Buses add an additional layer of transportation goodness that allows one to see buildings and parks without walking long distances on crowded sidewalks or deal with the oppressive heat of NYC summers.

Here are 6 great tools with NYC subway maps to help you navigate your way around NYC using the web and free applications.

Have a Windows Mobile phone? Try Metro, a personal favorite of mine. The interface is easy to use, the results are accurate, and you can get directions for over 300 cities, including New York City.

The NYC version offers directions to and from over 700 stations, tourist attractions and every subway line. It is also available in multiple languages, which makes it a great choice for international travelers.

HopStop is a great free website with accurate and comprehensive directions throughout the New York region. Need to use the subways but want to minimize the walking time to your destination? Then HopStop is for you.

It offers the ability to select whether you want more street walking over transfers, subway only, bus and subway directions, no regional rail and more. The features HopStop’s search algorithms offer make it worth visiting the site.

You can also get a free HopStop app for your iPhone, use HopStop via SMS or access the HopStop website from your Blackberry or PDA.

MTA Mobile is a text-only version of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s website, which gives you access to NYC subway maps, service notices and schedules from your smartphone or web-enabled device. All you have to do to access the site is go to MTA.Info from a mobile device. The site will automatically format itself for your device.

Trips123 looks a lot like HopStop on the surface, but it has some cool features that HopStop lacks – such as live traffic updates.

I also like the Planned Events page, which makes it easy to find out about directions and service diversions for scheduled events at the Meadowlands, Yankee Stadium and other destinations within the region. Their links section is really second to none, with links to every transit provider in the region, so you can stay up to date with schedules and service offerings.

Are you curious to know what traffic is like on a Saturday afternoon on 5th Avenue and 23rd Street? Pull up Trips123′s live traffic cameras and check out the speeding taxis, walking pedestrians and buses as they get to their destinations!

Only for the iPod, Nano and iPods that feature video, Zsubway is a free set of photos of the entire NYC subway system map. You can easily upload the photos to your iPod using iTunes and use them where ever you go. I like Zsubway because it isn’t as obvious that I’m lost as if I was using a paper map, and I can use it underground, where cell phone signals don’t work. Sorted by line, you can quickly find your way using this handy map system.

Using the familiar interface of Google Maps, Google Transit makes it easy to find transit directions in NYC. Type in your origination and destination addresses and press ‘Get Directions‘. You’ll get 3 proposed sets of directions, along with a Google map, so you can use Google Streetview to make sure you know what the subway station and your destination will look like. The map is easy to print and read if you are accustomed to Google Maps for driving directions.

Any suggestions? Let’s hear it in the comments!

Backup your bookmarks – and bookmarklets – and use these recommended bookmarklets across all platforms. All bookmarklets were tested on Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.

Here’s our list of 20 must-have bookmarklets for your browser – feel free to add your suggestions in the comments!

To add a recommended bookmarklet to your browser, click on the bookmarklet and drag and drop to your bookmarks toolbar. Want to save space? Organize your bookmarklets into a folder in your bookmarks toolbar.

1. Share on Tumblr – A custom bookmarklet to clip pictures and quotes to a Tumblr tumblelog.
2. MapThis – Highlight addresses and click on the bookmarklet to generate a Google map of the address.
3. Bookmaplet – Similar to MapThis, highlight an address in your browser and click on the bookmarklet. It will automatically open a Google Map with the address.
4. Share on Facebook – Quickly share websites, links and videos on Facebook.
5. Spell Check – Activate Firefox’s built-in spell checker in any static website. Great for proofreading websites before they are published or double checking someone else’s work.
6. twitthat! – Share websites, links and videos to your Twitter account.
7. bit.ly – Shorten links and get great statistics on how many clicks they get with this handy URL shortener. (bit.ly is also the default URL shortener of Twitter.)
8. Boxqueue – Add videos to your Boxee Queue for viewing later. You must have a Google account and Boxee account to make this bookmarklet work. Visit the My Feeds section in Boxee to watch your saved videos.
9. Twitter Reactions – Read reactions on Twitter about the page you are currently viewing with this bookmarklet.
10. Darken – Invert the colors on webpages with a simple click. Some people prefer dark backgrounds and light text, so this bookmarklet’s for you.
11. BugMeNot – Stop registering for websites and use BugMeNot’s database of usernames and passwords to sign in to “registered users only” websites, like news sites.
12. GmailThis! – Automatically share links via your Gmail account without having to copy/paste the link.
13. getASIN – Make Amazon Affiliate links quickly. Just replace usernamehere with your affiliate ID.
14. WordPress Comments – Fill in the comment form on WordPress powered sites. Change values to your name, email address and blog URL.
15. Clip to Evernote – Save clips of websites to the popular notebook software Evernote.
16. DiggThis! – Quickly add new sites to Digg.
17. Remove Bloat – Remove bloat from websites such as music, background images and more.
18. Subscribe in Google Reader – Subscribe to RSS feeds in Google Reader, skipping the “Google Reader or iGoogle” selection page.
19. Google Bookmark – Bookmark websites to your Google Bookmarks account.
20. Readability – Click on this bookmarklet to clean up websites and make them more readable.

