internet

Bookmarks are notes that let you find a website again: that is they remember the web address of the site.  To bookmark this particular site you select Bookmarks (or Favourites) in your browser's menu and choose to add the page.  To find it again, you simply open the bookmarks and click the link to take you there.

The bookmarking problem occurs when you want to access this site from a different computer.  The chances are that our site is not on that computer, so what do you do?  In the old days you wrote the web address down or, worse still, emailed the address to yourself to access it at work.  Apart from being weird (emailing yourself is so unnatural) you have to be at home in order to do this so it all takes time and organisation.

One solution is to get your browser to export favourites to a document and take that with you or, if you must, email it.  You then import these websites into the new computer.  While this is good, it still takes time and organisation and then what do you do when you add another bookmark on your home machine?  Yes, you have to go through the whole procedure again; plus, of course, the owner of the other computer (maybe your employer) might not want you importing web addresses.

A better solution is a website that stores favourites

A better solution is a website that stores favourites so you can access them no matter what computer you use or, for that matter, where in the world you are.  So now, your bookmarks are there and always up to date (so long as you remember to update them) and you can get them even when using a machine in a hotel or internet cafe on the other side of the world.

There are various websites that let you do just this and also allow you, if you wish, to share some or all of the links with other people, even making them public so that everyone can benefit.  The name given to this sort of altruistic behaviour is social bookmarking.

The advantages are many; you can access the sites anywhere and, to help you, you can allocate tags and even sort bookmarks into tag categories.  But there is a far more important purpose that these sites serve.

Most people make their links public and so the more useful sites accumulate thus allowing you to find the most frequently bookmarked sites for any particular subject.  Anyone who uses the internet to find information for research or homework will instantly realise the enormous benefit of this.  Good sites, or sites that present information in a good way, will rise to the top and the poorer sites will sink, thus making it easier to access quality information quickly.

So, whether you use it simply to make your own links available to you or whether you are a more serious computer user, online bookmarking sites are really useful.

If you use a site such as del.lico.us or blogmarks or any of the other social bookmarking sites please let us know your experiences and we will review the sites that you use.

Tags: bookmarks, favourites, life