New iGoogle is the New Vista

As I write this message from my Google Mail account, I can't help but feeling bad for lamenting over the new iGoogle. I consider myself a pretty loyal Googler, using their Search, Mail, Docs, Calendar, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa etc. etc. etc. I've often joked that I probably occupy the hard disks of several google servers in California. So, while it is not my intention to give Google a bad rep...it seems that they deserve one.

The new iGoogle homepage is just plan awful. The side-tab design is a colossal waste of web real estate and makes navigation near impossible. The new page is cluttered and going against everything Google originally stood for (clean cut and minimalist). I have since deleted all gadgets and ceased to use iGoogle.

Fortunately I've found an amazing substitute. NetVibes (www.netvibes.com) is a phenomenal tool that does every Google did and more! NetVibes is not as minimalist as Google, but definitely serves my purpose. It integrates Google Mail, Calendar, News and many more customisable widgets (see here).

Goodbye iGoogle, hello NetVibes !!

First Look at OpenOffice 3

Like many others, I downloaded the new v3.0 OpenOffice recently. There are some things I like....some I don't like but all in all it doesn't seem that different than v2.4. For example, there are newer, more modern icon sets - but I thought the old ones were fine. Looking at the configuration panel, I can change my icons back to the old sets. In fact, there are 4 old sets and only 1 new set. Other minor changes include modern highlighting in Calc, a better looking progress bar during "Save." All in all, not much is different.

I like the fact that v3 has MS Office 2007 support. I can't begin to describe how many files I am sent in Open XML 2007 format (.docx .xlsx .pptx etc.) and now I can finally get rid of that 3^rd party converter tool. It would, however, be nice to save in this format...though I suppose it is not necessary.

I really dislike that my custom settings did not transfer to the new update. My name, company name, address etc. all went over fine, as did my updated memory settings. But, ALL of my keyboard shortcuts, toolbar configurations and custom styles did NOT transfer! This was extremely annoying, especially since OpenOffice and the open-source community in general are strong proponents of customisation. They should most definitely have been transferred to the new application.

All in all, nothing to write home about, they could have called this v2.5 or something comparable. It probably didn't even deserve a blog entry :)