Zooloo consists of the following components that you can use to design your own portal website for free:

• zSocial: Social networking with Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter with single status update across all networks
• Dashboard: Personalized dashboard for news, photos, events, email, etc.
• Site Creator: Website and blog builder with themes and widgets
• Privacy Manager: Control who sees which parts of your website
• Photos/Videos: Online photo organizer and video library
• Calendar: Calendar, address book, reminders and to-do lists
• Entertainment & Shopping: Customized online entertainment for music, movies, etc. and favorite shopping sites

Homepage with Social Networking

The homepage has a search box at the top, zStatus and zSocial on the main page, and widgets on the right to upload photos, access email, calendar and your blog.

zStatus is a status update box from where you can update your status across Zooloo, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Below that is zSocial, where you can interact with these social networks. Clicking the tab each network shows relevant sub-headings: for example, Facebook lets you choose between News Feed, Status Updates, Photos, Wall & Friends.

You can choose the background of your home page from several themes.

Your Dashboard

You pick and choose widgets to create your personalized dashboard. The dashboard is organized with tabs at the top, so you can create multiple tabs for different areas of interest. Clicking Add Widgets opens up a gallery of widgets that you can drag and drop to any tab on your dashboard. Widgets that need access to your login or profile need to be customized from the Options button on that widget.

The widget gallery is quite impressive – some of the popular types include:

• Social Tools – Email, Social Networks, Photo-sharing, etc.
• News Feeds – CNN, New York Times, etc.
• Entertainment – Last.fm, iTunes Media

You can see the list of widgets available in Zooloo here. From within your dashboard, you can listen to podcasts and watch videos without leaving your site. You can rearrange widgets with drag and drop and customize the theme. Your dashboard is private, so nobody else sees it at any time.

Build Your Zooloo Website

With a free Zooloo account, you get a yourname.zooloo.com website for free. Your website includes profile, photo, video, graffiti, blog, and three custom pages. With a $30 annual subscription for Zooloo Plus, you can use it with your own domain name and some extras.

The zCreator website builder is very easy to use. You can choose from different layouts and themes for your website. You add content placeholders by drag and drop and fill them with the text and images to build your website.

Each page of your website is private by default. You can choose to share individual pages, photo albums, and videos publicly, or with specific friends on Zooloo. The privacy settings are easy to use and offer granular control over who sees what on your website.

Blogging and Graffiti

Zooloo also offers a simple interface to add a blog to your website. The blogging service supports categories, comments, and photos/videos. You can also import your blog from Blogger.

Graffiti is Zooloo’s social bookmarking or clipping service. Using a bookmarklet from any browser, you can quickly clip a link, photo, or video on your Graffiti page. Graffiti posts also have comments so you can comment on your friends Graffiti items.

More About Zooloo

Zooloo is an easy-to-use, attractive option for non-geeks to have their own website and a central place for social networking and infotainment. The owners of the site say that they are not competing with established social networks like Facebook, but complementing them. There are already over 20,000 users of Zooloo from each state in the US and 76 countries. Users are buying from within their shopping malls inside Zooloo using PayPal. There are plans for an iPhone application as well.

Will you try out Zooloo or recommend it to someone? Do you prefer any other free website/dashboard service? Let us know in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Bookmarklets are designed to make taking action easier and simplify tedious tasks. MakeUseOf has previously recommended 20 must-have bookmarklets for your web browser. But are you of aware of the time-saving Press This bookmarklet for Wordpress?

Grab The Press This Bookmarklet

“Press This for Wordpress” is a cool and convenient way to reblog content that you’d love to share on your blog. No more running to your dashboard every time you want to blog, now automated blogging from your browser is possible! It really makes a world of a difference.

If you’re using Wordpress’ popular blogging platform to manage your blog, this is a must-have tool for you. In fact, it should be on your toolbar, not just in your bookmarks. Trust me, you’re going to use it a lot. Press This is really easy to install.

