For computer users in the 21st century, it’s hard to imagine life before Google. Only invented in 1998, Google has already entered the lexicon as a fully-fledged verb in its own right. You don’t search on line any more. You Google!

Even if its name is an accident (Google was supposed to have been spelled Googol, a number with 1 and a hundred zeros, or 10¹⁰⁰⁾, Google itself is no accident! But there is far, far more to Google than "just" the world’s most popular search engine. Whether by acquisition or in-house development, Google has become an enormous powerhouse in the computing world.Here’s just a small selection of Google’s add-ons and other "products":

Google News – aggregated headlines and a search engine of many of the world’s news sources.

Froogle – a product search engine and shopping directory. Assists consumers with locating products for sale online by presenting photos of relevant products.

Blogger – a tool to make Web log publishing very easy.

Google Toolbar – a toolbar featuring a Google search bar, as well as other Google tools. As of July 2005, Google Toolbar is available for two browsers, four operating systems and in ten languages.

Google Deskbar – search tool which runs from the Microsoft Windows taskbar, without a browser having to be open.

Google Desktop – where your search is internal; that is, within your own computer.

Google Groups – join (or even create) discussion groups, mailing lists and newsgroups.

Google News Alerts – Specify a topic and receive email updates when news breaks.

Google Web Alerts – Find out about new web pages on a topic of interest.

Google Glossary – Find definitions for words, phrases and acronyms.

Google Search by location – Restrict your search to a geographic area.

We could go on listing all day – but that would hardly leave room for the real feature of this article: Google Earth. If you’d like to go through all that Google itself has to offer, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups

Google themselves say their company philosophy is built on a 70/20/10 rule: they spend 70% of company resources on core business – like search engines; 20% on closely related areas (like news), while the remaining 10% is where their engineers run amok producing oddball projects which don’t fit anywhere but which are fun and/or interesting and/or groundbreaking.

But wait, there’s more!

Some time back Google bought a little organisation called Keyhole Corporation. Reports suggested the main reason they bought it was that Keyhole was working on, and had just about completed, a highly innovative project. Google renamed that project Google Earth.

Without too much fanfare, Google Earth was announced to the planet at the end of June this year. And without wanting to get into hyperbole, I would describe Google Earth as "mind blowing". Everyone who has seen it (and I’ve shown anyone who would watch!) is astounded.

Google Earth is over-simply described as an image of the Earth, a globe if you will, which sits inside your PC monitor.

When Google Earth fully loads, (and it can take a good half minute on a typical broadband connection), a beautiful view of the Earth against a star background is revealed from some 38,500 miles (62,000km) out in space.

Not surprisingly (considering where it was developed, it shows North America. . . from sea to shining sea. But you can also "turn" the globe in any direction to reveal the whole planet. It looks pretty spectacular.

Ho-hum? You’re not turned on by this? Anyone can display a nice picture?

Come on down to my house...

What if I told you that with the click of a mouse button, you can "fly" from right out in space to any point on that globe – right down to your own neighbourhood, almost right down to your own backyard (in some cases, into your own backyard!). You can zoom in, and in, and in – down to virtual ground level, in near-perfect clarity? Not quite so ho-hum any more?