Now, What Was That Website Again?

Keeping track of online resources is challenging. Whether it is an infographic to share with your class, or something amusing to show a friend, sometimes you just can't find that great website that you were sure you bookmarked (or marked as a "favourite") when you go to look for it. The problem is that we often use several computers or other devices a day to access the web, and because each web browser on each device creates a separate bookmarks list, we end up with a half dozen lists to check … not very convenient.

A Better Way

Finally, more than fifteen years after the "world wide web" hit the mainstream, keeping track of bookmarks of web pages across several machines is becoming easier. Third-party services like Xmarks which synchronize bookmark lists between devices have been around for several years. Now some web browsers have bookmarks synching built in, like Mozilla Firefox through Firefox Sync and Safari through iCloud.

An alternative to synchronizing bookmarks is to use a "cloud-based" service where each person's bookmarks are stored privately in a central location on the Internet, and accessed by them from any computer. Bookmarks in a cloud-based service can also be easily shared, and many people do, earning this way of organizing web page addresses the moniker "social bookmarking." Ease of access to my bookmarks and ease of sharing them with colleagues are the main reasons that I chose a cloud-based method over synchronization, and the tool I use is called Diigo.

Organizing website bookmarks with Diigo

Diigo has many useful features which I will write about in the coming weeks, but the best way to get started is to use Diigo to remember your favourite websites. After creating a Diigo Account, choose a tool to make recording and recalling websites smoother by integrating it with your web browser. I like using the Diigo Toolbar with the Firefox web browser, but there are tools for many platforms including Apple products and Android.
When you are reading a web page you want to remember, choose "Bookmark this Page" from the blue "d" Diigo menu button ( ) beside the address bar. In the window that opens you can enter information about the page like key word "tags" to categorize your bookmarks, or you can leave everything blank and just click save to record just the address and title of the page.
Once you have marked pages with Diigo that list is available to you from any device, either through the Diigo Toolbar, or directly with any web browser by signing in on the Diigo website. Most of my bookmarks are marked private at this point because I am still new to the tool, but you can get a sense of how a bookmarks list in Diigo might be accessed by looking at a list that a couple of us in the math department have begun to assemble recently at http://groups.diigo.com/group/uhs_math.