In the world of URLs, bigger is not always better. In 2009, we helped shrink up long, unwieldy URLs by launching our public URL shortener, goo.gl. Today, we’re announcing a new URL shortcut that will link only to official Google products and services: g.co.

The shorter a URL, the easier it is to share and remember. The downside is, you often can’t tell what website you’re going to be redirected to. We’ll use g.co to send you only to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.

There’s no need to fret about the fate of goo.gl; we like it as much as you do, and nothing is changing on that front. It will continue to be our public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web.

We’d like to thank our friends at .CO Internet SAS who operate .co domain names for facilitating the acquisition of g.co, and keep your eyes open as we start rolling out g.co as our official URL shortcut for Google websites.

Posted by Gary Briggs, VP Consumer Marketing

Remember the old feature in old Netscape browsers that prefetched links on a page so that when you clicked on it, the page would load from your cache instantly? Google's Instant Pages seems like that.

Here's how it works: You do a Google search. When you click a search result (usually the first one, because Google guesses you want the most relevant link), the resulting page loads almost instantly. So Google takes the time you use to choose a search result and uses that to prefetch a result into your browser's cache, so when you do click it, you'll load it really fast (from local storage).

Google says it only does this when they're very confident that you'll click the result, and then downloads and "pre-renders" it in Google Chrome (executes the Javascript), to save even more time.

It's very, very fast when it's in action, and Google says Instant Pages saves 2-5 seconds for every search. This is on top of the Google Instant feature, which already saved you about 2-5 seconds.

Instant Pages will be available this week in Chrome Beta, but today in Chrome's developer version. The stable version of Chrome will get it in the next few weeks. They're also working on Instant Pages for mobile in the near future.

When I first started using Evernote two years ago, I was really excited about the universal capture tool. But I've lost my love for apps like Evernote because, frankly, I don't think they work that well. Here's why.
Photo by ryan bieber.

Last week, my pal Gina discussed perfecting digital filing systems in her Work Smart video series (see video below). In it, she asks me to share my tips for setting up a solid digital filing system.

In thinking about my response, I was reminded of a great post I'd read last year by former Twitter dev and current BankSimple CTO, Alex Payne, on what he calls everything buckets:

An Everything Bucket, since you're probably wondering, is what I call applications that encourage the user to throw anything and everything into them. They're virtual scrapbooks, applying a lightweight organization system to (often) unrelated data of varying types. These applications typically employ a proprietary database, or at best, build atop the SQLite database technology... They usually default to storing information in Rich Text Format (RTF) or Portable Document Format (PDF). They are Not A Good Idea.

I'd recommend reading Payne's full post when you've got a chance. It's an excellent general discussion of using software productively, and I don't think I can provide a more compelling or eloquent argument against everything buckets than he has already.

Payne's point regarding "Applications That Actually Do Things" resonates the most with me: Any of the "everything buckets" I've ever tried do many things poorly rather than one thing well (see the Unix philosophy). That doesn't mean that you can't or don't use Evernote or some other universal capture application to great effect. (You may be a wizard at making Evernote do exactly what you want.) For my part, I can only think of one thing it does well, or at least better than anything else I'm aware of (for free): Photo-to-text transcription. If I want a tool I can use to snap pictures I can search later using text, I might use Evernote for that because I don't know of a better option.

But if, for example, I want to write text (and still have it sync to every single device I use), I'm going to use Simplenote. It does one thing (plain-text notes), and it does it exceptionally well. It's also a system distinct from pictures, bookmarks, and files, so if I want to find a note I've written, I can go to Simplenote (or whatever Simplenote client I'm using) and get it without sifting through unrelated junk.

You may feel differently. In fact, I know that a lot of Lifehacker readers really love apps like Evernote. (I'm picking on Evernote because it's the most popular among our readers, not because it's the worst universal capture app.)

Whether you agree with me or not, let's hear what you think in the comments.

Work Smart 2: Perfect Your Digital Document Filing System [Fast Company]
The Case Against Everything Buckets [Alex Payne]
Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker and a lover of software that does one thing well. You can find his various productivity musings every day here at Lifehacker and with more off-message frequency @adampash on Twitter.