Saturday, May 14, 2011

Bookmarks - Key to Organizing Your Browsing

Bookmarks get you there fast.

Bookmarks are pointers to pages or websites or even programs like word processors. Bookmarks lead the way to easier computing. They can also direct documents to EMail, Facebook, Evernotes, for future reading, and newly to Kindle, iPhone, and iPad.

The idea is to get into your computer, do your stuff, and get out, quickly.

Originally they were hidden and you needed to click to have them listed. That was like hiding the dial of a radio.

More recently bookmarks have jumped to the fore, first in an an icon bar across the top of the screen, then bookmarklets taking much less space, and now, from Google, as large icons filling the entire home screen. Indeed, they have become the “face of the browser” on the home page.

Bookmarks are the key to easy use. I have these:

GMail, Yahoo,FaceBook, Calendar, Google Reader, YouTube, BookSearch, Amazon, EBay, Fancast (Cable TV), Mobile, Internet TV. The Mobile is for bookmarks which fit mobile device screens---all the bookmarks are available on my mobile devices.

I also have bookmarks to add a new bookmark, and send pages to FaceBook, Evernotes, Read Later via Instapaper, and Kindle, and to forward via EMail (GMail includes sending to KIndle). I should add Dropbox and Twitter, both for access and forwarding. Search Google for them.

As I mentioned, the bookmarks are shared and accessible anywhere I log in to GMail, another compelling reason to use GMail from Google. I used the latest beta test version of Chrome browser. It is supposed to allow me to print anywhere, but works so far only on my cloud prototype computer from Google and iPad/iPhone/iTouch. (5-19: now working for my other computers, and for iPod Touch for all printers using special software).

However, with the latest Chrome beta, I now have a main page which has icons for dozens more, such as the NYT, Picasa, Netflix, Pandora, NPR, weather, and so on. Clicking takes me to them instantly, and to Chrome Market for apps.

Soooo. In the morning I check mail and news, Calendar, weather and Reader. Later, with a mobile device, the same again. I use mSpot for music if near Wifi or 4g wireless access to internet. (Otherwise, for music and recorded broadcasts, I keep that right in the mobile device.)

Writing this, I thought of new bookmarks for podcasts and found Rocket-in-bottle.

Then, I designed a new homepage with iGoogle, which gives me snapshots of the main site with many sites on one page. Amazon also came out with a cloud storage place and I put all my music there, too.

It happens that all these changes put into older computers those similar icons and bookmarks found in smartphones. They bring the same ease of use to our older and bigger computers, laptops and netbooks. Also to Google’s new Windows-free and Mac-free ChromeOS system for future cheap computers. And to the whole Linux world. Linux is free software which works like W & M but at no costs. Finally it is quite stable.

With all this, I expect to see super cheap and easy computers and tablets within the year. (5:19: to be out June 15).

Google is probably the largest advertising operation in the world and they are practically willing to give you a computer to get access.. Indeed, they gave 60,000 “cloud” computers away recently, including mine. It is reviewed below.

But you do not need to wait. You existing computer can be shaped up to run like a rocket, thanks to Google Chrome browser beta version. Just download it.

No comments:

Post a Comment