Author Topic: Managing Favourites (Read 36,121 times)

markan · « **on:** August 23, 2005, 04:34 PM »

Hi

Does anyone have any recommendations for tools that manage favourite website URLs? I have used Kaylon's Powermarks and Outertech's Linkman in the past, but both now feel to have been abandoned to a greater or lesser extent. Powermarks also doesn't play well with many of the new browsers (I mostly use Maxthon).

If you are familiar with either of the above you will have guessed that I like to collect a lot of bookmarks and then categorize them by keyword. Folder-based structure tend to force you into a single categorisation that I find restrictive.

I guess the ideal would be a marriage of the flexible filing of Powermarks, the monitoring capabilities of Aignes WSW and the past version caching of Copernic Tracker.

I'm pretty sure that there isn't a perfect match out there, but is there something that I've missed?

Regards
Mark

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #1 on:** August 23, 2005, 08:56 PM »

Bookmark Buddy

http://www.bookmarkbuddy.net/

vegas · « **Reply #2 on:** August 26, 2005, 11:11 PM »

I would second that, gosh I love my Bookmark Buddy. Happy registered user for 6 years here. The author has always been receptive to some new ideas. Releases are not regular but it does keep moving along, although at a slow pace. Good Luck with your search. I also have to say, dig deep into this program, its not as basic as it appears on the surface. Import & Export features are great too.

markan · « **Reply #3 on:** August 30, 2005, 08:30 PM »

I had tried Bookmark Buddy before and taken a dislike to it. However I have grown to trust the opinions of people round here so I have been taking another look.

On the plus side it's quick and light. It also has almost all of the functionality that I want.

The only real functional gaps for me are that I wish it would get keywords from the sites as I bookmark them and that the search seems a little more buried than in Powermarks or Linkman.

The bit that I am still not keen on is the interface. Not being able to see the sub-categories until you select a category makes me feel like I am wearing blinkers. I am going to persevere though in case it grows on me.

I had missed how good it was though and once again this forum has proved the collective knowledge of it's members.

jpfx · « **Reply #4 on:** August 30, 2005, 09:01 PM »

I was spoilt by powermarks when it was still being developed. I couldn't get my head around bookmark buddy either. Perhaps there's an application void waiting for development there.
Good luck with trying to like it!

vamp07 · « **Reply #5 on:** August 31, 2005, 03:55 AM »

I used to love powermarks but this has been the year that I am switching more and more to doing everything online. Gmail is the first web based email interface that I consider fast enough to use for all my email. For bookmarking I just love www.furl.net .

jpfx · « **Reply #6 on:** August 31, 2005, 10:00 PM »

furl's privacy policy is about as loose as any spyware app.

patteo · « **Reply #7 on:** October 23, 2005, 01:14 PM »

I have been using Powermarks for many years now and did get the feeling that it had been abandoned, especially when I started using alternative browsers like MyIE2, Maxthon and Firefox. There has been hardly any updates of this software for a few years now. I eventually figured out a way to solve the problem of it not working for Firefox by using the ieview extension for Firefox and even emailed the author with my workaround - (anyway, this method has been overtaken by events) The author has quietly updated the software to work with Firefox (still a beta though http://www.kaylon.com/beta/index.html) with integration just like in IE - (In fact, they originally said it could not be done due to some technicalities). But I have been using it for a week now and it works very well, even with opening in Firefox tabs.

Was a little surprised that as a registered user, I did not received a notification of this beta. But nevertheless, I am very glad that I check the website once in a while.

Too bad I missed the offer of 50% discount on website-watcher as by the time I discovered it, the offer was long over. Wonder if they will offer their discounts again.

Anyway, back to Powermarks - I have been hunting high and low for an alternative for some years now and have found all the rest I tried wanting in some aspect or other compared to Powermarks when it comes to the instant searching and its intuitiveness and ease of use, annotations, color coding etc.

So I guess wrongly that it had been abandoned. I'm back into bookmarking heaven with Firefox.

