The thirteenth thing is called "Online Productivity Tools"--although I must admit that I felt anything but productive as I sampled the various options that I could add to my igoogle page. Would my efficiency on the job really increase because I elect to have the joke of the day at my fingertips? A number of the add-ons seem designed only to increase the mental distance between my wandering attention and whatever it is that I am supposed to be doing.
On the other hand, I did doll up my igoogle page with local weather alerts (a no-brainer since the weather radio keeps going off on this day of unsettled atmospherics--from where I sit I can hear the alarm, but not the announcer's voice giving us the weather particulars), the New York Times leads and a few other relentlessly respectable links. I even added the "great art image of the day" for decoration. A Gaugain Tahitian this morning.
Then I stumbled over the 23 Thing pointer to a website called Zamzar.com According to the blurb,
This program will covert one file type to another. Especially handy in libraries that may not be able to open a student or patron file because it doesn’t have the right software.
Well, son of a gun, if we hadn't just had that situation in the library this morning. I wonder if this would have helped.
I still prefer my personal "starting place" homepage aldaily.com (Arts & Literature Daily from the Chronicle of Higher Education, it's something like the thinking person's Reader's Digest), not because it's useful--it isn't--but because it's really one of the most interesting ways I know to waste time online.
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