Yesterday I blogged about Microsoft Word’s hidden calculator; today, its Google’s.

Well, it’s a calculator, yes; but hidden? Not at all. It’s right there in Google’s search box.

That’s right: Google has a surprisingly powerful calculator built into its search box. I’ve written it up in my article Google: The Whole Shebang, but as one reader pointed out, that article is a lot to absorb in one sitting. So here’s a quick rundown on the calculator.

You can toss it equations with basic operators such as + (addition), - (subtraction), * (multiplication) and / (division). Or go a little fancier and find the remainder of a division using modulo (%):

• 527%19
• 99 modulo 4

Calculate roots:

9th root of 40353607

and factorials:

9!

You can even use trig and log functions or work in octal, hex or binary by using the prefixes 0o, 0x and 0b respectively.

Conversions, too 

The calculator uses the “in” operator to provide handy conversions. All the following will work:

• 7901 yards in kilometres
• 2010 in roman numerals
• 44 kph in knots
• 5 troy ounces in lbs
• 0.0000002 speed of light in miles per century

You can also do currency conversions using the same “in” operator. For example:

us dollars in australian dollars

Up pops the USD/AUD conversion rate. If you like, you can be far more specific:

• 7 pounds sterling in danish krone
• Or how about this:
• 2.9 usd per gallon in aud per litre

Experiment with the calculator to explore its capabilities and check out Google’s Calculator help for more.

I’ve added a new article on Google to the Tutorials & Guides section here: Google - The Whole Shebang.

If you’ve done little more with Google than search the web, you’re missing out on most of the good stuff. Stuff like Picasa, Google Earth, Docs, Gmail, Google Mobile. The list goes on.

In fact, there’s so much emerging from the Google Labs on a regular basis that it’s impossible to do it justice in a single article, so I’ve tried to hit the high spots, talk about technologies available worldwide and not merely in the US, and provide some tips to help you make the most of Google’s services.

 If you do happen to be located in the US, make sure you check out one of Google’s latest offerings, GOOG-411. It’s the cheapest, fastest way to locate and connect to restaurants and other businesses in your local area. It works from your cell phone using voice or text.

Google has plans to add flight info, stock prices and a bunch of other features to GOOG-411.