Web pages aren't getting any smaller, but there are usually not more than a few paragraphs or a couple of images of particular interest on any given page. Firefox add-ons ICyte (also available for IE), Wired-Marker, and Trails let you save all or sections of Web pages and share your snippets with others.
ICyte makes sharing easy
Most of the time, sharing Web content means sending someone a link via e-mail, chat, or phone. The ICyte add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer lets you highlight the important content on the page before you share it, or you can save and send portions of the page rather than the whole enchilada.
You must provide your name and e-mail address to use the service. After you download the add-on and restart Firefox, two buttons are added to the left of the address bar. Click the left button to create a Cyte for a new or existing "project." Here you can assign tags or a note to the Cyte. Click the button on the right to open your Cytes in the sidebar.
Annotate Web pages before you save and share them with ICyte.
(Credit: ICyte)The Cyte entries in the sidebar show a thumbnail of the page, its name, the name of the project, and its comments and tags. When you click a Cyte to reopen it, a banner appears at the top of the main browser window showing the same information along with the date it was saved and a Live View button that returns to the original page. You can hide this banner to view more of the page itself.
Click the gear icon that appears when you hover over a Cyte in the sidebar to open its drop-down menu with options for editing the Cyte name and other data (but not the page itself), creating a copy, deleting the Cyte, sending it to someone via e-mail, or embedding it in a Web page. You can also share the sites you designate as public with others via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, though I didn't try these features.
... Read more
Here's a must-have Firefox add-on. Called Multi Links, this extension lets you simply right click and drag your mouse across the screen to select multiple links at once. It's just like selecting multiple files on your computer, and highly effective for tearing through a page of links you want to look at or save for later.
By default, selected links open up in new browser tabs, although you can go into the options to choose whether you want them to open up in new windows, or be bookmarked instead. You're also able to change the color scheme of the box, and the outlines of the selected links--just in case you're into that sort of thing.
Want to open up multiple URLs? Just drag your mouse over them with this handy extension.
(Credit: CNET)Advanced users can utilize keyboard shortcuts to limit mouse work. For instance, holding down the control or shift button while creating a box means you can hop around a page of results--selecting the items you want to open or save, while skipping over others. The extension is also coded to ignore extra links on search pages, which keeps you from unintentionally opening up the cached and similar links on each result. This worked fine on Google and Bing, but not on Yahoo or Ask.
This extension is definitely worth keeping around because it does not interfere with normal, right-click behavior. My one hope is that future versions will forgo the options menu in place of a small pop-up, or slide-out menu that asks what you want to do with links after selecting them.
See also: Snap Links (which does the same thing, but has not been updated since February) and Selection Links.
Google ditched its browser sync plug-in for Firefox a year ago, but the idea is resurfacing in Chrome in a way that makes me think of possibilities the technology could hold for Chrome OS.
The company is preparing to build a system to synchronize bookmarks across different versions of Chrome, Google's Tim Steele said in a mailing list posting on Friday. Google envisions extending the feature to other data types, including passwords, Steele and fellow programmer Idan Avraham said in a follow-up posting.
"We wanted to focus on bookmarks and get it right first before we think about other data types. We chose bookmarks both because they are generally the most important to users, but also because they are the hardest data type to sync," Avraham said.
Synchronizing bookmarks is a fairly basic concept. The Xmarks plug-in, formerly called Foxmarks, has solved the issue for years on Firefox, so users could move from a work computer to a home computer and still have their saved Web addresses intact. Google had its own though now extinct option, and now Mozilla itself is building a plug-in called Weave that synchronizes bookmarks, passwords, tabs, and other information. Yahoo's Delicious service has been available for years for people to store bookmarks centrally in the cloud and to share them with contacts as well.
So it's no surprise Google feels compelled to add bookmark sync to Chrome--especially given that the company plans to use a person's Google Account to save the list. Google likes the idea of storing the state of people's applications in the cloud, even if they're relying on a local computer's horsepower to run.
Bookmark sync will arrive gradually; initially there won't be a way to sync bookmarks using Google Bookmarks service that can be used directly or through Google's browser toolbar, Steele said in another message. "For the first release, we've just focused on getting sync to work between Chrome instances," Steele said.
The synchronization feature may be a basic utility, but Google sees it as much more than just updating a list of links. In fact, it chose to use Google's own high-powered Google Talk infrastructure to handle the service, the design document states. Essentially, that means browsers only need to listen for broadcasts when a change occurs rather than frequently check in for them:
To make this sync infrastructure scale to millions of users, we decided to leverage existing XMPP-based Google Talk servers to give us "push" semantics, rather than only depending on periodically polling for updates. This means when a change occurs on one Google Chrome client, a part of the infrastructure effectively sends a tiny XMPP message, like a chat message, to other actively connected clients telling them to sync.
