Ioannus de Verani

For the ignorati who are not privy to the meaning of “Google Pack”, Google Pack is a set of Google-made or Google-endorsed software that is easily installed upon your computer via the Google Updater. The Google Updater very quickly downloads programs for you when you ask it to, and installs them with almost no user input. It it so easy, I cry. That is, until the other day.

For, you see, I decided that I wanted some cool looking desktop widgets on my windows desktop, and I also wanted cool Google searching for my files. So I asked Google Pack to download and install Google Desktop 4 for me, which does all the aforementioned things.

When I got it, it looked lame. There was no mention of Google Gadgets, just Google Desktop Sidebar panels, lam-o little thingies that do very little, except for the RSS feeds and Gmail. Any extra “panels” had to be downloaded as a .msi file (why an executable for a panell?????!). The sort-of-window-decorations that went around the panels (docked and undocked) looked like they came out of Mac OS 7. Seriously, they were all roundish, and greyish-white. Ugly. Not what I saw in the screenshots (cool metalic, with little bumpy-handlish-thingummies). I was majorly disappointed, in a major way.

Then I thought, maybe this is a problem with Google Pack. So I went to the Google Desktop website and downloaded the program and installed it without holding Google Pack’s hand, and it worked nicely. I got Google Gadgets, cool metallic thingies, everything I saw advertised. Just how I wanted it. What I want to know, is why did Google Pack screw up?

Just the other day, I tried installing Google Talk using Google Pack. It was really easy, and it happened within 20 seconds (great for both download and installation). The only problem was, though, IT WAS SCREWED UP! It looked fine at first, but when you mouseover your contacts, it should give you the option to Email, Chat, and Call, and Voicemail. It gave no options. Lame. I know that Google Talk works well though, without Googe Pack, because I also did it the traditional way on another computer, and it worked fine. Any ideas?