personalized homepage posts

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Google

Google Fun - Personalized homepage hacks

by Chris Gilmer Mar 21st 2007

Google recently launched their beautified personalized homepage themes. These themes provide a nice contrast to the once boring whiteness of the traditional Google layout. But lurking deep inside the XML there stands some interesting tidbits. The "Easter Eggs" that Marissa Mayer hinted about not that long ago are scattered about the themes, and appear at certain time specific interval. Two decimal places past Pi (3.14) as a matter of fact, will see a new skin overlay appear at 3:14 AM local time on top of your selected theme, and stay there for one minute.

The XML files for the overlays can be found here, with the time changes noted inside:

For instance, here is a snapshot of good old Nessy:

Who wants to see more Easter Eggs in Google? I do!

[via Tony Ruscoe]

Tags: easter eggs, EasterEggs, google, personalized homepage, PersonalizedHomepage, xml

Filed under: Developer, Fun, Internet, Video, Web services, Google

Watch live TV on your Google homepage

by Chris Gilmer Mar 19th 2007

Do you use your Google personalized homepage as much as you could? There are plenty of great gadgets that have been developed, including gadgets for weather, to do lists, gas prices, Pacman, and even Live TV.

A new gadget that has entered the field -- created by CamMap -- allows users to watch live TV right on a Google personalized homepage. The CamMap live TV gadget allows users to select from a comprehensive number of channels including News, Entertainment, Kids, Movies, Educational, Sports, Music, and Financial. With such channels as CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Cartoon Network, Animal Planet, Earth Channel, ESPN, MTV, Bloomberg and CNBC. With no downloads required, this is a Time-Waster must for adding to your Google homepage.

[via jjprojects]

Tags: gadget, google, homepage, live, live tv, LiveTv, personalized homepage, PersonalizedHomepage, tv

Filed under: Business, Finance, Internet, Text, Utilities, Office, Web services, Google

Customizing a Google Homepage for your Mobile Device

by Chris Gilmer Jul 26th 2006

Google now offers a way to customize the information you want to receive on your mobile device. It is generally the same as the Google Personalized Homepage, with less feed choices.

The Mobile Device personal homepage is pretty easy to setup. Simply click the "+Add to my phone" for your desired feed. To reorganize the order in which you want read the feeds on your device, simply drag and drop to reorder.

To access your Google personalized homepage on your mobile device visit google.com/ig. This service from Google is currently only available to US phone numbers.

Tags: google, mobile, mobile device, mobile feeds, mobile information, MobileDevice, MobileFeeds, MobileInformation, personalized homepage, PersonalizedHomepage

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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