Information comes at us in many forms and I have been looking at ways to try and manage it. By manage I mean the sorting and storing of data like bookmarks or random bits of text or other pieces of info. To help with this I’ll be looking at 3 browser based apps Stumbleupon, ReadItlater and Scrapbook aswell as a desktop program Evernote.
Stumbleupon
Stumbleupon is a browser based app for Firefox and Internet Explorer that has the aim of finding interesting sites for you. To do this you must install it’s toolbar (yeah I know I hate toolbars too but bear with me here…) and then rate any sites you like with a thumbs up and you dislike with a thumbs down. Pressing the stumble button on the toolbar gives you a website that it thinks you may like. These are based on your thumbs ups and downs and also on the preferences you gave during install. So how does this help me manage info you ask? Stumbleupon stores the websites you like on your own mini webpage blog. Your stumbles can then be searched from your mini blog and acts as online bookmark storage similar to digg or reddit.
There is a lot more to stumbleupon, like it’s interaction with google that gives you stumbleupon reviewed sites in search listings – a handy feature. It has a massive community feel to it with users following each others recommendations and becoming friends.
Read It Later Firefox Extension
Read it Later is an extension to Firefox that I dismissed initially as unnecessary, installed after reading it for the umpteenth time on a top firefox extensions list, and now cannot live without. It’s great. This extension adds a tick to firefox’s awesome bar (url bar to me and you) that when pressed adds the current site to it’s list. If you then read something from the list you can remove it. It’s as simple as that.
The idea is that it fills the gap between not wanting to bookmark a site and not wanting to read something right away. I did think initially this was unnecessary but as my bookmarks folder has grown ridiculously big over the past couple of years this is helping to sort the problem. Reading that back to myself makes me realise I spend far too much time on the internet but I really do like Read it Later… Oh and an added bonus is that the sites you tick can be stored and accessed online – if you so wish – or added to an RSS feed that can be picked up in your feedreader. Brilliant.
Scrapbook
This extension to firefox allows you to save the contents of a page offline and then access it whenever you like in firefox. You can search the pages that you have stored, add highlighting to them, annotate and remove elements of the page. It is possible to bookmark with scrapbook and you could use this as a secondary bookmarking system, for a project perhaps? It is ideal as a research tool or for keeping small amounts of information like online reciepts (although it is only as secure as access to firefox on your computer is). Again this can be used when you don’t really want another bookmark on your ever increasing bookmark list.
Evernote
If you want to be able to store information on your desktop and synchronize it online or with your mobile devices (such as iphone) then Evernote is a great free choice. Bookmarking isn’t exactly what it is for but it achieves the same end – to keep information for later retrieval. It is a standalone application that can store web pages, take screenshots, index pdf’s, regonize handwritten notes and more. All the notes you store are then fully searchable and taggable. It has a extension for firefox that enables quick saving of text or pages into the main app.
Evernote’s ability to act as a to do list or to keep notes for a project is awesome. Emailing notes you want to be stored is possible as is the storing and play back of audio clips. If you don’t mind installing another app on your computer then evernote has unrivalled free information management. Available for PC and Mac.
Please let me know which of these you use or any alternates you can think of in the comments.
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Blakey
1 year ago
Love it! Especially Read it later and evernote!
Jonny
1 year ago
Read it later is so usefull. Using it tons at the minute. Evernote has saved me on numerous occasions when I have put a randomly obscure scrap of info in there and retrieved it miraculously after several months with a quick search. Don’t know how I coped without them.