How about a daemon which detects what applications you are running, including which one you have used most recently and predicts what page to open on when you fire up your browser. If can assign weighted probabilities that a combination of applications will warrant a certain homepage. The daemon can use some sort of heuristic or genetic algorithm to do this.

For example, a default might be the Halfbakery. During the semester as I am researching stuff, it might notice I am running StarOffice more with files from the ~/study/ directory and switch my homepage to the Google Web Directory. If I have my email client all fired up that usually means I will need a dictionary. It may notice on Saturday mornings that I do some online shopping and change the homepage accordingly. Well, you get the picture...

This would be a great little utility for creatures of habit like myself and over a period, save a lot of time typing in URLs or clicking on stuff.
-- sdm, Aug 18 2001

Hotlinks. http://www.hotlinks.com
For Angel. Lets you keep your bookmarks on the web, so they're available to you wherever you might be, with a computer. Can set directories as private to keep others out of them, if you like. <Good for that 90% part...> [StarChaser, Aug 18 2001, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Rememberance Agent http://www.remem.org/
Thought of this for some reason. Perhaps another example of computers being smart heuristically to good effect [johnmeacham, Oct 17 2004]

Organize things http://www.jetbrains.com
Omea Reader and Omea Pro are about organizing workspaces and in beta versions and anyone can get them free until January [drizzlein, Dec 13 2004]

You're going to need a database of web pages along with their properties in order to make it work, aren't you? That could be part of a service--a content provider which keeps a list of pages most likely to appeal to or be needed by a person using a particular suite of applications.
-- Dog Ed, Aug 18 2001


Dog Ed: That's also a good idea. But I had envisaged some sort of crude learning algorithm which would function in the beginning by looking at what pages you load *directly after* firing up the browser and matching that with the types of applications you have running.
-- sdm, Aug 18 2001


I sometimes stop what I'm doing with applications to wander off and do something else totally unrelated, so I wouldn't be interested in this. Most programs I WOULD need this for have their own internal links to pages...

Didn't fishbone it as it's not a bad idea, just not one I'd use. If it came with a 'go away' setting, I could live with it.
-- StarChaser, Aug 18 2001


It would be nice if you could configure it to place a list of suggested links off to the side somewhere, rather than automagically opening them up in the browser.
-- PotatoStew, Aug 18 2001


Rather than opening another window <EEEEVIL!>, have a menu option like 'Suggested Links' or something.
-- StarChaser, Aug 18 2001


Opera Browser allows you to 'save windows before closing' - you can save as many windows as you wish - or just 1 - and it does not have to be the Opera homepage.
-- thumbwax, Aug 18 2001


I *love* Opera. Maybe it's got a lot to do with it being the only browser that runs decently on my P133, but I hardly touch IE or Netscape at home any more.
-- -alx, Aug 18 2001


but sdm, such an agent would miss out on 80% of the internet! From what sort of application would you want to access gambling or po... uhh, nevermind.
-- absterge, Aug 19 2001


absterge: 80% huh? I suspect it would be much more. Research shows that about 73% of people pull statistics out of the air... The point is not to introduce people to new content but to make accessing frequent hits easier.

Essentialy this is a tool to save time. The way I see it, the more time you waste in getting to gambling/porn/unwholesome sites the less time you will have to spend there, right? Perhaps this isn't for you, absterge.
-- sdm, Aug 19 2001


:P gah. It was a joke. I heard somewhere that as far as the amount of information stored on the net, that 90% of it is porn. *shrug* Yeah, I made my statistic up ;) And yes, I do get it, and I do think it'd make a neat tool. Hack up some way to store your own ~securely on the net (preferably for free, as in beer) and I'm all over it.
-- absterge, Aug 19 2001


Oh, that wasnt an attack. Sorry absterge. That was merely an attempt at wit, I apologise to the entire 1/2B audience for subjecting you to it.
-- sdm, Aug 20 2001


this almost, but not quite, sounds like the kind of idealism behind smart tags...
-- timdorr, Aug 20 2001


I open my browser on a locally-stored 'My Links' page which just has lists of links to the pages I use most. They're categorized as 'Work stuff', 'Music stuff, 'Stuff about valve amplifiers', and so on. I suppose it could open a particular item on the basis of the 'Recent' list in Windows.
-- angel, Aug 20 2001


One thing I'd like to see on a browser is a random button. Some days it's just to much effort to "manually" think of things to look up: the internet equivalent of "Just DRIVE!" or "Follow that cab!" etc.
-- lubbit, Aug 20 2001


random would be slightly risky... how about if it had a randomly select a vagely related site instead...
-- RobertKidney, Aug 20 2001


I'd rather have a totally random site. Maybe with exclusion filters, 'No MASSIVE h00terz!'...Just totally random, somewhere on the Web.
-- StarChaser, Aug 20 2001


You could probably do that with some sort of client-side Java scripty thingy. But it would be more fun to get some sort of server-side script which would feed dictionary words into the Google Im Feeling Lucky(tm), umm, technology(?) and redirect you to some place.
-- sdm, Aug 21 2001


Google's 'I'm feeling lucky' button just means 'Search then take me to the first search result'. No special technology...
-- StarChaser, Aug 21 2001


The 'random' option can be simulated by entering junk into a search engine and just clicking on stuff. I just hit Yahoo with '+grapes+cement+loud' and got pages on spear-fishing, ultrasonic pest repellers, and Johnny Mathis, among others.
-- angel, Aug 21 2001


My home page is...well, my home page. I usually go to it to see what the counter's up to, then to where I want to go. If I want to go somewhere directly, I usually just type it into the start/run field...
-- StarChaser, Aug 25 2001


one word: bookmarks.
-- flickiter, Jul 11 2003


The whole thing is fundamentally about clubbing files, bookmarks, newssites and any other media which you use regularly. It's a baked concept in workspaces. Try Omea Reader or Omea Pro now in beta, they organize all your things as workspaces. Ofcourse these tools dont predict but essencially solve the problem of organizing things.
-- drizzlein, Dec 13 2004



random, halfbakery