Some other great resources for recommended bookmarklets (other than nagging the tech guy at your job) include: Bookmarklets.com, marklets.com, and Jesse’s Bookmarklets Site.

Which bookmarklets do you use?

Before we get started, you must activate Gmail Gadgets by navigating to Settings then Labs and enabling “Add any gadget by URL.”

Now navigate to Settings > Gadgets to add new gadgets to your Gmail account:

All of the Gadgets listed must be installed by URL. Simply copy the URLs below and paste into your Gmail Gadgets settings box and press “Add.”

1. TwitterGadget makes it easy to view and update your Twitter account without visiting the Twitter homepage.

The URL for the Twitter Gadget is: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

2. Wikipedia Search helps you search Wikipedia directly from Gmail – whether it’s for research or just for fun.

The URL for Wikipedia Search is: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

3. Use FriendFeed? Get the FriendFeed Gmail Gadget, so you can keep track of your friends on this popular Social networking/sharing service.

The URL for the FriendFeed Gadget is: http://friendfeed.com/embed/googlegadget/spec

4. A must-have gadget for those of us who communicate regularly with people around the world is the World Clock gadget. It has locations all around the world and continuously updates the time, so you know when it’s bedtime in Paris and not to expect a speedy response to your emails!

The URL for the World Clock Gadget is: http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml

5. Track the current trends on Digg with the Digg Gadget. Features include selecting stories by sub-section and access to your settings.

The URL for the Digg Gadget is: http://digg.com/goog/ig.xml

6. The Facebook Gadget can be added directly to Gmail by adding this handy gadget. Do a lot of things you’d normally do at Facebook.com directly from your sidebar. The URL for Facebook Gadget is: http://www.brianngo.net/ig/facebook.xml

7. Quickly shorten links with the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget. Whether you are emailing links or sending to friends via Google Chat, shorten long URLs with the Bit.ly URL shortener gadget.

The URL for the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml

8. MySpace can also be accessed via Google Gadget. Install this gadget and log in to your MySpace account to access friends, notes and more.

The URL for the MySpace Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100080069921643878012/myspace.xml

9. Use the Google Calculator to perform simple and complex math problems or convert weights from metric to English or vice versa right from Gmail.

The URL for the Google Calculator Gadget is: http://calebegg.com/calc.xml

10. And just for fun, add the Chuck Norris facts Gadget to Gmail. Get a couple of laughs a day and some funny facts to share with friends.

The URL for the Chuck Norris Facts Gadget is: http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/chucknorris.xml

Which Google gadgets sit on YOUR Gmail sidebar?   Let us know in the comments.

Here’s a list of 10 essential software apps for web development on a Mac.

10. TextWrangler is a multipurpose text editor that works for editing code and plain text documents. It can even open files from (and save them to) remote FTP and SFTP servers.

9. Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator. It is the first open source program to adopt Spiro curves. You can also go through their clip art collection and find dozens of images made with Inkscape that are free to use or modify.

8. Cyberduck is the all-in-one FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, WebDav and Mosso Cloud Files browser application. Web developers often need to switch between different file systems, and Cyberduck does this without a hiccup. It works with Textmate (which has a free 30 day trial), so you can open files from Cyberduck in Textmate, edit, save and upload. Read more about FTP clients for Mac here.

