WFMW: Google Homepage

Several months ago, my friend Katrina at Callapidder Days introduced me to Gmail, a Google web-based email program. I have to say, I love being able to search my emails instead of organizing them all into folders. You can set filters and apply labels, and finding that email from your second cousin once removed is super easy - just search on her name instead of worrying where you filed it. There are lots of other beneficial features, not the least of which is not downloading your mail onto your hard drive, thus remaining a little more protected against the Microsoft Outlook Express-spawned viruses. Oh, and I love webmail - I can access it from anywhere.

Not too long ago, I started using Google Reader, an alternative to Bloglines. If you suspect Bloglines is not always registering updated blogs, you may want to give Google Reader a try. Takes a while to set up because you don't get that neat little "Sub with Bloglines" button but it's not that hard.

Now for the neat part. I have Google as my home page and I can add all sorts of personalized features by simply dragging and dropping title bars. So when my home page opens up, I can view my email, Google Reader, the weather, Quote of the Day, and other useful bits of info all at once. Oh and they have a calendar I started using, since I can enter birthdays and have email reminders sent to me. How cool is that? And again, I love that this info is available to me anywhere.

Google Homepage - it works for me. For lots more cool ideas, visit Shannon's place at Rocks in my Dryer.