Enough about me, back to Google. They’ve decidede to mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s famous moon landing.

No matter what your take on the landings, if you think its one of history’s great moments or you’re one ogrowing number who think it was staged, it played a major part in the space race and deseves to be noted.

There have been many tributes to the event, with the three spacemen meeting US President Obama this week.

Google posted the news this morning as Chrome took the odd step of leaving Beta (we covered not long ago that 45% of Google products are in Beta, including Gmail after 4 years!)

With the 15th relsease of the browser since its September 1st launch, Chrome has developed with the help of its users feedback:

Google Chrome is a better browser today thanks to the many users who sent their feedback and the many more who enabled automatic crash reports, helping us rapidly diagnose and fix issues.

The browser’s release into the wild could possibly undo the good work that Opera’s release of they’re new version 10 as the two battle for rankings in the browser market. Google claim that user feedback has made Chrome more stable, faster and with greater privacy controls. However, the people in the office I’ve spoken to still don’t use it, they don’t tend to stray far from Firefox, even with a big name like Google behind Chrome.

With an extension programme being developed, Chrome could finally get some space between itself and Chrome in the race for fourth place (Firefox, IE and Safari being ahead)

I think its time to give it another try… A thought thats not lost on Google:

If you haven’t used Google Chrome for a while, now might be a good time to give it another spin.

The release of the list of the worlds most popular searches has steadily improved in popularity in years and this year even  made the BBC News homepage.

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times.

Google have made the move this year to present their findings for country searches as well, so you can see what was top in the UK, US and even the Philippines. And it would seem that Sarah Palin has had her moment in the sun…

Fastest Rising (Global) Search Terms

1. sarah palin
2. beijing 2008
3. facebook login
4. tuenti
5. heath ledger
6. obama
7. nasza klasa
8. wer kennt wen
9. euro 2008
10. jonas brothers

Google have released a task manager widget for Gmail. This can handle to do lists and notes and appears as a pop-up within the window of your Inbox.

People use Gmail to get stuff done, so we’ve added a lightweight way to keep track of what you need to do, right from within Gmail.

This addition is nice, especially as it can be popped-out into a separate window. This means that your to do list will be stored to your inbox, saving you having to port them about from home or work computers or having two different versions.

However, as shown by comments on Lifehacker’s post about the new addition, it is not as all-singing, all-dancing as the Remember The Milk widget that can be added to Gmail, as demonstrated by Just Google It back in November. It does not offer the level of integration with tools like Outlook or Windows Mobile that truly makes the task list portable. Yet, as Google showed us with the Gmail Desktop Widget, they can adapt to our suggestions in the future – if we moan loud enough.

Expect a How To post to be up and running soon…

Arielle Reinstein,Product Marketing Manager for Gmail, explains:

Not too long ago, one of the Gmail engineers broke out her vinyl cutter and made some Gmail m-velope stickers. Pretty soon, they were pasted to our desks, stuck on our laptops, and adorning the walls around the office. Then other people started asking us about them — first it was just other Googlers. But when a guy I was sitting next to on an airplane asked where he could get a Gmail sticker, we realized other people might like them too.

So we designed some more, and printed up a whole bunch.

The stickers can be used for plain ol’ laptop branding or you can use some to place on your keys to remind you of the Gmail keyboard shortcuts. All it will cost you is a $0.42 stamp – unless you’re outside the US then it will cost you an air mail stamp and an international reply coupon (IRC), whatever one of those is. However, the address to send it to shows Google’s sense of humour:

Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420

The new gadget will offer more to users than just the ability to check your new mail, it also allows you to read, search and compose messages without having to open a browser window. Google has also added starring, keyboard shortcuts and auto-contact features to recreate the Inbox on your desktop.

James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer for Google Desktop, explains the benefits and how he uses the app:

It doesn’t take up much space in your sidebar or desktop, and you can also resize it to show as few or as many messages as you’d like. When I’m at work, I keep two instances of the gadget open: one logged into my personal Gmail account and the other set to my Google Apps account for work related stuff. Instead of getting lost in a sea of tabs or browser windows, I can bring up the gadgets in an instant (hint: pressing the shift key twice brings up all your hidden Desktop gadgets).

The gadget works with the latest version of Google Desktop and can be found and installed from the Gmail Desktop Gadget page.

