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Click “play” above to see me demonstrate how the Readability bookmarklet works with Evernote to create clean web clips without having to manually take out a bunch of garbage (blog comments, ads, etc.). Then, head on over to the Readability setup page to get yourself the bookmarklet!
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Google Chrome is one of those programs that has been around for a while, but when you first tried it, you weren’t that crazy about it. It was somewhat buggy, it didn’t have any type of customization available, and you couldn’t block ads. As much as I wanted to make the switch (being the Google nutjob that I am), I couldn’t do it without a few features that just weren’t available:
1. I needed ads blocked. Period. Even most of them would be sufficient.
2. Add-ons. I want to be able to customize it.
3. A way to integrate my Google Bookmarks so that I can use them like regular bookmarks.
Then one day a couple months ago, I heard that extensions were finally hitting the mainstream. Google Chrome Extensions were a great idea, but you needed to download Chromium, which was the “guinea pig” version of Chrome (which means it doesn’t always work properly), and you had to do a lot of nerdy command-line work to get it up and running. It wasn’t pretty. Once one-click extension support came around, it was time to dive back in.
Now, a few months later, I couldn’t be happier.
Hey, Firefox is a great product. Go ahead and download it if you’d like. It’s stable and it’s popular. But Firefox is very prone to bloatedness. After a while, it takes forever to load Firefox. Chrome just pops right up. It just feels light. Check out the screencast I took below of a comparison between a Firefox start and a Chrome start and you will see what I mean. The little box that pops up in the middle is Launchy, which is my application launcher. In layman’s terms, the box pops up and I start typing the name of the program. When the box disappears, that means I hit “enter” and the application is starting. First I try opening Firefox, then Chrome. Check it out:
If you time it, Firefox takes a full 7 seconds to load up for use, and Chrome takes about 1/2 a second – that means Chrome, in this situation, is 14 times faster loading!
Interested yet? Here are my full reasons why you should give Chrome a chance:
Okay, okay – enough gushing. Time to get into the nuts-and-bolts: how do you set this thing up? Remember – it needs to do all the stuff that my awesome Firefox setup could do.
This is easily the most complicated part of the process, but it’s not that hard, really. Without a true contender to the ad-blocking throne, the best way to do it, in my experience, has been through a program called Privoxy. There’s a 7-step process to it that is awesomely-simplified in this post by Lifehacker and Geekzone. Just follow it, step-by-step, and you’re done. Bada bing.
Remember from my Firefox setup, I make full use of bookmarklets – little bookmarks that can do some awesome things in your Bookmarks Toolbar. I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to open up a Firefox window next to your Chrome window and literally drag your bookmarklets from Firefox and drop them into the Chrome toolbar. If you don’t have that, here are links to my bookmarklets and what they do. Instead of clicking on the link, just drag it up to your Bookmarks Toolbar:
Like Firefox plugins, these add-ons help you further customize your browsing experience. There are plenty out there, so feel free to browse around. Here are mine:
No complicated Greasemonkey stuff. Just click “Install” on these bad boys:
Am I preaching to the choir? Do you already use Chrome? What are your favorite extensions/scripts? Why should we encourage more Chrome usage? If you’re a diehard Firefox user and you’re not convinced, tell us why. If you’re an Internet Explorer advocate, seek help immediately – we cannot help you here.
Time for another edition of Big Pile o’ Links, where I feature some of my favorite links and groups of articles from all over the wonderful world we call “The Internet”:
Ah, Evernote. It’s one of the most useful and versatile programs/cloud storage ever, and yet so few Cooler People use it. It’s not just for tech bloggers and people with lots of crap to write about – it’s also incredibly useful for normal people in their day-to-day lives. I use mine every day, and I can’t tell you how useful it has been at the office, at home, or even running around. Here are some great links from recent times that list a bunch of great, easy ways you can start using Evernote more often in your life:
Job got you down? Feel like you’re headed the wrong way? Here are a handful of great articles (and one AWESOME documentary!) to help you make some changes:
It makes the world go ‘round. Here’s a quick handful of resources to further your knowledge on the subject:
Phew! There you go! Another Big Pile o’ Links for your pleasure. If you have an article or site or tool or whatever that you want featured in the Big Pile o’ Links, send it my way at tom@thepracticalnerd.com (it doesn’t have to be yours either, just something you like!).
No, this isn’t going to be another debate on why I like my Zune better than the iPod. Today, we’re all together: we are owners of portable media players. And it’s not just limited to us: there are those who were more economical and chose simpler, non-brand-name media players, and even some that use their mobile phones, such as their Blackberry or Droid, to carry around music and video.
In any case, the main reason we got these things was music. We love us some music, right? Heck, even the option to carry around some video is pretty cool too (if we can). But our little media players can do us one better, and I learned it while I was sitting at a desk.
Recently, I took upon a rather boring desk job to pay a few bills (one being this giant party I’m throwing next October). This job basically entails staring at a computer screen and answering customer service emails for 8 hours a day, second shift. It ain’t glamorous, I’ll tell you that right now. But while there, I realized that I needed brain stimulation if I wanted any chance of surviving this job.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve got a Microsoft Zune. While putzing around on the Zune Marketplace, I started perusing the podcasts. I’d always thought about grabbing a podcast – after all, they seem to be pretty popular, but I never really knew anybody that listened to them. I figured this would be a good chance to try a few out.