• Log-in to your Wordpress admin panel.
• In your sidebar on the left, select “Tools”.
• Drag the “Press This” bookmarklet to your browser’s toolbar.
• Start blogging!

Using Press This

From here on out simply click the Press This bookmarklet to quickly log-in and update your blog. If you’re already logged in, Press This will immediately pull up the WYSIWYG blog editor to create a new post. From here you can import images, embed video, select which blog you’d like to post to, categorize, and tag your content.

How to quote an article or debate it a section of the article:

Select the text you’d like to quote with your mouse and then click your “Press This” bookmarklet.

How To Start A Photoblog:

Head to the page featuring the image you’d like to reblog and hit “Press This”. Select the image icon and Wordpress will pull the images from the page you are currently visiting.

Don’t forget to give credit and pay attention to copyrighted or Creative Commons licensed work!

Also, check out Jeffry’s guide to making a Photoblog on Wordpress.

How To Use “Press This” and Wordpress as a bookmarking system.

Easy, just select your text and images, select the bookmarklet, and click publish.

Drawbacks of “Press This”

The emphasis behind this bookmarklet is being able to update your blog on the fly, so the scheduling feature is disabled when using the bookmarklet. However, you can easily save your blog as a draft and schedule it from your normal Wordpress dashboard. You have to use the same dashboard for uploading images from your computer. Press This only allows you to pull in images from a URL.

Plugins that might be available from the Wordpress dashboard may also be disabled when using Press This.

Grab It Now!

Maybe you just don’t have time to start blogging on a separate platform like Posterous or Tumblr, but would love to have their ease and simplicity. If you’re a Wordpress user, they’ve got you covered with the Press This bookmarklet. If you’re having trouble finding a blogging groove, need more of an automated blogging solution or would like a more convenient way to link-back to your friends, give Press This a shot.

Do you use Press This to update your blog?   If so, what pros and cons have you found using it?   Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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When the web gives us a great site or a web service to enjoy at every corner, bookmarking is habit-forming. What is not is the follow-up. The site I bookmarked just last week is lost in the maze after enjoying its 15 seconds of fame.

Recognizing this human failing and for the sake of information management, web services offering bookmark-management solutions have sprung up. The other trend is towards sharing bookmarks i.e. social bookmarking. Believe me, these are serious apps for what might look like a trivial side product of browsing.

NetRocket is all about bookmarks (and a bit of social bookmarking). That’s pretty obvious if you check the name of the website. But unlike other bookmark managers, NetRocket goes further by also being a bookmark scheduling service.

How does NetRocket go beyond the bookmark and tag?

NetRocket’s ambit includes three features that cover up for our bookmark hoarding follies. Yes, we can continue to store our bookmarks but we can now schedule reminder alerts to message us that something needs to be read. A Scheduled Items list come with forcing features like recurring reminders and expiration dates. We can also postpone our website visits for a less busy day by putting the bookmarks in a queue that can be found in a  To View list.

NetRocket operates via two browser toolbar buttons. But the engine of the service lies in the options that can be found in each users NetRocket account.

The parts that make up NetRocket?

1. Register to create an account with the NetRocket bookmark manager. That’s a simple username, password combo without any email verification.
2. Install browser toolbar buttons for your preferred browser. The browser support includes Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Safari, or Opera. Chrome is missing from the list. Individual instructions and links are given for each. In each case, two buttons get added to the browser toolbar – add to NetRocket and my netRocket. Let’s do it with Opera.



3. Log in to NetRocket. The first time user will be greeted with an option to fill up his account with some NetRocket supplied bookmarks covering categories like technology, sports, news, media, and shopping. Select and launch your rocket!



4. NetRocket’s Mission Control is the nerve center for all your bookmark managing activities. Filter views by opting to display all bookmarks or just the personal or business ones. The Search My Bookmarks isto pinpoint any one from the mass. There’s also an alert on the side letting you know what’s left to view and what’s scheduled.



