Useful (yet underutilized) web tools for the Casual web surfer:

Here’s a quick take on 3 tools which can make a surfer’s life a lot easier on the web. They have been there for quite a while but still , I feel, are underutilized:

OpenID

Wont it be simple if you could use a single log in ID for all the accounts on the Internet. Guess what? That’s possible. In fact, you might just have one but may not be aware of it.
If you have an account on either of: AOL, Blogger, Flickr, Livedoor , LiveJournal, Orange, SmugMug, Technorati, Vox, Yahoo or wordpress then you already have an Open ID. To check what your open ID is visit : OpenID website

Most of the websites now allow users to log in using there Open ID. The ones which don’t might just do so in near future.
So if you don’t have an Open Id do visit Openid website and create one to make your life on the Internet easier.

RSS

Ever felt that you end up wasting too much of time surfing the web? Well you are not the only one . With the web exploding with information its certainly hard to keep up by simply visiting each of the websites. With news websites and blogs practically updating information every few hours , visiting each individually can be a time consuming job. The solution ? Simply subscribe to a RSS feed.
Now what’s that supposed to do? Well you might have noticed the orange-white icon like the one above on many websites. That’s what is called an RSS feed. Subscribing to it delivers all the updates from all the websites/blogs you want to your one single feed reader account. Check my RSS feed reader account snapshot below:

Yup.. Its just like checking mail in your e-mail account.
You can create a RSS feed reader accounts with any of the following: Google Reader, Pageflakes, My Yahoo, newsgator etc. Also, some browsers like Firefox and Safari come with inbuilt feed reader .

PS: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication

Readability

Are you one of those who finds reading stuff online difficult? If yes , then you must check out the following website which is specifically meant for people like you: Readability

How? Well its possible in simple 3 steps:

1. Visit the website using the link given
   
2. Set the formatting you want for any website and drag the bookmarklet from the site to your browser’s book mark tool bar .
   
3. Visit the site on which you want to read stuff and press the bookmarklet dragged in step 2. And Presto…The site is formatted the way you had specified on the readability link.
   

The best part is no that there are no sign up or registration forms etc. Just a simple drag and drop and you can completely format any web page with your custom readability settings.