On Safari, it's TopSites. On Firefox, it's HN (used to be Digg). The only time I ever really hit the home page is when I reboot, which isn't all that often.
I set http://www.google.com/ig as my home page, but I set "When Firefox starts" to "Show a blank page". This way I don't get distracted all the time, but I can hit Alt+Home to go to my home page quickly.
The Firefox distinction between start page and home page is one of the coolest things about the browser (maybe other browsers have it too, I've never bothered to check). I have Gmail has my homepage but blank page on startup. Hitting Alt+Home takes practically no time, and I'd rather spend the time myself when I want to then have to pay the time every time I start my browser whether I want to go to my mail or not.
Using the keyword/quick search feature I find the url bar becomes a kind of command line interface to the internet with a series of 1-3 char commands that can get me where I need to go.
Actually what I typically do when I open Firefox is open a folder called "Morning" and at the bottom select "Open All in Tabs". That way I see everything I care about (HN included).
I used to have firefox open with tens of tabs, now I make it a point to keep it at 6. If I open anything I make sure to read it right then and there, or make a judgment call to pass; if it's something I will need later I look at the title and abstract out some googleable keywords. Lately, Searchyc has replaced google for me for research!
I also try to keep active work and research on two separate browsers. I have an instance of Opera open to API documentation and stuff I need to get work done. Firefox is for business and keeping a look on industry.
I use Sage, the FF feed-reader plugin and I monitor business news; no tech, no programming, no blogs, just business announcements, mergers and acquisitions and stuff related to my work. Whenever I start to lose focus, I take a few hours off to read that and I am inspired immediately. I am in advertising, focused on a specific geographic region, so any business initiative there, new project or whatever is just perfect news :-)
I use Chrome and Firefox. I keep work related sites in Firefox, and personal sites in Chrome.
I'll often open tabs of interesting things in Chrome to read when I lose focus at work, or need a break. Sometimes I can have up to 30 tabs of crap, at which point I need to decide which ones I'll actually read, and which one's I think I'll read, then close all but the ones I know I'll actually read.
If I have to read a lot of interrelated articles or am doing personal research, I'll pull a Chrome tab out and keep it as a separate window.
The thing I love about Chrome is that with the "restore pages that were last open" option is that it opens all tabs in all windows, not just the main window, and if for some reason it doesn't reopen all the tabs, it has a list of recently closed tab groups you can open with a single click.
Wow, thank you so much for that comment. I've been so annoyed with how long it was taking to open a new tab in Safari because of the 3D eye candy top sites thing, but changing it to a blank page has made it infinitely faster.
I use Google now, but I used to use a custom-made start page. It had:
* an auto-focus search bar linked to Google
* a bunch of links to my most-visited sites
* the current snapshot from one of my university's webcams
(which will auto-refresh if you hovered your mouse on it)
* a little area for a note to myself that I could edit with a password
http://watrcoolr.us/ -- one of epi0Bauqu's projects. I think the UI is very appealing to those of us who prefer to focus on exactly one thing at a time. And hate clutter. And like to use the keyboard.
My Backpackit.com Inbox. I've been implementing a bit of GTD task management in my life and having this page pop-up first thing (and stay up all day) has been very helpful.
66 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] threadfirefox with tabkit and when I open a new window it is likely I am starting a new thread of thought
^n new window with focus in url bar no time for loading or change of focus I want to get started
readline style emacs bindings for editing in the url is a must for me
a good set of quick searches helps
Using the keyword/quick search feature I find the url bar becomes a kind of command line interface to the internet with a series of 1-3 char commands that can get me where I need to go.Meanwhile, IE is busy doing some of that large amounts of nothing that big programs like to do, and loading the homepage.
When it finishes, it refreshes the address bar all over what I was typing.
When I use about:blank, this doesn't happen.
Actually what I typically do when I open Firefox is open a folder called "Morning" and at the bottom select "Open All in Tabs". That way I see everything I care about (HN included).
I used to have firefox open with tens of tabs, now I make it a point to keep it at 6. If I open anything I make sure to read it right then and there, or make a judgment call to pass; if it's something I will need later I look at the title and abstract out some googleable keywords. Lately, Searchyc has replaced google for me for research!
I also try to keep active work and research on two separate browsers. I have an instance of Opera open to API documentation and stuff I need to get work done. Firefox is for business and keeping a look on industry.
I use Sage, the FF feed-reader plugin and I monitor business news; no tech, no programming, no blogs, just business announcements, mergers and acquisitions and stuff related to my work. Whenever I start to lose focus, I take a few hours off to read that and I am inspired immediately. I am in advertising, focused on a specific geographic region, so any business initiative there, new project or whatever is just perfect news :-)
I use Chrome and Firefox. I keep work related sites in Firefox, and personal sites in Chrome.
I'll often open tabs of interesting things in Chrome to read when I lose focus at work, or need a break. Sometimes I can have up to 30 tabs of crap, at which point I need to decide which ones I'll actually read, and which one's I think I'll read, then close all but the ones I know I'll actually read.
If I have to read a lot of interrelated articles or am doing personal research, I'll pull a Chrome tab out and keep it as a separate window.
The thing I love about Chrome is that with the "restore pages that were last open" option is that it opens all tabs in all windows, not just the main window, and if for some reason it doesn't reopen all the tabs, it has a list of recently closed tab groups you can open with a single click.
When I have time and it's not a stub, or if I just want something to do, I read some of the article. A few times it's been interesting.
Why delay the inevitable?
So far it has been pretty successful.
I haven't seen the homepage in months, I think it's still that default "welcome to Ubuntu" page but I really have no clue.