5. The Scheduled Items panel and To View panel are the focus of NetRocket’s utility. NetRocket allows you to set scheduling reminders which prod you gently through either email alerts or recurring/one-off labels on your account page. New bookmarks can be added to the list, details added, edited or deleted. Multiple items can be selected for removal using checkbox selection.



6. The To View panel is for archiving bookmarks for catching them later. Bookmarks can be added by clicking the Add Item button located on top of the panels.



The Add a New Item box is for entering the URL and tagging the new bookmark. All bookmarks can be kept private for your eyes only. The bookmarks in this panel remain active for three months unless extended from the panel itself. The expiration date gets extended by 3 days.



7. You can save the bookmark permanently in the system by pressing an Approve button.
8. For every new item, Recurring Options can be arranged around a lot of time settings.
9. Every bookmark enters the Full List. Here it can be searched for or retrieved at any time. Status indicators show whether the bookmark is a part of the Scheduled Items or the To View list.



10. The Tag Cloud is created from the user specified tags for the bookmarked URLs. To locate a bookmark, click on a tag to bring up a list of all bookmarks tagged with that word. Bookmarks imported from another browser take on the generic imported tag.

This is a brief overview of NetRocket’s bookmarking utility. What’s great about is the scheduling service which literally never lets us forget a bookmark. And if we care to turn off the alerts, the expiration limits stops the bookmark population from exploding. As a social bookmark manager, its success will depend on the herd. But even for private all-location use, it has the potential to get itself a bookmark of its own.

Will you? Let us know about the features you liked in NetRocket (Beta) and some features you wish it had.

Image Credit: The Shopping Sherpa

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I know, “need to know” is rather relative.  There are those out there who think the whole world needs to know when they’re eating a taco, sitting on the couch in their PJs, or, even scarier, DRIVING to work (wait until you’re stopped to tweet, PLEASE!).  But I think we’ve all been there – is there an easier way to share links on Twitter?

The long way around is to highlight and copy the URL, go to your favorite URL shortening service, paste it in, grab the shortened URL, go to your favorite Twitter client (or Twitter directly) and paste the URL with a quote or phrase.  For a veteran computer user, this process doesn’t take ALL that long, but the process CAN be automated and we ALL like that, don’t we?

Enter TBUZZ by our friends over at Arc90.  TBUZZ is a little project of theirs that brings us a nifty little bookmarklet that makes tweeting a current web page VERY easy.  Visit TBUZZ and drag the button to your bookmarks toolbar,

and click it when you’re visiting a site you want to tweet about.  It is that easy, however the wonderfullness does not stop there.  Here are three tricks that TBUZZ does that makes when you want to share links on Twitter SO much easier.

1) Shortening the URL is taken care of automatically.

Don’t want to take that extra step to make sure the URL is shortened?  When you hit the bookmarklet to tweet the post, TBUZZ automatically hooks you up with a bit.ly link making it so that the website’s address doesn’t take up the whole 140 character tweet.  Did I say, AUTOMATICALLY?  There’s no copying the address, visiting the bit.ly site, pasting the address, and grabbing the shortened URL.  It’s all done for you!

2) Quoting a portion of the site is taken care of easily.

When tweeting about a new link you’ve found, sharing what’s going on on the web, sharing just some shortened URL doesn’t help much, does it?  No one’s interest would be peeked and if someone DOES wonder, who wants to click a link that they know nothing about what to expect?  That’s no fun and I’m sure not safe.

The best thing to do is to give a blurb about the link, but, better yet, give a short quotation from the page.  If you do both, you’re on your way to tweeting proficiency!  Again, TBUZZ saves the day, and some much needed energy and time.  All you have to do is highlight the portion you want to quote before clicking the bookmarklet, and you’re given a nifty popup with the shortened URL, the quotation in… you’ll never guess… quotation marks, AND the opportunity to add your own blurb!  PERFECT!

3) Checking out what others are saying about the link is done for you automatically.

