Welcome to the second edition of The Website Haul!
I’ve spent the last week digging through the far corners of the web to find a few things actually worth your screen time. This week’s haul is a mix of the practical (saving your storage space) and the purely vibes-based (traveling without leaving your chair).
Let’s get into Drop 02.
1. Prompts.chat: AI Cheat Codes
If you’ve ever stared at a blinking cursor in ChatGPT wondering what to say, this is for you. It’s a massive library of optimized prompts that act like “personas” for AI.
- My Experience: I spent a few days testing these personas to see if they actually changed the AI’s output quality. By using their “Interviewer” and “Travel Guide” prompts, I found the responses became significantly more detailed and less robotic. It’s a game-changer for getting specific results.
- Why It’s Innovative: It takes the guesswork out of “prompt engineering.” You don’t need to learn how to talk to AI; you just need to know which persona to pick.
- The Verdict: If you use ChatGPT or Claude for anything more than basic questions, this site should be pinned in your browser.
Check it out: prompts.chat
2. Squoosh: Google’s Secret Image Magic
Images are getting huge, and they kill website speeds and phone storage. Squoosh is a tool that lets you shrink them down without losing the quality.
- My Experience: I’ve been running all the images for this week’s post through Squoosh to see how far I could push the compression. I managed to save about 80% on file size while the images still looked crisp on my 4K monitor.
- Why It’s Innovative: It’s a Google Chrome Labs project that works entirely in your browser. Your photos aren’t being uploaded to a random server; the work happens locally on your machine.
- The Verdict: It’s the fastest, cleanest way to optimize photos for the web. Simple as that.
Check it out: squoosh.app
3. WindowSwap: A Change of Scenery
Sometimes the best thing for productivity is just a different view. WindowSwap lets you peer out of a real window somewhere else in the world.
- My Experience: I kept this open in a side tab for most of Wednesday while I was working. It’s all user-submitted, 10-minute HD loops with ambient sound. One minute I was looking at a rainy street in London, the next a sunny backyard in Tokyo. It’s surprisingly calming.
- Why It’s Innovative: It’s purely about “vibe.” It’s an antidote to the loud, fast-paced side of the internet.
- The Verdict: The ultimate “calm” tab. If you’re feeling stuck at your desk, take a trip through someone else’s window for five minutes.
Check it out: window-swap.com
4. The Recommendation: The Sample
I wanted to start highlighting other great curators who help sift through the noise. If you enjoy discovering new things, check out The Sample.
- The Concept: It’s a “meta-newsletter” that sends you a different newsletter excerpt every day based on your interests. It’s how I’ve been finding new niche topics to explore this week.
- The Verdict: A brilliant way to diversify your inbox and find writers you’d never see on a social feed.
Check it out: thesample.ai
The Sunday Supplement: The Browser Tip
The “Reopen” Lifesaver: We’ve all done it – you accidentally close a tab that you actually needed. Instead of digging through your history, just hit Cmd + Shift + T (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + T (Windows). It will instantly reopen the last tab you closed. You can even keep hitting it to bring back the last 10+ tabs you lost!
What’s Next?
Thank you for joining me for Drop 02. If you haven’t joined our mailing list yet, you can do that below to make sure these hauls hit your inbox every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM.
See you for Drop 03.
Chris
