The good folks at Google have unveiled yet another web app that will be of interest to lawyers: iGoogle. This new service is like MyYahoo or MyMSN, but with the attention to user needs that few companies, if any, do better than Google.
I've spent the past couple days checking the ins and outs of this new service, and I have to say I really like it. And while it may never become my primary conduit for work or business, it has enough functionality and ease of use to make it a tool to use daily.
Like its competitors at Yahoo and MSN, iGoogle allows you to customize your "homepage" to include the features you want and need. Well, Google keeps making so many web-based apps that I find myself using them more and more. I've been a Gmail user for several years, and find it easy and intuitive to use. This past spring I started using Google Docs and Spreadsheets to collaborate on several ABA Techshow presentations. (It turned out to be a good way to collaborate, so I am using it for several other projects.) Then, just a few weeks ago, I started using Google calendar as a web-based vehicle to keep my personal/family calendar. And like some many others, I use Google as my main search engine. With the launch of iGoogle, I can now have one interface for all those applications and many more.
The first thing I did after quickly signing into iGoogle was to change the theme to fit my mood. I choose the "Beach" theme and, after adding my zip code, noted that the graphic changes colors throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. Neat. I then set about adding and rearranging "gadgets" as Google calls them. Each gadget is basically a small interface into my Google applications and other helpful Internet tools. For example, I have my Google Calendar, News Alerts and Gmail on top of each of the 3 columns that makes up iGoogle. I see my monthly calendar, the top five news alerts, and the subject lines of the last 5 e-mails into my Gmail account. All of that is further customizable.
I also added the following productivity gadgets: A To-Do list, Google Notebook (a neat little tool, to be blogged later), a calculator, access to my Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and a dictionary/thesaurus tool. These tools were easily added with one click--much easier than my MyYahoo page--which, by the way, is no longer going to be "my" page!
Now, I could add more gadgets to that page, but then I'd have to scroll down to view them. Out of sight, out of mind. iGoogle provides an "add-a-tab" feature that allows the user to add numerous tabbed pages across the top. So now I can have my main page (I call my Productivity page) and I have tabs titled "Technology", "Business", "Legal Ethics", "Sports" (oh, why not?!) and I have plans for more. iGoogle is also there to help me populate these new tabs: When naming the tab, just check the box "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name." While it isn't always that accurate, it does provide some useful gadget modules that I might not have found without the time to search.
iGoogle also makes it easier to move and rearrange the gadget modules, just click and drag to where you want them. No more "move up" or "move down" arrows to deal with. Thank God! And what if I have a module on one tabbed page, but want to move it to another? Just drag the module to the tab at the top of the page, and voila!
After setting up my initial Productivity page, I then followed the Google suggested gadgets, and added these modules to my page: local gas prices (near my house and office), weather, breaking news, a Wikipedia search module, and even a couple of diversions called "See Before You Die Place of the Day" and "Interesting Photo of the Day". That last one was gone in 30 seconds when I discovered a pesky little Google ad made that module take up three times the space of other gadgets. Yes, thankfully, there are no Google Ads on my iGoogle page. That may occur someday, but until then I'm loving my new daily interface to my on-line world.
