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?