7. Gimp is the second-most popular photo editing software program on the market, second only to Adobe Photoshop. The difference? Gimp is absolutely free! You can do just about everything in Gimp that you can do in Adobe Photoshop, so web developers will find this a welcome and wallet friendly addition to their software arsenal.

6. Aptana takes up where Textmate leaves off in some aspects. It is a full featured code editor, but adds the FTP support of Cyberduck, as well as important web technologies like Ajax, Adobe AIR and PHP. Read more about Aptana here on MUO.

5. Firefox is a must have for web development because of three great add-ons – Firebug, the Web Developer toolbar and ColorZilla. Firebug lets you edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page; while the Web Developer toolbar adds additional tools like clearing cookies, disable CSS, display ruler and display source. ColorZilla lets you pick colors from websites or images online, so you can match them to your web designs, plus measure the distance between two points on a website.

4. JAlbum helps you make attractive photo galleries for websites. JAlbum comes with various templates built-in, but you can also customize your own template to better match a web project you’re working on. Read about 5 more Excellent Mac Apps for Graphic & Web Design

3. Colloquy is a basic IRC client that every web developer will use at one point or another. Many web platforms use IRC for support, including WordPress.

2. MAMP is what you need to manage websites locally when you are without an internet connection or want to test changes without making them live on a website. It is easy to install MAMP and have access to Apache, PHP and MySQL for Mac OS X. It is also a stand-alone program, so if you need to install it, it won’t interfere with your OSX installation. Plus, you can use it to install WordPress on your Mac.

1. iTerm is a feature-filled Terminal emulator for OSX. You can bookmark your frequently used sessions, have tabbed windows with multiple sessions and more.

Do you have any suggestions for better similar apps? Let’s hear them in the comments!

Now in 2008, you probably can only find floppies in the dark recesses of closets, boxes and landfills – but FloppyOffice has been reincarnated as Tiny USB Office, which offers a wide variety of free, standalone portable software.

Tiny USB Office can be installed on any flash drive, even the 128MB ones, because it only takes up only 2.5MB of space on a drive, so you will still have plenty of space for your documents.

What comes in Tiny USB Office?

Tiny USB Office offers the following programs, plus some:

• 100k Zipper (.zip reader/creator)
• FTP Wanderer (FTP)
• KPad (text editor)
• MemPad (tree-style outliner)
• NPopUK (email)
• PixaMSN (MSN Messenger clone)
• Spread32 (Microsoft Excel clone)
• Ted Notepad (Windows Notepad replacement)
• PDF Producer (.pdf creator)

How do you get Tiny USB Office?

Visit the Tiny USB Office website, download and unzip the program onto your flash (USB) drive.

Don’t forget, each application has its own folder and “read me” files, so you can learn how to use the programs you want or need to use – delete the ones you do not want.

But is there an alternative?

While Tiny USB Office has a wide range of programs available in a small footprint for free, PortableApps.com offers a solid set of software in a maximum 350MB footprint.

PortableApps has a larger footprint, so you must have a bigger flash (USB) drive, which for most of us is not a problem – you can get 4GB drives on some bargain websites for less than $20!

What comes in the PortableApps Suite?

• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)
• Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
• ClamWin Portable (anti virus)
• Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)
• Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader)
• KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)
• Sudoku Portable (game)
• Mines-Perfect Portable (game)
• CoolPlayer + Portable (audio player)
• OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)

How do you get the PortableApps Office Suite?

Stop by the PortableApps.com website and download the apps you’d like and follow the on-screen directions.

The Showdown: Which USB Office Package will be victorious?

PortableApps.com’s package is more popular because programs available are pretty popular within geeky and non-geeky circles, so there are large support bases for each program, as well as a built-in web browser (Firefox Portable), which Tiny USB Office does not have.

When it comes to size comparisons, there is no competition. Tiny USB Office is MUCH smaller than PortableApps’ Suite, even with the additional software that is included in the Tiny USB Office!

Let me let you in on a trick: download and install both PortableApps and Tiny USB Office; then add (by copy/paste or cut/paste) the Tiny USB Office programs you need or want to your Portable Apps’ “Programs” folder! Now, you will have one-click access to all of the portable office programs you need from your menu!