To put that gain into perspective, consider a three-minute polling interval. Three minutes is far from real time, or "immediately" as our goal was stated. But already, at the very least, every three minutes every client needs to ask the server if anything changed. Even with just one thousand users, we're already talking about a server having to handle a poll request every 0.18 seconds on average (or roughly 5.6 queries per second). And that's just when nothing is happening! Using XMPP pushes, the sync servers don't need to waste cycles for no reason.
There are other synchronization possibilities for the browser. Peter Kasting, another Chrome programmer, offered his personal wish list: "I'm more interested in history/visited link/omnibox syncing than bookmarks," he said in a posting. Synchronizing those elements would mean one instance of Chrome would behave more like another, for example being able to retrieve more easily the address of a Web site that a user already visited on another computer.
But the high-powered infrastructure raises some interesting possibilities in the long run. Who needs a hyper-responsive utility just for synchronizing bookmarks or browser history lists? When was the last time you were saving bookmarks so fast that there was a danger multiple updates would run afoul of each other?
The thought I had is that perhaps Chrome OS could benefit from a high-speed message-passing interface. After all, on Chrome OS, Chrome gets the glamorous job of running the Web applications, with the underlying Linux operating system handling more mundane hardware duties.
Perhaps there are situations in which sending lots of XMPP messages could help Google-hosted applications stay in tune with each other. Google Wave, which uses XMPP already to power its group-chat abilities, is one example that springs to mind. Today that's a Web application that doesn't need a browser to handle that lower-level interaction, but might it work better if it were built in? Gmail can use IMAP to keep the same inbox synchronized among different computers, but maybe this would be easier and faster?
Then again, as Freud said, sometimes a train is just a train.
Personal bookmarking service Read It Later has some nice new features this week for both users and developers.
On the user side, there's now an updated version of its reading application for the iPhone, which lets users access their saved reading list even when they're not near a data connection. The new version supports both password-protected sites and articles that are spread out over multiple pages. Once you've plugged in your password to a site that needs it, the app stores the password so you don't have to enter it each time the app needs to fetch a full article. And for stories that span multiple pages, the application will automatically detect this and download the content from the remaining pages.
Other small tweaks include an easier way to turn the auto-ration lock on and off, a currently-reading and recently-read list, as well as a scroll bar that lets you quickly jump to a later part of an article without having to do the Running Man with your fingers. It even shows you how far you've scrolled down in any given article, so you can hop back to where you were. These are small touches, but they can speed up how you navigate to and from each piece of content.
For developers, the service has updated its API to allow third parties to pull user data. Previously they could only write to it. This could make for some exciting apps in the future; one being a version of the software that can download article data in the background, even when you're not running it. As it stands with Read It Later for the iPhone, it can't download new article data for offline reading until the next time you launch it and have a data connection. Other platforms that allow background processes may see richer, fuller apps because of this.
Some of Read It Later's new iPhone features in screenshot form. Click to see in full-size.
(Credit: CNET)
Mozilla has fixed a number of security holes and made some stability improvements to the public version of Firefox. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 3.0.11 also addresses a specific bug that would corrupt a user's bookmarks database.
According to the Bugzilla report, the corrupted bookmark database was the most common bug reported via Live Chat and in the Firefox support forum.
The security patches in v3.0.11 fix a hole in a JavaScript chrome execution along with other arbitrary code executions, URL spoofing, and memory corruption. The full list of security fixes can be read here, and the release notes are available here.
Read It Later (download), the bookmarking meets productivity tool has a new iPhone app out (review it). It lets you sync up with your desktop reading list and pick up stories while away from your computer. But the real reason to get it, is that like the desktop version it lets you save stories for offline reading, giving you a way to catch up on content even when you're away from a sturdy data connection.
There's both a free and pro version. The pro version, which costs $2.99, adds in things like a bookmarklet for saving links from Safari, a sharing tool to post articles to external bookmarking sites, as well as a full screen browsing mode that gives you more screen real estate than you get in Safari. You can also set it to ignore the iPhone's accelerometer, which lets you read certain content sideways or upside down which can be useful for things like photos.
Here's a demo:
The company also recently released an API for developers to build Read It Later integration into their own apps. This means developers of RSS readers, or even news publishers could give readers who are also Read It Later users a way to save their content for later viewing.
Firefox extension Site Launcher (download) lets you replace your bookmarks toolbar with an overlay window of links that can be pulled up at any time using a simple keyboard shortcut. You pick which sites you want on the list, and a one-letter keyboard shortcut is given to each. When pulled up, you simply hit the key for the site you want and it goes straight to it. Once you've memorized which sites are on your list, you can make use of an alternate key combination that lets you skip to each site without having to view the menu at all.
The extension comes with a handful of popular sites built in, although you can also start from scratch with your own. You also have several color and menu style options including setting the maximum number of columns you want, and how transparent the window is.
If you're a laptop or Netbook user looking to get the convenience of a bookmarks toolbar without sucking up the screen real estate, this is a great way to save some space.
