So Yahoo went and changed the game...

Well, since the last time I wrote in, Yahoo has pushed out a new
update to the myYahoo page. So far, I have been pretty happy about
the update. Still beating googles tail by far. That's for sure.

I think my next post is going to have to be something compelling or
else I'm going to have to give this blog stuff up.

Course, it does't help that I am only able to post from my phone.

Sent by mobile. Grammar exempt.

Firefox Search Box and the Google Toolbar.

I am going back and forth about this bookmark issue and Google vs Yahoo. I have now completely reverted to my earlier configuration. I am using Yahoo Toolbar again (the bookmark buttons seem to be back for now) and my.yahoo.com as my homepage again.

After wrestling with iGoogle, I still couldn't get it to look as clean as my.yahoo.com. Clearly different people are working on iGoogle and gMail, because gMail is quite clean comparatively speaking.

In any case, I had the Google Toolbar installed and allowed it to replace my search box. Which seemed like a good idea. It worked pretty well, but I found that uninstalling the Google toolbar left my firefox without a search box. There appears to be no way to bring the search box back. I looked over every option and found that I could bring it back by re-installing the Google toolbar. Once installed, I could set Google to no longer take over my search box, which brought it back. THEN, I could un-install the toolbar and get my old search box back. What a pain! Wouldn't it be nicer for the un-install to bring my search box back? Or at least give me an option somewhere of putting the search box back?

Ahh, I guess I didn't pay for any of this. Can't really complain. OR DID I? Because those ads are always there. I guess I am paying for it by diligently ignoring them. I want my diligence back!

I am going to do a break down later. A real comparison of what it is that I like about my!yahoo over iGoogle. I am going to have to get some SS's in here for that though.

So, the change that inspired the restarting of this blog has inspired another posting. I recently switched from 'my.yahoo.com' to Google's 'iGoogle' page. I have to say, I am less than impressed. I really feel like I am missing a lot of the news that I used to get whenever I went to my!yahoo, and I am getting a little tired of being told how I want to get my information or listen to my music.

For one thing, Google reader doesn't allow you to format how you want the stories. Sure, you can give each feed tags, but you can't group it by tag unless you go to the actual reader page. The iGoogle addon doesn't group by tag. In additon, you can't add stupid little widgets to the google reader page like you can to the my!yahoo page, so there is no real replacement for my!yahoo from Google. I am trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

So maybe I'm comparing apples to oranges, but it makes me sad that Google doesn't include what seems like basic functionality to its iGoogle reader addon. Maybe there is another one that I don't know about? Maybe someone has made one that will display more than 10 stories in the window and doesn't require me to mouse wheel in order to skim articles?

Anyway, my switch to Google toolbar has been fairly successful. I do like the way you can bookmark and add tags pretty easily. I also like that you can have google replace your search bar in Firefox. And the only reason I like this is because you can find just about every search type that you could have in the firefox search bar. So far, I have wowhead, dictionary search, wowwiki, and some random Google ones that differ based on which machine I'm on. Which brings me to my next point.

Button layout - In Yahoo Toolbar, this information was kept on their server, so you could format your buttons and you would never have to do it again. In Google, you have to configure how you want buttons for each installation. Lame.

So it may not seem like a big deal to most people. Well, actually, I'm sure it's not a big deal to most people, but to me, it represents a pretty big change. I started using my!yahoo somewhere back in '98... I heard about this new thing from Yahoo and I went and built my little page. Later, they added RSS feed support, which pretty much sealed the deal for me. I have used it ever since as my homepage. The thing is, Yahoo doesn't seem to be going anywhere lately. I really hate to jump ship bound for Google, but the success of Google in the financial world makes me feel warm and fuzzy that my next step will last me another 9-10 years.

Now, maybe I'm just getting old. I mean. I could go and search out the latest Web 2.0 mashup that does what I want, but I'm not too interested in fly by nights that are going to go out of business when the 2.0 bubble bursts. Or at least, when they run out of money because they are stupid ideas with no real way of getting traction (Mahalo comes to mind. Did/does anyone ever use DMOZ?).

Anyway, rant off. I'm off to see what I can do to get what I want.