Holy cow. I should be kicking myself for not trying this years ago.
Think about all the time you spend doing mindless activities: driving a car, sitting at work (for some of us), cleaning the house, working out, etc. There are about a billion different times of day when we could be putting our brain to good use. Enter the podcast. Here are a few cool reasons to start loading up:
A podcast, for those of you who have gotten this far and still don’t know what they are, is essentially a radio show. For some podcasters out there, it’s adapted from their actual radio show. For others, it’s like their blog on steroids – interviews, audio clips, and special content can be found on their podcasts. What kinds of stuff can you find out there? Anything.
After some trial and error, I’ve hammered down the podcasts I look forward to listening to every day (links go to the RSS feed address to add to your podcasting software):
There are tons more out there, from comedy to Christian, food to music. Go search around, either in your iTunes, Zune Marketplace, or even Google. You’ll find some good stuff.
One way is through your media software. The iTunes Store and the Zune Marketplace both have dedicated sections to podcasts. If you don’t use either of those, there is another very popular option: Juice.
Juice is a cross-platform podcast subscriber that organizes your podcasts and syncs them up with your media player of choice (or, if you want, you can just play them through the software).
Podcasts give your brain a little food to work with. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. After all, learning is an ongoing process throughout your life. Why not give it a try? Do you have any favorite podcasts you want to recommend? Let’s hear about it in the comments!
Tweet Humor: 10 Twitter Users That Crack Us Up [Mashable]
Twitter can be a very educational place, whereby following the right individual or brand, you can learn from their tweets. In fact, we’ve already highlighted usability experts, entrepreneurs, authors (fiction and nonfiction), environmentalists, foodies, and musicians that we think are must follows. But Twitter can also be a medium ripe with humor and capable of making the masses laugh with a single tweet that resonates throughout the Twittersphere. So now it’s time to a take a more comedic turn, and point out 10 LOL-inducing Twitter accounts that break the monotony of our work days, add spice to our weekends, and make Twitter a more entertaining place to be with their colorful characters.
Twitter can be a very educational place, whereby following the right individual or brand, you can learn from their tweets. In fact, we’ve already highlighted usability experts, entrepreneurs, authors (fiction and nonfiction), environmentalists, foodies, and musicians that we think are must follows.
But Twitter can also be a medium ripe with humor and capable of making the masses laugh with a single tweet that resonates throughout the Twittersphere. So now it’s time to a take a more comedic turn, and point out 10 LOL-inducing Twitter accounts that break the monotony of our work days, add spice to our weekends, and make Twitter a more entertaining place to be with their colorful characters.
Do You Make These 5 Common Mistakes When Switching To A More Positive Attitude? [The Positivity Blog]
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice” Wayne Dyer “For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else” Winston Churchill If you are reading this then there is good chance that you agree with me that positivity is pretty awesome. But it is not always easy to adopt a more positive attitude and there are some pitfalls. So today I’d like to share a few mistakes that I have made in this area and that I think are fairly common.
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice” Wayne Dyer
“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else” Winston Churchill
If you are reading this then there is good chance that you agree with me that positivity is pretty awesome. But it is not always easy to adopt a more positive attitude and there are some pitfalls. So today I’d like to share a few mistakes that I have made in this area and that I think are fairly common.
14 Ways a Notebook In Your Pocket Can Save You Money [The Simple Dollar]
Melinda writes in: “You constantly write about how having a notebook in your pocket all the time helps you in life and saves you money. I get that you can write down your ideas in it all the time, but I’m not a creative type. I don’t see how having a notebook on me at all times can save me money at all.” Aside from the fact that I’m able to use the notebook to write down my ideas – my career’s bread and butter – a pocket notebook constantly comes in handy for many other financial reasons as well. (FYI, I usually just keep a simple small Mead reporter’s notebook in my pocket, along with a good pen that doesn’t run out of ink.) Here are fourteen ways I use that notebook to directly save money.
Melinda writes in:
“You constantly write about how having a notebook in your pocket all the time helps you in life and saves you money. I get that you can write down your ideas in it all the time, but I’m not a creative type. I don’t see how having a notebook on me at all times can save me money at all.”
Aside from the fact that I’m able to use the notebook to write down my ideas – my career’s bread and butter – a pocket notebook constantly comes in handy for many other financial reasons as well. (FYI, I usually just keep a simple small Mead reporter’s notebook in my pocket, along with a good pen that doesn’t run out of ink.) Here are fourteen ways I use that notebook to directly save money.
Glue Suggests Movies, Music, and More [Lifehacker]
Once you sign up for a Glue Account, you can begin flagging things you like to build a profile of tastes. What kind of things? Glue can suggest books, music, movies, video games, wine, artists, and movie stars. You can log in using Facebook or Twitter and Glue will not only suggest items based on your own tastes but on the tastes of your friends.
