Kevin.Deenanauth;

Living in the Browser

The browser has long been the killer application. It’s the gateway to information and sometimes the only reason that people turn on their computers. For example, my Mom is fairly computer illiterate, but knows how to use a browser. And that’s all she ever needs and justifies the computer. Since the browser is the gateway to everything from raw information to applications, keeping this explosion of information organized is a laborious no matter how technical you are. How best do you keep track of all those sites you need?

Problems Faced with Bookmarks

Bookmarks in browsers right now don’t work for me:

• Google Arguably, who needs bookmarks? If you remember the right set of keywords, Google suddenly becomes an all knowing being who has everything you need. Although it’s a little less efficient, Google has replaced all those bookmarks I use to keep of those website homepages. Nowadays, people seem to only bookmark specific webpages or frequently used homepages.
• Multiple Computers Bookmarks become scattered across different computers which means you spend time replicating, updating and remembering all those sites multiple times. Far too much work.
• Folders I wish I always knew when I should create a folder for a set of bookmarks. Unfortunately they usually end up piled on my toolbar or stuck in the root of my bookmarks because it doesn’t belong with anything else. This requires a periodic clean out whenever it gets on my nerves.
• Temporary Bookmarks When is a bookmark not a bookmark? When you really don’t plan on going there again, but you save it anyway because someone sent it for you to look at it. I have tons of bookmarks like that thanks to sites like Digg. These are very difficult to sort through and figure out value
• Distraction Bookmarking those frequently used sites seems to promote something of an obsessive compulsive disorder. Like that e-mail shortcut in your quick launch bar. At least for me, the instant I see that news bookmark, I have the urge to click it. Get that fresh hit of information. mmm **twitch**

My Solution so Far

Google Browser Sync If you’re using Firefox (which you should), Google Browser Sync will synchronize bookmarks between all your computers automagically. Simple and just works.

Read it Later This solves the problem of temporary bookmarks. Read it Later is simply a button you push to bookmark it to a special folder. Of course, you could just designate a folder yourself. However, this Firefox add-on also clears it out for you after you’ve read it, which is huge for me. Compatible with Google Browser Sync

Role Based Bookmarks I’ve been doing this for a few days, and it has worked amazing. Check out my Firefox toolbar:

Cheesy huh? I’ve created a folder for every ‘role’ I play. Everything that I bookmark should fit under one of those roles. I can set any of those folders to be my toolbar folder. For example, this is when I set it to my Geek folder:

This makes it easy to switch context and not be distracted by other bookmarks. I can drag bookmarks onto the toolbar and still be confident that it will be organized. No bookmarks will become uncategorized.

There are still some disadvantages, since I have to clean up each of those folders. But that’s much easier to handle, and I don’t have to do it all at once.

Alternatives

del.icio.us It’s basically a website for you to share your bookmarks and keep them in one central location. It was the first site to use tagging for bookmarks also. However I’m not sure, if I ‘get’ it. I’m not really interested in what other people are bookmarking without explanation.

Firefox 3 (In Beta) I’m pretty excited about Firefox’s new version. It intends to address all the issues I have, including synchronization, ‘interesting’ bookmarks, and finally a way to search my bookmarks properly. They also offer tagging. Depending on the UI, this could be good or bad. With the wide range of bookmarks I have, it’s hard to remember the ‘right’ tag. However, it’s another step toward figuring out whether to create a folder for a set of bookmarks. Maybe even do away with folders!

You should check out the other stuff Firefox 3 has going on. The reviews of beta 1 have been awesome. Firefox 2 felt like a step backward as far as quality, but this new release looks like it could be two steps forward.