November 19, 2009
Dear Clusterflock
What length of time was the longest you had a tab up on your browser, before eventually closing it? How long do tabs typically live on your browser from first opening? Do you ever shut down your computer? How often? Do you ever hesitate before installing software updates, because of that dread of having to restart your computer, even though you know that Firefox will save your tabs? How many of the tabs you open, do you actually read? And when you finally get around to reading some old tabs, do you read them with interest and an active mind, or through gritted teeth, some kind of task to be dispatched, like de-moulding a neglected cupboard?
(An internet-therapy initiative.)
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I am sure there have been tabs open for at least two weeks before, but most no more than two or three days. Especially with Firefox (I use Google Chrome, mostly) since it has a monstrous memory leak, so I try to restart when I think about it. I shut down my work computer every day, but almost never my home computer. I always update and often use alpha or beta versions of programs.
I would say there is an 70% chance I will read an open tab and, for those that I used to read with gritted teeth, I mark as “read later” with Instapaper and tackle them when I am desperate for content.
I used to be a hoarder of tabs. Then I found Instapaper, and now my guilt is completely centered on the massive list of articles I promise myself I will someday read that have slowly accumulated over the last few months. I won’t read them, but they’re there if I ever suddenly find myself with years of time.
see, what I do, because I hate the idea of all those tabs screaming at me, is I have a folder in my dock called clippings which I drag articles to I either want to post later, or think about posting, or read more fully. I wouldn’t be able to handle the visual reminder of all those tabs, so I tuck the articles away until such a time as I can devote myself to flipping through.
So far, I bookmark long unread articles or things of interest, in a folder called ‘articles’, or shorten the url and bookmark the site if it is an interesting one, generally. The longest I have had a single tab up, unread or partially read, is hard to gauge, but probably in the realm of 2 months. Amongst my current tabs, I have a documentary up on youtube that I mean to get around to showing my dad (I’ve already seen it), a wikipedia entry on a technical basic of film photography (to find an explanation for what I currently do automatically, and thus with hope to broaden its use), and a few pages of a Heiner Muller play. Oh and there’s a Martin Amis essay about Nabokov, something else about Nabokov, a long list of colourful jute fabrics and an interview/article with the guy who runs Dignitas. It’s a weird stew, weird brew. I rarely post anything I read. Only occasionally.
It’s the thing about restarting my computer, though. I hardly ever turn it off.
In the olden times, folk used to clip printed articles ‘of interest’. I have scads of them mailed to me over decades by my mother.
One day I will pull those devoted to the misdeeds of gypsies (her bêtes noires) and compile an anthology.
Get it done in time for next year’s Christmas market!
It’s a trap to hoard stuff, because you’ll never get to it. I know. I’ve done it as well. As a rule, I try to keep my tabs under control. I have system going. As a freelance blogger, I read hundreds of blog posts every day, most of them are skimmed, but some are read in detail. My system starts by starring them for my blog posts. These are either for work or my personal blog. I have to sift through them quickly, as they get lost fast. I also use the ReadItLater add on to bookmark certain articles that I reference to often. This system is used for my math research, story research and other things that I don’t want in my Google Reader.
“Dirty Deeds of Sneaking Gyppos”.
Yep. That’ll sell!
Well, with the story of your mum sending you these clippings and you know, lalala about you and your mum, à la “Tuesdays with Morrie” but with strong emphasis on trying to make you beware of travelling people. It would not be as controversial as articles about most other ethnic minorities, and maybe your publisher would force you to write some kind of moral ending or something, but you know, a bit of spit and polish and we could turn “Dirty Deeds of Sneaking Gyppos” into a stocking filler hit!
It might be a kind of ‘inside view’, as I am virtually a traveller myself, what with this being so often on the lam and all.
Truly.
It is always possible to shine a ‘historical’ light on things. One might step back a pace by means of a prefatory Nabokovian disclaimer and assert that the contents of the anthology merely presented the deluded views of a bygone age about sneaking gyppos and other travelling people.
I always shut down at the end of the day – not sure why, I just do. So I guess the longest any tab would be open is about 18 hours or so. There is something about going to bed that means I have to turn the computer off.
That is a very sensible routine, Phil. Ok, today I learned about instapaper. Thank you, folks. I also de-moulded a wooden floor (not cupboard, and no tabs were harmed in the sanding of this floor). Hey Deron! I’ve been sanding!
Lucy? Shall I send you links to articles about filthy gyppo escapades?
I know some sneaking gyppos who are in the de-moulding trade.
I could do with some advice about damp patches. Sealing wood from external seepage (preferably sealing externally). If your gyppos could advise about that, that might be v helpful.
I could do with some advice about bad patches generally. Advice from gyppos or others most welcome.
I use the Session Manager extension in Firefox and Glims in Safari, so my tabs usually follow me around until I either go to the trouble of closing them or restart from a crash and decide not to restore them—in effect, declaring tab bankruptcy. Right now, I have 131 tabs open in eight Firefox windows. Safari’s not open, but I think I have only five saved tabs there. Fever (in a separate Fluid instance) has maybe fifty, and Filttr (also in its own Fluid instance) probably has more, but I haven’t been using either one much since school started.
As these numbers suggest, I routinely keep tabs open for months at a time. Some in NetNewsWire have been there for years—but I’m not using NNW anymore, so I may never bother to close those. Occasionally I resolve to close a few, which usually means tossing them in Pinboard.in or Instapaper. It’s an exhausting task, and usually, once I look at them, I still don’t want to read them just yet.
I shut down my laptop maybe once a fortnight? Just to give the battery a rest. (I run the battery all the way down, to forced sleep, every few days.) I recently restarted my iMac for what I think was the first time since that morning when my EnergyHog™ fridge temporarily knocked out that electrical outlet—maybe September?
In sum, don’t do what I do.
I usually try to get through all of them the day I open them. For long articles or longish web pages, I use delicious and just tag ‘em with “toread”. I use Firefox with the Delicous extension installed, so I just press Cntl+D, press t, down (to select toread), enter, done. The extension has a toolbar, and I use the “Favorite Tags” option, put “toread” up there, sort it by first added, and go through ‘em when I want to.
I do keep tabs open constantly, like Google Reader and Gmail, but I don’t think that counts. I restart my computer about once a week (I use Vista) just to keep it running quickly, and that’s where the Session Manager that India mentioned comes in handy.
And I do dread restarting my computer when installing updates and stuff, but usually I just install them then restart when I want to. Don’t know if that’s a good thing but I’ve had no problems with that. Every Sunday, though, I devote about 20 minutes going through a computer checklist to make sure my system’s in shape.
Also, readability is FANTASTIC. http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/