Just A Leaf

Free stuff, Yahoo!

As part 2 of the last post, Googled, I would like to highlight some of the useful free services available from Yahoo!.

Although Google and Yahoo! are competing companies, they can work together, quite harmoniously, on your computer to fill all kinds of needs. Below I have listed, what I feel are, the most useful free products and services available from the 2k crash survivor:

Yahoo! Widget Engine: By far... and I mean FAR... the most useful of the Yahoo! line up. If you are Mac user, the only reason to use this would be if there is a particular widget you want that you can't get on your Mac. But for Windows users... this is where it's at.

So what's a widget? Widgets are mini-applications... little programs that to little things but that can effect your computing experience in a BIG way. Check out this listing of widgets by using the search bar or browsing by category and you'll get an idea of what these little buggers can do for you.

You can set these widgets to sit on your desktop, or (as I prefer) keep them cleanly hidden on a "dashboard" like mac os widgets. This way they do not crowd your perfectly ordered desktop or consume resources while not in use.

As an example, if you download this widget (after getting the whole program, of course) we can use this for an RSS reader for this blog, which would let you read my posts without coming to the blog itself.

• Simply download the widget and double-click the icon once it is on your computer.
• The right click the bar and select "Manually add content"
• Add http://justaleaf.blogspot.com/atom.xml
• Right click the bar again and select "Remove Content" to remove any feeds you don't want.

That's just one widget and one example of what they do. You can get email alerts, weather updates, RSS feeds, daily comics, and just about anything else delivered straight to your desktop or dash board. Microsoft will also be adding widgets to it's upcoming Windows Vista. But why wait? Have Vista now.

Flickr - Want to share your pictures online with friends and family? Well, there's no better place than flickr.com (at least, there isn't if you don't count the Picasa and Google Album combo). It is hugely popular and easy to use. Probably the best place to put photos online for viewing or for use in blog or forum posts.

Yahoo! Finance - Yahoo!'s finance site is considered to be one of the best financial portals in the world (that is free). If you want to view stocks, read up on companies, learn some things, or research market trends... you'll probably find what you are looking for on Yahoo! Finance.


That's it! Yes, that all for Yahoo!. The main point here is really the widgets because they can be so useful.

It also bears mentioning that Yahoo!'s free mail service is considered the best email service on the web, besides Gmail. Some like it more because it has more frills and features. Gmail, on the other hand, is faster and has a higher inbox capacity. So, if you've got something against Google, use Yahoo! mail.

That concludes this series of helpful free products by Google and Yahoo!. I hope it has helped you to discover new ways to use your computer to make your computing experience easier and more enjoyable!