Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Make Google Your Progammable Calculator

It's well known that Google has a very servicable calculator in it's search bar (If you didn't know that, well now you do). You can type in any equation in nearly any form and it will solve it. I used to have great old PDA calle the HP100LX. It had a programmable calculator that let you save equations for later use. I had a large collection of engineering formulas (formulae ?) in my 100LX. I miss that feature, because it is not found in current handheld "smart" phone apps.

One way to replace my collection of equations is to save each one as a bookmark in Google. I have a folder in my bookmark toolbar called "Equations" that I'm filling with my often used expressions. I can click on the link and replace any number in the formula and recalculate it. I can also rename each bookmark label to something more recognizable, like "Efficiency", Voltage Divider", etc. Unfortuately, I can't (AFAIK) use variables, so it's not as convenient as my old 100LX, but still pretty handy.