I am going through yet another change of my browser habbits. Take a look at the screenshot below, and I’ll explain what I mean further down.
There are two things to notice here.
Firstly, I’ve changed the way I use the bookmark area or “Personal Toolbar Folder”, as it is called. I used to have there links to websites that I visit very often, like Google and Bloglines. For some reason, the number of sites that I need quick access to have increased recently. So, all of my quicky bookmarks weren’t fitting the area.
Here’s what I did. I left the bookmarklets as they were. Bookmarklets are those special bookmarks that allow me to actually do something with the page that I am viewing. Currently, I have four bookmarklets up there:
- Bookmark – bookmark current page at my del.icio.us.
- Subscribe – find RSS or Atom feeds in the current page, and let me add them to my Bloglines account.
- Email – send the URL (with optional quote) of the current page via GMail.
- Blog – edit the post for this blog with URL (and optional quote) to current page.
The rest of the stuff I separated into two folders:
- Quickies, which contains links to a few websites and webservices that visit often. Most of my Google services are in there, as are links that I need for work.
- Projects, which contains links to my blogs, their administration interfaces, and the like.
This setup works very well for me. I can still access stuff very fast. And I still have plenty of real estate on my bookmark area. I’m not even using the half of it yet.
Second browser habbit that I’ve changed recently has to do with open tabs. I used to have one tab open at all times – my feed subscriptions at Bloglines. When I read any items and want to open original website, I use middle mouse button to open a link in the new tab.
With my recent constant use of GMail and Google Calendar, I realized that I have three tabs open. And I use only Bloglines one to launch new tabs. And every time I do, I have to jump from Bloglines tab, across GMail and Google Calendar, to a new tab, and then go back again.
Too far to travel. So what I did was reordered my tabs a bit. Now both GMail and Google Calendar are the left-most tabs, and Bloglines follows them. While I am still getting used to the setup, I can feel the productivity difference already.
So, what are your browser habbits and when was the last time you changed something about them?