Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

jonn804 · Mar 7, 2005, 09:12 PM

I currently use Yahoo as my homepage or 'launchpad' to the web. I would like to change.... what do you use as your homepage?

ManOfSteal · Mar 7, 2005, 09:18 PM

about:blank

kemuri · Mar 7, 2005, 09:34 PM

It's been set to a site that is a closed community of people against American foreign policy. It's an oldie, in which the community grew out of various activist groups and the early days of BBS' and newsgroups.

I could give you a link, but it only has an image on the main page, and it's invite only. Keeps the d!cks out.

Xeo · Mar 7, 2005, 11:14 PM

A local .html with small graphics for various sites, such as this one and some news sites. I don't have bookmarks for my common sites because I add them to that page if they are used enough.

fromthecloud · Mar 8, 2005, 12:50 AM

about:blank

oldie, but a goodie

Oneota · Mar 8, 2005, 12:51 AM

http://www.macupdate.com/index.php?os=macosx

It's helpful for my job to know when new stuff is released (that, and I'm a geek).

Xeo · Mar 8, 2005, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by Oneota:
http://www.macupdate.com/index.php?os=macosx

It's helpful for my job to know when new stuff is released (that, and I'm a geek).

I find RSS feeds to serve that function better.

torsoboy · Mar 8, 2005, 02:01 AM

about:blank for me as well

Lateralus · Mar 8, 2005, 02:05 AM

Apple.com

TubaMuffins · Mar 8, 2005, 02:16 AM

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

MilkmanDan · Mar 8, 2005, 02:48 AM

http://www.versiontracker.com

Or my own webpage.

Or BBC.com

Depends on the month.

spatterson · Mar 8, 2005, 03:02 AM

news.google.com

d4nth3m4n · Mar 8, 2005, 03:10 AM

Originally posted by ManOfSteal:
about:blank

spiky_dog · Mar 8, 2005, 03:10 AM

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/seattle/i5_NE45st.htm

roberto blanco · Mar 8, 2005, 03:11 AM

about:blank

i never understood why people set a "fixed page".

do you get into your car and drive to your grandma's place every time before you head in the direction you actually want to go?

Stradlater · Mar 8, 2005, 03:31 AM

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Xeo · Mar 8, 2005, 03:35 AM

Originally posted by roberto blanco:
about:blank

i never understood why people set a "fixed page".

do you get into your car and drive to your grandma's place every time before you head in the direction you actually want to go?

Firstly, if you think about:blank is not a "fixed page" you're only kidding yourself. It's definitely no more useful than anything else suggested here. Second, having that page be of links to regular websites I visit makes perfect sense to me.

yukon · Mar 8, 2005, 03:41 AM

file://localhost/Macintosh/Documents/StartPage/index.html

What? It impresses people and saves me time. If I click on "MacNN Forums" I get linked to file://localhost/Macintosh/Documents/StartPage/NNforums.html which has basically whats at the bottom of every macnn forum page.

roberto blanco · Mar 8, 2005, 03:47 AM

Originally posted by Xeo:
Firstly, if you think about:blank is not a "fixed page" you're only kidding yourself.

well, yes and no. the difference is, you don't download/connect to anything *on* the web (and actually, you are the first person i have ever heard of who has his "self-designed" locally stored "portal" - which is a step up from connecting directly to a website when opening a browser)

it just pisses me off when i try to use a computer to look up something on the web, and i have to wait for yahoo, google or ebay or whatever to load...close that window/open new tab, and then do what i really want to do...

Originally posted by Xeo:
Second, having that page be of links to regular websites I visit makes perfect sense to me.

bookmarks?

E's Lil Theorem · Mar 8, 2005, 03:54 AM

At home, blank; at work, finance.yahoo.com.

TubaMuffins · Mar 8, 2005, 04:13 AM

Originally posted by roberto blanco:
about:blank

i never understood why people set a "fixed page".

do you get into your car and drive to your grandma's place every time before you head in the direction you actually want to go?

because normally i would not remember to check the site and i enjoy seeing this site. whatever humps your camel

badidea · Mar 8, 2005, 05:13 AM

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
http://www.versiontracker.com

what he said

effgee · Mar 8, 2005, 06:15 AM

Originally posted by ManOfSteal:
about:blank

Ditto'd. I'm with Roberto on this one - never understood the concept of having a start page, either. It doesn't piss me off - I just don't get it.

Xeo: I'm curious - how do you "work" with that personal start page of yours? You open the browser, click a link, the respective page opens and you read - right? What do you do when you want to go to some other place that's listed on your start page - do you always open a new tab/page? Do you never "replace" the contents of an existing tab/page?

Not that there's anything wrong with this - I just find it interesting since examining/analyzing/documenting behavioral patterns of users is often an important part of my projects.

Xeo · 07:18 AM

Originally posted by roberto blanco:
it just pisses me off when i try to use a computer to look up something on the web, and i have to wait for yahoo, google or ebay or whatever to load...close that window/open new tab, and then do what i really want to do...

