Thing #28: Customized Home Pages

I've been using Yahoo as my personal home page for years, because Yahoo is my primary personal e-mail provider, so it seemed easiest. I didn't realize the world of options out there till doing this Thing.

After reading the linked articles comparing the various home page providers, I tried Netvibes, since it seemed to get the most accolades. It is attractive and has lots of handy and fun widgets. I eliminated the default widgets that didn't interest me much, but that left me with a lot of blank column space. All my faves seemed to be over in the left column. I'm sure there's a way to rearrange that, but I wasn't finding it and didn't have the time to go into it too deeply.

Then I tried iGoogle. I already have a Google account, and its features are familiar to me, so I thought I'd compare. That page I was able to set up easily and quickly. I like the various theme choices -- fun, fun. (There's a really beautiful Japanese cherry blossom one that I may use in April. For now I'm on the default spring green hopping frogs theme. Thinking hopefully for Minnesota...) On iGoogle I was able to set up some good widgets easily -- ToDo List, maps, etc. Not sure if there's a Yahoo mail widget available, as that may be a competitor, but it would sure be handy for me.

Not sure that I'll use this for work use in the immediate future, as we already have a good library home page. But I'll tuck it away in my mind for future ideas or for my personal page.