Boggled by Google, by Gosh. We here at What's Up share the sentiment expressed in a recent New York Times headline: "More Great Free Software from Google: What's With That?" Because for whatever reason, Google continues to roll out stuff we historians can really use. For example, there's Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/), a powerful search engine that surveys an ever-growing array of academic articles. We've mentioned it before, but as of this fall, if you access it from a computer on campus, the search results will include a direct link to the item if it happens to be held by the U of S library. And remember that unlike other search engines, Google Scholar searches inside the content of articles within its orbit.

For full-tilt boggle, however, nothing beats Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/), a digital globe that at higher magnifications turns out to be made up of detailed satelite images of much, (hell, for all we know, all) of the planet. Saskatoon happens to be covered by higher-resolution images: if you type "9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK" into the address box, the planet spins and the image zooms smoothly in until you can see the Arts Tower clearly. Zoom in further to see the cars parked beside it. Now type another address ("Paris, France", "Rome, Italy", or "Yankee Stadium, New York", say) and you will soon "fly" there and zoom down to the point where you can, for example, just about make out people on the Eifel Tower. You can also tilt the images so as to look out towards the horizon rather than straight down. It is a globe like no other, and its potential as a powerful pedagogical, educational, and time-wasting tool are boundless. And did we mention that it is free? You do need to download a small piece of software, but after that Google's Earth is your oyster. (As long as you run Windows on a recent-ish computer, that is -- Apple owners will have to wait a bit.)