As a relatively new user, I would like to weigh in with something a bit longer than a comment:
I think that some new users will post a relatively trivial question in hopes that they will accrue enough rep to gain access to a few more features. (e.g. losing the new user restriction, comments, etc.) While this is not exactly the most productive way of gaining rep on here, when you're new this place can seem daunting. Many people have reps in the multiple thousands, and you have a starting rep of 1!
Triviality of the question doesn't make it a bad question, per se. It just doesn't make it worth 86 up votes.
That said, I've definitely responded to "lazy" questions before in an "instructive manner". See here for example.
In this case, the poster (who has >2K rep!) admitted to "not wanting to take the time" to google the answer. So, I answered his question (at least partially), and told him that the google search was completed in 0.23 seconds. I wasn't rude about it. I was just pointing out the flaw in his thought process.
In fact, I even up-voted the question, because there was an inherently good question underlying it.
So, while I don't think "Google it!" should ever be the correct answer. I think that you can teach people about the proper way to use a search engine. For instance, if you googled the answer (which I usually do to check myself for accuracy), you can tell them the search terms you inserted to confirm your answer. Perhaps they actually did try to google the problem, but are terrible at googling (I LOVE that google became a verb! We should strive to make Arqade a verb!)
So in summary: Be nice to new users asking simple questions. They're probably trying to get enough rep to use the site more robustly. But, don't tolerate bad questions which are poorly worded, thought out, etc. Edit those or down vote them depending upon the situation or your preference.
I would also add one thing here: Perhaps when a new user receives their first down vote, we can have a banner or notifier pop up explaining what that means. They don't have the right to down vote yet, and hence may not fully understand the meaning. It could say something like:
"Welcome to Arqade. Your question/answer has been down voted by the community. This doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, it just means that the community would like to see more research effort put into your post. Also, remember, each down vote represents only one person's opinion."
