Categories
Newley's Notes

Newley’s Notes 171: Apple’s Big Event; EHRs: FUBAR; Best Chrome Extensions; Weimaraner Puppies

2019 03 27 birds sky

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes.

🔧 So: Are you ready for some #KnowledgeWorker #ProTips?

Thanks to Mechum for writing in with some suggestions on good Chrome extensions. Yes, Chrome extensions.

If, like many folks, you spend a lot your working day in Google’s Chrome web browser – emailing, doing web research, writing, updating your calendar – it pays to incorporate some tweaks to make it more effective.

✨ Extensions, or small programs you can add on to the browser for specific functions, can be a huge help. To wit, Mechum writes:

"For anyone who runs a tab-heavy Chrome game, I recommend the Cluster extension for wrangling those tabs and actually knowing what you have going on in different windows.

But if you’re running lots of tabs also using an under-powered machine…I find The Great Suspender to be really valuable. It has a lot of options but I have it set to ‘suspend’ (unload) tabs I haven’t viewed in 5 minutes, freeing up memory. The pages reload when you go back to them. These two extensions work together really well."

I can vouch for The Great Suspender, and would add a few more to the list.

For making screen captures, FireShot is excellent.

And for finding web pages that have been taken offline, I suggest Wayback Machine.

For privacy and security, check out two extensions from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Privacy Badger and HTTPS Everywhere.

Happy browsing!

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

💊 1) An important investigation by my friend Erika Fry, of Fortune, and Kaiser Health News’s Fred Schulte: Death By 1,000 Clicks: Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong [Fortune/KHN]

“…a months-long joint investigation by KHN and Fortune has found that instead of streamlining medicine, the government’s EHR initiative has created a host of largely unacknowledged patient safety risks.

🎥 2) Just what is Apple going to unveil Monday? [Marketplace]

“On Monday, Apple is holding a special event tagged with the line ‘It’s showtime!’ That’s led to wide speculation the company will finally reveal its streaming service.”

🎮 3) Google Unveils Stadia, a High-End Gaming Service Without a Console [WSJ]

“Google unveiled a new service called Stadia that lets players stream videogames from the cloud without needing pricey hardware – an elusive feat that could change the way people buy and play games.”

🎶 4) Myspace apparently lost 12 years’ worth of music, and almost no one noticed [Ars Technica]

“Myspace apparently admitted the problem to concerned users seven or eight months ago, but so few people noticed that there wasn’t any news coverage until the past 24 hours.”

✈ 5) Rick Steves Wants to Set You Free [New York Times Magazine]

“Out of this paradoxical desire – the enlightenment of Americans through their extraction from America – Steves has built his quirky travel empire”

🧐 6) The Magical Thinking Around Brexit [New Yorker]

“Members of the E.U. are frustrated because, even though they have spent two years negotiating a withdrawal agreement with Prime Minister Theresa May, Parliament has rejected it twice, most recently last Tuesday, which means that there is a risk of a chaotic, off-the-cliff No Deal Brexit, without determining new rules for trade, travel, or such basic matters as drivers’ licenses.”

🤖 7) Being An Instagram Influencer Is Hard Work, So This Guy Made A Bot To Do It For Him [Buzzfeed News]

“For Buetti, it’s the perfect solution if you don’t want to actually dedicate time to curating an online following, but still want to score free spaghetti from restaurants seeking publicity.”

🐦 8) Fantasy Birding Is Real, And It’s Spectacular [Deadspin]

“Using eBird, a citizen-science database run by Cornell University where birders log their sightings, players select single locations on a map each day, and get credit for a bird if a real-life birder spots that species within a 10-kilometer radius that day”

🏠 9) Meet the Flintstone House, a Home So Odd It Was Declared a ‘Public Nuisance’ [New York Times]

“‘It is one thing to spot this house when driving by on the freeway; you might find it amusing,’ Mark D. Hudak, a lawyer for the town, said on Monday in an email. ‘It is a different thing to be a neighbor and see it all day, every day.’”

🐕 10) Gotta have the ear blanket [Reddit]

💡 Quote of the week:

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." – Stephen King

➡ Was this message forwarded to you? Sign up here.

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,
Newley

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *