Dr. Google Knows Best

Hello fellow Googlers! Today you finally get to learn why I named my blog "Always Googliando." I know this has probably been all you've been thinking about for weeks, keeping you up nights, etc so I thought I'd end the suspense with this last "About Erica" style blog before I get back to my techy posts.

I might put a Paypal link on my
account to raise money for that shirt.

Possibly my next tattoo.

Let me first start by saying I am not affiliated with Google. I do not work for them nor do my posts speak for the company; just in case any of you also study law in your spare time. I'm simply a Google fan. That being said, I may be the BIGGEST Google fan ever. Definitely more than the guy on the left but maybe not as much as the guy on the right (although if a job offer were on the table I'm sure I'd consider this tat).

Yes, I used emojis to name
my folders.

I organize my entire life with Google Drive, Google Photos, Gmail, GCal, and Google Maps (the list goes on). I would not know where I was going, when, with whom and what to bring if it weren't for these apps that I use every single day. For some context, I used to carry around a giant purse and a planner back when I worked at NYU. I'm a super-organized, anal, type-A nut-job and my life was in that planner and purse. Then I got a smart phone. As I added more and more Google Apps to my phone, items came out of my purse and features were removed from my planner. Now I don't carry around a purse at all - just my phone, ID, and Insurance card. If you'd like to see a visual of how this basically happened check out "The Evolution of the Desk." I do still make my husband carry around my lipstick when we go to fancy places but I keep telling him as soon as I have an app that reapplies my lipstick after I eat we can throw that out too. To the left is a snapshot of my phone screen. I wasn't exaggerating in my last post when I said I had over 200 apps that I use regularly.

So now you know my heart looks like this (picture right). You also may have gathered from my last few posts that I love to learn. I went to college, grad school, now I'm in bootcamp and I'd eventually love to get my PHD. I told my mom once that I wished I could just be a professional student because I love school so much. Maybe that's part of the reason that programming is such a good fit. You are CONSTANTLY learning new things. This is partly because technology is changing every day and you need to keep up with the latest trends in order to have your apps stay relevant. But it's also because it would both be impossible to memorize every method you need to make every app you'll ever program AND you'll always have some bugs you can't figure out. Enter Google.

Whenever I encounter a problem that I can't figure out I make a Google search. I hold the command key and click on the first ten pages that come up in new tabs and read them all, looking for the response that makes the most sense for me. If you're a new programmer, don't be ashamed to Google the crap out of everything. You will do this for your entire career. In fact I'd say being a good programmer has as much to do with knowing how to search for solutions as it does with knowing how to write solid code. Often times, one informs the other. And my Google searches don't stop here.

I've used Google for everything since its launch in 1997. I'm sure Smarterchild was jealous. I find quick fixes to problems when I'm out and about by whipping out my phone and making a quick search. My parents say I'm like the MacGyver of Google. I even lovingly referred to Google Search as "Dr. Google" as I tried to figure out how the heck to raise a child when Tino was first born.

Nah, he'll be fine...

- Is it normal for a baby to snore this loud?
- When should he get his first hair cut?
- How do I get him to love the water?
- Will I scar him for life if I dress him up like a snowman for his pictures with Santa?

Just ask Dr. Google. She knows everything (the feminist in me made her a woman doctor).

So since I love to google everything and because some of my in-laws and I exclusively speak Spanish with one another I needed a quicker way to say "I was googling something," than "Esta buscando en la web..." That's why when I was talking to my mother-in-law about how I figured out that I could put plastic bags over his sneakers and take him out in the snow since we didn't have snow boots I said "Estaba googliando y leí un artículo que...." Mami cracked up when she heard me say "googliando," a made-up word that assumes you can take an English word and add "ar" or "ando" to make it a verb. I Spanishified Google like so many have Spanishified English words before me. Some other members of the family have started lovingly using it too and I'm hoping it will go mainstream.

I decided that "Always Googliando" perfectly represents both my love to learn and my love of languages - computer and human. I will always be Googliando and I'm glad you're here to read about what I learn. I hope some Google searches around the globe will bring people to my posts in the future to help them learn something new too!