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** October 23, 2005, 01:25 PM »

Thanks for the update on the powermarks update!

as for this:

Quote

Too bad I missed the offer of 50% discount on website-watcher as by the time I discovered it, the offer was long over. Wonder if they will offer their discounts again.

all i can say is...
november will be a special month here at donationcoder

Mark0 · « **Reply #9 on:** October 23, 2005, 02:02 PM »

I use LookSmart's Furl too.
The Firefox extension make it very handy to use.

Bye!

markan · « **Reply #10 on:** October 23, 2005, 05:31 PM »

Quote from: mouser on October 23, 2005, 01:25 PM

all i can say is...
november will be a special month here at donationcoder

If you could make it special before the 7th that would be great

(my WSW trial expires then in case it wasn't obvious). I appreciate the tip anyway.

jpfx · « **Reply #11 on:** October 23, 2005, 07:47 PM »

if november is a special month as far as WSW is concerned then I'm there.
Missed the first offer and been waiting ever since....

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** October 23, 2005, 07:52 PM »

mark it on your calendar then

brotherS · « **Reply #13 on:** October 23, 2005, 08:48 PM »

Quote from: Mark0 on October 23, 2005, 02:02 PM

I use LookSmart's Furl too.
The Firefox extension make it very handy to use.

So this works for IE and Firefox, right?
I thought about using some service like that, I don't like to store them locally anymore.

Mark0 · « **Reply #14 on:** October 23, 2005, 09:19 PM »

Quote from: brotherS on October 23, 2005, 08:48 PM

So this works for IE and Firefox, right?

Yes!

Bye!

patteo · « **Reply #15 on:** October 25, 2005, 08:22 AM »

Quote from: brotherS on October 23, 2005, 08:48 PM

Quote from: Mark0 on October 23, 2005, 02:02 PM
I use LookSmart's Furl too.
The Firefox extension make it very handy to use.
So this works for IE and Firefox, right?
I thought about using some service like that, I don't like to store them locally anymore.

On the subject of not liking to store bookmarks locally, I would like to add that Powermarks also has a free web storage of bookmarks feature called NetSync.

Do note that it's not a social bookmarking service kind of thing. I myself has not used it because I prefer to keep them on the local computer.

Below is an extract from http://www.kaylon.com/help/chapter_6.htm

6.1 Introduction

NetSync allows Powermarks to communicate with the Kaylon NetSync server to store bookmark collections on the Internet. This allows you to backup bookmarks and synchronize collections from various locations, such as work and home, and access bookmarks from any computer.

NetSync is safe and secure in addition to being completely private. We derive absolutely no data from this service or its usage, it is provided strictly as a feature and convenience for Powermarks users. Best of all, it is FREE for all Powermarks users, even if you are just evaluating the software.
-------------

The really indispensible part of Powermarks is that you can be surfing along on any site and if they strike your fancy, you click the Powermarks Add Button (or press a definable hot key), add any comments you like on top of any key words and details that is automatically extracted from the site, add a site rating if you like (which is color coded by rank) and whoosh you can be on your way....until 2 months later, you vaguely remember visiting a site that mention something that you like, but you cannot for the life of you remember any other details except that you also remember it had something to do with a mention by mouser and donationcoder which you of course key in as a comment

You just enter "mouser donationcoder" and the search is an instantaneous search (literally less than a second - as fast as you can type - wish I can catch a screen video of it in action) of my thousands of bookmarks (5538 to be exact) , narrowing down as you type each letter, (just exactly like in Find and Run Robot type of search). Click the url and whoosh, you are back where you want - not in heaven, but still exactly where you want.

It's been a life saver for me many times over the years, you know as we all get older and our powers of memory retention and retrieval gets less !

The interface is clean and elegant - flat screen like, and very effective. I have yet to see any like it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this.

I think other users of Powermarks can attest to what I'm saying.

After discovering that they have a fix for Firefox, I'm no longer looking for an alternative, simply because there's no need for an alternative and besides, I can find no others like it. In fact, one can more than easily live with it as is even if there is no further updates.

Someday, when I can find the time, I might just convince myself to do a mini-review so you can watch it in action and give it its due justice.

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** October 25, 2005, 11:40 AM »

great post patteoks,
this ability to quickly add a bookmark with comments and keywords from the browser itself sounds like exactly the right way things shoud be done.

brotherS · « **Reply #17 on:** October 31, 2005, 11:46 AM »

Quote from: Mark0 on October 23, 2005, 02:02 PM

I use LookSmart's Furl too.
The Firefox extension make it very handy to use.

