NetVibes
– this free dashboard (there is a premium version as well, but a free
version is available to home users) offers many of the features you are
looking for. Start by going to netvibes.com. You’ll be asked if you are
a business or and individual – select I’m Just Me.
Or choose to fill out some basic information.
You’ll need to reply to an e-mail confirming your new account and then you’ll be taken to the NetVibes dashboard.
You’ll be happy to see the Google search box front and center and the weather.
You can customize the location.
There’s also an e-mail wizard to help set up access to your e-mail accounts.
It’s easy to add access to various social media accounts and to eBay.
There are a wide range of financial and news widgets and apps available to add, there’s one for Wikipedia as well.
There’s a wide variety of themes available. You can customize your theme or choose themes created by other users.
I
was able to set up a customized weather app, e-mail, a Google finance
news feed and a Wikipedia app in about five minutes, plus change themes.
One
nice feature is the ability to create tabs for different topics or
apps. For example you could choose to create a Finance tab to follow
multiple financial news sources.
Or create a tab to follow news feeds about a particular topic you want to track
