Paint and Pixels

This is going to change my life....

Above what you see is my new, cutting edge HOMEPAGE. I am so excited about this, it is ridiculous. I created it at netvibes.com and it is completely customated for me and my own personal net surfing habits. Basically it is the entire world wide web of Naomi consolidated into one handy dandy page. No longer do I need to surf around on the web, waiting for each individual page to load, because now I have it all in ONE unified forefront.

Let me break it down for you....

Column 1-

The red header column, is all newsy publicy stuff. The first box (or "widget" as they call it) has the five day forecast for my little city, including, not only high and low temperatures, but also convenient littler "know-at-a-glance" picture icons telling me what weather I will experience, once I make it out the door, today. Then there is other widgets like youtube recomended viewings, as well as highlights from google news, and the best flickr photos of the day.

Let's recap.... in JUST the first column we have viewed weather.com, youtube.com, googlenews.com, and flickr.com... what would have been FOUR site clicks before is now just ONE. Now let's go on...

Column 2-

The second column, the blue header column, is the important stuff- the most personal business stuff. The first widget displays any email (hotmail) messages that are unread. I don't even need to tell you why that is important.

The second is my to-do list. On this a list I include any things I need to get done, and then I assign it a point value based on it's signifigance, time required, and effort required. The more urgent tasks are worth more points than the petty tasks. And the dasks I dread doing are worth more points than the enjoyable ones, even if they don't require as much time. For example "email PTO president back" is worth a grand 6 points while "finish Honey Touche painting" is only worth 3. At the end of the day I record my total point value accomplished. Since I have a relatively competative personality, I am motivated to beat each previous day's total score. Also, this site is accessible to Matt, as he sits at is desk at work (probably doing nothing) so that if he thinks of something that needs to get done he can immediately add it to my to-do list, instead of waiting until we are in bed at night to tell me, when I will probably forget anyways. However, if he keeps adding ridiculous things like "pay Matt back his money", the password may need to get changed.

Next is my calendar. It includes any events that I have scheduled for particular dates, as well as regular things, like Rocket's karate lessons and Roxy's gymnastics lessons. My most favorite event coming up is my rendezvous with Cheryl on Monday!! That's something I WON'T want to forget!!

Next I have my face book page widget. In one little tiny little box, is so so so much information. It tells me if I have any new facebook messages. It also tells me the status of ALL my facebook friends. Like, seriously, I know when Kate's pants dont fit, or when Becca is going to swim, or when Tawni is eating dinner, or when Kristin is playing Bunco and so on and so on... besically I know what everyone is doing at any hour of the day- all in one little widget.

And lastly (or lastly in just this column) I have my myspace widget. It tells me if anyone leaves me a new myspace comment. Thats very important.

OK recap- We're up to NINE sites, all in ONE site. Amazing!

Column 3-

The last column, the green header column, is the blog column. This is usually how I waste the most of my time on the internet. I am a blog junky. I spy on all kinds of people through their blogs... I don't feel bad about it though. I figure they must want me spying on them- otherwise they wouldn't have a public blog, right? And, I'm sure they're spying on me too, anyways (ha! I caught you!!!). Before now, I would have had to click on dozens of different blog addresses, then wait for them to load, only to see if they had posted anything new (usually not). Now, I can see, in one quick glance, if any of my bloggers have posted any new blogs. If they haven't, I don't even bother clicking. If they have, than the new blog will be displayed boldly, and I can read the title to see if I am interested. The best part about the blog column is that while monitering all my favorite blogs, my to-do list is lingering close by so that I never forget about what needs to be done apart from the computer screen. Before now, I would get so swallowed up in checking blogs that I would neglect other important things in my life... like picking my kids up from school. Now I am kept on track.

TOTAL RECAP: What used to be 36 clicks (including all the blogs) is now only ONE click. If each of those sites took only a couple minutes to check each , than I am saving myself HOURS a day by being able to moniter them all at once! Imagine what I could accomplish with all that extra time!!!! I am confident that this new system is going to change my life due to my increase in efficiency and effectiveness.

By the way, I DID pay Matt back his money... and got 7 points for it! YES!!!!!