Google Notebook Review

posted at 10:30:46
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Google

I think I'm going to find Google Notebook quite handy. What I've tended to do when I've wanted to keep a website to read later I've either emailed the link to myself (where it usually gets deleted in one of my weekly home-inbox purges) or added them to my del.icio.us with a "ToRead" tag, 90% of which are currently unread.

Google Notebook allows you to "clip" only the relevant information from a page that you need and store it in a handy silo for use later on.

After signing up for the Notebook with your Google Account, if you're using Firefox you are prompted to download the "Notebook Extension" - which I'd recommend as it saves you having to log into your account all the time. Once the extension is installed, an small icon sits at the bottom of your browser status bar. This has two functions. Firstly it enables you to login/view your Notebook and saved entries by left clicking, right clicking however asks you if you want to "Enable 'Note This' button". The "Note This" button places a small [+] at the end of a highlighted sentance in your browser enabling you to add clippings to your Notebook instantly.

Figure 1 - Notebook Icon in the status bar

Figure 2 - Notebook Popup

As well as having the "Note This", an option to add text to your notebook in added to the context menu, simply highlight text, and select "Notebook This"

Figure 3 - Context Menu

The only disappointing feature is the main Notebook interface. I was expecting Google's usually Ajaxy Goodness but all you get is a rather bland interface with a couple of formatting options:

Figure 4 - Main Notebook Page

Hopefully Google will improve this as the tool moves out of Beta testing.

So, overall, another good tool from Google but still lacking any real integration with their Calendar and Email - when will all of this come together I wonder?