Probably the main thing that keeps me organized and sane on a daily basis is my iGoogle page, or portal to the Internet. Lots of people already use something like this through Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or even AOL (or others), but I personally prefer iGoogle because of the flexibility and how it ties into other Google products easily.
What does it do: this lets you put everything in one place when you get online so you do not have to go to multiple sources for information.
How does it do it: again, using the magic of RSS and other web technologies, homepages or “portals” like iGoogle are possible. RSS information is shared in a standard format that allows other pages to use the content. Information from a blog, a news website, your email, and more can all be in one place.
How much does it cost: free. Simple.
What is on my homepage(s): (oh yeah, you can have tabs with multiple home pages to categorize them like work and personal for example) I have just about everything on my homepage, but here are a few things: bookmarks (in case I am not at my own computer and need to get to some bookmarks), Gmail (a quick look at new emails), stock market quotes (up to the minute quotes from Google Finance), Google tasks (quick list of things I need to do), On Organization RSS feed (to check out my blog postings and when they are available on the feed), quote of the day (always fun), tech news (build in feed from Google), Google Reader (shortcut to seeing top feeds in my reader), and weather (again, through Google using Weather Underground). Just from reading that you can see how it is great to get all the information in one place instead of having to go to all those different websites to see what I want. When I am ready, I can look at all my emails in Gmail or look at detailed weather. I will go over to Google Reader to look at all the postings and to Google Finance to get more details on the stock market.
I think that this is such a great product and something that anyone who is online should use. The “gadgets” you can put on your homepage are endless, and if you are really creative, you can even create your own.
Do you use iGoogle or something like it? Share your story for others to read.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it as well. Here is a link to RT on Twitter.
iGoogle homepage [Google.com]
#1 written by CanyonR May 1st, 2009 at 10:34
I love iGoogle. The best part is my ToDo manager (ToodleDo) has a widget interface for iGoogle also.
http://www.toodledo.com/widget/google_gadget.php
#2 written by mathieu_domer May 1st, 2009 at 18:17
Have you ever tried Netvibes ?
I find it so far better than iGoogle. It’s more beautiful, more handy and there are more widgets available (iGoogle’s ones included).
http://www.netvibes.com/