Category Kewl Stuff
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If you're like me you are in your browser (Firefox, in my case) constantly. And as such I try to make my browser environment as useful and full-powered as possible. I take advantage of the plethora of Firefox plugins, I tune my browser performance to be as fast as possible, and so on - you get the idea, and you probably do the same.

I also want my home page to give me a a bunch of information and useful features at my fingertips - and my search engine of choice is Google. Well, today I wanted to share one of my favorite Google features - the custom home page. Now it is quite possible that you all have discovered this, and this is a "duh!" post (feel free to rag me if this is the case) - but just in case you've been too heads-down to notice this nifty feature, I thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Google provides you the way to create an incredibly robust homepage - I have provided a (shrunken) screenshot of mine below:



To create one of these you first have to have a GMail account. If you don't have one, you can sign up here. When you create a custom home page Google marks your preferences as a part of your account, so that when you go to a different computer you can sign into GMail and your custom homepage will appear there for you (nice feature when you're on the road at a conference using a kiosk).

Once you have a GMail account you can go to iGoogle, and you will be presented with a page that looks like this:



Then you simply click on the "make it your own" link, and you're off! That link presents you with a few choices, and you can click a link to see all of the widgets available - and there are tons.

After you pick your widgets, you can pick "themes" for your iGoogle page. The theme I am running is really neat - the sun in the graphic "moves" across the skyline during the day, and goes from morning, to day, to evening, to night. It is really a nice touch.

So, if you're still using the boring Google page, I recommend you spice up you dull browser life and check out iGoogle - you won't be disappointed.

Rock
**No one is listening until you make a mistake.