Digital Streets

Whatever URL you set for your web browser’s home page ends up being the page you will see most often, since it will come up each and every time you fire up your browser.  However, if you’re like me, this can be counterproductive.  For instance, I have Gmail as my designated home page, using the logic that I will always need to check my email.  While this can be useful for keeping my email account managed, it does little for helping me manage my unread items in Google Reader or catching up on the latest tweets from the Tech-Recipes crew.  No matter what I use as my home page ends up causing neglect of the other important pages.  Using multiple home pages doesn’t solve the problem as I am usually distracted by the site on the front tab, still neglecting the others.

The solution I found is at URLSplit.  What URLSplit does is generate a single URL that will split the hits among a list of websites (up to 7) that you designate.

At first, I was without a clue as to how such a feature could be used, then I started analyzing my browser activity.  Once I noticed how often the home page takes my attention off of other sites, I decided to try URLSplit as a solution.

It’s easy to get your url, simply create your account, input the sites and click the Create My New URL button.

As an example, let’s say I want to keep tabs on my regular email account, junk email account, Twitter, and Google Reader.  Since I have 7 slots but only 4 sites, I can put the most important sites in more than once.  For this example, I put Gmail in 3 times, Google Reader in twice and the other two are only single entries.

After I have input all of the addresses, clicking the Create My New URL will take me to a page with my new url on it.

By copying this address as the new home page for my browser, I now have my important sites coming up at varying frequencies.  Each time I open my browser (or hit the button that takes me to my home page) I will go to a different url from the list I generated.