Musings and things that amuse us

If you race around the Web, searching for information, getting sidetracked, and ultimately returning to the same tried and true sources, there are two easy-to-use tools that are brilliant at sorting stuff; getting it out of your head and moving it to the Web.

Google Personalized Homepage

Rather than clog your favorite’s folder with URL’s that you may only use a handful of times, personalized homepages allow you to categorize smarter. You have six tabs (which you name), and each allows you to add as much content as you wish.

If you don’t have a Google account, you need one.  If you have one, all you need to do is sign in and start adding stuff.

You can add content by looking through what’s on offer from ten categories, or add it by URL (next to the Google search box).  If the content you want to add is not off a feed, there is a Google bookmark module that you can add to your page, so just use that to add your favorite sites.

Google have been offering homepages for some time, but last month they overhauled it.  You can now personalize the page to suit your mood, and although you can only choose from six themes, it’s very cute because the pages are dynamic (meaning they change with your local time, season and weather conditions).  Read Jessica Ewing’s post about adding personality to your Google homepage.

Another feature for those among us that are a tad lazy is the option to let Google decide what sites may be of interest to you, based on the names you give tabs, or content you include.

Google Notebook

A brilliant tool, especially during the research phase when you don’t want to be writing down each URL you find, or adding them all to your favorites, is Google notebook, which allows you to copy bits off the Web easily.

It also gets rid of the need to cut and paste between programs, time consuming and painful because you usually need to reformat text for ease of reading.  Google notebook lets you easily grab all the pertinent URL’s or text, so that later, when you do need to start writing; it’s all there in the one place, in a common format.