Hands down, PortableApps wins this battle because of the name recognition and strong community support its programs have, but Tiny USB Office does have something to offer because of its longevity in the portable applications arena and the wide variety of software offered. Put these two together and you have a winning team!

So what do you think? Are portable office applications necessary? Are you a PortableApps.com fan, or a Tiny USB Office fanboy (fangirl)? Do you have another suggestion?

Let’s hear it in the comments!

(By) Ellie, who loves portable office software because she’s always on the go between working, graduate school and extracurricular activities! Read more about her interests at ultimate geek girl!

Signing up is easy – just start filling in the boxes, tell them what you are raising money for, how much, how soon you need it, and your PayPal email address. It is important to note that if you use PayPal, you may be subject to their fees.

The rest of the signup process is simple and fast – I had my ChipIn up and running in less than ten minutes! The widgets are created with Flash and easily customizable. It is up to you whether or not you want to set a specified fundraising amount or not, and you can choose from several colors as well as many different size widgets, so you can get the perfect size and color combination that will fit into your blog’s theme or website’s design.

As there are several different widgets to choose from, each displaying different levels of information including your fundraising goal, the amount raised to date, the end date, the number of participants and more, you can rest assured that you get enough information to those who want to donate to your cause.

After you create the widget to your specifications, select where you want to put it – whether it is on any of the social networking sites that you use like MySpace, hi5, Friendster or WordPress – and copy and paste the generated code into your website.

Another great thing about ChipIn is that you can have more than one fundraiser at at time – just hit the “create” button in the upper right-hand corner and get started creating more.

And yet another feature worth writing home about is the “create page” feature. I created a ChipIn page for my fundraiser, so I could get the maximum benefit out of it.

Not only do I now have a widget that I can put on all of my social networking pages, but I can also have a page on ChipIn that will allow people to visit, read more about my project and leave donations for me. The page is easily customizable, where you can add pictures, video, and more information about what you are raising money for.

Not only can I keep up with various fundraisers I’ve created, but I can also see who made contributions to me via the ChipIn website.

Go on over to ChipIn and create your own fundraiser today – then just sit back and watch your collections grow!

By Ellie, who is currently raising money for charity (and hoping to move from Princess to Queen) on ChipIn and writes about technology, web apps and more at ultimate geek girl!

Many of us do not have ready access to malls or enjoy shopping for gifts for our friends and family members. However, Amazon Gift Central provides a clean, easy to use interface that prepares you to select great gifts for your friends and family members without the hassle of driving to a mall or taking hours and hours to find the “perfect” gift.

Amazon Gift Central provides dozens of gift guides, so you can select by age, gender, price favorite activities of the recipient and more to select the perfect gift. In addition, keep track of what you purchased previously with the Gift Organizer.

Screenshot of Gift Organizer

Create a gift idea list by visiting Amazon Gift Central and adding the name and birthday of a person you want to select gifts for. Don’t forget to sign in to your Amazon.com account so your settings are saved. Once you’ve created a gift idea list, add new items to the list!

This is pretty easy:

1. Browse Amazon.com for the item you want to add to your list, or visit the Gift Guides for gift ideas.
2. Then, click the “Add to Wish List” button on the product’s detail page, and be sure to place the item in the correct wish list.
3. Press “Go”!

Note: “Move to” will place the item only on the Gift Idea List you select. “Also add to” will place it on your Wish List and the selected Gift Idea List.

When it is time to purchase a gift, find a gift idea list by visiting your Amazon Wish List page, and look below the list of your wish lists for the ones you created. Also, link to your recipient’s Amazon.com Wish List (if they have a public one), so you have an idea of what they are looking for.

For information on how to make Wish Lists public, visit Amazon’s help pages. This will also generate two new sections on your Amazon Gift Central page, “From Wish Lists” and “Latest Activity.” Latest Activity will show you the most recent items your friend or family member has viewed – just so you can have an idea of what has interested them lately on Amazon.com.

Screenshot of Latest Activity

Amazon Gift Central also makes the best of the combination of the wish lists you’ve created and the wish lists that were self-created by the recipient and develops suggested gifts for you to take a look at as potential winners in the “best gift ever” competition!

Screenshot of Reccomended Items Sections

What’s your favorite way to organize your gift selection and gift giving? Let’s hear it in the comments!