Hmm, I just wanted to look into it again and search for a "guided tour" but now the page won't even load!?

Mark0 · « **Reply #18 on:** October 31, 2005, 11:51 AM »

Strange, loads OK for me (tryied just now).

Bye!

patteo · « **Reply #19 on:** December 06, 2005, 10:57 AM »

A little update for those who have upgraded to Firefox 1.5 and also using Powermaks.

Powermarks just indicated on their website that they expect to release an update by Dec 9, 2005 so that it will work with Firefox 1.5.

http://www.kaylon.com/beta/index.html

nevf · « **Reply #20 on:** December 06, 2005, 07:48 PM »

A lot of Firefox extensions have broken with FF 1.5. A sad state of affairs. See this thread: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/powertoolssoftware/message/14953?threaded=1

If you are interesting in managing bookmarks I suggest you have a look at Surfulater. Surfulater lets you save web page content, edit it, cross reference, add notes, search etc. as well as acting like a bookmark manager. Web sites and pages come and go, so for any important information you are far better to save it permanently to your PC, which is what Surfulater is all about.

Read more at: http://www.surfulater.com/surfandsave.html and see the Surfulater special offer here at DC: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1729.0

Surfulater works with Firefox 1.5 and earlier, IE6 and IE based Browsers.

Quote from: patteoks on December 06, 2005, 10:57 AM

A little update for those who have upgraded to Firefox 1.5 and also using Powermaks.

Powermarks just indicated on their website that they expect to release an update by Dec 9, 2005 so that it will work with Firefox 1.5.

http://www.kaylon.com/beta/index.html

rjbull · « **Reply #21 on:** December 07, 2005, 10:49 AM »

In his "smallwares" list, MarkTAW notes that he used to use Powermarks, but now uses a Wiki instead:
http://www.marktaw.com/reviews/MyFavoriteSmallware.html

but keeping annotated bookmarks on your own PC (and preferably on something you can carry about on a USB stick) is still very appealing.

jroad · « **Reply #22 on:** December 07, 2005, 08:12 PM »

I have evaluated some of the favorites tools listed here as well as Linkstash, which I don't think was mentioned here:
http://www.xrayz.co.uk/

This one seemed to fit most of my needs, once I figured out how to get it to work with Maxthon. However, I really think this category of application is best suited for an online tool. It is a real inconvenience trying to sync favorites amongst different computers. An online service solves the synching issues and should allow all platforms and browsers to work.

Has anyone gone through the various online bookmark managers?

Here are some I found via Google:
http://www.spurl.net
http://www.mybookmarks.com
http://www.backflip.com
http://www.mybookmarkmanager.com

The wiki idea sounds interesting but I have no experience implementing a wiki solution so I don't know what sort of effort is involved.

dantheman · « **Reply #23 on:** December 07, 2005, 10:12 PM »

There's also www.furl.net but i find it has problems with keeping foreign accents.

So far i tend to prefer www.spurl.net because of the sidebar tab making bookmarks readily available in Firefox along with the Spurl button to add any new ones. These links work with IE and Opera as well. The sidebar one is rather easy to install for Maxthon but the one to add new bookmarks is still in the works (for Maxthon). There are many other features that take a bit of time to discover, like the link to WebArchive repository of the Internet.

Their forum has been down for about three weeks now. They were recently hacked.

nudone · « **Reply #24 on:** December 07, 2005, 10:17 PM »

can't honestly remember what i've tried (sorry) but i'm using 'spurl' at the moment as i want to access the same favorites from my place of work as i do when at home.

with a bit of messing about you can have spurl running with maxthon so that it appears down the left-hand side of your browser (it should work with internet explorer without the faffing about).

spurl allows you to attach comments/notes to the individual links and it is meant to be fast for searching through (i've no compliants). you also have access to your favorites from anywhere you can get online by using the spurl homepage so that's also a plus.

the main thing for me is that it works with maxthon and it's actually inside the browse - just a right click on the page you are viewing and you can 'spurl' it.

i'll have to try xrayz.co.uk - i imagine it's a similar thing to spurl???