Maximizing Your Internet Browser with Bookmarks

If you want to return to a first-rate online source, you’re likely to use a shortcut, such as a bookmark or a favorite. If you use the Netscape browser, you bookmark the Web page. This acts as a shortcut to the online source.If you use the Internet Explorer browser, you save the page as a favorite. (I refer to both of these types of shortcuts as bookmarks for this section of the article.) If you’ve used the Internet for a while, you likely have a long list of bookmarks.

Today hundreds of bookmark managers can help you with the following problems:

Eliminating dead links: Frequently, Web sites merge, go out of business, or are redesigned so that the page you have bookmarked no longer exists.

Lessening errors in subfolders: Sometimes bookmarks are filed in the wrong subfolder or you forget which subfolder contains the specific Web page you’re seeking.

Increasing portability: In many cases, the bookmark you’re seeking is saved on your desktop computer and is not accessible from a remote computer, such as at your local library.

Reducing the cumbersome nature of your bookmarks: Systems that include hundreds of bookmarks in dozens of subfolders often don’t allow for easy access to the specific bookmark you seek. If you want to tame your bookmarks so that you get the most out of your online experience, it’s wise to use a free online bookmark management service. Not only can you continue to create bookmarks to your favorite Web sites, but you often can use the bookmark lists others have created for the topic areas that interest you. This service can shorten your online research time. The following are a few examples of bookmark management services:

FreeLink (www.freelink.org), shown in Figure 2-3, provides free links (both public and private) with password protection that you can use anytime from anywhere. You can build your own hierarchy of bookmarks or start with one of FreeLink’s samples to organize your interests.

Backflip (www.backflip.com) is listed as one of PC Magazine’s top 100 Web sites. Backflip gets you back to the Web pages you have saved and allows you to share your bookmarks with others. Backflip is a free service that lets you organize and search your Web sites in your own Yahoo!-style directory, and you can reach your bookmarks from anywhere on the Internet.

MyBookmarks.com (www.mybookmarks.com), with your registration, is a free Internet service that allows you to keep your browser bookmarks and favorites online so that you can access them from anywhere. For a quick start, you can import your existing Internet Explorer and Netscape bookmarks and AOL places. You can edit and organize your bookmarks and then export them back to your browser.