In this #AskEvan video, Evan Carmichael answers a Twitter follower’s question about how he built his personal homepage dashboard that aggregates his most‑used business and social‑media tools. He explains that the dashboard is a local HTML file opened automatically as the browser’s start page (Chrome shown, but works in any browser). He walks through two creation methods: (1) using Adobe Dreamweaver to build a table‑based layout, add or delete rows/columns, save the file and set it as the homepage; (2) using Microsoft Word to create a table, insert hyperlinks, then save the document as an HTML file, which can also serve as the homepage. He demonstrates editing, removing unused links, and explains how the file path (file://…) is entered in Chrome’s settings. Finally, he emphasizes the practical benefits—having all daily resources in one spot reduces clicks, streamlines workflow, and makes his life easier. He ends with a call to like, comment, and ask further questions.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of #AskEvan. Today I'm answering a question from one of my Twitter followers, Rory Armstrong, who wrote in saying, "Hi Evan, how did you create your homepage dashboard with social media channels?" Interesting. So thanks for the question, Rory, and I thought I said I'd create a quick video reply for him, so I think what he's talking about here is if I go to my homepage here, this is what I, this is what I go to every time I load up my browser. So I use Chrome, but it works in any browser that you want. And this is a local file on my computer that I run when I'm at the office or I'm at home. And it basically lists all the resources that I use on a daily basis. So I have everything in one quick dashboard that I can use to run my life and my business. So personal side is just some investment stuff, suppliers, PayPal, my bank, my newsletter, business tools that I use, my website. This is our backend stuff. Some Google tools, Buffer for my Twitter, and then things that I look at on a daily basis. These are, you know, this is my Facebook, the page, custom list that I have on Facebook, tweets from Hootsuite, custom tools that we've used, Google+, and a couple other things that I check on a regular basis. And this is constantly being modified depending on what I am using and what I'm not using. So I haven't been using these two for a while, so maybe I should remove them. Actually, I should do it right now. So I'll show you how I do it. Now there's two ways to do it. One is more complicated than the other. So the way that I use is through Dreamweaver. It's a program by Adobe. And this is my page. And basically you create a series of tables. You can put in pictures if you want or just put in text. And you can add and delete whatever you want. So I don't actually use these too much anymore, so I can delete those. Bring that up and go File, Save. And then if I go back to my homepage, refresh that, it's gone. So that's it, it's gone. And so this is just for you know, 4 columns, and then I add rows if I need to, and I can keep updating it as much as I want. Any browser that you have, you can set what your homepage is, and most people pick a website, but you can also pick a specific file on your computer. So I just picked a file, so this is how I call it. It may not always be the same depending on your browser. This is how Chrome does it, so file:// and then the location of your file. So that's my— that's where I save it, and that's how I do it through Dreamweaver. But you can also use Word. So if you know how to use Word, you can also just do that. So I'll load up a Word document, and all you have to do— you could put pictures and make it fancy as much as you want, but text would do the job too. If you wanted to do what I did and had a table, you could just go table, put in 4, and you can say, you know, Twitter and Facebook and email and whatever it is that you want. And you can make those links, right? Just go hyperlink and link off to your Hootsuite or your Twitter or whatever it is that you want, right? HTTP, you know, oops, I put too many Ts in there. It doesn't really matter. Sure, ptrust.ca, it doesn't really matter. That becomes a link. And then, you know, you can add as many as you want, put in as many links as you want, make it look as pretty as you want. Obviously, this is very bare bones just to show how it's done. Then you just save as, and one of the options it'll give you is HTML. So here, web page HTML, and you can save it as that HTML document, and then that is now a website. And so you don't need to have Dreamweaver or fancy HTML editing document. You can just use, you can just use Word to be able to do it for you. So I'd save that as a file and call it Twitter or HTML. I could save it as Twitter, or, you know, I call mine homepage. It's actually now homepage— what is it— homepage 3, because I've gone through 3 versions of it. You call homepage whatever you want, and then you save that file to a local directory, and then you just call it when you go to your browser. You call it up here, and that becomes your default homepage, and it'll load every time you show up. So that's how I do it. Pretty simple. And hopefully you can use it too. I find it's so much easier to have everything in one spot that I can access from and just makes my life easier and reduces the amount of clicks and things I have to look at. So I'm sure we all spend a lot of time in front of the computer and as many clicks and needless navigation you can reduce, the better. And so this is what I use and how I do it. So thanks for the question, Rory. For those of you watching, if you enjoyed, please give it a thumbs up below. And if you have a question about this video or about your business, feel free to leave it in the comments below. I always read those. I really love seeing them come in. It always makes my day to wake up and see new comments and likes on the YouTube videos. So thank you guys, and I'll see you in the next episode.
