An Easier Way to Calculate

While most of Google's calculator functions are fairly easy to remember, you may not want to bother with all the proper operators and syntax. If that's the case, check out Soople's Calculator page (www.soople.com/soople_intcalchome.php). Soople is a third-party site that provides an alternative interface to many of Google's harder-to-use functions, and the Calculator page, shown in Figure 14.21, breaks out several Google calculator functions into their own discrete visual search boxes.

Figure 14.21. Soople's Calculator page.

Soople offers the following discrete calculators, all of which feed into the official Google calculator:

• Smart Calculator (same as the standard Google search box)

• Quick Unit Converter (conversions)

• Add, Subtract, Divide, & Multiply (simple mathematic calculations)

• Calculate the Percentage Of (percents)

• Trigonometric Functions (trig operators)

• #Root Of (rootssquare and otherwise)

• ln (logarithm base e)

• log (logarithm base 10)

• Find the Remainder After a Division (modulo)

• Choose (set choosing)

And that's not the only third-party Google calculator interface around. X-Number has developed a keyboard interface for the Google calculator, which you can find at www.xnumber.com/google_calc.htm. As you can see in Figure 14.22, you can use your mouse to click the number/function keys onscreen, or just enter numbers with your computer keyboard's number keys. Your input is fed to Google, and the results output on a standard Google calculator results page. Cool!

Figure 14.22. X-Number's keyboard interface for the Google calculator.