Google® Business Solutions All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Introduction to Google Gadgets

In This Chapter

• Taking a look at the available Google Gadgets

• Assembling the gadgets into your own personal creation

• Making gadgets work for you

• Putting Google on your desktop

Google's capability to supply and configure information is what makes it the dominant force on the Internet that it is. In addition to the search functions and applications Google provides, it offers the ability to customize and tweak that information and these services into exactly what the user wants. This information isn't just available on Google's standard home page, though. Google offers information and functionality through a series of small programs called gadgets, which users can discover, modify, and embed in their own home pages and elsewhere. Better still, these users can create their own gadgets and spread them to the home pages of other users.

Exploring the Gadget Directory

Whether you're using an individual account or a Google Apps domain start page, you have an impressive selection of Google Gadgets available to you. These gadgets can be installed anywhere on your page just by dragging and dropping, and you can arrange them into different tabs as you want. First, though, let's take a look at what's available in the main directory.

The Gadget directory may look a little different, depending on whether you access it through iGoogle or Google Apps. Still, the same gadgets are available to either view. Click the Add Stuff link on the homepage of either service ...