Why not just go here instead? Once you log in, you can access GMail, customize your News, set news Alerts (which you can’t do with iGoogle), and customize to your heart’s content.

So far, I’d rather just bookmark a bunch of useful URLs and open them all in a tab group. I realized that this was exactly what I tried to do with the iGoogle tabs anyway =D

My biggest beef with the iGoogle setup, though, was news feeds. I love the randomized, multi-source format of news articles in the news.google.ca interface. You can’t do that with iGoogle.

In my customized view of news.google.com, I moved “Canada” and “Health” up to the top.

I got rid of the “Entertainment” and “Sports”. No, I don’t need to get an hour-by-hour update of whichever blonde pencil-neck with Vicodin withdrawal is dragged kicking and screaming for her Mommy back to the cushy section of jail reserved for the wealthy.

I added my own Alerts section which consists of articles that mention the company that I work for. Because that’s how we, in IT, find out what projects we’ll be working on… We can’t just be told, that would be boring. We just have to read it in the news along with the general public *LOL* XD

– S.

The personalization movement and convergence enthusiasts wish all web apps to appear in a mashed state within one interface. The problem I have is that each website and brand has its own personality. It seems a bit borg-like to assimilate them all into one format. Each time this assimilation happens a bit of the original “magic” and personality is lost. Consumers fall in love with brands just as much as the services. Personalization strips the brands out of the equation. I think the usefulness of these services appeals to people with personalities who favor efficiency over emotion. Perhaps interaciting with the brands directly is favored by people whose personalities appreciate emotion and connection over the raw efficiency of aggregation.

Just some thoughts.

I have my gmail widget, my google calendar widget, my google reader (rss reader) widget, my google groups widget, my dreamhoststatus feed widget, and my RememberTheMilk task widget (awesome Web 2.0 app)

Flip over to my entertainment tab, I have all the movies playing locally, rss feeds for the latest movie reviews, Wii game reviews.

Flip to my webcams tab, and I can check out the conditions up at sunpeaks, have a peek at the coquihalla, look down at Salmon Arm from Bastion Mountain.

But here’s the great thing… I don’t have to use any of it. I just fired up another browser (where I never login to my google account) and google is still its wonderful search-above-all-else self (with a couple extra links at the top – totally unobtrusive)

But….. I suspect that because you log into your google account (gmail, or analytics or whatever), google is presenting you with the basic iGoogle page. Click the “classic home” link up in the top… I *think* this turns off iGoogle for you.

As an interesting side note. I no longer even use the google.com homepage search box. All the browsers now come with wonderful search boxes built in…. I pretty much use that little box exclusively now. In fact… I wish I could disable the search box on my iGoogle page. HA! That’s messed up!

So Google, ya don’t mess up the basic home page search… but please please please continue being cool and coming up with cool things that make my online life easier.

PS. Your iGoogle link doesn’t work.