It’s been a long while since I found anything to improve my web browsing habits, but I have quickly incorporated One Tab into my daily routine. Like many folks, I tend to keep a million tabs open. One Tab, a free Chrome extension, will collapse all my open browser tabs into one tab, which will open into a list of “open” pages. I find it much easier to navigate this list than the row of tabs, and it can instantly restore any tab. So I have all the open tabs I want, without having a bunch of open tabs. Extremely clean and simple. – KK
The Library Extension has changed how I find and borrow ebooks. While browsing Amazon or Goodreads, this browser add-on indicates whether a book is available at my local library. With a simple click on the "borrow" button, the book is sent directly to my Kindle. It requires only a library account to use. (Screenshot) — MF
This three-minute video explains how those annoying “I’m not a robot” reCAPTCHA checkbox tests work. It turns out the checkbox itself is not the test at all, but rather it’s your mouse movements and browsing history that give away your humanity. The video is full of surprising facts about these “completely automated public Turing tests.” For instance, I learned spammers pay workers as as little as $1.00 per thousand tests to solve CAPTCHAs. — MF
View a Sunset at virtually any time of the day with Sunset.funwebsite.fun. This website will connect you to livestreams and webcams all over the world and tell you how many minutes have passed before or after sunset. It’s fascinating to look at this in the morning as my day is just beginning. I feel connected to far-off parts of the Earth. — CD
In this article on navigating content overload, Jorge Medina outlines the importance of having a personal curation system. His premise is “You’re not lacking creativity, you’re overwhelmed” and talks about the concept of digital hoarding and how the overwhelming amount of internet content can lead to decision fatigue. He recommends being intentional about your curation system and using a framework like CODE, which stands for:
Capture - Keep what resonates
Organize - Save for actionability
Distill - Find the essence
Express - Show your work
For me, the whole point of collecting links and keeping tabs open is for inspiration and to learn something new, so I really appreciate this reminder. As far as a “tool” goes, I’m still really happy with my OneTab recommendation from two years ago, and highly recommend it to organize your tab clutter. — CD
I’ve been using the new Readwise Reader as a repository for all my digital highlights. As an added bonus for users, there is a Weekly Wisereads newsletter that gives me the most highlighted content across the internet. That goes beyond just articles and includes the most highlighted YouTube video, Twitter thread, PDF or handpicked RSS feeds. The newsletter has also been gifting away free EPUBS by notable authors to add to your Reader. I’m an avid user of my Readwise highlighting app, so I really appreciate reading what everyone else is highlighting and reflecting on. — CD
Alex Kurtev, writer of the Rabbit Ideas newsletter, has compiled a list of 100+ lesser known but useful websites. I’m not done exploring all of them, but thanks to the list I discovered a search engine for PDFs and free ebooks called PDF Drive, and WikiArt, a visual art encyclopedia where you can search artworks by genre, media and style. — CD
I just discovered the more helpful way to dig through my search history — Chrome Journeys. If you use Chrome (desktop only), and go to chrome://history/journeys, you’ll see your past search results have been grouped up by a topic you searched or a parent site that led you on a path to other sites. There’s even recommended related keywords that will help you continue on your search. Learn more about it here. — CD
Sharkle is a random-content discovery tool, like StumbleUpon used to be when it was around. I don’t really have time to bounce around the internet for fun, but I like to click on the “Show Me Something Awesome” when I’m briefly bored. Today it took me through this really cool Rainbow Tunnel! — CD
I use OneTab to close and save all the open tabs that I have an emotional attachment to, but that eat up memory. OneTab is a free chrome extension that converts all my open tabs into a list of links that I can later restore individually or as a group. I love that I can drag and group links and then name them, as well as share them as a webpage like this. The only inconvenience is that my OneTab doesn’t sync across devices, but after a day of working on one device, I just email myself the webpage of closed tabs and that works well enough for me. — CD
The latest version of the Chrome browser enables you to link to a specific word/phrase/sentence within a web page, rather than just linking the entire page. You can focus attention on just the right text. Right click on the desired text section while in Chrome and select “Copy Link to Highlight. More details here. You need Chrome to create a deep link or to view one. — KK
There are at least 10 alternative search engines to Google, each with a different emphasis, such as better privacy, or non-linear displays, or long-tail results. Recently I’ve been using Neeva as my default search app. (It has a Chrome extension that makes it the default in the browser.) It offers a different business model: a subscription without ads. So unlike Google these days, I get only answers and no long list of camouflaged ads to skim over. I would say the answers are comparable to Google so far. Right now Neeva is free, but will be about $5/month once out of beta. I will be happy to pay for it, or until Google offers a ad-free subscription option. — KK
The MarineTraffic website blows my mind. It’s a live world map that shows thousands of ships around the world — from pleasure crafts and fishing vessels to container ships. Clicking on an icon reveals a photo of the ship and information about it. (Thanks to Doc Searls, who told me about the site.) — MF
An under-appreciated Google search trick is to focus your search by excluding all unwanted alternative meanings — you append a minus sign in front of the term(s), as in < dolphins -miami > for non football dolphins or < orange -color -telecom > for the fruit. — KK
Use Push to Kindle to send any webpage you are on (phone or laptop) to your Kindle by clicking one button. Free, no registration, available on all platforms. — KK
Tab Snooze is a free chrome extension that has replaced my Pocket subscription. I can save articles, videos or any webpage and schedule it to reopen as a browser tab whenever I want. Which works better for me because it was always too easy to forget the articles I saved in Pocket. — CD
Notion is a simple-to-use wiki for making instant web pages. I didn’t need to learn how to use it. I just started typing on a blank page. It’s so much better than dealing with HTML and CSS! I use the free version, which has everything I need for now. I used it to create this recipe page for almond flour bread. — MF
Change Case is a Chrome extension that enables keyboard shortcuts to convert text to UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case, Title Case, etc. It fulfills a very specific need, but I found I was spending enough time retyping text or using sites like Convert Case, so this a definite time saver. — CD
Google’s .new domains are exclusively reserved for action-based shortcuts, like doc.new for creating a new Google Doc. And now there’s a growing list of companies who have created easy-to-remember shortcuts for things you might already do. Like “story.new” to create a new post on Medium or “sell.new” to create a new listing on eBay. For the up-to-date list check out this page. — CD
I’ve been using my Pocket extension less and this Link Drop Chrome extension more. If there is an article or webpage that I want to check out, this bookmark tool helps to ensure I get to it before the end of the day. Every link I save gets emailed back to me at 3PM that same day as a reminder. You can change the “drop time” to whatever works for you. — CD