iGoogle posts

Filed under: Google

iGoogle keeps on growing with some yummy new food themes

by Jay Hathaway Nov 21st 2009

iGoogle, Google's customizable homepage, has some pretty sweet-looking themes. In fact, I rounded up the 10 best on Download Squad not too long ago. Google keeps adding themes faster than I can change my homepage, though. The latest fresh batch of themes is food-related, and a bunch of food-themed homepage gadgets have come out at the same time.

While this news probably isn't going to rock your world unless you've always wanted some beautifully-shot food porn on your home page, some of these food widgets are pretty useful. Sites like Urbanspoon, Epicurious and Food Network can now deliver recipes and reviews to your homepage. Aside from making us salivate, this addition has got us wondering: what's Google's plan for this continuing expansion of iGoogle? Social gadgets, video chat, food themes? What's next?

Tags: food, gadgets, google, homepage, igoogle, themes

Filed under: Video, Google, Social Software, Web

Video chat comes to your iGoogle homepage

by Jay Hathaway Aug 23rd 2009

Google has offered video chat between Google Talk contacts inside Gmail for some time now. It's a great feature, but it doesn't do you much good if you want to chat with friends who have Google accounts, but don't use Gmail. Problem solved, though, because video chat is now available on your iGoogle page.

Setting up video chat isn't very difficult. You just have to download the video chat plugin, which you've already installed if you've been using the feature in Gmail. Once it's installed, you can video chat with any contact with a green camera icon next to their name. Either open a regular text chat and click on actions, or hover your mouse over a contact on your list and go to "video and more."

Tags: google, homepage, igoogle, video, video-chat

Filed under: Games, Google, Social Software, web 2.0

Google introduces social gadgets for your iGoogle homepage

by Jay Hathaway Aug 12th 2009

iGoogle is a pretty decent homepage, with a wide selection of gadgets to choose from. You can add Gmail, Google Calendar, weather, RSS feeds and more to your homepage. Now iGoogle is expanding, though, and adding something that could make it really great. Gadgets are no longer limited to your own information: new social gadgets can display shared information from friends, too. Any gadget with a social icon in its toolbar can be shared with other users.

Social gadgets allow you to interact with your friends in several different, whether it's playing games like chess or Scrabble or working on to-do lists together. You can even add social feed of items your contacts have recently shared, which sounds an awful lot like Facebook's status updates. To control who you share with, there's now a Friends group in your Google Contacts, and you can add and remove people from there.

Tags: google, homepage, igoogle, social, social-gadgets, socialnetworking

Filed under: Google, Web

iGoogler turns iGoogle into a desktop app - in the simplest way possible

by Brad Linder May 14th 2009

If you use your iGoogle web page as a personalized homepage with information like the local weather, access to your Google Calendar, news feeds, and other items, but don't like having to fire up a full web browser every time you want to get that information iGoogler can help.

Basically iGoogler is a single-use web browser built on Adobe AIR. When you load the application, your iGoogle web page will pop up. You can interact with your widgets, add or remove widgets, or do anything that you could do if you were visiting the page in Firefox, Google Chrome, or another browser.

iGoogler loads a bit faster than most browsers. But the other advantage is that you can leave it open in the background while opening and closing any other web browsers or apps. It's sort of like an alternative to installing Google Desktop if you just want access to your Google Gadgets and don't care about the desktop search and other features.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Tags: adobe-air, google-gadgets, igoogle, igoogler

Filed under: E-mail, Productivity, Web services

Twitter plus Gmail equals TwitterGadget

by Jay Hathaway Apr 7th 2009

Most of the time, when I'm taking time out from work to check email, I'm also checking my Twitter account. With TwitterGadget, I can check both at once, by displaying an auto-refreshing Twitter feed in Gmail or right next to my Gmail gadget on iGoogle. Be warned, though, TwitterGadget is a bit overwhelming if you follow a lot of people. Unless you're a serious Twitter addict, it's probably more annoying than helpful to get bombarded with real-time tweets from your Gmail page. You can also use TwitterGadget as a standalone web app, but there are better ones out there, and removing it from the Google context takes away some of the charm.