Last but not least, once you click the bookmarklet, you’re given a list of tweets from other people who have also found, liked, and tweeted about the same link.  From here you can, instead of tweeting the link, respond to other tweets about the link.  It’s also really neat seeing the already going on conversation about the link.  What are others saying?  How popular is this link?  Do some of these people have some of the same interests as I do?  Very cool.

There are many Twitter tools out there.  TBUZZ is another quality contender I think you’ll have a hard time living without.   However, if you have an easier way to share links on Twitter, we would love to hear about it in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Backup your bookmarks – and bookmarklets – and use these recommended bookmarklets across all platforms. All bookmarklets were tested on Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.

Here’s our list of 20 must-have bookmarklets for your browser – feel free to add your suggestions in the comments!

To add a recommended bookmarklet to your browser, click on the bookmarklet and drag and drop to your bookmarks toolbar. Want to save space? Organize your bookmarklets into a folder in your bookmarks toolbar.

1. Share on Tumblr – A custom bookmarklet to clip pictures and quotes to a Tumblr tumblelog.
2. MapThis – Highlight addresses and click on the bookmarklet to generate a Google map of the address.
3. Bookmaplet – Similar to MapThis, highlight an address in your browser and click on the bookmarklet. It will automatically open a Google Map with the address.
4. Share on Facebook – Quickly share websites, links and videos on Facebook.
5. Spell Check – Activate Firefox’s built-in spell checker in any static website. Great for proofreading websites before they are published or double checking someone else’s work.
6. twitthat! – Share websites, links and videos to your Twitter account.
7. bit.ly – Shorten links and get great statistics on how many clicks they get with this handy URL shortener. (bit.ly is also the default URL shortener of Twitter.)
8. Boxqueue – Add videos to your Boxee Queue for viewing later. You must have a Google account and Boxee account to make this bookmarklet work. Visit the My Feeds section in Boxee to watch your saved videos.
9. Twitter Reactions – Read reactions on Twitter about the page you are currently viewing with this bookmarklet.
10. Darken – Invert the colors on webpages with a simple click. Some people prefer dark backgrounds and light text, so this bookmarklet’s for you.
11. BugMeNot – Stop registering for websites and use BugMeNot’s database of usernames and passwords to sign in to “registered users only” websites, like news sites.
12. GmailThis! – Automatically share links via your Gmail account without having to copy/paste the link.
13. getASIN – Make Amazon Affiliate links quickly. Just replace usernamehere with your affiliate ID.
14. WordPress Comments – Fill in the comment form on WordPress powered sites. Change values to your name, email address and blog URL.
15. Clip to Evernote – Save clips of websites to the popular notebook software Evernote.
16. DiggThis! – Quickly add new sites to Digg.
17. Remove Bloat – Remove bloat from websites such as music, background images and more.
18. Subscribe in Google Reader – Subscribe to RSS feeds in Google Reader, skipping the “Google Reader or iGoogle” selection page.
19. Google Bookmark – Bookmark websites to your Google Bookmarks account.
20. Readability – Click on this bookmarklet to clean up websites and make them more readable.

Some other great resources for recommended bookmarklets (other than nagging the tech guy at your job) include: Bookmarklets.com, marklets.com, and Jesse’s Bookmarklets Site.

Which bookmarklets do you use?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Instapaper has, over the last several months, become my only source of bookmarks – I’ve ditched Diigo, which I loved; I’ve ditched Evernote, which I still use for everything else. Everything I find on the Web that I want for later now goes into Instapaper, which was made possible by some fantastic updates to the site, and more importantly, to the companion iPhone application.

Instapaper is a winner right from the sign-up. It can take all of two seconds to sign up – you don’t need to specify a password, or verify anything. Just pick a username, a password (only if you want one), and you’re set!

Then, drag a bookmarklet called “Read Later” from the Instapaper site to your bookmarks bar in any (did you hear me say any?) Web browser. From then on, any time you click the “Read Later” bookmarklet, the page you’re currently on gets saved by Instapaper. A little window pops up to tell you “Saved!” and then goes away – it’s simple, unobtrusive, and darned fast.