Here's a quick demo video of how it works:
This free IE add-on captures JPEG images of bookmarked sites in the event that the tagged site changes or disappears. InternetScrap introduces a toolbar to your Internet Explorer window that contains only two buttons--not a great use of space, but the feature is pretty neat.
The first button on the toolbar lets you manage bookmarked Web pages, which the plug-in calls "scraps." The settings menu lets you opt to scrap an entire Web page or just the visible area. A slide bar is available for manipulating the scrap resolution, or you can use one of the preset options. The second button is for scrapping the Web page. Click on the button to see a preview of the scrapped page, and then select a location to save it. A hot key combination is rolled in, and there's also the option to e-mail the bookmarked page. The program worked quickly, and makes the scraps accessible via your Favorites.
Users of all skill levels will find this program easy to use, and it's recommended as an alternative to bookmarking.
For most people, browsing is an either-or proposition: they use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox. But I'm betting there's a bunch of people like me who find themselves spending time in both browsers, often simultaneously.
The problem is, my list of Firefox bookmarks bears no resemblance to my collection of IE favorites. It took all of about five minutes to solve this problem.
Move your IE favorites to Firefox
Open Firefox 3 and click File > Import to start the Import Wizard. Choose Microsoft Internet Explorer and click Next. Uncheck all the options except Favorites (or retain them if you want to add your IE cookies, history, and Internet options) and click Next and Finish.
Firefox 3 makes it easy to import your Internet Explorer favorites via the Import Wizard.
(Credit: Mozilla Foundation)You can also export your IE favorites manually. To do so, open IE and click File > Import and Export to open the wizard. Click Next, choose Export Favorites, and click Next again. To export all your favorites, click Next again, or drill down the folders listed under Favorites and choose only the shortcuts you want to export before you click Next. Choose a name and location for your favorites file, but be sure to retain the .htm (or .html) format. Click Next > Finish > OK to close the wizard.
Use this file as a favorites backup or to move your list to a copy of IE on another PC.
Add your Firefox bookmarks to IE
In Firefox 3, click Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. At the top of the Library dialog box, click Import and Backup > Export HTML. Choose a name and location for the file (retain the .htm or .html extension) and click Save. Close the Library dialog.
Now open IE and click File > Import and Export > Next. Choose Import Favorites and click Next again. Click Browse, navigate to and select the bookmarks file you just exported from Firefox, and click Save. After you click Next again, select the folder you want to store the bookmarks in and click Next yet again. Finally, click Finish and OK.
Sync your Firefox bookmarks with Foxmarks
This import-export routine should suffice for people who use only one, two, or even three different PCs. However, if you would prefer to store all your bookmarks in one place or if you frequently browse on public PCs, an online bookmark service may be a better solution. The free Foxmarks add-on for Firefox lets you sync bookmarks on a number of systems and provides access to your shortcuts after you log in at the Foxmarks.com site.
And yes, the site works with both Firefox and IE.
Besides the face-lift, one of Firefox 3's less flashy, but incredibly useful features, is the new bookmarking system. Yeah, there are still folders and bookmarklets, but joining the party are useful items like tags, smart backup, and a new way to track which sites you're actually visiting to help weed out what's unneeded.
We've put together a small guide to help you take advantage of bookmarking in Firefox 3. If you put these lessons to use, you'll go from having a big, clumsy menu of sites you like to an ever-changing list that can quickly be parsed and prioritized with minimal effort.
Step 1: Master the quickie
On a site you like? Don't bother with keyboard shortcuts (although Ctrl+Shift+L is dead easy); just hit the new star button in the address bar. It'll quick-save it to your bookmarks list the same way the keyboard shortcut does, although it saves a click or two by skipping the "edit this bookmark" dialogue that usually pops up when you try to squirrel a link away.
If you do want to access that dialogue without having to delve into the full-fledged bookmark editor, just click on the star again and you'll get that same drop-down menu with quick fields you can fill in to edit tags or simply remove the link from your bookmarks.
With tags, save typing and a visit to figure out what a site is about.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Step 2: Use tags
Tags are helpful. If you're bookmarking a site you think you're going to keep around, it's worth tagging. The biggest reason is that Firefox will now use tags as shortcuts in the address bar, meaning that if you tag this article "awesome," typing awesome into the bar will automatically pull up this page as one of the top results. It'll also take any tags you've previously added and autofill them for you as you type. This makes it easy to fill in some simple descriptions quickly and efficiently.
To quickly add pre-existing tags without typing anything, just hit the little down arrow in the bookmarking menu. This will list all of the tags you've typed in before, and simply clicking on any one of them will add it as a tag.
Step 3: Use smart bookmarks and folders to discover new content
Are you an iTunes user? If so, you may be familiar with smart playlists, the playlists that will automatically fill with tracks based on what boolean values you set up. Firefox 3 has two similar features called smart bookmarks and smart folders that let you do this using query strings or simple searches. Now as a warning, this isn't as simple to do as it is in iTunes, which has drop-down menus, but the good news is ... Read more