(By) Ellie, a lover of all things shopping-related. You can find her searching the streets of New York City and online for great deals and gifts when she isn’t writing for ultimate geek girl!

1. Import your contacts from Outlook, Thunderbird or Yahoo! Mail to Gmail. Don’t spend your entire weekend trying to copy your contacts over from another program or service! Just export your contacts as a .csv file and upload to Gmail. You can upload up to 3,000 contacts at a time. Here’s a detailed how-to on importing contacts using this method.



2. Use the vacation responder to automatically send messages to contacts. You do not have to be on vacation in order to use the vacation responder. If I am facing a deadline and too busy to talk, I will set up my vacation responder to let people know that I appreciate their email and I will get back to them within a certain timeframe. This sets the expectation for them that I am not ignoring them and I will get back to them soon. My co-workers, family and friends appreciate it. You could also use the vacation responder to send “update” messages while you are away on vacation – change the message and let people know how much fun you are having!



3. Save time when sending messages to groups by creating groups in your contacts list. Stop typing in the first few letters of the name or email address of 20 different people that you send those neat and crazy forwards to every day! Just create a group called “Forwards” and add them to the group. Now, you can just type “Forwards” and Gmail will do the rest. Check out the details for specific instructions on how to create groups within Gmail contacts.



4. Mute conversations that are either out of hand or you aren’t interested in. My family and friends “group email” each other all day, every day. Sometimes, the topic is nothing I want to talk about or have an interest in, so pressing “m” on my keyboard allows me to mute the conversation. All subsequent emails are automatically archived, and search-able by searching for “is:muted”. Filters still apply and you can unmute a conversation if you want to join in later.

   

5. Update your Web Clips to show your favorite RSS feeds and news clips right above your Gmail inbox. Gmail has many options available under the Settings menu, but you can add your own urls, too. The clips are shown randomly, and they are also clickable, so you can visit a blog directly from your email inbox or read up on some interesting news without typing in the URL everytime.

   

6. Create filters with multiple actions, to save time and keep your inbox clear. You have several options available to you, so use them! Coupled with the label system, you can create all types of filters that will make it easier to manage your incoming and existing mail. And you can also modify Gmail filters if you find it necessary.



7. Download Gmail Cheat Sheet to learn and master keyboard shortcuts. You might be surprised how much faster you can get while working on Gmail if you use shorcuts. You can download printable one page long Gmail cheat sheet from here..

   

If you’re looking for more, check out our massive Gmail Tips article here. Do you have any other tips? Let’s hear it in the comments!

(By) Ellie, a graduate student and admitted technophile, who blogs at Ultimate Geek Girl.

To install SharePod, visit the SharePod download site and download the .zip file. Once you unzip it, you can either drag and drop SharePod onto your iPod or run SharePod directly from your hard drive. Because it does not require any installation to your hard drive or “Programs” folder, you can also install it onto your USB or flash drive. This is great if you use different computers or want to get some music from a friend’s computer without using iTunes.

After backing up your iPod files to your computer, SharePod creates .xml files which iTunes can import (in iTunes, select File > Import). The file is always called SharePod_Itunes_Import.xml and is placed in the folder you copied your files to.

If you transferred a playlist (or playlists), then each playlist will be imported into iTunes with the same name as on the iPod.

Once you have successfully connected your iPod and started SharePod, you can begin to manage your music and videos. You can sort your files by Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Length, File Size, etc. Under the “Options” menu, you can chose which Grid Columns will be shown – so you can further customize your viewing to fit your preferences.

Each album is designated as a “Playlist” on the left hand side of the SharePod screen, which makes it pretty easy to find a particular album’s songs and delete them or check out what you have on your iPod.

There’s even a built-in Media Player with SharePod. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Windows Media Player or MediaMonkey, but it gets the job done.

There are four ways to copy files from your iPod.

