I  really like Netvibes, but for a while I stopped using it as my start page, as I felt the "corriander" release was becoming a bit antiquated and slow loading. I have just started the migration to the  "ginger" release, and am hoping to  make Netvibes my start page once again.  Do you use Netvibes? Have you beta tested or migrated to the  "ginger" release?  What do you think about it?  If you use  PageFlakes or  iGoogle,  why do you use it and what do you like about it compared to Netvibes?

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What websites do you visit every day?
Submitted by Chez Michelle.

In an effort to streamline my life and get more things done in less time which in turn allows me more time for the pleasant things and less time spent dealing with the daily grind, I pretty much only go to a few sites, as I have most of them consolidated under one roof. I swear by Netvibes as my start page, which is where I go several times a day, as I have everything I want there, for the most part. Weather, multiple emails, news, blogs and rss, my del.icio.us bookmarks, websites I like embedded, entertainment, torrents, travel, shopping, etc. all tabbed out nicely. I still do visit Google Reader (although I don't have to) when I'm really digging through all my RSS like a madwoman. In short, I visit tons of sites, from gtd, tech, entertainment, shopping, news, scrapbooking, music related, and more, but having all these under one roof means I really only go to a few sites a day.

Another site I daily navigate to is my personal hobby website for Generation 80s [alternative] Retro Radio to say "hi" to my listeners via the Shoutbox during the day and to my administration panel at Live365 to change or program my playlists daily. Of course, I come here, to Vox. Did you know you can set groups of tabs to open up simultaneously in Firefox, so all you have to do is click on the description on your links bar or in your bookmarks and all those pages you like daily will open? Even better is the Firefox extension Morning Coffee which gives you the ability to manage and organize regularly visited websites by day and open them up simultaneously by integrating it with your daily routine. Now you can have your favorite AM sites open when you come down for coffee, work related sites you must read open at 11am, or the news and comics waiting for you at night. If it could only make the coffee, I'd be golden.

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Many of you probably wonder what the heck is GTD? Go to Dallas? Grip the Dashboard? Get that Dollar? No. Get Things Done. Who doesn't need to, from domestic engineer to CEO? You don't have to be militant or OCD to be organized and productive. Even the most ADD, chaotic, forgetful and haphazard among us can benefit from a little GTD.

Although I do not go out to a formal "job" daily, my days are so full, that even in my home life and moonlighting, I feel like I need to be paid for an 8 hour day plus overtime, as I go from early AM to very late at night. I need to be organized  and efficient to get through my massive "to do" list, make all my appointments and deadlines,  to feel a sense of accomplishment, fit in time for my hobbies and interests and to manage my household. I do, much to the amazement of my family, friends and neighbors without being rigid, anti social or uptight. I still manage to be organized and spontaneous, which is an oxymoron to some.

So how is it done? Some of it is innate, but you can learn. There are many fabulous GTD sites and blogs. Right now, I have recently discovered a few tools that have seriously streamlined my daily grind and help me be productive and enjoy my day. Here are some of those things:

• Netvibes. Switched from Google Personal and MyYahoo! to Netvibes with some careful selection of modules, feeds and podcasts (listen to them right through Netvibes)  and now I have everything I could ever need waiting for me in the morning all from one site including email. I grab my coffee and dig in. My plans for the day are there as well as a virtual custom "newspaper". LifeHacker has a great post on customizing it with the most essential modules, we are trying to streamline our lives, not add bloat, so chosing carefully is key. In the comments section of that post, there is another nice Easter Egg by dep for further tweaks. The best part? If you set up a tab called "Mobile" you can customize a mobile friendly page for those unfortunate times you are away from your computer aka "command central".  I use it along with some well selected feeds in Google Reader mobile. It doesn't get much better than this folks...
• 30 Boxes. Do I love this or what? ?? Slim and functional, this has it all! You start by opening up a wizard which has you put some initial dates to remember in, like birthdays, then you import email addys and a bunch of other stuff. It's an all in one scheduler, social networking tool, reminder, to do list, emailer, will send SMS reminders of your daily activities to your mobile phone/device and has a module that integrates with Netvibes. Best of all, you can set it to "webpage" which is my new Firefox start page and it gives you one column with the days events/to do list, upcoming events then your embedded Netvibes page and a docklet to launch your most important sites and information. The look is clean and I can't say anything more than this RULES.
• Remember The Milk. Another GTD blog/utility which integrates with Netvibes. Right now I think, 30 Boxes is for me, but I am also test driving this as well. Probably more handy for those with structured jobs in a corporate environments, but could be used for anyone.
• Launchy. How did I manage without this? I have StarDock on my computer so I can have my desktop visually pleasing and uncluttered, yet tweaked just the way I like it. I chose for the most part to keep my Windows Task Bar hidden. Now I don't even have to move my mouse to the docklet to activate an app, search or what have you. I installed Launchy freeware, and just by hitting ALT + Spacebar and typing in a couple letters it will launch almost any app intuitively. Not limited to apps, it will find and open photos, documents, mp3's, computer and web searches and is a full function calculator. Everyday time I use my computer, I still marvel at what a gem this is! (Are you using CoolIris? If you're not, you should be using that too!)
  
• LifeHacker, Black Belt Productivity and TheCranking Widgets Blog- daily must reads. Yeah, I'm a geek, you know it...
  

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