Oct. 19--Sometimes the information highway seems like a six-lane expressway with no exit.

We've evolved from occasionally checking an e-mail account to a hyper-connected state where we constantly check messages, send out tweets via Twitter, and follow friends and contacts on Facebook and other social networking sites. We try to keep up with a steady stream of blog posts, videos, updated Web sites and more.

But there are ways to streamline the ride. Web surfers can handle these multiple information streams without having to leapfrog from site to site -- and maybe even have a little spare time to go offline for a while.

Personalized Web pages are nothing new -- there's iGoogle and Yahoo personalized pages, where users can add their Facebook and Flickr accounts to the mix. But a handful of personal Web portals take it up a notch -- enabling the user to read and post to Twitter, follow Facebook updates, check e-mail and much more on one easy-to-read Web page, which can be accessed from any computer or mobile device.

Netvibes and Pageflakes are two that are easy to set up and use. On both, embedded Facebook and Twitter windows enable the user to follow their accounts without leaving to log on to those sites. People also can check their regular e-mail accounts.

Pageflakes (www.pageflakes.com) offers a wide array of add-on widgets. There are "flakes" the user can add, enabling them to follow radio and TV stations, monitor Web site traffic, track eBay auctions and Netflix movie rentals, and more. They can create additional pages beyond their home Pageflakes page that can be used to organize favorite blogs and publications by topic. The Universal News Search feature searches multiple news services and delivers stories of interest to the reader's personal page. There are basic tools, like a calendar, to-do list and weather updates.

Netvibes (www.netvibes.com) has similar features. It tracks news and RSS feeds and lets the user link to podcasts (updated episodes appear on the Netvibes home page). Users can create a public page for others to follow.

Other personal Web sites include Pagezz and Zooloo. ZooLoo (www.zooloo.com), currently in beta, pull together perennial favorites iTunes, eBay, Craigslist and more, along with popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

In addition to gathering news feeds and blog posts, Pagezz (http://pagezz.com) has useful basic tools such as a unit converter and calculator, weather and stock quotes. It lets users track Web site statistics through sources such as Alexa, Quantcast and others.