I went over to the new continent of Northrend and ran around for a little to take a look at some of the new content.

Here’s me pulling into Valiance Keep:

It was pretty cool to see chunks of ice floating in the water as you were pulling in.

Tip:  Don’t forget to train for your all your professions.  I was able to find some new herbs when I was running around.  All of the profession trainers are right around the keep.

They have a new “fog” feature that I don’t really care for.  Check it out:

Well at least I think it’s supposed to be fog… The way the fog just framed the screen in a circle looked pretty cheesy to me.  It looks more like how it should if you were in a dream state.  I think it would have looked better if it were an entire overlay of fog like what happens when you get drunk and everything gets blurry.  It was a nice try, but I don’t think they pulled it off so well.

I also created a new Draenei Death Knight.  They look fierce!  I found it funny that it was like 5:00 am in the U.S. when I was playing and there were like 20 new Death Knights running around.  Here is me posing with the Lich King (look carefully, I’m hidden!):

Everything surrounding the death knight is just creepy!  Look at the creepy looking Scourge Gryphons:

When you get on your Acherus Deathcharger, it makes this eerie screaming noise.  I love it!

They have some new unique quests, not just the usual find and kill quests hat was much needed variety to keep me playing.  I’m looking forward to trying out the new PvP stuff as well.  If you never played World of Warcraft before, now is a good time to start.  The hype is worth it.  If you’ve been playing for a while and was bored with it like me, the new expansion is worth a try.  I know it will at least keep me in the game for at least another 4-6 months.  That’s how they getcha!

Here’s my setup and my favorite gadgets:

Theme
I’m using the Studio Ghibli theme.  I love Miyazaki, Hayao films!  This theme changes throughout the day and displays many of my favorite characters.  Shown below is Naushika from Kaze No Tani No Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind). They have many other great themes to choose from to spice up the look of your iGoogle setup.
I organize all of my gadgets by creating tabs for each of these categories: Home, Lists, Personal, and Business.

Home Tab
My home tab is the first thing I see when I open Google.  I use it to display items that I use most often.  I like to get a quick look at this first thing in the morning.  I can see what is happening in the news and the stock market without a lot of clicking around.  I can also check for new emails and see if I have any appointments that day.

Lists Tab
My lists tab is used to help me keep track of any short term tasks I need to take care of.  I use the To-Do List gadget shown below.

You can drag and drop the tasks to reorder them as well as assign low (3), medium (2), and high (1) priorities.  I also like that you can print from this list.  There is also a Google Maps feature, but I haven’t had the need for it yet.

Personal and Business Tabs
My personal and business tabs are used to keep track of all my random notes.  I use the Google Bookmarks gadget on these tabs to keep track of any websites I want to check out later. You can assign categories to your links and set the gadget to only show one of your categories for each tab.  For example I saved the following bookmarks to my “Personal” category and selected it from the drop down box to only show those links on the Personal tab.

I am also using the Sticky Note gadget.  It works like post-its!  I like this tool a lot because I can quickly jot my thoughts down like a paper post-it, but it’s a lot more organized.  My notes are categorized by whichever tab they belong to.
On the personal tab, I keep notes about things like when my magazine subscriptions are ending and how many frequent flyer miles I have.  On my business tab I keep notes about business ideas and articles I plan to write in the future for my blogs.

Here is another similar tool called the Web Stickies Mod v3.1 gadget. I used to use this one instead of the Google version because I liked how you could place them anywhere and they overlap.  It broke when I upgraded to Firefox 3 though and I’m not sure if it was ever fixed.  I guess that is one of the risks you take when you don’t use one of the gadgets by Google.

Gadgets List
Here are the links to all my favorite gadgets.

• Google News by Google
• Google Finance Portfolios by Google
• Google Calendar by Google
• Gmail By Google
• Weather By Google
• World Clocks By Jerome Mouton
• Google Bookmarks By Bas Hennekam
• Google Reader By Google
• Currency Converter By Rick van Twillert and Creatonic
• To-Do List with Google Maps By Mahin
• Web Stickies Mod v3.1 By Bonstio
• Sticky Note By Google

Although these tools are really great, they can sometimes break.  I usually only add gadgets that have good ratings by the users or created by Google.  Also make sure you check out the iGoogle backup and restore features.  This has saved me a few times.

I’m curious to know what your favorite gadgets are and how you use them.  If you’re new to iGoogle, give it a try!

How to set up iGoogle: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25551