Comments on: Revisiting iGoogle

By: Adam Snider

Adam Snider — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:37:31 +0000

@Gordon: Thanks for that! Oddly enough, though, the left hand tab is no longer showing up for me. I’m now seeing the “old” version of iGoogle. Very strange.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:12:52 +0000

I’m probably late enough to the party that people won’t see my comment (aside from Mack), but there’s now a Greasemonkey script which will remove the left hand tab, for those of us who were disappointed by it’s inclusion.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/31715
It does include a toggle switch, in case you want to switch tabs.

By: Rob Davy

Rob Davy — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:29:04 +0000

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/19/1729203.shtml

By: Bobby

Bobby — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:13:27 +0000

I read about a site on John Chow today called http://www.43marks.com – its like Igoogle but better cuz you can add you own bookmarks and the bookmarks can be websites not just gadgets and RSS feeds although you can upload your favorite RSS feeds too. Its free and totally customizable. Plus you don’t have to login to see your bookmars and RSS feeds

By: Adam Snider

Adam Snider — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:07:20 +0000

While I sort of preferred the previous version of iGoogle (this new left-hand sidebar just takes up screen real estate, in my opinion), I do like that the Gmail gadget has been updated to allow me to delete, archive, and otherwise manage my email without having to click through to my inbox.

By: Dan Tse

Dan Tse — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:19:37 +0000

I heard about the updates to iGoogle and tried it out yesterday. It’s kind of neat but the biggest problem I have with it is that when you switch into “canvas view” it effectively logs you out of google talk and only when you switch back to the home view or into the googletalk gadget does it log you back in.

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:12:59 +0000

Hmm the Google Service one sounds interesting. I’ve just added Delicious (for my bookmarks) and Remember The Milk (for tasks).

By: Noel

Noel — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:46:06 +0000

I, like most, use the Google Reader gadget, plus I also use the Google Bookmark gadget since I so often use various computers it is handy to have all my bookmarks available when I log in. I find the Google Service gadget useful to find out what new services Google releases.

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:43:11 +0000

So far I have a second tab for Finance stuff – I’ve been paying way more attention lately.

I’m not sure how useful the Google Reader gadget is for me, since I always have Google Reader open in a Chrome window anyway. I have it on my page for now though.

I like the Google Calendar gadget best – I sync it from my Exchange calendar. Works very well.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:41:07 +0000

Also, you can share iGoogle gadgets with other people you have in your Gmail address book.

Also, I read there are plans to incorporate Gtalk into iGoogle, thereby unifying iGoogle and Gmail.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:37:08 +0000

Gord’s right. I use it for my RSS feeds too.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:36:03 +0000

I love my Gmail and Google Calendar but I’m not sure if you use it. I also like the Google Finance Market Summary gadget. It’s pretty basic, but it keeps track of the how the markets are doing (on a downward slide). Oh, and I’ve added a lot of games like Sudoku, Battleship and Bejeweled. You should make a better NHL Scoreboard gadget. None of them are good but it’s better than nothing.

Oh, and I love iGoogle’s season themes too!

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:32:36 +0000

The real seller for iGoogle to me, was the Google Reader gadget. In one foul swoop, I took ALL my web browsing down to one page.
iGoogle can parse RSS feeds into custom gadgets, which is really sweet.

If there are Feeds which update less often, I use Google Reader. It checks all of my web-comic and blog feeds at once, updating as their RSS is fed with a mail-like client. That gadget gets prime real estate on my iGoogle page.

Otherwise iGoogle hosts RSS gadgets for the following sites I frequent, mostly eliminating my need to go to them at all:
Gmail
Facebook
Google Calendar
BeTwittered
ToDo list
SportsScores (customizable for league and teams)
Google News Canada
Google News World

I have a second iGoogle tab for entertainment reading:
Digg
Engadget
Rotten Tomatoes
Fark
Boingboing

Now if only they’d put the tabs back on top, and give me my screen real-estate back.