Why do those in charge of companies like Google, YouTube & Facebook in their infinite lack of wisdom see fit to constantly change things just for the hell of it, it would seem....

iGoogle to be discontinued...

iGoogle is now going the way of the dodo and so bang goes my customised browser homepage which was a handy and quick way to access things like gmail and website stats....

YouTube recently changed the entire layout of a users channel to some new crap that is as useful as one legged donkey... & Facebook dropped all support around last November for playing videos if you use a PPC processor ...

Reckon the numpties who come up with and make these so called "exciting new changes that we're sure you'll love" don't even use the things themselves otherwise they would know that their so called "making things better" are actually garbage and are always a change for the worse... ruddy morons...

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@Franko

What is or what was iGoogle about? I never heard it.

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Amiga Developer
Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook

@itix

Nor me, must have been popular.

Foolish me, I have an account but I remember being bored with it straight away.

@Franko

Its OK, you have over a year to find something else.

Last edited by clusteruk on 04-Jul-2012 at 11:26 AM.
Last edited by clusteruk on 04-Jul-2012 at 11:25 AM.

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Amiga 1000, 3000D Toaster, Checkmate A1500 Plus
http://www.checkmate1500plus.com/

@itix

Sounds like Googles answer to the iPhone. Which I thought was called Android.

Last edited by Hypex on 04-Jul-2012 at 01:18 PM.

@ itix

I'll believe you, millions wouldn't...


@ clusteruk

A lot more popular than OS4, Aros or MorphOS have ever been...

Memory problems I see... zat why you can't remember making the same old videos over & over again...

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@Franko

What was Igoogle? Never used it, or was it custom Google thing.

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http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@NutsAboutAmiga

iGoogle is a personalized start page for the internet. Using your gmail account you can log onto iGoogle. You're then taken to your personal site where you can insert 'widgets' with data from your favorite sites (RSS driven as far as I know). The page can have multiple tabs to organize your widgets. It doesn't matter on what system you're logging in as the settings are stored at Google.

I've been using it as homepage on the browsers I use since the introduction and am not that happy Google is pulling the plug on this one.

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Back home...

@Franko

Must admit that I too have never heard of iGoogle. Maybe I have to google for it to learn more about it...

Quote:

their so called "making things better" are actually garbage

This one reminds of the marketing strategy concerning consumer electronics of a well known and established firm of Dutch origin, mainly known for lightbulbs.
Several times in history they produced a piece of electronic equipment, which turned out to be so well designed (yes, seriously!), that many a person was flabberghasted. It would not take long before they (the company) realised this and set about to introduce an improved product. This was a signal to rush out and try to get hold of one the old series, for the new 'improved' ones would be utterly inferiour (but probably more in line with the company's normal level of quality).
A decade or so ago the company's slogan was 'Let's make things better", to which the common man in the street replied that they first should make things good, before they could make them better...
To this day I own a CD player (CD204) from 1983, being made by that company from cast alloy and capable of playing 80 min home made CD's without any problem. Absolute 'high end' for that time. Until they realised they should improve upon it.

OldFart

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Life is a waste of time.
Time is a waste of life.
Get wasted all the time
and you'll have the time of your life!

@clusteruk

Quote:

Nor me, must have been popular.

I really like that!

OldFart

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Life is a waste of time.
Time is a waste of life.
Get wasted all the time
and you'll have the time of your life!

@OldFart

Off-topic:
Working at this Dutch company, we always joked about with 'Let's make better things'. The follow-up slogan didn't help matters either, 'Sense and Simplicity' turns out to be 'Non-sense and Complexity' on quite some products.

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Back home...

@OldFart

Quote:

Must admit that I too have never heard of iGoogle. Maybe I have to google for it to learn more about it...

Careful - if you type "iGoogle" into Google, you can break the Internet!

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The Rear Window blog

AmigaOne X5000/020 @ 2GHz / 4GB RAM / Radeon RX 560 / ESI Juli@ / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition
SAM440ep-flex @ 667MHz / 1GB RAM / Radeon 9250 / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition

I love how companies continually drive customers away.

I remember using yahoo as my default search engine (yes, really!) for years. They then changed the layout to something pretty nasty and after a while they got rid of the option to use the classic layout.

I finally made the switch to Google. You wouldn't have thought Yahoo! would be able to afford to alienate their userbase!

I hardly use MSN Messenger these days since they decided to integrate it with whatever the MSN Social Network is, and facebook. Great, now I need to sign in to a web page to make changes that I used to be able to change in the app itself? No I just won't bother Mr Microsoft; I just won't bother. This was at a time, too, where M$ really wouldn't have been wanting to miss out on loosing people to Skype.