Here's how to install TwitterGadget:

First, open Gmail and go to "labs." Enable the gadgets tab by turning on the "Add Any Gadget by URL" lab. Go to your new gadgets tab (it should be in settings, right next to labs), and paste in the URL for TwitterGadget, which is http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget.xml. You should be all set! TwitterGadget can also be installed on an iGoogle homepage via a convenient link on the TwitterGadget website. The refresh duration is customizable, and if you want to use multiple accounts, just install multiple Gadgets (on iGoogle, anyway.)

Tags: gmail, google-labs, igoogle, twitter, twittergadget

Filed under: Design, Features, Google

10 iGoogle themes that actually look good

by Jay Hathaway Mar 12th 2009

Hell is other people's iGoogle themes. I love the custom Google homepage as much as the next person, but the selection of user-submitted themes is, frankly, atrocious. The list ranges from photos of Angelina Jolie to photos of some guy's dog, with very few options that actually hold up over weeks and months of being in your face whenever you open a new browser window. Instead of subjecting you to the worst of the worst -- maybe we'll save them for a Fugly Friday -- I've collected my top 10 well-done iGoogle themes.

Gallery: iGoogle themes that actually look good

Tags: google, homepage, igoogle, skins, themes

Filed under: Google, iPhone, Browsers, Mobile, Android

WebKit optimized iGoogle gets canned

by Christina Warren Jan 19th 2009

Last January, Google introduce a special iPhone optimized version of its iGoogle page. When Android launched on the T-Mobile G1 in October, its WebKit-based browser (WebKit is what powers Mobile Safari) also offered up the optimized iGoogle interface. Although the G1 and the iPhone are capable of displaying the full iGoogle interface (more or less, there are some issues with certain widgets), the nice thing about the optimized interface was that it really laid sections of the page, and especially news articles and search panes in a really attractive way.

A year later, the optimized version of the site is gone. Instead, iPhone user and Android users get treated to the same crappy mobile iGoogle interface that other phones suffer through.

So much for progress.

On Saturday morning, when the change went into effect, users started asking questions in the iGoogle discussions page withing Google Help. The response from Google employee Paul:

Hey everyone, I have an update for you. We've decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We've found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones -- we want to ensure you'll all see the same version.

Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren't compatible with most mobile browsers.

Needless to say, the masses who love their iGoogle were not assuaged. This brought up a whole list of accusations that Google is saving the special iGoogle interface for Android users only and punishing iPhone users for not buying the Google phone.

This isn't quite true.

Tags: android, google, igoogle, igoogle mobile, IgoogleMobile, iphone, webkit

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Googleholic for October 17, 2008

by Christina Warren Oct 17th 2008

Welcome to Googleholic, your often weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

iGoogle gets canvas views
Google Webmaster Tools adds tons of new features
Presidential debate search findings
How often do you use Google?
Android Madness at Download Squad

Tags: android, google, google webmaster tools, googleholic, GoogleWebmasterTools, igoogle

Filed under: Google, Googleholic

Googleholic for April 22, 2008

by Romeo Wahed Apr 22nd 2008

Welcome to Googleholic -- your bi-weekly fix of everything Google! In this edition:

Google named world's most powerful brand
iGoogle gets developer sandbox
Google celebrates Earth Day
WHOIS OneBox graces Google search once again

Tags: developer, earth day, EarthDay, google, google brand, GoogleBrand, googleholic, igoogle, sandbox, whois

Listaculous: tabbed to-do lists on the web

by Jay Hathaway Apr 8th 2008

We've met a lot of users who take their to-do list applications very seriously. It seems every task management system -- from old-fashioned pen and paper to OmniFocus -- has its own fanatical following. Listaculous is a web-based to-do list that keeps it simple, but still offers tabbed organization, and it could be the right to-do list for you.

There's not much to Listaculous, which is what might make it useful for a lot of people. It's just tabs and to-do items, all in one window. Opening Listaculous in a pop-out window is appealing; the tabs make for a small footprint, even with multiple lists. For those who like their action items embedded in a home page, Listaculous also comes as an iGoogle widget.

