Comments on: 5 Major Google Gadgets Usability Flaws

By: shutters

shutters — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:57:15 +0000

The good news is that you can take these tips and quite easily one-up your competing gadgets and get the highly desired space on more personalized Google home pages.

By: Girls mats

Girls mats — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:21:21 +0000

I am loving my Google Personalized Home Page, once you find the gadgets that work for you it’s like having my own news caster, weather man, dictionary, etc. It’s definitely starting to work for me.

By: Goon

Goon — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 12:59:36 +0000

That’s right. Google always trys to develop ne w applications on internet. I like their attitude to thay. I’m not a follower of Google. I just like it. And I use quite a few gadgets on my personalised homepage

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By: CarstenCumbrowski

CarstenCumbrowski — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:13:46 +0000

Jessica: try Toodledo if you are looking for a powerful, but easy to use to-do list tool. Toodledo also has a Google Personalized Homepage Plug-In.

It’s free, but a pro-version is available as well. I have the pro-version, but I can’t remember the price (which means it was cheap as dirt, $20 a year or something like that. Don’t make me look for it hehe)

Matt: Toodledo allows you to import you RememberTheMilk to-do lists and a lot of others as well :)

In general: I would rather search for good tools first and then also check for those that have a Google Personalized Homepage plug-in.

By: Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:41:05 +0000

I tried just adding a countdown clock gadget to one of my sites and it never loaded. I took it down on the same day. The service leaves a lot to be desired, although I’m testing a news feed gadget on another site. I’ve seen Perl-based third-party tools behave better.

By: Biscuit

Biscuit — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:19:06 +0000

Sorry people did not ignore the distinction between Gadgets and Tools. Retract that comment of mine.

I use quite a few gadgets on my personalised homepage

By: Biscuit

Biscuit — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:15:47 +0000

I tend to trust Google as a company and don’t believe they would invade my privacy to any extent that it would offend or harm me.

I suspect the author was referring to the Google Gadgets (eg. the Weather Gadget) rather than their apps or tools distinction.
The Google Gadgets are often written by 3rd parties and submitted to Google.

Because everyone else has ignored the distinction between gadgets, tools and apps i will do so too.

As for their tools/gadgets/apps

The ones I use a lot to quite a bit
a) The personalised homepage is excellent.
b) I have just started to use Google Notes. So far so good
c) Google Desktop, Toolbar. etc is great.
d) The Firefox plug in is also very useful
e) YouTube is of course good.
f) GMail is good but I don’t use it much as I have my own domain and lots of mail boxes.

I would use the following if I did not get the Microsoft equivalents for free on our company home scheme.
- Spreadsheet and Docs (Word and Excel)
- Google Calendar (I use Outlook and Exchange)

By: Wayne Booth

Wayne Booth — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:35:04 +0000

Dont use “Do 4 Me” – I did and periodicaly lost all my 2do items.
I ended up going with “tadalists.com” for very simple todo lists – however no google gadget.

By: Jessica Bowman

Jessica Bowman — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:51:48 +0000

Anna and Matt – thanks for the suggestions, will check them out this weekend.

I’m loving my Google Personalized Home Page, once you find the gadgets that work for you it’s like having my own news caster, weather man, dictionary, etc. It’s definitely starting to work for me.

By: anna

anna — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:50:33 +0000

For a good to-do list manager, check out RememberTheMilk.com – you can use it to create complicated to-do lists through the website, or simple to-do lists through a gadget you can add to your google homepage