Communicators everywhere rejoice. Featuring an interface designed to ape the Periodic Table, The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods offers a guide to nearly every diagrammatic visual aid imaginable. The chart’s interactive roll overs make visualizing your next chart or graph an elemental exercise indeed.

Not only is Google the number one search engine, it’s also the best place to work according to Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007 list.

An intentionally unconventional company, Google understands employees spend long hours on their Mountain View, California campus. To reward their hard work and loyalty, there aren’t many perks Google doesn’t offer. In addition to the conventional child care, concierge and on-site gym, they also offer 11 gourmet cafeterias and enough snack areas to ensure no employee is more than 150 feet away from a food source. All free.

Other amenities include access to five campus doctors compliments of Google, and no cost laundry rooms—even the soap is free. For your car, on-site car washes and oil changes.

Want to bring your dog to work? Sure. Got your eye on a hybrid car? Google will give you $5,000 toward its purchase. Having a baby? They’ll reimburse you up to $500 for take out food your first four weeks at home.

Employees also have a climbing wall, swimming pool, Foosball and a variety of other diversions when they’re ready to take a break.

Beyond fun, food, and personal conveniences, Google puts its money where its mouth is. To reward employee innovation, they offer compensation incentives including special bonuses and a Founders award that can grant an employee millions of dollars.

The word is out, Google treats their employees well. Approximately 1,300 people a day submit a résumé in hopes of witnessing first-hand just how well.

We all know Google is a very effective search engine, but if you want more precise results, sometimes a little fine tuning helps. Try these simple advanced search features:

In the Google search box, type:

define: WORD
To return a list of definitions for whatever you type in place of WORD

related: WORD
To return sites related to your search term

map: LOCATION
To return map results for the search LOCATION

link: www.URL.com or link: WORD
To return websites linked to the URL or WORD input

TERM site:www.URL.com
Where TERM is your search term and URL is the website on which you’d like to search for the term, for example,
design site:www.brainstormbrand.com

Some tips, such as placing your search terms in quote marks to ensure verbatim results, are universal and will work in other search engines.

For more helpful hints on how to maximize your search, go to Advanced Search or Advanced Search Tips at Google.com.

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, introduced the world to the iPhone today at MacWorld:

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years. Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.”

“Well, today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.”

“These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone,” said Jobs.

Regarding Existing “Smartphones”

“They’re not so smart and not so easy to use. We don’t want to do these. We want to do a leapfrog product that’s way smarter than these phones and much easier to use. So we’re going to reinvent the phone,” Jobs went on to say.

No Keyboard, No Stylus

“We’re going to use the best pointing device in our world. We’re born with 10 of them, our fingers.”

See the new iPhone and a full feature set tour at the Apple site.

Receive a fancy SLR camera for Christmas? No idea how to use it? These easy tips can help turn snapshots into works of art.

Let’s start with the Rule of Thirds: As you look through the viewfinder, mentally draw a tic-tac-toe board through the viewable area—two lines vertically and two horizontally—to divide your picture into nine separate, equal portions. The Rule of Thirds says instead of centering your subject, bring interest to your photographs by placing the subject at any of the four points where the lines intersect.

Secondly, ensure proper exposure. Don’t trust your camera to do too much for you. Set your camera mode to Manual instead of Automatic. In the viewfinder, you’ll see an exposure meter range from “-2″ through “+2.” Typically, you want the meter to read “0″ for proper exposure. However, sometimes even when you shoot with a “0″ reading colors look too dark or washed out. To properly gauge exposure, put your hand up near the lens to fill the picture frame, making sure it’s in the same light as your subject and is not casting any shadows. Look through the viewfinder and turn the shutter speed setting until the exposure reads “+1.” Remove your hand, refocus and shoot. You should have a good range of highlights, shadows and middle values. If you like gadgets, you can get the same results using an 18 percent gray card (available at any photo store) instead of your hand and adjusting your shutter speed until the exposure meter reads “0.”

And finally, proper focus is key to great photos. If your camera has auto focus, use one of the camera’s sensing points to aim directly onto your subject. Press the shutter button down halfway to set the focus. Keep the button depressed, compose your shot using the Rule of Thirds, then press the shutter button all the way down to take the picture.

Remember, the way to take great pictures is to take lots of pictures; you only see a fraction of the shots professionals take. Enjoy your new camera!