I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to screen real estate. I want the biggest view possible of whatever it is I’m looking at, with the least amount of garbage cluttering up the edges.
I’m also impatient, so while Gmail is my homepage just to save me navigating there all the time, it’s a drag waiting for the page to load, especially in slow wi-fi zones. Doubly so if Gmail isn’t what I started the browser for in the first place.
Enter permanent mini-tabs in Firefox, courtesy of Life Hacker. Little favicon-sized tabs that persist across sessions. I built one for Gmail, and one for Google Docs. They don’t load the page until you click on them, and they do show new message counters. Perfect.
Now I need a new home page. I think I will build one off one of my domains, with links to all my usual haunts online. That way, I can clear some real estate on the bookmarks bar. Nice.