Firefox is the OS
Thursday, 24 July 2008 by Jacob TomawRay-Ray asks in comments,
Do you guys know why there’s two versions for Google — iGoogle and Google Reader? I have both going, which adds to the disorganization that I need to sort out…
The reason is because Google is trying to reach people who use homepages (iGoogle) and people who don’t (gReader). My question is why do you use a homepage? (Not is a critical OMG kind of way, but what advantages do you see to it kind of way.)
A lot of people use homepages to gather all their information together. On iGoogle you can see my Gmail, gReader, other feeds, weather, and other misc items. I definitely see the value in it and would recommend it as a second choice or an away from home choice. However, to me it is a bit cluttered and small for everyday use
This is my setup at home and work.
My browser of choice is Firefox. It began because it was perceived to be safer and faster than IE. I no longer know if that is true. I continue to use Firefox because of the add-ons. For instance, I have an add on called Forcastfox installed that added the weather and forecast to the status bar.
Firefox allows you to have multiple pages as you homepage. These pages will open in different tabs. My homepages are Gmail and gReader.
With gReader I have a pretty standard setup. I read mostly in the All Items view sorted by ‘auto’. I star things I want to blog about or need further update. I share things I find interesting and share with comments things I do not think are full blog post worthy.
If you want to improve your gReader abilities, I suggest hitting ‘?’ and learning a couple keyboard shortcuts.
Gmail is more customized. I have two add-ons installed: Better Gmail 2 and RTM for Gmail.
Better Gmail 2 allows me to make sure Gmail is always uses a secure connection;this mean you melding kids cannot read my email as easily. I am also able to add keyboard shortcuts, hide some stuff, and show the inbox count in the tab. All of this really increases my productivity in email.
RTM for Gmail adds Remember the Milk as a side bar to Gmail. I can manage all of my tasks from the same window as email. I can also create tasks from emails for future follow-up.
That is my setup. What do you all do that makes you more productive at the computer?
July 24th, 2008 at 16:38
I’ll admit I use iGoogle over gReader simply because I discovered iGoogle first.
So while I say I like iGoogle for it’s ability to organize feeds/gadgets into groups (some I look at every hour, others, once a day, others once a week) and that it provides nice gadgets like weather/movie times, for all I know this could all be done in gReader as well.
July 24th, 2008 at 19:44
I think that is pretty often the case and then you are trapped by vendor lock. I know gReader allows you to export your subscription list in a standard format. I wonder if you can do the same for iGoogle.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:34
I am LIGHTYEARS behind you! Does Jos do all of this too?!
July 25th, 2008 at 10:49
No. Ha! I’ll admit it, when it comes to technology and internet savvy, I mindlessly agree to my husband’s recommendations. I like to think of it as comparative advantage.
July 26th, 2008 at 21:16
Alas, my vendor lock is stuck on yahoo, since that’s been my primary e-mail address for nearly a decade. It’s just as well for now; Gmail takes forever to load when you’re connected at super-slow dial-up speeds.
I’m totally a fan of Firefox, though, especially since their latest version allows me to restart downloads at whatever points my connection drops instead of having to start again from scratch every time.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:38
John,
I would think in areas are where internet connections are dropped often and slow, like Thialand or West Central Indiana, BitTorrent would be popular. Have you found that?
Jacob
July 28th, 2008 at 8:30
I honestly don’t know anything about that. I never felt particularly driven to use BitTorrent before Thailand, and there’s something about having a 1-6kps connection that discourages investigating new things. I’ve not heard any other volunteers talk about using it (which doesn’t necessarily meant that no one does), and I would moderately surprised if it’s something rural Thai people have already picked up on.
Besides, the flimsy enforcement of copyright laws here make for plenty of gray-market opportunities to get all sorts of more interesting files than you can legally get out of a P2P network, and with more of an instant gratification factor than you can illegally get from such a network.
Not that I would know anything about acquiring gray market materials….