Most people do not understand it, however Chrome’s New Tab web page — y’know, that display with the Google brand and search field that you simply see each time you open up a brand new tab in your laptop — is definitely filled with productivity-boosting potential. The onus simply falls upon you to faucet into it and rework that wasted-space default into a useful asset.And man, are there choices aplenty. I’ve tried out tons of New Tab web page replacements through the years, and I’m always experimenting with new prospects to maintain (ahem) tabs on what’s on the market and determine what works finest for me. And whereas there are many fascinating methods you possibly can repurpose your private New Tab web page — to something from a multisource search panel to a cross-service doc hub and even an Android-like widget-filled house display — I’ve constantly discovered that, for my very own type of working, nothing is as sensible as a easy and efficient notepad.For a very long time, I relied on a spectacular extension referred to as Papier to supply that. It was so simple as could possibly be and fairly actually simply modified the Chrome New Tab right into a clean area by which you can kind, with a small collection of formatting instructions and presentation choices.Papier, sadly, went kaput earlier this 12 months (on account of its creator evidently closing up store and transferring on to different issues). That prompted me to seek for an acceptable substitute — a process that proved trickier than I anticipated, as many of the notepad-like New Tab web page replacements on the market have been both too difficult (and thus not practically as efficient as Papier had been) or too deserted (and thus not value getting invested in solely to have them vanish within the close to future) for my tastes. No matter the place I seemed, nothing fairly match the invoice.And then, I stumbled onto one thing unimaginable. It’s an open-source extension that does every thing Papier did after which some, all whereas sustaining the simplicity and ease-of-use that made Papier such a commendable instrument. It’s merely improbable — and it is rapidly change into my most indispensable, steadily used instrument for browser-based productiveness.Friends, Romans, internet-persons: Allow me to introduce you to the appropriately named My Notes.Here’s the way it works: By default, My Notes comes up solely if you click on its icon inside your tackle bar — however the way more environment friendly approach to make use of it’s to set the extension as your New Tab web page, which causes it to come back up each time you open up a brand new tab. There’s a command to try this throughout the extension’s settings, which you could find by clicking the gear icon inside its interface or by right-clicking its icon throughout the tackle bar after which choosing “Options” from the menu that comes up.As for its look, at its core, My Notes is only a big open textual content area to your notes — at the least, when you collapse down its menu, which could be performed with the helpful hotkey of Ctrl-Shift-F.JR Anything you kind into the web page reveals up robotically in each single new tab you open (as soon as you’ve got activated that swap) and stays current within the browser even if you restart your laptop. By default, that information is all saved solely regionally for optimum privateness. But there is a built-in choice to hook up with your Google account and sync it to Drive — which then helps you to pull it up on every other laptop the place you are signed in by clicking on that very same choice there.JR Once you’ve got flipped on the Drive syncing functionality, the sync command is on the backside of the menu you see in that screenshot above — yup, the exact same menu that may be toggled in or out of view with that Ctrl-Shift-F shortcut we have been speaking a couple of second in the past.As you possibly can see there, too, that menu additionally helps you to preserve a number of notes as a substitute of only a single scratchpad, if you happen to’re so inclined, which is a helpful little bit of added performance to have. And at its backside is a toolbar full of formatting instructions, if you happen to ever need ’em — together with comparatively superior instructions like inserting photos, creating code blocks, and even including tables into your notes.Other choices inside My Notes embody the power to alter the default font, textual content measurement, and theme — with a built-in mild theme, a one-click darkish theme, and a completely customizable CSS-based stylesheet for the true nerds amongst us (please visualize my enthusiastic hand-waving right here).JR My Notes is designed particularly for the desktop model of Chrome, however this is the cool half: Since it has that built-in capability to sync your information with Drive everytime you need, you can even get to your notes simply from Android (or every other platform, for that matter). Just open up the common ol’ Drive app in your cellphone, search for the newly created My Notes folder inside your storage — and hippity hoppity horsey hoofs, wouldya take a look at that?JR There, proper in your Drive storage, is an easy listing of each single word you’ve got created inside My Notes in your laptop. All you’ve got gotta do is faucet on any one in every of ’em, and you may pull it up and even edit it, if you would like — with full formatting intact — proper then and there. And any modifications you make will return to your laptop the subsequent time you sync.JR As for the ever-important space of privateness, the stuff you kind into My Notes by no means leaves your native laptop in any respect except you select to sync it through your Drive account — and even then, it syncs solely on demand, if you explicitly click on the command to take action. I discover that to be a pleasant stability of privateness and performance; by default, something I kind into my notepad is totally non-public and native, however after I need to transport one thing to a different system, I can achieve this then and solely then by clicking a single button.More broadly, the truth that the instrument is open supply means anybody can peek in at its code and see precisely what it’s and is not doing (at all times a pleasant little bit of added assurance in relation to considerations of correct information dealing with). Its developer additionally has a transparent listing of precisely what permissions it requires and why they’re needed. (The brief model: There’s nothing nefarious occurring.)For all of the fancy-schmancy New Tab instruments you could find for Chrome, this one is as sensible, purpose-filled, and frill-free because it will get. I nonetheless use a extra sturdy note-taking app or undertaking administration program for vital ideas and ongoing areas of group, however in relation to having a fast scratchpad for on-the-fly notes and random issues it is advisable to jot down and grasp onto for a short time, it does not get a lot better than this.Sign up for my weekly e-newsletter to get extra sensible ideas, private suggestions, and plain-English perspective on the information that issues.[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]

Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.