Google is OK, but I know what you mean. My dad's is netscape something or another and it takes 30 seconds just to cancel so I can type the page I want. I see your point now.

bookmarks?

Too much work. This answers effgee's question as well. I just hit Cmd-T or Cmd-N and click the page I want. I almost never type a url from where I'm at. However, if I started using Cmd-1..9, that would replace my startpage altogether. I just haven't tried to get myself into doing that, nor have I even set my bookmarks bar links to work properly. Cmd-1 would be perfect for the forums.

I see your point about spending loading time fetching a page. I stopped doing that a long time ago.

[edit] To tell you the truth, now I really want an effgee designed start page... mine needs an upgrade.

Oh, and here's my startpage. I decided to throw it up so that you guys could see what I'm talking about. It's needed an update for a while, I just never get around to it (for example, I'm no longer the mod for OS X or Software and I still have links to them).

Cubeoid · Mar 8, 2005, 07:14 AM

blanc

badidea · Mar 8, 2005, 07:15 AM

Originally posted by roberto blanco:
it just pisses me off when i try to use a computer to look up something on the web, and i have to wait for yahoo, google or ebay or whatever to load...close that window/open new tab, and then do what i really want to do...

...but you do know that you don't have to close a window and open a new one just to enter a new URL, don't you!?

roberto blanco · Mar 8, 2005, 07:29 AM

Originally posted by badidea:
...but you do know that you don't have to close a window and open a new one just to enter a new URL, don't you!?

WHAAAAA

RAILhead · Mar 8, 2005, 08:01 AM

I use about:blank because it always loads faster than any other.

Apple Pro Underwear · Mar 8, 2005, 08:24 AM

i have the bookmarks panel open. thats my portan

effgee · Mar 8, 2005, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by Xeo:
... [edit] To tell you the truth, now I really want an effgee designed start page... mine needs an upgrade. ...

I've always had a very favorable opinion of folks who suck up to the mods whenever they get the chance, plus I was in kind of a "greenish" mood today.

You like green?

P.S. The first geek to give me grief over why I used tables as a layout element will have his head caved in by a turd being flushed out of an airplane toilet. In this particular case, design consistency (equal height of the boxes in one row) was more important than standards compliance. W3C nazis can caress my hindquarters ...

P.P.S. The style switcher (bottom left box, last menu) works perfectly with Firefox - it plays nicely with local cookies. Safari's a bit dumb and tends to forget your settings.

P.P.P.S. No, the page is not compatible with IE/Win because it is (still) too fscking retarded to properly render 24bit PNGs with alpha channel transparency - not my problem *grin*. There's several workarounds for this (JS, PHP, etc.) but I didn't think Xeo was going to use the page on an XPee box anyway, so I didn't bother. Background 1 (regular) is for window sizes up to 1600x1200, background 2 is for small screens (iBook et al) and the third one's for those times when you're just plain sick of looking at empty chairs

mitchell_pgh · Mar 8, 2005, 04:25 PM

http://www.gorickey.com/

davesimondotcom · Mar 8, 2005, 05:41 PM

I have a page that is local and strictly text with links to my favorite sites on it. Loads just as fast as about:blank but has function.

Mr Kino · Mar 8, 2005, 07:53 PM

I keep hearing you guys set it to the "about:blank" what is that????? My safari just opens up the the bookmarks. But it does not matter because i always use the bookmarks bar. i regularly update it.

although i like xeos idea, is there a program to do that????

Ghoser777 · Mar 8, 2005, 08:00 PM

Originally posted by Mr Kino:
I keep hearing you guys set it to the "about:blank" what is that????? My safari just opens up the the bookmarks. But it does not matter because i always use the bookmarks bar. i regularly update it.

although i like xeos idea, is there a program to do that????

My favorite app!

SamuraiDL · Mar 8, 2005, 08:29 PM

ThinkSecret, used to be theHun though...

dampeoples · Mar 8, 2005, 08:33 PM

I use a blank page as well

E's Lil Theorem · Mar 8, 2005, 08:53 PM

Originally posted by Mr Kino:
I keep hearing you guys set it to the "about:blank" what is that????? My safari just opens up the the bookmarks. But it does not matter because i always use the bookmarks bar. i regularly update it.

although i like xeos idea, is there a program to do that????

"about:blank" is how Internet Explorer refers to a blank page, so what the people that said that above mean is that a blank page is their homepage.

You can use any text editor to create an html page such as the one that Xeo is talking about. Personally, I used TextEdit to do most of my html work, but then again, I don't do any crazy fancy stuff like effgee.

Oisín · Mar 8, 2005, 11:12 PM

Mostly forums (this one, a translators' forum, plus a few music forums). Sometimes I add in a couple of webmail sites too. I normally have anything from five to ten start pages opening in their various tabs when I open the browser.

I get what you (the guy who hates start pages) are saying about it taking forever to load, but since this is my own computer and I know pretty much what I'm almost certain to be visiting, it's still a lot faster for me to have the browser just open all 5-10 pages at once, instead of me having to open them all manually.

ManOfSteal · Mar 8, 2005, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
http://www.gorickey.com/