Googleholic for June 24, 2008

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix for everything Google!

In this edition:

• Google Finance gets more real-time quotes
• Google Map Maker
• Google Doc creation shortcuts
• Customize Google forms
• Personalized YouTube homepage

Google Finance gets more real-time quotes

Earlier this month, Google Finance started offering real-time NASDAQ data, today they are expanding those offerings to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Google and CNBC are the first companies that will making the free real-time information available to users. Finally, Big Board real-time quotes for free!

Searching for a stock traded on either NASDAQ or NYSE in Google or Google Finance will take you to a page that streams the quotes live. If you use iGoogle, the Google Finance portfolio gadget can serve as a real-time monitor for all of your stocks on either stock exchange. You can also access real-time quotes from NASDAQ and the NYSE on your mobile phone.

[via Official Google Blog]

Google Map Maker

Over the last year, Google has put a tremendous amount of work into its Google Maps products, with the Maps API, the expansion of Street View, and enhancements to Google Earth. One of the only problems with Google Maps is that maps in certain parts of the world are vastly under-served.

Today, that changes with the introduction of Google Map Maker, a new tool that allows anyone to edit or contribute data to regions around the world. Roads, lakes, parks, and other mapping features can be added and satellite images can be used to trace those features.

Right now, Google Map Maker allows you to build maps in Cyprus, Iceland, Pakistan, Vietnam and the Caribbean nations of: Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago.

[via Google LatLong]

Google Doc creation shortcuts

In the last few weeks, we have started using Google Docs more and more frequently because of all the great collaboration tools Docs supports. The Google Docs Blog has a great tip for increasing productivity by creating a shortcut in your browser's navigation toolbar that creates a new document, spreadsheet or presentation in Google Docs.

The Docs blog already created the shortcuts, so all you need to do is drag the links to your navigation bar. If you are like us and use Google Apps more often than a regular Google account, you can achieve the same functionality by editing the URL in the shortcut to the following values (placing your domain where it says MYDOMAIN.COM):

http://docs.google.com/a/MYDOMAIN.COM/?action=newdoc = New Document

http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/MYDOMAIN.COM/ccc?new = New Spreadsheet

http://docs.google.com/a/MYDOMAIN.COM/?action=new_presentation = New Presentation

[via Google Docs Blog]

Customize Google Forms

We LOVE Google Forms an think they are one of Google Docs best features. However, customizing forms, while totally possible, can oftentimes require extensive tinkering that we just can't be bothered with.

Thankfully, the crew over at Slists have created a pretty nifty Google Form Customizer that can make forms a little less generic and also provides a nice way to integrate a calendar into a text field.

Simply enter the form address into the box on Slist's site (note: Google Apps is NOT compatible with the Google Form Customizer Beta - share the doc with your regular Google account and open it up from that account to get the working address) and enter a custom submit message. From there, you can choose what fields are required entries, add a calendar picker to a text entry box (so if your field is "date" the user can just choose a date from the AJAX calendar instead of just having to type something in) and make sure that the text fields stay in-line.

Very, very cool!

[via Slists]

Personalized YouTube homepage

YouTube has just rolled out a customizable homepage that aims to provide better access to your favorite content. Your subscriptions, custom recommendations, friend activity and other featured content are all easier to find and navigate on the new home page. Plus, YouTube has improved how it sends e-mail messages, which finally includes the content of the comment or message in the body of the e-mail, meaning we don't have to go to another page just to find out someone thinks the Squadcast sucks. We could have told you that! (Squadcast is coming back soon!)

[via YouTube Blog]

Tags: google, google docs, google forms, google map maker, google maps, GoogleDocs, GoogleForms, googleholic, GoogleMapMaker, GoogleMaps, nyse, real time quotes, RealTimeQuotes, youtube