This could be a great little tool for those who would rather not keep a browser tab open specifically for their Inbox and like having an app open. However, from the looks of the comments on the download page, the next request could be improved with a sound notification option for new mail – although some busy email users might be happy for that.

Since it is Windows only and I haven’t ventured into the world of Google Desktop just yet I can’t offer a full review of the app, however, maybe the nice readers of Just Google It will below in our comments…

SearchEngineWatch’s blog announced the deal on Tuesday and Nathania Johnson goes on to tell us more about PaperOfRecord.com:

PaperofRecord is based in Canada and was the first to digitize the entire history of the Toronto Star. In addition to digitizing newspapers in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe, PaperofRecord has digitized historical documents including he Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister.

The deal will reportedly see Google work with the company for around two years, after it was agreed by PaperOfRecord’s parent company Cold North Wind Inc. RJ Huggins, Founder and CEO of PaperofRecord.com, was reluctant to source help from a company outside of Canada, but understands that Google’s resources are key to the projects development:

It is a bittersweet day for PaperofRecord.com. We are very pleased to have our legacy and vision of a 500 year, global, multiple language newspaper historical archive being placed in the stewardship of Google. As a Canadian entrepreneur, it is disappointing to not be able to muster the resources in our country to bring such a digital resource to its fruition at home. However, without the help and vision of a company such as Google, this immense, global, educational resource would not be possible on the scale that is being contemplated.

Its a great move for Google as they can now tick off a large chunk of the data needing to be uploaded, meaning it accelerates their project. It is also good news for PaperOfRecord as the company will now receive plenty of attention, having been selected as a valuable Google partner.

On December 1st Google launched the countdown to 2009 by stating that they’ll offer a tip a day, to promote all the things that you can achieve through Google’s services:

We’ll cover everything from today’s tip on “Gift ideas and holiday savings” to checking out your flight status with Google Search.
Anita Yuen, Group Product Marketing Manager

I’m aware that today is the 3rd and that means we’ve missed the first three reveals, but we didn’t miss that much. Day One offered us the aforementioned “Get gift ideas and holiday savings”. Day Two gave us “Personalize your gifts & holiday greetings” through the use of Google Docs. Today’s tip is that followers of the NFL, MLB, NHL and/or NBA can check teams fixtures and scores by searching the team name. Google used the LA Lakers as their example.

Lets hope the last 28 days are more exciting…

Google’s browser Chrome remains in Beta, but its still receiving updates. It was announced on the Chromium Announce Google Group that the gatecrashing browser is now at its 0.4.154.25 release stage, and that the new version has a Firefox-esque bookmark manager and a cleaner pop-up blocker as its main upgrades.The list of main bug fixes and upgrades can be found on the Chromium Dev Release Notes page. They point out that Chrome will now have the ability to “search bookmarks, create folders, and drag and drop bookmarks to new locations”, while also offering the option to import and export bookmarks from other browsers, although how effective this is remains to be seen.

Chrome users should get automatically updated to the new release, but if you don’t, you can always download the latest version from the Chrome homepage.

Google started out as a search engine. Slowly but surely, over the past 10 years, they have infiltrated many areas of our Internet life; email, blogging, video, finances, shopping and many more.

A lot of these things require a Google Account. Not everyone can use their Gmail account name for this and have to sign up for one. Some people do not know how to do this. And Just Google It steps in…

Step 1: Got to https://www.google.com/accounts/Login
Visit the aforementioned URL and click the “Don’t have a Google Account? Create an account now” link under the login box.

Step 2: Fill in the form
To create your Google account, you have to associate it with an existing email address. This can be your Gmail, Hotmail or ISP email, it doesn’t matter, Google aren’t fussy. You also have to create a password and enter the CAPTCHA words in the form for security.

Once you have entered your information, click on the “I accept. Create my account!” button.

Step 3: Verify your email address
The message you get once entering your information is that “in order to verify that the email address associated with your account is correct, we have sent an email message” to your address.

Log into your email account like you normally would. there should be an email from ‘accounts-noreply‘. Open this email and you’ll find a verification link. Click the link to verify your email account.

Your email account is now verified and Google knows you aren’t trying to scam them… yet.

Step 4: Manage your account
Now you have created your Google Account. Now you can sign in to things like Google Groups, creating searching profiles, take part in SearchWiki searching, all sorts. Good luck!