Thing 28 -- Customized Home Page

I had already set up a Google home page. We use Google calendar to coordinate joint custody of two kids and their schedules--It works wonderfully for this! And I have seven tons of blog feeds in Google Reader, and gmail.

It was easy to set up. I added local weather, phase of the moon, a Chuck Norris quote generator, and some social link aps that have icons for all the social aps I use, for quick acess. These include ning, digg, facebook, twitter, blogger, and YouTube.

I use Shepard Fairey's Studio One artist theme, which I love, and selected before his Obama graphic made him a household name.

I pimped my home page and went a little nuts adding tabs and subjects. This can be a very useful page but as with all these aps, requires a considerable time investment to get beyond the bash and thrash investigation phase. Time which I have not had lately, so I'll let it rest for now in all its untamed glory.

DIGITAL DIVIDE: after much angst, I have upgraded from my ten year old iMac with an ASUS Eee PC series netbook. I hated to leave the Apple world, but I have used PCs at work for years, so it isn't too much of a stretch. The hardest part is typing on the significantly smaller keyboard! I'm getting better but still hit a lot of wrong keys. I also miss the 10-keynumbers pad. On the ASUS the numbers are available only on the row above "qwertyuiop."

In addition, we're shifting to wireless access from USI, the Minneapolis wireless network. A tech is coming on Saturday with the modem. I hope this will also increase page-loading speed.
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