Widgets for everybody

Google calls them "Gadgets" but they're the same thing — features and add-ons you can put on a customized iGoogle home page.

I've been jealous of everyone I know who's got Tiger or Leopard, with their nifty desktops full of great things, but now even I, in my TechnoDolt™ Luddite Panther-using state, can have some fun.

I happened on this world of stuff via Virginia Heffernan's "The Medium" column in this past Sunday's New York Times magazine, in which she wrote, "For iGoogle — an extra-sharp way to curate and arrange your home page — consider taking on the handy widget called Web Definitions. In a flash, it combs through a dizzying range of lexicographical material and returns thorough definitions so efficiently you're tempted to try to stump it. Get it through "Add Stuff" [at the far right margin of the page] on iGoogle."

Sure, you're on Google as opposed to your own desktop when you access all these nifty virtual toys but who really cares (other than Google)?