SpaceCase Speaks

I'm sorry I've been neglecting my "things I like" site, but it's been crazy at work this week. I've been subbing for a co-worker, and we all know that can get a little nuts.

One of the things that has kept me sane last week is something so simple, I had to share it here. My personalized iGoogle homepage.

It may seem kind of cheap to rave about a Google product via another Google product (Blogger), and I think that Google is seriously trying to take over the world, and I may be helping them a little bit. But I don't even really care, which shows just how much I love my Google hompage.

I don't put a lot of gadgets on the homepage, although there are probably hundreds to choose from. I just keep 4 gadgets that save me keeping 4 separage windows/tabs open at any given time: Google Reader, Gmail, Weather and my newest and most favorite: BeTwittered. I could probably ditch the weather gadget, and still find this page incredibly useful, but I like the balance the weather gadget brings. I'm the girl who needs to eat her M&Ms 2 at a time, so needless to say, balance is important to me.

From this one page, I can read all of the blogs I like (that have full-content feeds). I can see if I have new e-mail, and even get a quick preview of what they say. My favorite item is BeTwittered, which allows me to read and post to Twitter without opening another tab.

Having my favorite web activies all on one page made life SO much easier when I was super-busy while my co-worker was vacationing. But it also just keeps things tidy and in one spot no matter how busy I am.

All of this, plus I can choose a pretty, relaxing theme.

I've used other customizable homepages before, but this one is the cleanest and most useful I've ever found. Love it, love it, love it.