And now this? I personally never use iGoogle, but pretty much all my family do. I doubt they will be outraged enough to look for alternatives. They'll probably be confused as hell when it happens though, because most of them refer to is 'their' Google. ("I'm logged into my google. Do I have to open my google first?" etc...)

@OldFart

IGoogle is a cloud-based homepage..
It has been my homepage for a long time now.

Some of the reasons it is so useful:
It can be loaded immediately from ANY browser, even when I was at work behind some ridiculous firewall.
It can be configured with whatever widgets, RSS feeds, or tools I find useful.

And even on any Amiga browser, my address book, favorite links, and mail client are included. So wherever I am, whatever browser I'm running, I am always "home".

Google will be shutting it down in 16 months, but the "mobile" versions are shutting down much sooner.

This is a BIG opportunity for some company to provide a replacement to a pre-sold audience.

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question=(2b||!(2b))

I am familiar with iGoogle. I am not impressed with Google and they are turning into idiots now. and I hate "Android".

and if I may share a horror on YouTube... there is a youtube video that is very popular on it. but there is on the side a column of videos. Some of them are completely irrelevant. but stuff like that just HAS to be there... always somebody or something to ruin something enjoyable.

It is a very disturbing video thumbnail, and a very disturbing title, and frankly I am not interested in the specific "recommended" video.

I have not found a way to turn this column off. but I have a shortcut. Using Opera browser I right click and select "block content" and have blocked out the disturbing thumbnail of the disturbing video! I am happy about the solution and I love Opera Browser.

and now if I may share another frustration.... Opera 12 apparently malfunctions on WIndows XP. so I downgraded. I am not a person of being forced into buying new technology things because the old expired technology things "must be thrown away". When will these fat companies realize that technology is not food?!

I will wait until Windows ports to ARM netbooks and buy them instead because Intel is dumb and they are punks. and I am far more interested in Amiga Netbooks. It will be nice if Opera ever ports to Amiga etc. systems. They acknowledge the existence of BSD and Solaris....

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BoingBlogs Wiki (under construction)

AmigaOS = MorphOS = AROS = RISC OS

Yeah, I saw that I have iGoogle as my homepage almost everywhere - such a shame they're dropping it (although to be fair, they did give 16 months of notice). What iGoogle does for me is:

Shows me the weather forecast for several cities
Shows me a preview of any unread mail I have
Shows me my to-do list and sticky notes
Shows me the headlines from the news sites I read
Shows me some RSS feeds I subscribe to
Shows me NASA's image of the day
Gives me a quick Google Translate widget
Gives me a search box for Wikipedia, Amazon and a few others
Gives me a quick unit and currency converter
Allows me to search with Google

And several other widgets which I use less often. All of this is accessible and editable in any browser, anywhere, even on my phone. It's incredibly useful and customisable, and I'll be sorry to see it go. They are saying that the widgets will be available as Google Chrome add-ons, but for me that's not the same, since neither my mobile or my work PCs use Google Chrome...

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

I've noticed that all of you who use iGoogle have said that "it works wherever & on whichever computer your on", not being very big on the net and how these things work it kinda leaves me wondering is there an alternative to iGoogle...

I've only ever used iGoogle as my "homepage" in the two or so years I've been on the net and just took it for granted I suppose that this was the de-facto way people used Google on the net...

From what I can gather here, you are saying that when iGoogle goes that the only alternative will be the plain bog standard Google page and their is nothing else out there like iGoogle, that means whether I'm on the computer in the kitchen or the one in the living room each would have to be set up individually for a new "homepage" and widgets etc... would only be availble on certain browsers like Chrome (which I can't use)...

Surely there must be something similar to iGoogle which all it requires is for you to only once set up your browser to default/ log in on startup and no matter which computer your on will always display your customised homepage without setting up each individual computer...

Or are all the other "alternatives" nothing like iGoogle...

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@Franko

Since yesterday (since the announcement) I've been looking at alternatives. There are a couple of free ones. Currently I'm looking at symbaloo as a replacement. I don't like it yet.

I've also heard Netvibes should be able to fill the gap, haven't tried that one yet.

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Back home...

@Franko

I can live without iGoogle.

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@Franko

I guess they wan't people to use google+ instead?

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BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

@broadblues

It's a totally different product though... Think of iGoogle like the home screen on some Android phones, only much more flexible, and accessible anywhere...

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X