application to help solve the problem of too many open windows

[gusl]

Do you suffer from too many open windows, causing a clogged enviroment (visually clogging on the Desktop, as well as clogging your RAM)?
Here's a nice idea for an app, to help those treating themselves for Nerd ADD: create a way of quickly archiving windows and tabs, unclogging your system.

One click would take the window out of your RAM and put it on the HD, in files such as "things to read later"... which get processed later according to each person's organizational system (in the case of browser windows, instead of archiving the pages, you could simply save the link 90% of the time; and the "things to read later" could be just an RSS feed).

Would it be easy to create Firefox extension where you can put these buttons in the toolbar, next to the red "x" at the right-hand corner? Each button would correspond to a file in which to archive the current window.

One can always "archive" these links into del.icio.us, but it requires you to click "post", type the tag, click "save", and THEN close the window/tab... and all this while waiting for stuff to load, for each tab/window that you want to close.

Comments

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

i basically use delicious to this end. i don't think it's as onerous as you make it out to be (or maybe i'm just used to it).

i hit the post bookmarklet, tab down to the tags field (the cursor should probably start there automatically, in an ideal world), enter in some tags, and press enter. it redirects me back to the original page, so it's a pretty quick process.

plus, rss feed and global accessibility (i use three to four diff. computers on a regular basis).

[bram.livejournal.com]

There was an article in the NY Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago about ways Microsoft researchers found for people to effectively manage personal multitasking. One suggestion was just getting a huge screen so you can see a zillion windows at once.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

One suggestion was just getting a huge screen so you can see a zillion windows at once.

that's a bad idea!

[turingtest.livejournal.com]

You might want to check out the SuperMemo (http://www.supermemo.com/) memory software and website. The article Devouring Knowledge (http://www.supermemo.com/articles/devour.htm) introduces how to use the app to prioritize reading lists and do what they call "incremental reading".

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

That's useful, thanks.

But I'm more concerned with the other kind of memory management right now. Does SuperMemo do the caching that I propose?

I'm also wondering how I can make user-entry processes high priority.

[turingtest.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's similar to what you propose (actually, I think it's better). The RSS-like feed of saved pages that you suggest is similar to how it feeds imported pages to you later during review, but SuperMemo goes way beyond that through prioritization, bookmarking and incremental reading.

You can import multiple IE browser windows at once using the Edit command in SuperMemo (Shift-F8), which also has an option of closing the windows once it has imported them. Here's a screenshot (http://www.supermemo.com/help/edit.htm) where you can see the various options like complete HTML import, links only, etc.

Once the articles are imported into your reading list (and optionally prioritized), you can leave them whole and just use the bookmarking feature as you make your way through them to keep track of where you've stopped in each one. You can also start dissecting them using "incremental reading", which is their name for program tools used to pick apart info found on the web into useful smaller chunks for the purpose of memorization while discarding irrelevant material.

Since there's no point in reading unless you can remember what you've read, memorization of desired info is the goal. The whole point of the program is to help get info into long-term memory through careful repetition/drilling at optimal intervals that are continuously modified based on user feedback via a rating system. The algorithms used are derived from memory research and you can read all about them on the site if you're interested.

[rdore.livejournal.com]

Do you suffer from too many open windows, causing a clogged enviroment (visually clogging on the Desktop, as well as clogging your RAM)?

This is precisely why I have a lot of RAM. On computers Ive had in the past, the thing I got most frustrated about was how much I ended up hitting disk when I had more than a few things open. Browser tabs are also great, because it means I have one more dimension of freedom.