Thing 13 : Online Productivity Tools

Well, first off, here it is Sep. 18th and (whoa! big surprise!) I didn't make the second 23 Things deadline. At least I'm still going ... not sure why.

In any case, I took a look at the Google, Yahoo, and PageFlakes sites for customized start pages. I finally decided to go with Google because a)PageFlakes was waaaay to cluttery for my taste. I like a clean, simple look b)to get the Yahoo page up, I'd have to login a second time ... which is why I chose (ta-da!) iGoogle. It automatically logged me in when I logged onto my blog. That is a big plus in my opinion. I hate having to remember multiple logins and passwords (my rolodex has too many little post-it notes with various logins already). Not a lot of options for customizing, but I can see that will ... er ... a lot of time (!?) I could make the page look fancy-schmantzy. Not today. However, it's nice to have all this info in one place, especially when Google is opened up (and let's face it, I probably open up Google several dozen times a day, both off-desk and on-desk, both at work and at home -- if someone has a better online tool than Google, I've yet to be convinced. I don't care if it has a monolopy on the online searching field. It works, it's good, so that's that; ok, off my soapbox).

AHHH!!! Just clicked on "add a theme" and it pulled up a bazillion options for the graphic at the top of the page. MUST ... STOP ... NOW. On the other hand, adding gadgets was super easy (NYT crossword puzzle, moon phase, wikiedia search box, National Geographic photo o-th-day, etc.) but adding lots of gadgets puts the essential stuff further down the screen.

Now here it is November 11 (Inservice Day, dontcha know) and I guess I'm done with this thing. I'm not real sure I'd like to have virtual post-it notes or a "to-d0" list loaded onto my computer. I've got software for virtual post-its at home that I never use. I guess I'm just more of a pen and paper kind of gal. But if you were travelling, at a conference, or had a mobile office, I guess it could be useful. I just know that I'd just duplicate everyting onto paper ... and what would be the point of that?

Thing 12 - Digggggggging

Wow. Is digg.com random or what? Even for eclectic types like myself, I was pretty amazed at the randomness of the first listing of topics. From electic scooters to Sarah Palin to cheating on taking sick days at work. This site is for folks with a lot of free time on their hands. I refused to get sucked in. Probably happens far to often to browsers. However, if you had the time ... hmmm ... could probably "digg" (har-har) around for some pretty interesting stuff here.

Ugh. Reddit is what I really dislike about the Internet. It's a popularity contest! Let's chat online about inane stuff! However, I was interested to find the overlapping topics between Reddit and Digg. Perhaps the same folks peruse the same two sites? On to the next one ...

OK. Now we're talking. Newsvine is much more interesting (although their little log "Get smarter here" is annoying ...) I could waste some serious time here, and was immediately intrigued by the lead article (with aerial photo) of the Canadian ice shelf breaking off.

And finally ... Mixx. Well, at least here they categorize the topics instead of giving it all to you in a lump sum.

My main question with all the above sites is ... WHO HAS THE TIME!?!? My eyes would completely and utterly bugg out if I spent much longer than the few minutes I did at each site. Nevertheless, it's good to know that these types of sites exist for, um, maybe patron use? Not really sure how it could be helpful to patrons, since (other than Newsvine) so much of it is basically Internet banter between strangers.