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Once you have set up your basic routine of Web sites you want to visit, you just log onto DailyRoutine from any computer and click a button that "plays" your routine.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

'DailyRoutine' site supercharges your browsing


March 21, 2001


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Syracuse Newspapers

   Sometimes bookmarks and Favorites aren't enough. Sometimes you need a little guidance to keep track of your daily routine on the Web.
   And there's a Web site that will do it for you. DailyRoutine.com organizes and simplifies your Web browsing in ways that bookmarks and Favorites cannot do. It gives you back some of the time the Internet has taken away, and it can do it whether you're cruising the Web from home or from some other place.
   Don't take my word for this. Check out the site now while you're reading this, or make a note to do it as soon as you get to your computer. The address is www.dailyroutine.com. (Make sure you give the DailyRoutine site permission to create a cookie on your computer. That's OK. DailyRoutine can't organize things for you unless it knows who you are.) There's no charge to use DailyRoutine.
   Unlike most of the boring "new" Internet concepts I've seen, DailyRoutine is an idea that flies. It lets you control what has to be the biggest time-waster in modern life: keeping track of the huge mess of good Web sites that you'd like to visit if you only had the time to find them every day.
   DailyRoutine organizes the mess for you. Once you have set up your basic routine of Web sites you want to visit, you just log onto DailyRoutine from any computer and click a button that "plays" your routine. Your first site opens, and then, when you click another button, the next site opens. It's like playing back a tape. You don't have to do anything fancy. A single click brings up each of your prearranged Web sites in succession. You can go back and forth, too.
   You can have many routines -- one for the morning, one for the afternoon, one for Sunday evenings, even one for the daily commute if you have a Web-enabled cellular phone, for example. DailyRoutine guides you through the creation of your routines and will suggest sites if you'd like.
   I started using DailyRoutine many months ago after the site's mastermind, Skaneateles native Aaron Naas, asked me to test a pre-release version of his invention. I already knew that DailyRoutine was designed to work well with Windows and Macintosh computers, but I was happy to discover that Daily Routine also worked splendidly with Linux. Whether you are using Windows, a Mac or Linux, you should have no trouble accessing the main features of DailyRoutine.
   And you don't have to learn anything new. If you can click your mouse or press a key, DailyRoutine can show you an easy-to-follow customized list of Web sites. You can add any site you want to the list, and if you run out of ideas -- or if you just want to let the software wizards at DailyRoutine do some of the work for you -- browse the site's "Library" and choose from extensive lists of recommended sites. I saw scores of sites on the lists that I hadn't known about. The lists are excellent.
   Trying to describe what DailyRoutine does leaves me frustrated. It's not a set of bookmarks to Web sites, although it can function that way on the most basic level. It's not a search site or a site that helps you locate specific Web sites, even though it could do that quite well.
   What DailyRoutine does is something special. It cuts the rope that keeps you tethered to one main computer when you're doing serious Web browsing. Once you start using DailyRoutine, you can open your customized list of sites from any computer that has a modern Web browser and a connection to the Internet. You can skip the hassle of copying your bookmarks or Favorites and lugging around a floppy disk.
   Give your own daily routine a boost and check out this site. You won't be disappointed.