Once you’ve saved a few pages (or a few hundred, like me), go to the Instapaper website. From there, you can launch any of the pages you saved, read them in a text-only version, or send them to the Archive (better than deleting them, because they’re still available if you want them later – and with no storage limit, who cares?).

You can sort your pages into as many folders as you want (another new feature that makes having tons of bookmarks a whole lot easier), and then read through them one by one. For instance, I have three folders: one called “Multimedia,” for things like videos to watch and songs to download, one called “Mobile Reading” for text-only pages I can read anywhere, and “for Computer” for things like apps to try and sites to check out. Your folders can be anything you want, and sorting your pages into them is easy – just click the folder icon next to any given bookmark.

Instapaper allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds of websites, if you want to pull them directly into your reading list – it skips a step for you, if you tend to read everything a particular site has to say. You can also subscribe to the reading list of another Instapaper user, and anything they star (the universal symbol for “I like this,” which pulls it into a new menu within Instapaper) will be automatically synced to your account.

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch owner, you can read directly from your iDevice. By downloading the free Instapaper app for iPhone (there’s also a $10 version that does cool things like remember your position in every page, preserve your folders, and let you tilt to scroll), you can sync your pages, and read them either online or off. Pages are downloaded text-only by default, but whole pages can be downloaded and read.

In short, Instapaper makes saving, syncing, and reading your bookmarks easier than any app I’ve ever seen. Having the ability to read on the go is crucial for me, and I couldn’t live without the iPhone app. Even without it, though, Instapaper’s features new and old make it the perfect, low-maintenance, way to make all your bookmarks online.

What do you use for all your bookmarks?

Photo: takomabibelot

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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However, with its extremely large user base and plenty of tools at your disposal, few may argue that YouTube is the place for your videos to be.

Some time back we showed you some YouTube URL tricks that allow you to change how the player behaves. Right now, allow us to present forth some of the most popular tools out there to go along with YouTube and the super cool stuff you can do with them.

Rip Audio

If you are only interested in the audio of a particular YouTube video and want to rip it off quickly, you can do so using ListenToYouTube. Paste in the URL of the YouTube video that you want the audio extracted, allow it to do its thing and then download the audio as a MP3 file.

Mac users may find that iExtractMP3 performs the same function.

Create Ringtones

If ListenToYouTube allows you to grab the audio, MadRingtones allows you to play with audio. It enables you to make ringtones from YouTube videos or MP3 files from your computer. Creating ringtones is quick and easy: simply navigate to the site, enter the URL of the video or MP3 file and click ‘Load’. Listen through, and it lets you specify the tone’s start/end points and then download it to your computer as MP3, AMR, OGG or M4R file.

Splice and Chop!

There are times when you only like a certain part of a video. You could use the “#t” URL trick to skip to the interesting part. However, if it is more than just viewing the interesting part of the video that you are trying to accomplish, you should check out TubeChop or Splicd. Both these sites allow you to specify a YouTube video URL, the part you want to keep and cut the rest off. You can then embed the “chopped” video on your blog/website or share it with your friends.

Remix or Dub videos

Want to add an MJ track to your dancing kid video? YtDub is a cool video dubbing app which lets you easily dub any YouTube video with audio from another video. Works easy, simply enter YouTube IDs of the video you want to dub and the video you want to use as the background track, hit ‘Dubbo’ and you will get a link to your newly dubbed masterpiece. Play it, share it or do whatever you like.

Dump the default interface

Searching and then clicking to view a video is all fine and dandy, but there is always room for a little change. Bored of the Youtube interface? Then check out:

• YouFlow – which adds a coverflow-like interface and allows you to play multiple videos in a single browser tab.
• YouCube – which lets you map YouTube videos on to the faces of a cube and then share it with others. You can spin the cube to switch between the videos.

