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Thing 28 Customized Home Pages

Page history last edited by Ann WS 15 years, 1 month ago

 

Thing 28. Customized Home Pages

Get organized with a customized home page to put all your Web 2.0 tools and services in one convenient spot. 

 

Learn

 

If you haven’t tried a personalized homepage (also known as start pages or personal portals), now is the time to explore this productivity tool. iGoogle, MyYahoo, Netvibes, & Pageflakes are just a few of the services that allow you to create your own home or start pages.

These personalized pages are made up of customizable pages beginning with a main home page where you can add blocks of content called flakes, widgets, gadgets, or modules depending on which one you use. These blocks can be anything from your Facebook account to an email account to a newsfeed from your favorite television station. In some of the services, you can add other pages accessible via tabs or other links from the home page.
Once you have added the content blocks, you can drag and drop them on the page in whatever order works for you.

 

Your customized home page can be private, visible only to you or you can make them publicly available to other people. Note that iGoogle cannot be shared unless you give others your login info (not recommended!) but you can create a separate Google account for a shared home page.

The fun & useful thing about your own home page is that you can collect some or all of the tools you have learned about in 23 Things On a Stick or in More Things into one place. You can consolidate your RSS feeds, your Flickr photos, your Facebook account, your email accounts, and any productivity tools like a calendar all in one place. You can add
weather, stock quotes, joke of the day, picture of the day, quote of the day--you get the idea. Have fun exploring these tools.

 

Do


Choosing which one to use is the fun part. While the features tend to be similar, you may prefer the look of one over another. If you use many of other Google services—Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, for example—then iGoogle may make the most sense.
Take a look at these articles to get an idea of what each service offers:


More about iGoogle pages:
Riding the Waves of Today’s Online Web Tools (via Ebsco—You must sign in to read this.)

 

Once you have decided on the service, do these things:

  1. Set up your account in iGoogle, MyYahoo, Netvibes, Pageflakes or one of the other services from the Mashable article.
  2. Add some (gadgets, widgets, flakes, modules) including (if possible) one of the tools you have discovered so far such as an RSS feed, your email account, your del.icio.us bookmarks, your Flickr photos. Note that browsing through the thousands of gadgets/widgets available can take a lot of time! Same with browsing the iGoogle or others' themes. It's fun, but be aware of the risk of too much fun!
  3. Blog about your choices and experience.


If you want some extra guidance on setting up your homepage check out these videos. Here are the My Yahoo tutorials (not video).

 

School Library Journal had this article on finding/using widgets. Other sources for widgets:

 

Beyond your personal productivity with all of your stuff in one spot, consider how you can use a personalized portal for your library or library staff. If you work with faculty, you can work with them to create these portals for their classes. Would a staff committee benefit from such a page? Look at these resources as you explore this option:



 

 

Blog Prompts

 

  1. Which of the services did you use? Why did you choose that one?
  2. What was your experience in setting it up? Easy? Or not?
  3. Which gadgets/widgets/flakes did you add?
  4. Do you have any recommendations for gadgets/widgets/flakes you find fun or useful?
     

 

 

 

For the Curious  (optional)

 

Really like widgets? Make your own to add to your page or to share.

 

  1. Create your own widget of all of your Web 2.0 identities using the Show Yourself widget or Widgetbox.
  2. A Blidget is a widget that displays your blog. Very easy.
  3. Build the widget you've always wanted with Konfabulator from Yahoo! (download)
  4. Google Gadgets invites developers to read their Getting Started Guide and begin coding to create widgets for the iGoogle start page.

 
If you build a gadget, be sure to blog about it and share it with the rest of us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (3)

SZSRocks said

at 2:41 pm on Mar 16, 2009

Thanks Caitlin! I'm glad I read your post, since I was having trouble figuring out how to add my Blidget to my iGoogle home page. Thanks to your instructions, it worked like a charm!

Caitlin said

at 10:52 pm on Feb 13, 2009

First you need to register for an account on Widgetbox, then create your Blidget. On you Blidget's page on Widgetbox, look on the sidebar under "Get Widget"; click the 'More..." link; then click the box with the 'G' icon. From there you can add your Blidget to your iGoogle page.

Diane Hopkins said

at 11:29 am on Feb 13, 2009

I tried the Blidget and I really like it. I want to put my Blidget on my iGoogle page and I can't figure out how to do it. Do you add it through Google Gadgets?

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