Sensational Vibes

I'd like to talk about a very handy tool I've been using the past couple months. While I, a hearty myrmidon of technology and gadgetry, may be much more aflame towards the ever changing virtual organism that is the Internet than others, I feel that I do have something in common with just about everyone who visits this blog.

I, like you, use the Internet. Whether you know vaguely how to bookmark a site, or you can script in PHP, I think the following tool will be a great joy to you. It's called Netvibes.

Netvibes is nothing more than a homepage, and nothing less than a smooth, seamless hub that will put nearly all of your favorite Internet tools at your fingertips. Those of you who have used Google's iGoogle page know exactly what I am talking about. It works very much like iGoogle, except it's much prettier, and much more adaptable. Both aesthetics and functionality play vital roles for the modern-day Internet. Web 2.0 may be a buzz word to most, but it's certainly showing that with a little effort and creativity, applications such as Netvibes can be crafted for the benefit of users of all kinds.

Let's go a little deeper into what Netvibes actually is. You create a free account using your email. This way, it saved your profile so that you can access it from any PC. Once you are signed up, you have a plethora of options and widgets to choose from. You can choose to display things such as email, bookmarks, News feeds, video feeds, search results from Google Images and Flickr, calendars, task lists, note pads, and the list continues. There is a massive, ever growing library of Widgets, and you aren't limited to using specific ones. You'll find them all over the Internet. You can even tuck games into Netvibes. Of course, they don't expect you to throw everything all on one page, so they support tabs. Tabs with customizable colors, icons, and settings. In fact, you can customize so many aspects of the Netvibes homepage very easily, right down to importing your own images for the background and icons.

What this can do for the average user, is put all of your commonly visited news sites and websites all in one place. You can look at headlines and expand full articles without even leaving the page. In fact, you can create Widgets that act as tiny web browsers, bookmarked to sites of your choosing with full navigational ability.

I highly suggest giving it a shot. It's free and simple to use. Remember, once you get it going, set it as your homepage. To get you started, I'll even offer you a Tome of the Untold Figment Widget. Go ahead and install this to read this blog right from Netvibes.