• Darao and InfiniTube – let you enter a keyword and returns a playlist of the search result. Hit Play and you have got yourself a non-stop video viewer

Use the cutting edge features

TestTube is like Labs for YouTube. It is a place where you can test drive the latest from YouTube developers. At the time of writing, TestTube includes – CaptionTube – to add captions, Video Annotations, Active Sharing – to show other people what you are watching, Streams – to chat with others who are watching the same video, Warp – a tool to visually browse videos and a demo of the HTML5 Video Tag. There are new ideas added (and taken down) from time to time.

Find sites that have embedded your videos

YouTube provides you excellent tools to track statistics pertaining to your videos. Here, we explained how you can use the tools to track which sites are embedding your videos.

Set a video alarm

A simple online alarm clock that wakes you up with a YouTube video of your choice. Set the alarm time in simple English (tomorrow at 7am, in 45 minutes) and pick any YouTube video you want. No-registration required.

Add Subtitles to YouTube Videos

Ever wanted to add subtitles to Youtube videos and share them with friends? Subyo is a web service that can help you with that. Before anything else, you’ll need to register and get yourself a Subyo account. Next, copy and paste a YouTube video URL into the provided field and click on “Add Subtitles”. Then video will load in the Subyo editor where you can start adding subtitles.

Watch flagged videos without logging in

There are lots of videos on YouTube marked as inappropriate by users. Due to this, YouTube restricts viewing of these videos to registered users only. If you do not have an account (or you don’t want to add a video to your history) and want to view a flagged YouTube video, check out NSFWYouTube. BE WARNED: Due to its niche (if I may call it so) the site has explicit NSFW content, discretion adviced!

Turn Youtube links to videos

Use the Videoembed Greasemonkey script that reads links to video sites on any website and embeds the corresponding video right next to the link so you don’t have click it or visit Youtube to watch the video. It works for a number of other video sites as well.

Get rid of distractions

QuieTube is a cool browser bookmarklet which allows you to view any YouTube video all by itself on a page, removing the surrounding bells and whistles (somewhat like the “Turn down lights” in Youtube). Just drag & drop the provided bookmarklet to your browser toolbar/bookmark bar and click it when viewing a YouTube Video.

Add text, graphics and links to videos

KickLight is a tool that lets you add text, graphics and links to your YouTube video without obscuring it any way. The application inserts a space just below a video and then lets you add your content (text, images and links) there. It also allows you to customize how and when added content should be shown.

Download Videos

There are scores of tools, tricks out there that let you download videos from Youtube. From Firefox extensions, to greasemonkey scripts to complete applications to specific sites — when it comes to downloading, there are probably more than what is required. We covered the best, have a look.

Come Again?

Did I hear you murmur a name we missed? Well go on, use the comments to flame us! Tell us about it. If you have used any of the tools we’ve listed, do share your experiences.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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[To use the bookmarklets, simply add them to your bookmarks bar. Right click them and choose "Bookmark This Link" or just drag and drop it to the bookmarks bar]

1. Subscribe to a website with Google Reader

Add or drag to your bookmarks bar ——> Subscribe

Here is a known scenario – you visit a cool blog and want to subscribe to it. Now you need to find and click its RSS icon, get to the Feedburner site, choose ‘Google Reader’ as your RSS reader, get to the ‘Add to Google’ page and choose ‘Add to Google Reader’. Easy, right? Well, why not make the process much easier – use the ‘Subscribe’ bookmarklet. Just click it, and you’ll immediately get into Google reader, one click away from subscribing to the site. Life’s good, isn’t it?

2. Speed read online content

Add or drag to your bookmarks bar ——> ZAP read

The ZAP reader bookmarklet opens a new window where it flashes text at high speed (text which you  previously marked in a website). Not only that it makes you read much faster, but it also improves your speed reading abilities (I can personally testify).

It’s a good idea to use a speed that you can read relatively easily when the text is important and you have to completely understand it. Use higher speed when the text is of less importance, in order to gradually increase your reading speed.

