s also the many communities, the threads, the posts. Suddenly in a whole big ocean of diverse people, you can, if you want, find your own level. You want music, you got it! You want a particular type of music, you got that too. You want to talk about world politics, start a topic on one of the communities where you are a member. No sooner do you do that than everyone who has an opinion on the subject comes running. Many who don’t too. But that’s OK because if you get bored, you just don’t need to go to that topic or that community anymore. You do just what you want to do. Such a relief from everyday life. The masks are off, it’s what you like and what you want to do that matters.
Suddenly, you’re existing on two very different planes and it feels good. The real plane could just get a lot richer because you’ve met really great people who you want as part of your flesh and blood world too. And there’s another world out there where, like I said you can be yourself and yet it is a kind of a dream world. One which you can switch on and off. Pushbutton living at its very best. Or very worst? Because it can be addictive let me warn you. And unless you are very strong willed, you’ll be hooked – day after day, night after night. If that world out there sometimes seems more real than the one you’re living in, I don’t blame you!
Seek And Ye Shall Find
Call up that Google search engine bar and pause awhile before you type anything in. Do you realize that whatever it is you’re looking for, you are more or less certain that you will find it? In that blank white space, in that little bar waiting to be filled, is that unwritten promise. The promise that ‘ye shall find’.
Sometimes, it’s instant – the finding, I mean. Sometimes it takes a while longer and sometimes it might seem to take forever….which in the virtual world is usually a couple of hours….max! Very rarely is there something that you can find nothing about. If that’s the case, it’s possible that maybe you’re not searching right. So type in those permutations and combinations and watch page after page of results emerge……..some of them, granted, will be utterly useless but if you pan them, you’ll find that little nugget hidden away somewhere. And you’ll want to shout ‘Eureka!’ Trust me, the great Google Rush is way better than the Gold Rush could ever have been!
My Patch Of Green
When I was so much younger than I am today, I read a book that made such a great impression on me. It was Trevanian’s Shibumi. The central character was perhaps a bit too good to be true but when you’re young and idealistic, characters like him and John Galt one tended to put on a pedestal and worship. The strange bit that stuck with me through all the years was the patch of green he retreated to in his mind whenever he wanted to shut the world out. It was his own special watering hole, his own inner sustenance, his own special space. No-one, but no-one could enter and no-one could take it away from him. Something even more strange, it was a triangular patch of green – for me in my mind’s eye, it was a perfect equilateral triangle.
I guess why it made such an impression on me was because it hit home. That little space inside was so important to me too. And was it because of Shibumi that it was always green? I guess so. The strange thing is that Google has always been green for me as well. Was it because somehow I see it as my escape, my space, a place where I can be myself, where I can roam freely but with my identity intact….no masks, no must-dos or have-tos? Has it in some way become my window to another dimension and yet somehow also to the world within? I don’t profess to have the answers. All I know is that now, I don’t need to lie back and retreat inwards to find that special space that invigorates me. I do that too….but I also have a search engine that gets me there. It’s my second road to refreshment for the mind.
Too busy Googling to write!
They say when you’re too busy doing it, you don’t have time to talk about it! That’s what I’ve been up to and it shows…..there have been no posts for quite a while. It’s just been a busy time with lots of work and therefore, a lot of googling. And as long as I’m googling, I’m on a high! Like I said before, it’s that magic key, knowing that whatever kind of information you’re looking for, it’s out there somewhere. And if you don’t find it, it’s because you’re not searching properly. There’s a method in the way to search too. You do it well and bingo – you get just what you want. For example, I had to do a number of articles on credit scores and an equal number on travel sites in Spain. It’s unbelievable how much information I unearthed. There’s just one problem here though. Sometimes you get so fascinated by what you find out there, you tend to meander, to go one step further, following that colourful butterfly trail of snippets of information and you suddenly wake up and realize that your work’s waiting and the deadlines won’t. The floating away feeling’s so fantastic. It’s the coming back to earth feeling that’s hard!
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!
Hey, what do I do?
A quick fast forward to the present…well, yesterday actually – before I go back to the chronological outpouring. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I realised what withdrawal symptoms were. At 11 in the morning, things were going soooo well, when suddenly, wham! Google did the ditch on me. Suddenly, nothing…no hint of Google or the many Google aids I’d come to depend on. And I had no idea what to do! I waited, I tried, retried…but nothing!
It was one long day, I can tell you. I twiddled my thumbs, drove everyone in the house crazy (how on earth do we know why??, maybe it will be OK tomorrow! will you just shut up!!!). I went to bed at 10 because I was tired just doing nothing. That’s when it hit me – just how addicted I was. And there was absolutely nothing I could do. I just had to get my daily fix – my G-fix – for things to be ‘all’s right with my world’!
I woke up this morning and switched on the computer, rather guiltily, even before I brushed my teeth. My world went back to normal when I saw I was connected again. Wow!
The dance of romance
I doubt if there really is any other comparison I can make. It was like first love. Just a few steps forward, then retreat. Then a few more steps…and so it went on. Each time it felt new, different, wonderful. And then one fine day, you find you’ve tumbled in headlong, head over heels. And you just have to sink or swim. And swim I did…rather awkwardly at first…then with growing confidence. It took me ages to venture out into the big wide Google sea….but even the paddling and then the swimming in the shallows was a heady experience. I guess somewhere deep down I knew I was hooked for life. I knew I had found my destiny. There was no going back. And my life was clearly divided – pre-Google and post-Google.
It don’t come easy!
Well, it didn’t….not for me. I’d come to a stage in my life when things were pretty much black and white. There were things I could do and things I could not. This was very much in the area of ‘could not’. It took me a while to realise that it was more a case of ‘would not’! Like it took me a while to take more than a few steps into this wonderful new world and then hurry back into the safety of the known and familiar.
Then it started. Slowly, a growing confidence. The first few steps, then a few more. Ahhhh…this was good. It was a voyage of discovery. With each new day, I felt I could cope a little bit better. And then it hit me! There was so much in this great big world before me, one lifetime just wasn’t enough…I’d probably need many more. Would that I were a cat…but maybe even nine lives wouldn’t be enough. And the fact that it wasn’t a static world but one that was growing every day, much like our universe, filled me with awe.
But for now, enough that I was in. That I was one of the privileged ones. That I could just switch on my computer and fly away into the wild blue yonder of the www on the great Google getaway magic carpet!
Next Page »