More Things on a Stick--Thing 25

I watched the videos and decided that while some of these things were fun and playful, they didn't really fit the way I was trying to go with my blog. I already was using Sitemeter from last time, so I decided to add a Cluster Map to get a similar feature for myself that didn't require me to go the Sitemeter's site. I also added the feature to allow people to easily add my blog to their feeds. Finally, based on a comment by the blog 23@40, I decided to change my feed profile to only a short version, so that people would have to click through to see the actual changes that I have made.

I spent less time on this in part because I have seen most of Google Gadgets since I use iGoogle for my home page at work. And, as I noted above, most of the gadgets seem playful, not useful, for what I am doing.

Thing 13

I chose to set up a home page with iGoogle because I had chosen Google Reader earlier for my Rss feed. I also found that it would let me put my yahoo email account on the page, so that made it easier. Unfortunately, I can’t connect to my Outlook calendar because that is protected from my school. I also can’t figure out if I can link my other email account to the site, so I will still have to visit it independently. Since I was able to link to the news through the NYTimes at iGoogle, I have just made it my home page. I condensed four tabs I usually open in the morning to just 2, so I guess that is something of a timesaver.

I don’t think I will use the calendar element much, although if I wasn’t committed to using Outlook at work, I might. I liked that I could link “Don’t forget the Milk” to the iGoogle calendar.

Many of the other items just seem like too much hassle for my everyday life. I can’t really see much use for any of this at my school library either. I think some of the other tools we have been exposed to—Google Docs or PBWiki—are much more useful for my applications.

I did, however, make a customized “gadget” for my remaining 23 Things on my iGoogle page. It was less able to do what I wanted though. I was hoping for hot links to the remaining tasks so that I could just click and work! You can see it on my iGoogle page--There's a link on the title.