My Life

The first reason Google stuck out to me, years ago when I first used it, was that their homepage was uncluttered. It didn't have ads and flashy links and images all over it. It was simple and clean. I still like how they have kept it fairly free of content, adding only a few links at the top or bottom. What I really like, though, is their personalized home page. I've got my Gmail summary, my search history, word of the day, quote of the day, my online bookmarks, and there are tons of other modules that I could add and have played around with. It's really neat because you can move the modules around to how you like them. I remain convinced that Google is one of the best companies that has ever been established. I also have a homepage on googplepages.com. Read more at www.google.com/ig?hl=en

The glorious day at last has come! Ever since my cousin sent me an invite to Gmail and I found out how Google's lightyears ahead of every other company in every product they offer, and it's all free, I've been looking for Google web hosting. It's finally been announced. Of course, it appears I'm not the only one who's been looking forward to it. They've got so many people signing up they're backlogged. That's okay with me. I can wait. I'm just happy to know that the day has come. Read more at pages.google.com/-/abou...

I've known about and used Wikipedia for a long time now, but these last couple of weeks I've become a regular Wikiholic . It's really a lot of fun. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes correcting grammar, knows something about something, or just likes learning about stuff. They have a list of pages that need to be proofread and stuff like that. I like going through and proofreading them randomly because I learn something new and I have a sense of satisfaction by contributing to the community. You don't have to have an account or be logged in to edit articles, only if you want to create articles. However, it's nice to create an account because then people can leave you messages and stuff like that. The most commonly discussed issue about Wikipedia is probably, "How reliable is it?" Well, think of it this way--how many people write a normal encyclopedia, like Britannica? Maybe a few thousand, a...

Firefox has got to be the coolest web browser out there. I know what you're thinking--"How can one browser be different from another--all they do is surf the web." That's what I thought too, before I started using Firefox. Just in case you ddin't know, Firefox won PC World's #1 product of the year for 2005. It's a really streamlined browser, all customizable with only minimal wasted space. You can even go to full-screen mode to maximize the internet experience. Probably the coolest thing about Firefox, though, is the fact that anyone can make plug-ins for them. There are literally hundred of plug-ins for Firefox, with everything from spell checkers to search toolbars. My favorite is one called Tab Mix Plus. It's really cool because it remembers what windows and tabs are open when you quit Firefox, so when you open it back up you go right back to where you were before, without having to bookmark everything and remember which bookmarks...

Google's amazing. What's funny is there are people who actually complain about Google. "They are Big Brother. They watch everything we search, everything we say to everyone else." Well, in case you didn't know you can turn off all the personalized stuff. You don't have to be logged in to use Google's search function. You don't have to use Gmail to communicate with people. Google's new innovation of imbedding GoogleTalk into their webmail interface is only beneficial. Honestly, it can't be any more prying than before, when GoogleTalk was a separate application. It's only more convenient for those who like the client. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. And, just like with personalized search, you can turn off the chat logging any time you want. I personally think that Google's gotta be the smartest company out there. I mean--they don't have annoying popup ads and big banners ...

This is a really interesting tool. It will convert any text you type in to Unicode--of course, roman characters will remain unchanged, but all the crazy stuff like Chinese and Japanese will change into their HTML-Unicode sequence. This may not mean anything to most people, but to old-fashioned write-your-own-webpage people, it's really cool. Read more at www.pinyin.info/tools/c...