Downloading and Installing the Kit

Before you begin working with Google Web Services, you need to obtain the kit and a developer license. Once you have the kit, you need to install it and become familiar with its content. The following sections describe the kit-related tasks you need to perform.

Performing the Download

Downloading the kit is easy. You'll find the main Web services page at http://www.google.com/apis/. Figure 1.4 shows that this page contains information, along with two important links. Although the steps shown in the figure are numbered, you can perform the first two steps in any order. This chapter assumes that you want to download the Google Web Services Kit first.

Click the download link and you'll see a page that describes the kit. This page also includes the licensing agreement for the Google Web Services Kit. Make sure you read the licensing agreement and understand what it means before you proceed (Appendix B provides a licensing agreement checklist you can use for your applications). Don't worry about copying the licensing agreement to disk—the kit includes a copy of the licensing agreement you can use for reference purposes later. Check the "I have read and agree with the Google Web APIs license terms" option and then click Download Now. You'll see a File Download dialog box. Click Save and you'll see a Save As dialog box. The default name of the file is GoogleAPI.ZIP, but you can save it using another name if desired. Click Save and you'll receive the file—a mere 666 KB in size