SsTut.com ›
About SsTut.com ("Super Short Tutorials")
I create and maintain several traditional, multi-page websites, like Free Email Tutorials, our Windows 7 tutorial at "How 7 Works", or "Login Tips", our latest site. In most cases, as a web user, I want the most in-depth information I can find about a topic, from a single source - which is what these sites do. Note: if you like the concept of SsTut.com, with its super-short tutorials, you'll love "in 5 steps" - this latest tutorial site explains everything in tech, in five steps or less!
In some cases, however, I just want a quick reminder of something I already know how to do - I just need a quick refresher on HOW to do it: this is where SsTut comes in! The unique approach of letting you to mark steps as done (or hide them altogether), also came from personal experience: I often find myself re-reading the same instructions when going back to the tutorial, not remembering where I left off. (That's why you'll find a checkbox on the left of each step, and an "x" close button on the right :)- Another site I run is The Tiny Herald, a daily news summary for the US, business, tech, and world news: it's updated several times a day, and takes as long to read as a SINGLE, long article!
- That's why I created "SsTut", which stands for "Super Short Tutorials". I actually visit the site regularly myself, to remember how to achieve certain tasks. Many tutorials started in fact as self-help notes written for myself (which is partially why some earlier tutorials don't even have pictures). I initially wanted to keep the site simple and ultra-fast loading, but ended up changing that: graphics-free instructions made the site feel too "dry"). How to highlight alternate rows in Excel or the keyboard shortcuts to insert registered trademark / copyright symbols in Word, for example, are things I always forget - SsTut gives me in a 3-second glance the refresher I needed!
- While search engines and their automated algorithms can view these tutorials as "thin content" (this is unfortunately the case for many of them!), writing tutorials for SsTut is one of the hardest writing experiences: every step ideally needs to stick to a SINGLE line! Wherever a shorter word will do, it is used - the only limit is clarity, so you'll see multiple lines explaining a step in some cases :) If you think of a shorter way of explaining that particular, I always welcome your tips!
Note: probably in large part for that reason, SsTut.com never successfully became prominent in search engine results. So, if you like this site, please take a second to tell your friends about it :) Either way, you can start learning a few tips: here's the full list of topics (sitemap).