F R E E  INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA

Portable Bookmarks


Use more than one computer? Ever wish that YOUR set of bookmarks followed you from computer to computer? Well, now they can.

There are several free Web services which allow you access to your password-protected bookmarks from any computer in the world hooked up to the Web. You can retain whatever organizational scheme you already have (e.g. bookmarks within folders, arranged by categories).

Even more amazing, you can designate some bookmarks as "public bookmarks" searchable by you or anyone else.

You should keep your master set of bookmarks on the computer you use most frequently, e.g. the one where you keep your primary email account, etc. This set you would back up on a floppy disk periodically for safety. But a second "traveling" copy of your bookmark set might prove handy.

Why might you yearn for your bookmarks when using a colleague's computer or perhaps a public library PC? Bookmarks are a Web surfer's best friend. Bookmarks allow you to return to favorite Web pages with a single mouse click. A real lifesaver if you suddenly can't remember a long, involved URL and need to get back to that Web page ASAP.

Bookmarks are your personal map to the World Wide Web.

As for myself, you are looking at my bookmarks when you visit my Web site, for the most part. I do admit to six or seven bookmarks on my Netscape's quite useful personal toolbar, however.

If you have Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator as your browser and you have never seen your personal toolbar, look up at the top lefthand corner of your browser. You will see three small tabs. If you see three tabs but don't see three toolbars, click each tab in succession to open its toolbar.

To customize YOUR personal toolbar, click on Favorites (for IE) or Bookmarks for Netscape. Choose "Add" for IE or "Edit Bookmarks" for Netscape. Look for "Links" for IE and for "Personal Toolbar Folder" for Netscape. Double-click on it to open it. Highlight and drag each bookmark which came with it elsewhere and drag your most frequently-used bookmarks there, one at a time.

If your bookmarks have names which have more than five characters or so, do a right-click on them one by one and rename them something shorter. In Netscape, highlight one, go to Edit Bookmarks, and click on Bookmark Properties [last entry on that menu]. This allows you to rename that bookmark something much shorter so that it will fit better on the browser's Personal Toolbar line.

(If you don't use either Internet Explorer or Netscape , ask someone more familiar with your browser if you have something like the personal toolbar and how to configure it if you do.)


For more information see:
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks
  • del.icio.us
  • MyBookmarks.com
  • Furl.net (LookSmart)
  • MURL (My URL.com)
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    Last Modified: 2/7/2006