…Customize your Web browser startup page

By Levi Sumagaysay

Your Web browser startup page can be your home base at work and at home. The trick is to cherry-pick your widgets. Here's how:

1. Gather your tools Whether you use My Yahoo or iGoogle, or an alternative aggregator site such as Netvibes or Pageflakes, RSS feeds that allow you to gather news, favorite blogs and other information in one place are extremely useful. Widgets and gadgets offer the basics -- news, email, bookmarks, the weather -- and much more. If you're saving for something, use Savings meter, a Yahoo widget that lets you keep track of how much you’ve saved toward a certain goal, whose image you can include on the widget. A Google gadget called Internet Slang Translator helps you figure out what ROTFL and other IM shorthand means. Forgetful? Use iRemind, a gadget that lets you send reminders to your cell phone, email or Twitter.

2. Filter, tinker and purge You don't want to pull in so many feeds and include so many widgets and gadgets that you drown in information and clutter. Startup pages are useful because in this world of information overload, you can choose what is most important or interesting to you. Sometimes, you just don't want to go home to a messy house. Make your start page neat and useful and you'll want to go "home" whenever you are on the Internet. In iGoogle or My Yahoo!, for example, you can organize your widgets using tabs. Rearrange your gadgets and widgets to reflect your priorities. If work on that startup means you barely have time to go to the movies, dump the listings. You can always look those up when you need to.

3. Use more than one Some people have a first home and a vacation home or two. So can you. Yahoo, Google and Netvibes allow either tabs or additional start pages. It may make sense to use one startup page for your personal life and another for work. Or you can have pages dedicated to news, blogs, sports, and personal finance. Deciding to go with multiple start pages actually can keep you more organized and focused. For example, use Netvibes to keep up with your social networks. If you like Google's artist themes better than Yahoo's but like Yahoo's most emailed photos of the day, there’s no reason you can't have start pages at both places. If you're a visual sort, Homepage Startup offers you thumbnail images of your favorite sites.