Tags: gtd, igoogle, list, listaculous, to-do, to-do-list, web apps, WebApps

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, web 2.0

inThemes: Unofficial iGoogle theme directory

by Brad Linder Mar 31st 2008

A few months ago Google launched an iGoogle themes gallery, making it a little easier to find themes for your personalized Google homepage. But just a little. While you can search for themes in the directory, there's no way to browse by category. So if you want to see celebrity, nature, or artsy themes, you have to either search through the whole pile or keep entering search terms until you find what you're looking for.

InThemes is a new unofficial iGoogle themes gallery that puts the official gallery to shame. Themes are divided up into categories and subcategories. And since each theme submitted to inThemes is reviewed before it's added to the gallery, there's a better chance of finding themes that aren't... how to put this delicately... hideous.

[via Google Blogoscoped]

Tags: igoogle, inthemes, skins, themes

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google

Create custom iGoogle skins with igThemer

by Brad Linder Jan 22nd 2008

Last week Google launched a new directory for iGoogle themes. At the same time, the company launched an API for developers who wanted to create their own custom skins for the Google personal homepage service. But if you're not the sort of person who enjoys spending your spare time sifting through XML code, creating your own theme might seem a bit difficult.

Luckily someone has been kind enough to create an online application that lets you design iGoogle themes with no coding knowledge. All you have to do is visit igThemer and choose from a long list of colors, Google logos, and other graphics.

Or if you're looking for real-time feedback on your designs, another developer has come up with an iGoogle theme editor bookmarklet. All you have to do is visit iGoogle and copy the code from his site into your URL bar. Up will pop a theme editing dialog asking you to choose your colors, images, and graphics. Unlike igThemer, this application doesn't give you pop-up color selection tools, so you'll need to enter color codes by hand.

[via Google Operating System]

Tags: igoogle, igThemer, skins, themes

Filed under: Internet, Google, web 2.0

Google launches iGoogle Themes directory

by Brad Linder Jan 16th 2008

Google has allowed users to customize their personalized iGoogle start pages by adding themes for a while now. But aside from a handful of themes that show up in a box on your iGoogle page there hasn't been a great way to find new themes.

Now Google has added a themes directory to its gadgets directory. There still aren't a ton of themes to choose from (Just 18 as of this morning), but we expect to see the number grow. Most of the themes are currently Google designs, although there are a few third party themes. Hopefully now that there's a central place to showcase themes we'll see more third party development.

The company has also set up a page for anyone who wants to develop their own theme.

[via Google Blogoscoped]

Tags: igoogle, themes

Filed under: Google, Freeware

Spice up your Google homepage with Custom iGoogle skins 2.0

by Ian Dumych Dec 29th 2007

As we previously covered, the custom iGoogle skins widget allows the user to, well, use custom skins with iGoogle. -- It says what it is, folks!

It boasts a few new features that make it well worth the upgrade. For one, it's now possible to set conditions for certain skins. For example, it's possible to have, say, a rain themed skin appear when the weather widget shows it's raining. It even supports different skins for each tab of the browser! The widget also has a new mini mode that frees up space on the page.

For some screenshots of the widget in action see the project page on google code.

[Via Bonisto.net]

Tags: iGoogle

Filed under: Internet, Google, web 2.0

Install Google Desktop gadgets in iGoogle

by Brad Linder Oct 5th 2007

Google has been offering two different types of gadgets (or what the rest of the world calls widgets) for a while now. You could install tiny applications on your desktop using Google Desktop. Or you could install them in a personalized Google Startpage using iGoogle. Now Google has gone and removed the line dividing these two gadget types: You can now install Google Desktop gadgets on your iGoogle page.

In other words, you can add applications that will let you interact with your computer directly from an iGoogle page. For example, you can play music, or check your PC's power consumption or WiFi signal. You can find the gadgets using the iGoogle Content Directory.

Google is also releasing a new beta of Google Desktop 5.5 with improved Outlook search features and the ability to open multiple instances of the same gadget on your desktop.

Tags: gadgets, google-desktop, igoogle

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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