Tuesday 5 July 2011

Going Google eyed

I am well and truly going Google eyed (Google-i-ed, i-google... has someone else beat me to that pun already?) Yes, all this web stuff does have the potential to make me goggled eyed, but it's somewhat more fun to get that way trying to pick out backgrounds themes on i-google than from squinting at spreadsheets. I enjoyed trying to customize my i-google page, though ultimately got somewhat annoyed that I couldn't find a theme that truly represented me! I don't expect much... Also I was a bit purturbed to find that i-google is not asking me to log in, it just knows who I am. No doubt there is a way I can fix this if I have time to investigate.

I've never used i-google, though I do remember having pageflakes demonstrated. What I found really interesting was that trying to choose relevant gadgets made me question, what information do I really want most? It was kind of like a mental exercise in prioritising my whole life (I haven't got there yet). I realised here is a tool where I can choose what I want to have in the forefront of my consciousness - or brought to the forefront of my consciousness. Let's say something like knitting is really important to me, but I never seem to find the time to do it or think about it - I can remind myself to do this, to focus on what's really important in my life, by using something like i-google. I like this idea. Also, sadly I rarely have time to use the internet for pleasure - yet I know there's lots of interesting stuff out there and if I could make it 'come to me' rather than me 'going to it' then I might be more likely to have my life enriched with all the stuff out there that could encourage me to indulge my interests and be creative.

So far, as far as I've got with this is to have chosen a veggie cookery magazine and children's book of the day. I kept rather little of what google selected for me and found that searching for gadgets involved being discerning about how useful they each were. But perhaps I haven't put enough time into it to find the right ones yet. I suspect that RSS feeds may actually be easier to tailor to what I'm interested in. However I do like the tool nature of some of these things like 'artist a day' and 'phases of the moon' - things I wouldn't think to look up but are quite interesting to have presented to me.

2 comments:

  1. I think I can help with the iGoogle log-in thing; you should see your email address in the top right hand corner with a little arrow - there's a sign out button under the arrow.

    But if you've logged into any Google service it tends to keep you logged in to all of them, unless you untick the 'remember me' box when you log in.

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  2. Yes google does tend to remember you - can be confusing if like me you have more than one account, a team account and an individual one.
    Interesting to hear your perspectives on igoogle though, and that you will find it useful. This Thing has been dividing opinion a bit.
    I think you will find rss useful though, whether it's updates from your favourite pages, or news on shopping deals, or journal ToCs, new hits in your literature search or simply the latest news from Doctor Who websites I'm sure you'll find something useful for you!

    Rowena 23 Things team

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