The site grew rapidly since its launch, reaching 25 million members in just one month. Improved features and a sleek, streamlined look sets up Google+ for success now and into the future.

The best and one of the easiest features on Google+ is the new way of organizing your “friends” or “followers.” Instead of a long list of people created manually or set up by network, Google+ lets you customize when you add a contact into specific categories.

The default settings for Circles, as it is called, has one for family, friends, acquaintances and following, set aside for people such as celebrities. Circles allow for easy organization of your contacts; plus you can create new circles based on your interests or specific friend groups.

Finding people starts with your Gmail contacts and continues through a suggested list of people you may know. Another positive is that people can add you but you don’t have to add them and vice versa, similar to that of Twitter. Both individuals aren’t required to be connected like Facebook.

Google+’s privacy settings enable you to post to people only in certain Circles, meaning you can share photos and information with only the people you want to with ease.

The design of Google+ is another facet that will draw people to the site. The look is clean and simple, without too many unnecessary features or sidebars full of applications and information filling up your browser.

You can filter out your stream to only view specific Circles on the left sidebar, add people on the right side and start a hangout to video chat with others. There are no groups, birthdays, events or friend finder cluttering up an already overfilled home page.

With the Google toolbar and tabs for Circles, photos, profile, the home page and search engine at the top, it is simple and easy to navigate through the site. The stream is in real-time like Twitter for news and updates on the go. For users who like less clutter and not a plethora of options, Google+ will surely win you over.

Sharing and posting pictures is much simpler compared to Facebook and Twitter. Photo editing is done through Picasa, which is the photo software for Google+. Instead of outsourcing to other services to post pictures on Twitter or having to edit and then upload images on Facebook, all the work can be done through Google+.

Transferring pictures from Facebook can be done with the “Move your Photos” Chrome extension, so there is no fear in losing any pictures if you want to start fresh with Google+.

One feature presented on Facebook that Google+ decided not to embrace is Ads. Many Facebook users were upset the day that ads began appearing on Facebook. What made it more frustrating was many of the targeted ads didn’t even apply to the user it was targeting.

Twitter began running promoted trends, but ads have yet to become a prominent element of that site. Google+, however, has no ads. It is a social networking site, and ads don’t get in the way of the user experience.

Google+ has grown quickly considering it is still in the field trial phase. Currently, only people invited with a Gmail account can gain access. A site that combines some of the best that Facebook and Twitter have to offer plus its integration with Google makes Google+ the frontrunner in creating a user-friendly social media platform primed for success.

3D chat games

A lot of people have not taken this face lift positively and would like to still access the old Interface of Google. Yes, you can still do it without any hacks or scripts. It very simple. Instead of typing google.com just make

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all

your new home page and through this URL you can use the same old Google which you are used to.

For any change there are a good lot of people who would still like to use the old things. They need time to accept the change.

Even this link might not be available for a very long time but yes it will definitely give Google users a chance to get used to the new search interface.

There are a couple of options through which you can either narrow or widen the search results displayed. This interface looks a lot similar to Bing which has the search results displayed at the center and on the left panel there is a menu to help the user narrow his search.

We are open to change but at this point the menu looks a bit redundant. Probably Google is experimenting with this new design and once it will get a fair idea of how users are using these options, it will remove the redundant menu items.

Users are used to find these options on the top menu and with the left panel may be Google is trying to make life a little easier. It is definitely going to take some time before we get used to the new Google user interface.

Update: Access the Old Google Interface

How many times have we wished that we could have something like Google in our own firm? Google Search Appliance is a great device that could help enterprises to dig through billions of files, documents and various kinds of data present on your company’s fileservers and intranet. Google Search appliance can also index and store information on databases like SQL Server, Oracle etc.

Google Search Appliance is a complete package with all the algorithms of Google built within. It has the same interface but it’s just that the information is not open to public and kept safely on your intranets behind firewalls.

Another interesting feature of this appliance is the support of Google Analytics. It helps how people in your organization access various documents present, clicks and search to access various files. Although, Google Search Appliance is built for large organizations but they also have a solution for small companies called Google Mini. Google Mini has the ability to search from 300,000 docs and is good for small to mid sized organizations.

The open source wave is catching up slowly and governments as well as businesses are realizing it’s power. The most well known open source software that we know about is definitely Linux. Its really a boon that such great piece of software is available to us for free. Just because of the cost advantage it is definitely a good idea to check it out before you decide to go with any setup. Here are some places which have adopted Linux over Windows.

Virgin America

According to CrunchGear, Richard Branson’s Virgin America also uses Linux to run its in-flight entertainment system. It is known to use Red Hat and Fedora and chosen specifically due to its agility and stability which was proven after four years of testing.

IBM

IBM not only started using linux but also started supporting it big time. It uses Linux on its servers as well as desktops. In 2006, IBM came up with a television commercial saying “IBM Supports Linux 100%” and made its contribution to the success of Linux. The television commercial can be still viewed here

Omaha Steaks

According to to JavaWorld this catalog oriented stake retailer shifted its operations on Linux from IBM AS/400 in 2001. They are using Linux servers in a clustered environment for serving it’s in house needs as well as running its corporate website. According to Omaha Steaks Linux is a clear winner in terms of cost as well as performance. JavaWorld explains how they have adapted this Linux, XML and Java Based solution.

Peugeot

In 2007, Novell and the Europe’s largest automobile manufacturer announced that they will be signing a multiyear contract for the deployment of 20,000 Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop installations and another 2,500 copies of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Amazon

After the details revealed by Amazon vice president of infrastructure Tom Killalea, it was pretty clear that how extensively Amazon has been using Linux for all parts of its operations. Killalea also added that Linux is used for 2000 basic tasks at Amazon and it has spread to more critical areas now. Amazon also sells a e-commerce system that is based on Linux and the major users of this system include National Basketball Association, Toys ‘R’ Us, The Gap and many more…

New York Stock Exchange

It is little surprising but true that even New York Stock Exchange is a business user of Linux. The huge trading platform is powered by Linux and according to a report released by InformationWeek it is doing pretty well. It was revealed in 2008 that NYSE is using Red Hat Enterprise Linux to power its trading platform.

Wikipedia

This is another strong supporter on Linux. After using Red hat and Fedora for years, in 2008, Wikipedia the biggest online encyclopedia shifted to Ubuntu in 2008. You may realize the potential that lies in Ubuntu which serves and approximate 10 billion page views a month.

Tommy Hilfiger

Linux Journal in one of its report stated that Tommy Hilfiger Corporation has chosen IBM, eOneGroup and Linux for new e-business infrastructure. The infrastructure is designed by eOneGroup an IBM business partner uses Linux to handle web based transactions.

Novell

One of the biggest software giants decided to shift to Linux from Windows for all of its employee desktop machines. The decision was out in 2006 and it took more than a year to complete the migration process

Google

Yes. The synonym of Internet also runs on Linux for all its applications and powerful cluster services that drive the Google searches. Obviously, Google will not use the standard version and use it straight away. Therefore, it came up with a customized version commonly known as “Goobuntu” inside the company for its uses. A lot of engineers and the technical staff also uses Linux frequently on their desktops.