Simplify your life with Google Forms.

Suppose you want to collect the data regarding the Birthdays of your friends and relatives. One option is to collect the data and enter it into spreadsheet.

Wait! Google has simplified this matter. Click on New/Form in Google Docs and create fields for last name, first name and date of birth, save the form and click on "email this form" and chose contacts from your gmail account and send. Your friends will fill the data themselves and it gets collected in the spreadsheet on your Google Docs account as soon as they fill it.

If you don't want to create a form yourself you can use my template:


If you are not logged into your Google Account you may have to create one or login to an existing account.

The form will open in front of you and it will be automatically saved in your Google Docs. You can click on 'Save' button on top right corner if its status is not showing as 'saved'.

You can edit the form if you wish like adding more fields or you can click on 'Theme Pink Flowers' and select another theme e.g. "Birthday Baloons". For changing theme you have to click on 'Apply' button.

After editing the form and/or changing theme if necessary you can click on "Email this form'. If you have a gmail account and a contact list in it you can click on 'choose from contacts' otherwise, you can enter the email addresses of your friends and relatives in the 'to' box and click on send.

You can click on 'More actions/Edit confirmations' and see what the responders are going to see after they fill up the form and click on 'Submit' button.

The responses get collected automatically in a spreadsheet 'Copy of Birthday' in your Google Docs and you can view them any time by opening it.

You can edit the form from the spreadsheet by Form/Edit_Form. You can input the Data yourself by clicking on Form/Go_To_Live_Form.

First Post on a new Blog.

I am blogger since July 2005 starting with My Tryst with Linux I am starting this new blog since the experience with Google Applications does not relate to Linux except Google Applications are also free to use and may be open source to some extent.

I learned about gmail in 2005 and managed an invitation when all users were given 100 invitations in Sep 2005. I learnt about Google Docs soon after its launch in Oct 2006 and loved the convenience of creating/uploading the Docs online. I have been using it for online Doc storage and sharing.

In last 3 years gmail has grown immensely and almost everyone is having a gmail account therefore when you talk about Google Applications for the organisations no training is required for using the mail account.

Till last month I did not know that for small groups of people using Google Applications is free if you have registered a domain. In fact I learnt about it when I saw an email address user@archlinux.us and the user told me that he got it free. Suddenly I was interested since this was like Ubuntu for Human Beings free with all meanings of the word 'free'.

I digged a little more on Google and found that you can buy the domain through Google which is registered at Godaddy or eNom If you go through Google then your account at the Domain Registrar is configured automatically to use Google Applications and if you register it you have to configure it yourself but lot of help is available.

Meanwhile my son-in-law launched a private limited company in July 2009 and was looking for low cost email and document sharing solution. He was thrilled to know that he could use gmail @his_domain

His business associate registered the domain of their choice on GoDaddy and signed up for Google Applications and I made the gmail available for 5 people in his company in less than one hour, thanks to GoDaddy.