1. Select the tracks you want to copy, and click the ‘Copy to PC’ button at the top of the window.

2. Select the files you want to copy, and drag them into a folder on your PC.

3. Right click on a playlist and select ‘Copy to PC’. This will copy all the files in the playlist.

4. Click “Backup iPod” or copy the main playlist. This will copy all the files in all playlists to your computer.

And it is just as easy to delete files from your iPod using SharePod:

1. Click the “Delete Playlist” link.

2. SharePod will ask you if you want to just remove the playlist or remove the playlist and delete the tracks in it.

And adding files is easy, too:

1. Click the “Copy to iPod” button and follow the prompts; or

2. Drag files and folders from your PC into the main (first) playlist.

My favorite features of SharePod are that it checks to make sure that I don’t copy the same files to my iPod over and over again – unlike other iPod managers; and it is easy to install on and use from a USB drive.

If you just need a easy and lightweight iPod manager, SharePod might be a great pick. Check it out!

(By) Ellie, a graduate student and “Jill of all Trades”, who blogs at Ultimate Geek Girl.

Like most Google products, Google Gears is still in beta, but it definitely gets the job done!

Why would I want Google Gears? I have a hour commute every morning and afternoon. I want to make the best use of my commute time, so I sync my Google Reader and Zoho Writer to Google Gears, so I can read and write offline and when I get back to an internet connection, I can sync again and my read items will be read and my new articles will be updated and uploaded.

I also like to go out and enjoy a little sunshine, since it is finally Spring here in Jersey. Unfortunately, my favorite park does not have Wi-Fi. So, if I sync up my browser before leaving home, I can mosy on over to the park, enjoy some sun and sandwiches, and get to catch up on reading my feeds or updating my to-do list!

Basically, Google Gears is a great tool for those who do not always have access to the internet but would like to be able to use websites while offline.

Sounds interesting, so how do I get it? Visit the Google Gears website with your favorite browser – it currently only works with Internet Explorer or Firefox – and run the installation program. If you already have Google Gears installed, the website will let you know! Once the program is installed, you can now begin using it.

Screenshot of Google Gears Installed Page

Where and how do you use Google Gears? Two of my favorite online applications – Google Reader and Zoho Writer, work with Google Gears. Additional sites that work with Google Gears are Remember the Milk and Google Docs. There is a Greasemonkey Script available if you’d like to make other sites work with Google Gears. This script works for many sites, but be warned – the directions can be a bit overwhelming for less advanced computer users.

When you visit a Google Gears-enabled site after installation, you will first see a popup that asks you if you would like to allow this site to access Google Gears. If you want your computer to ALWAYS access Google Gears on a certain site and you don’t want to see this popup again, be sure to click the “I trust this site. Allow it to use Google Gears” and press “Allow”.

On your first visit to Google Reader after installing and allowing Google Gears to access the page, you will see a green button to the left of “Settings” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Click this button to begin synching the current content to your computer.

Google Gears downloads 2000 Google Reader items, but only when you manually ask the program to do so. When you are offline, you will be able to view items, star them, and share them. When you get back online, just sync Google Gears and Google Reader again to update your account.

Note: you cannot access your “Trends” or “Friends’ shared items” or “Share with note” while in offline mode.

Google Docs also works well with Google Gears. Once you set up Google Docs with Google Gears, it will automatically check to see if your browser is offline or not, and start syncing your documents if you are online. Unfortunately, you cannot manually switch to offline mode.

With Google Docs, you have the additional option to add a desktop shortcut that lets you launch Google Docs website and edit Google Docs documents in offline mode.

Excellent online to-do list service Remember the Milk (RTM) also works well with Google Gears. RTM does check to see if you are online or offline, but you can also manually switch to offline mode. It also adds a desktop shortcut, so you can quickly access RTM when you are offline.

Some settings, such as changing your settings or contacts, can’t be done offline. But, for basic list making and updating, RTM with Google Gears works great.

Finally, there is a Zoho Writer – online alternative to Microsoft Word. With Google Gears you can use Zoho Writer to work with your documents offline in a Word-like interface. Just like Google Docs, Zoho Writer only lets you edit Word documents, not spreadsheets or other file formats.

Google Gears could be a lot more useful if it were intergrated into more web applications, but currently, it has 4 strong useful web services for its backbone: Google Reader, Zoho Writer, Remember the Milk and Google Docs.

What sites or services would you like to see integrated into Google Gears?

How does Google Gears work for you?

(By) Ellie, a graduate student and “Jill of all Trades”, who blogs at Ultimate Geek Girl.