New Google customized Home Page is very cool

I don't know how long it has been around but I just noticed that Google has an option to customize the "Google" front page. I started playing around with it and it had some really cool features, and like everything else from Google, it's free...

You can move stuff around on the page in different groups, picking up weather, stock info, news headlines, and even an "ATOM" feed (a kind of syndication, like RSS) where you can get info from a blog site like this one. In this case you just click on "add content" and there is a blank URL area and for this blog (as an example) you'd put in

http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

and then the # of headlines you'd like to see (like the last 5). I am not saying that our blog is necessarily that exciting that it would need to go on your home page, but there could be some blogs or sports scores or something like that - that could be...

The good thing about starting w/the Google home page is that it is (famously) blank to begin with, so it is easy to customize and just include the content that you want. There are other ways to customize your home page such as through yahoo but there aren't as many options to do this and less real estate.













Also need a "shout out" to Google for Picasa, the program that allows you to cut up photos and fix common problems like red eye, also free from Google. There is a button called "I'm feeling lucky" that often dramatically improves photos, especially night shots, and you can also "sharpen" up photos, turn them into black and white, etc...

Finally, I am amazed at how fast Google works at getting new products out the door. That will be the subject for another post, especially when compared with another technology company (that featured dinosaurs in their advertisements recently)...