Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

Now, THIS is more like it! Here is a Thing that makes sense to me. We've been talking about user customization and portals at my library for some time, and now I get to see some portal-like things in action. I don't know that I'll convert to using one as my home page (I'm still not excited about sharing so much personal information etc. with a dot-com entity, and signing away my rights to my own information), but it's a very interesting concept.

Before making my choice, I looked at all three customized home page options: iGoogle, PageFlakes, and My Yahoo! Of the three, I had heard of iGoogle and My Yahoo before. I was least impressed with iGoogle: as a native St. Paulite, I was annoyed that iGoogle thought I was interested in Minneapolis! ;^) It's default news was from CNN - just not very "in touch" with me yet. My Yahoo knew I was from St. Paul, had St. Paul Pioneer Press news stories, and had weather information on the top (the weather is always important to Minnesotans - we know what it can do to us.) But the My Yahoo page design at my browser display required me to scroll across to see the entire screen, which I don't like (nothing like a "hey, can't you read this screen" reminder in your face.)

So I went with PageFlakes, the unknown quantity. It had the weather in the upper left (which I totally agree with.) It knew I was from St. Paul, and had St. Paul news stores (from the Strib, but that's life.) And it just felt better. So I spent too much time tweaking my settings. I could play with this a lot more, but I need to move on.

Online calendars: curiously, the link went to page 2 of the Wired magazine article about them. Google and Yahoo again - have I mentioned that I don't like to put all of my online eggs in one basket? I don't like the world according to Microsoft, so I don't think I'm going to give my life to Google just yet. (Personally, I use Ask.com for my web searching.) And while I have an email account with one of the big names (I think it's Yahoo), I don't use it. I'm still hoping that my personal tech person will get my old personal email account fixed, since we are paying for it and all.

We use Outlook Calendar at work, and while it has its quirks, I've gotten used to them. Back in the day, I could sync my handheld at work, and have my stuff in two places. But I lost that with the last computer upgrade. We rely on Outlook Calendar at work, and rely on it heavily for scheduling meetings, etc. My work calendar is too crucial to risk confusing it, and unfortunately I don't have time to maintain multiple calendars. However, I could see using one if you're scheduling people in multiple organizations, or for volunteer activities.

By the way, I do sync my handheld at home, and its "killer application" is the list feature. I have all of my lists there - books I've read, things to buy, ingredients for some of my favorite recipes, movies to watch/buy, clothes my daughter has/needs, etc., etc. It might be nice to use one of these productivity tools for that, BUT the way it is now, at least it's private.)

For the list options (Remember the Milk and Ta da List) - again, my handheld lists are my killer ap. I'm not ready to share them with the world yet. Although I can see the point of it in project management, event planning, etc.