For a while now I’ve been using my personalised Google page as my non-work browser home page. It’s something that’s just crept up on me – I’ll just wonder whether there’s a gadget to do “x”, and of course, there is.

It’s now replaced my RSS reader (BlogLines; for quite some time now). I’d tried Google’s Reader but found it too clunky and heavy to use, but iGoogle (what’s they’ve recently badged their personalised Google home page) loads up my home page within about 5-10 seconds on my slow home computer, which is pretty good considering it’s pulling in 22 gadgets, many of which reference outside feeds.

My iGoogle home page aggregates all of my scattered personal things (Flickr, Del.icio.us, GMail, blog – well, those that I care about at the moment), news feeds, comic feeds, podcasts, weather and eBay lookups, and all the Google services I use (GMail, Documents & Spreadsheets, Notepad and occasionally Calendar).

And that’s just on the first tab. With them all minimised it still all fits comfortably on my preferred 800×600 browser size (I don’t like full screen windows. Go figure).

My other tab contains various tools I find useful for work and/or home. I even end up using them half the time instead of using apps and shell commands on the host PC.

My iGoogle tools current include IP Address lookup and other domain/DNS tools, calculator, dictionary, translator, Doc to PDF converter, and maps. In particular the domain/networking tools regularly get a good workout.