Maybe it's just me, but it sure seems that, for all the advances we've had in in our computers and web browsers, it still takes for-friggin-ever to get a lot of web pages to load. And maybe it's just because I'm getting old and have earned the right to be cranky that waiting for-friggin-ever to view some article with a promising headline only to find out it's some content-less crap journalism fluff piece is beyond annoying.
That's why I've been really enjoying something new that Google Labs has been working on. And I'm thinking it might be something you'll find useful, too.
(Just to be clear, I don't work for Google and no one has asked me to say anything one way or the other about the following. I'm doing this simply because I think you will find it useful and because it's a new enough tool that I figure you're unlikely to have heard about it.)
Google is experimenting with a new way of presenting news-related web pages. They call it Google Fast Flip and describe it as:
a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches. — source
While all that's true, it kind of glosses over the part that I've found most helpful. What it does is show you images (screenshots) of web pages that are big enough to read so you don't have to actually load the web page in order to find out what the article is about. You don't get to see all of the article, just enough (usually) to see if it's something you'd like to read.
If you'd just like to explore Fast Flip on your own, click here to open the Fast Flip home page in a new window. Click on any of the small web page images to see the larger, readable image. You can then use the right/left arrow keys to see the next/previous image.
If you want to see something a bit more impressive (or maybe just more useful to Kos diarists), click here to see the Fast Flip search results for the phrase "oil spill." Again, click on any of the small images to see that image at a readable size and then use your keyboard to see other articles (or click on the blue left/right arrows).
Happy reading!