3. Tweet a link and monitor it

Add or drag to your bookmarks bar ——> Bit.ly

The Bit.ly bookmarklet is the most useful way I know to share links through Twitter. The bookmarklet pops-up a sidebar within the site you are in, shortens its URL and lets you tweet it without leaving the page. Moreover, it tells you how many people have got to the site through a Bit.ly shortened URL and how many got there through your link.

If you think about it, Bit.ly lets you measure the effectiveness of your tweets. By telling you how many people you’ve reached, you can know if people are reading your tweets and what is the content they like the most. I make sure to check out my Bit.ly stats once in a while to better understand what are my best tweets and how I can reach more people.

4. Share sites via email

Add or drag to your bookmarks bar ——> Email this

If you feel like sending a website via email rather then tweeting it – ‘Email this’ is the bookmarklet that I recommend. ‘Email this’ opens a new email in your default email client (including web based ones) with the site’s title as the subject and the link to the page in the body. All that is left for you to do is add recipients and click send.

‘Email this’ is suitable for work settings, where you would usually share content via email. It’s also better to use it when you need more then 140 characters or you just don’t want to share something publicly.

5. Read any language

Add or drag to your bookmarks bar  ——> Translate
‘Translate’ uses “Google Translate” to display the content of the page in English. More or less, it means you can instantly read sites in any language. Really useful

If you think that there is enough content in English – try to think of situations where local content is better. For example, if you’re going on a trip to another country – reading about it on local websites will get you better results. That is where this bookmarklet will come in handy.

Don’t forget to check out the other bookmarklets that MakeUseOf has written about! What are your top productivity bookmarklets? Share them with us in the comments!

Image credit: vramak

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• Su.pr – An Extraordinary URL Shortener from StumbleUpon (13)
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Su.pr is currently in private Beta mode. If you like to test drive the service, you must first have a StumbleUpon account, then follow the official SU twitter account and wait for them to release the beta code. I was lucky to receive the beta code the moment I followed SU, but I have seen others waited 5 days for the code. Your waiting time could vary. Once you obtained the beta code, simply enter into the input field at the Su.pr homepage.

At the homepage, you can see a textbox where you can enter your text message and link. Just like Twitter, you are only allowed 140 characters and all links within the text will be shorten with the Su.pr prefix.

From here, you have several options. You can either:

• Post your text message to Twitter or Facebook (or both)
• Schedule it to post at a later date (like Tweetlater)
• Just use the URL shortener service to translate your long URL

Is that all about Su.pr?

You bet! That is only the tip of the iceberg. Every post message or link that you submit (or create) via Su.pr will be tracked and recorded. You can view real time analytic result of your posted items and see how popular it gets. Statistics that you can view include the number of retweets, number of StumbleUpon reviews, number of click through and even traffic source. You can view stats for the past 12 hours, past 7 days, or even past 30 days.

More surprises

Suggested posting time

Based on your submission on Su.pr and the statistics, Su.pr will analyze your data and suggest the best time to post your stuff. This should help you to gain more exposure for your submissions.

Promoting your website

If you are looking to gain more traffic for your site, here is a good way to promote your site. By submitting your websites (you can enter up to 3 websites) in the Promote Website field in the Settings page, Su.pr will analyze your site(s) for the most popular content and promote them via StumbleUpon.

Su.pr bookmarklet

Su.pr is not yet integrated in the StumbleUpon toolbar. Users who wish to have quick access to Su.pr services can drag the bookmarklets (located at the bottom of Su.pr homepage) onto your bookmark bar.

Launching of API key

StumbeUpon has released the API for developers, so we should be able to see more third party apps that integrate with Su.pr in the near future.

How does StumbleUpon play a part?

Until now, it seems that everything is about Su.pr and there is no mention of StumbleUpon playing a part in the process. So how does SU play a part in Su.pr?

This is where SU comes in. When your readers/visitors/followers click on your link to reach the destination page, a StumbleUpon toolbar will show up on top of the page. If the page is not yet submitted to SU, a Discover button will be available for the user to submit to SU, else a thumb up/down button will show. This is very similar to the Digg bar, except that it is more user-friendly and maintains the usual high standard of the SU toolbar.

