I believe that one of the most under appreciated technologies available are web cam feeds. No I am not talking about two people sitting at a computer talking to each other. Instead, I mean the feeds that give you a live look at places around the world. Now we can even view these feeds all through the iGoogle page, thanks to My Webcam(Auto Refresh).

Now let me get the most blatantly obvious downside of My Webcam(Auto Refresh) right out of the way. It does indeed slow down your iGoogle page significantly. You will notice that your iGoogle page is constantly loading the new images. While you can edit the time between refresh, I remedied this by creating a tab dedicated to these live web cams feeds. It is really quite a marvel to be looking at a live feed of Paris in one eye and the New York Skyline in another. In fact that tab has turned into my eye into the world. I would highly suggest it.

It is fairly simple to get the My Webcam(Auto Refresh) gadget set to your favorite feed. Just go to the gadget settings and insert the URL of the Webcam feed. This is easily obtainable if you are using Firefox. To get the URL just right click and select copy image location.

So if you can get past the inherit slowdown of your iGoogle page, I highly suggest looking at the worldly views available through the My Webcam(Auto Refresh) gadget.

As I write this article it is a blizzard outside. There is not a single sign of life visible. Needless to say this can lead to that winter dreary that most everyone experiences. So like all mental illnesses, I resort to my iGoogle page for a cure. Once again Google gadgets pulls through and give me Flowers of the Day.

Let me just say that I love flowers. I am not the least bit shamed of admitting it. So when I came across the Flowers of the Day gadget I was fairly excited. It delivered with its name. I definitely got pictures of flowers. The gadget features a slide show of pictures of flowers. There appears to be a large supply of photos, because I have yet to see a repeat. My only complaint with the pictures is that they tend to be a little to artistic for my tastes. I just prefer simple pictures flowers.

As far as Gadget implementation goes, Flowers of the Day falls short. About half of the gadget consists of the actual sideshow itself. The rest is ads and empty space. I know to a lot of iGoogle masters this may seem like a sin, but to a casual iGoogle page user this may be an alright trade off. For me this gadget gave me just enough of that good weather feeling to get me through the snowstorm.