Lately I seldom have accessed the same computer from day to day, and hence my interest for online applications is expanding (See Free SoftwareFor the New Year). I have been considering having a dedicated usb-stick loaded with software and my firefox settings. However an accidental stumble upon www.yourminis.com a couple days ago, and after testing it since then I am thoroughly pleased with it.
Your Minis is a highly customizable and completely GUI based virtual and personal desktop(s). YourMinis is comparable to Mac OS X’s Dashboard, or the widgets of Konfabulator that I used before the days of Tiger. But you are not limited to one desktop, although each is actually called tabs. You can customize several tabs for each of your desires. If you are really a high roller there is a nice overview feature allowing you to be able to quickly access the desktop (or tab), which you would like to access.
For me the most important features was a way to be able to bookmark sites I visited, especially without having to install firefox or other bookmarking plugins on each new computer I ended up with on any random day. In addition, it saves me having to put various notes in webmail drafts, giving you the features of notepads or text editors. Very nice to-do lists as well as the usual weather are some of your utilities.
On the other hand it can be used as a multimedia and news aggregator, allowing you to add any rss feed you please, with some nice interaction with Del.icio.us and Digg. You are also notified when you receive new mails in perhaps your GMail or yahoo! inbox, or you can set up POP.
Above you can see my “Fun†tab; here there are possibilities to add YouTube movies to your desktop, as well as adding an mp3-player, that plays mp3s when you provide the links, or XSPF playlists. (It should really support some more formats than those two, but it’s still a cool feature. You can add comics, like the Dilbert strip, which would update each day.
Since YourMinis speaks for itself, I am not going to write much more instead, you can watch a PodTech video interview with one of the guys in Goowy, the company behind yourminis. For an in depth review you can also check out: Personalized Home Page Meets Virtual Desktop: YourMinis.
Hi Stephen,
I’m one of the developers working on yourminis, and I just wanted to say thanks for the positive review of our site. There are a couple other features I’d like to point out in case you missed them:
1. Firefox plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3808/
This cool little add-on is great for transparently overlaying yourminis pages over whatever website you’re currently on. It also allows you to interact with the page by pulling off photos, videos, rss feeds, and more.
2. Published pages: You can make any of your tabs into a public page for others to view. Check out http://dir.yourminis.com for our public pages directory.
Also, if you have any other suggestions, let us know at forums.yourminis.com. Thanks again!
Thanks so much for your support….we are glad you are enjoying yourminis. We just released a new feature where you can publish individual minis on your blog / personal page / myspace etc…
Try it by configuring a mini and then clicking the drop down to select copy to web - that will give you the specific mini embed code….
- Alex
Thanks to you both Alext and Hart for taking time to personally comment here.
I really enjoy the concept, and will look into the firefox plugin as well as the embedding possibilities. Until further though, the solution is working great as my virtual online desktop : )
I found these guys some time ago late last year.
It’s a pretty good service, which I use to push my ‘blog with…
Yeah, I am actually a couple months late, after they went live in October I believe. But I’m guessing the positive side of the wait means some of the bumps and bugs are smoothed out slightly since then : )
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