If you know Andre Daughty (pronounced Daugh like how), you know he loves technology integration with education and life. Not just because it’s the coolest gadget or the newest awesomeness, but because it can serve a purpose to help enhance student’s lives or yours.
Just like you, I’m loyal to my Internet browser. Some of us are still rocking Explorer because that was the first browser we were exposed to in 1998. Some of us use Google Chrome because of Gmail accounts. Some of us love Firefox, Opera or Safari because you think you’re better than all of us with your tech gadet nerdness of voice and choice. Whatever, you use, great! Perhaps you want to explore (no pun intended) a new browser? Well, I was browsing #dasInnanetz and ran across one called Vivaldi. It’s been out since 2016 and hooked me because it describe a customization that none of the other browsers had. I tried it out and here’s my thoughts on it.
- Customize from the Jump.
After you download Vivaldi, it starts with three ways the browser the way you want it. It asks you where you’d like to put your tab bar. Several options are provided on every side of the screen. Next, it asks what theme color, start up picture and for those who need the font size bigger, you customize that as well.
I didn’t think I’d like having the tabs on left of the screen since I’ve been accustomed to them always being at the top, but it’s pretty cool. - Stacks on Stacks on Stacks.
Inside of Chrome, you can add an extension that condenses all of your opened Internet tabs into one list. Vivaldi has that option already built in called. You simply drag a website on top of another and #POW, you’re tab stacking (just like you’d do an app on your tablet). I’m a tabber #frfr and having this option as a default is definitely a plus in my book.
- Notes
Have you ever been online and needed to jot a quick note down so you opened up Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Notepad and/or grabbed your phone to open up a note app? Nah? It’s just me? #cool.
Well, Vivaldi has me covered. It has a notes icon that allows you to put in a small note. The note stays on the side of the screen which means you can open as many tabs as you’d like (see #2) and still have that note available for you. You can also save those notes. #genius
- Sneak Peaks
If you hover your mouse over any tab, you’ll get a sneak peak of what is on that page. How did I use this? I had 50-11 tabs open on the same topic and instead of clicking on each tab to reveal the website, the hover saved much time.
- Side By Side
Have you ever needed to view two websites simultaneously? Well, Vivaldi thought of that too. Instead of opening tabs and resizing them just right to fit your screen, you can view them all in the Vivaldi browser. Hold the CTRL button and click the tabs you’d like to view, then go to the bottom right hand corner of Vivaldi and select the Page Tiling icon. It’ll provide more options for you to view your selected websites, side by side. This may be a game changer for me.
- Website Auto-Prediction
I started to type in am for amazon and Vivaldi pulled up my previous sites with am
in the address in addition to predicting a few more websites with the letters am in it.
I’m sure there’s more things inside of Vivaldi, but so far I like it. Try it out and tell me what you think of it.
Until next time friends….
