Take your bookmarks on the road

General

As we march onwards into the future, mobility is becoming more and more important to our lives.

There are many utilities and programs available that allow you to take your work with you. You can store your files on portable drives, portable memory sticks and USB keys or even on web sites such as Box.net and Google’s Gmail. Great, fine and dandy; but what about your bookmarks and favorite web sites? Have no fear, bookmarks are part of the deal, too.

What are computer bookmarks? A place where web browsers keep a record of pointers/references to web pages on the Internet that you can store and return to, these are recorded in the form of URL’s.

Essentially, your bookmarks are stored in a single file on your computer. Most web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Netscape Browser, Opera Web Browser and Firefox Browser keep a record of those bookmarks in a file usually entitled ‘bookmarks.html’. All of these browsers also have a bookmark import and export utility.

  • Importing and exporting bookmarks with Internet Explorer:

    Click File, Import and Export, Next. You then have the option to import and export favorites, and your cookies.

  • Importing and exporting bookmarks with Firefox:

    Click Bookmarks on the file menu, Organize Bookmarks, (a new window will open), click on File menu in that window, and select Import or Export Bookmarks.

  • Importing and exporting bookmarks with Netscape:

    Click Bookmarks, select Manage Bookmarks, c lick File, select Import of Export Bookmarks – and you’re done.

  • Importing and exporting bookmarks with Opera:

    Click Bookmarks, click Manage Bookmarks, click File, click Import and export, read the drop-down menu, select the option you want, and you’re off to the races.

Aside from storing a bookmark file on your computer, you can also store that same bookmark file on a USB memory stick, or a portable hard drive. A great way to carry your bookmarks from computer to computer is by using software called Roboform. There are also several browser add-ons for storing your bookmarks on the Internet itself.

The newest twist to bookmarking is storing them on the Internet itself, although this is sort of confusing as it requires you to access the Internet to access your bookmarks, but at least you only have to remember one master bookmark address.

It makes your bookmarks portable and accessible from any computer.

Following in the footsteps of MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, bookmarking has become quite popular and has evolved into a new generation of bookmarking called social bookmarking. Essentially, for those who like to share their bookmarks, and to see what others are bookmarking, there are dozens of sites, such as deli.cio.us’ bookmarks, LookSmart’s Furl, reddit, mister–wong, Technorati, digg, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Bookmarks, and Windows Live Favorites.