For individuals that aren’t just casual surfers how much information online presents a daunting management issue. You need to bookmarks all the pages you discover useful in your online research and business, but wait, how in the world can you keep an eye on all of them and obtain that certain particular link back when you require it? Effective bookmark management is one of the biggest challenges to full-time Internet users then there is still much being done with software applications to satisfy every one of the “wish list” criteria for the “perfect solution.”
There are tons of programs out there to manage bookmarks, both shareware and retail. Compass, for example, has been around since January 1997 and possesses for ages been regarded as being a typical in the genre. But while these programs all do their business well, not one of them appears to be the all-in-one solution that hardcore web users crave.
First of all, bookmark managers should be browser independent. No matter what browser you open – Web browser, Netscape, Opera, Firefox — you should not need to go trying to find pages twice. You ought to be able to categorize all your bookmarks and add unique names, personal keywords, and descriptive phrases. These functions enable quick searches and simple sorting into meaningful groups. A rating system, color coding, macros, and hotkeys are fantastically useful and synchronization is vital.
We just don’t live in a world where people just use only one computer anymore. Online managers like NetSync helped to resolve this problem in part. With these services users can access their bookmarks from any computer, however, there is always that concern about privacy. Should you surf on a machine, you leave a trail and for many people, that’s bothersome – not necessarily because they’re going somewhere they “shouldn’t” but simply because they just don’t think their surfing routine is anyone else’s business.
The brand new generation of flash memory “thumb drives” are providing interesting possibilities in connection with this, especially considering that the introduction with the new U3 mini os. With programs like P.I. Protector Mobility suite, all of your Outlook and Internet settings are copied on to the thumb drive are available to you whenever you plug the drive in to the USB port of one other machine. And lots of of these programs erase all evidence of your activities once you take away the drive.
Thankfully newer browsers like Firefox have moved beyond simple hierarchical folders to control bookmarks and have extensions designed for synchronization routines. Unfortunately many of these are pretty cumbersome, actually requiring the user to export bookmarks and ftp them to an isolated server for access afterwards another machine. Considering the fact that, it’s safe to say that all the items of bookmark management haven’t quite fallen into position yet.
Many people have numerous bookmarks they really make reference to them as “collections” and what is a collection with out a useful catalog? Perform so many complex things well with this software, why can’t we come up with a multi function solution for bookmark management?