I was working with Google Notebook for the first time in awhile this evening and noticed two things.

1. It's much faster for me now. I had quit using it mostly because it was so slow. It is very usable now.

2. The Actions drop down has a new option- Export to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. It apparently will only send your entire selected Notebook. I tried just selecting individual entries and Sections, but get the entire Notebook each time. Graphics, layout and everything appears to have moved over just fine.

TonyB

Wow... pretty cool. Thanks TonyB.

I wish it would just say "Export to Google Docs." Adding "& Spreadsheets" doubles the width of the drop down menu.

How about "Import from Google Docs"?

"Do you think it would it be possible for Google to successfully merge these products, offering them as separate features rather than individual services?"

It doesn't make sense to me why Blogger and Google Page Creator are separate products that don't even speak to each other.

Also, the anemic Google Bookmarks and Google Notebook should be merged.

Egads, I had forgotten about Notebook and Bookmarks. There's no good way to use them without Firefox extensions (which I don't have at work) – and even then, they're only a fraction as good as competitors (such as Delicious, in Bookmarks' case). Google needs to seriously think about how these products will actually provide value to their users.

Gmail, Reader and Calendar are so much better than Notebook and Bookmarks that it really shows the un-evenness of quality that Google's development can result it.

I think that Notebook & Bookmarks could be integrated into Gmail (for labels and Archiving), and then Searched from the same search bar. That would be really useful.

I quit using Notebook because of the lack of tagging (or labelling) and the kinda goofy interface. It was hard to manage my notes once I had a lot of them.

I like the notes idea, but I do not think they have a workable product yet. I agree with other posters it needs to be closer to Docs or even calendar.

<Brock> bookmarks are available nowadays as part of the Google toolbar and have now become my main cross-browser cross-machine bookmark collection that follows me anywhere. The Google IG (homepage) module is also much better nowadays which means it's usable

As to when to use what:
I use [google] bookmarks for whenever I want to remember a site in general. The cool thing about it is that it is uses [multiple] labels rather than jsut folders – problem is the Google Toolbar bookmarks menu doesn't allow browsing by multiple labels so it's hard to narrow-it-down whereas the bookmarks web page does allow simple checkboxing of labels to provide bookmarks that are the union of all labels selected. Also the Google Toolbar bookmarks menu doesn't seem to support bookmarks comments.

I use the Google notebook when researching a specific topic – I create a new notebook (say Upgrading my Thinkpad to Vista) and create a note for each site but with a detailed explanation of each of the pages (usually just a snipppet from the page that I've copied & pasted with some added comments) – with the firefox extension the link to the actual page is added automatically.

Mott: If you use Firefox and Google Bookmarks then here's a bookmark extension that I can't live without. There's a lot of great features and comments are supported.

GMarks home page: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2888/

GMarks Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/GMarks

I use Google notebook every once and awhile, especially when using StumbleUpon to save some of the interesting things I find. I also use it as sort of a local alternative to Tiny URL.

I have noticed some speed increases here in the US. It used to take a second+ to load the logo and the arrows by my topics. They load much much faster now.

Ben D
bdemen

Hello,

Just wanted to share with you all that I recently was a member for a Google User Experience Research Study, testing out a new version of Google Bookmarks on the toobar.

One of the major changes I noticed on the prototype I tested was, when adding a bookmark to your account, the page your viewing no longer leaves and goes to Bookmarks. It instead opens up it's own side window and allows you to tag info to your bookmark while on the same page. You can also right click on any highlighted text on a page and have that copied information added as note to your bookmark post.

All in all, I thought the small change was not that bad, but I think I will stick to my del.icio.us account until they work out a lot of bugs I encountered while testing.

At the end of the study I asked the researcher what were they planning to do in regards to Google Bookmarks, I was told that were planning to intergrate it with Google Notebooks.

Which led me to conclusion that Google will continue intergrating their products one with the other until reaching success with a particular service.

Sounds very promising.

One thing I have noticed is Google products are getting a more consistent look and feel. The task buttons in Notebook to change fonts, text size and so on are the same as the ones in Google Page Creator, Blogger and so on.

TonyB

"At the end of the study I asked the researcher what were they planning to do in regards to Google Bookmarks, I was told that were planning to intergrate it with Google Notebooks."

That 'does' sound promising. Thanks for the inside info Richard.

I started using notebook this very week and I love it. Only problem I have found is while printing. Notebook does not seem to wrap sentences and words end up not being included in the printed paper. Any one else have this problem?

lester.mcgrath(a)gmail(dot)com

what is google notebook

http://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+google+notebook