What Su.pr is lacking at the moment?

There are several functions that are clearly missing in Su.pr right now. The inability to post tweet to multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, inability to edit scheduled post (except for deletion), inability to post to Facebook page/group, not integrating Su.pr into StumbleUpon toolbar are some of the features that are missing and are highly requested by the community.

Noting that this is still a beta version, I am confident that the StumbleUpon team will get all this ironed out in the final release.

Meanwhile, if you have not tried Su.pr, do follow Stumbleupon (on Twitter) and grab the invitation code now.

So what do you think? Thumbs up or down? Let us know in the comments!

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Any which way an awesome “Bookmarklet” site called Readable is about to change the way you deal with sites like this.

Up until now I would have to copy the entire text from the web page using Control – A and then Control – C. I would paste my results into a notepad window and read it there. Now with Readable located here this is no longer necessary and all I need to do is click a button in my browser.

I know at first glance this can be a little confusing and that is why I am including the author’s “Silent Film” below:

If you are still interested in Readable we will cover how to use and configure it below. After browsing on over to their website you are greeted with the screen you see below. Simply click on either gray bar (on both sides of the main text) and you will be given a configuration screen and the ability to drag your bookmarklet to your favorites.

After clicking on the grey bar you will see the following options:

As you make changes to your Font, Font Size, Layout, Color and margins it will be represented in the preview below Step 2. If you like what you have done all you need to do is drag the readable bookmarklet to your favorites bar. I have shown this below in Firefox 3.

It is the same thing for most other modern browsers where you can drag a link and save it as a favorite. The favorite then has the java code that is executed. You can see what it is running by hovering over it with your mouse. Now that we have it configured let’s give it a try!

I found an article that I wanted to read. It is located here. I browsed on over to that webpage and hit my new bookmarklet.

After hitting my Readable button this is what I was returned with:

This will be a huge help to me in my day to day web browsing and researching modes.

Anyone use something similar? Do you love this or hate it? Share your comments with us – guess where? In the comments!

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These days, many news articles, long winded stories and message boards all contain several pages that we have to scroll through, one-by-one. It would be nice sometimes to bring some of these huge, bloated, multi-page articles into a single page that we could scroll through. This is where PageZipper comes into the picture.

PageZipper, from the makers of PrintWhatYouLike, is a small bookmarklet that you can place in your bookmarks toolbar, or install as a Firefox extension that converts just about any multi-page site or article into one single page that you can scroll through until the end, without every clicking another link.

After adding a simple bookmarklet to your browser of choice or install the experimental Firefox extension, you can begin taking advantage of some of PageZipper’s unique features. It not only converts multiple pages into a single one, but it also does some nice things with images and photo galleries as well.

Along with standard web pages, PageZipper adds the ability to scroll through photo galleries with ease by simply pressing a Ctrl-Down keystroke. Each stroke takes you to the next image in the gallery. Also if an image isn’t fitting into your defined screen size, PageZipper can even AutoFit the embedded web image into your screen automatically.

If you’d like a better understanding of how exactly PageZipper works, they have a provided a nice screen recording of all of its different functions.

After discovering PageZipper and it’s functionality, I thought of many different situations that I could use this in. Even on MakeUseOf, you can simply click the bookmarklet and never click to browse to older entries. You can scroll for days on end, until you reach Aibek’s first blog post, way back when.

Another great place that I first tested this was on a message board. Having the ability to scroll through several different sections of threads and boards was incredibly helpful.

The small ability that PageZipper provides may be small in hindsight, but is definitely something I’m going to keep in my toolbar for some time to come.

Do you know of any websites that you might find this useful? Are there any other tools that you know of similar to PageZipper that provide this functionality?  If so, please let us know in the comments!

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As a result, readability suffers at times. If you come across such a site or you would like a consistent look and feel across all the articles that you read so that you can scan them faster, here are some ways to make reading articles easier on the eyes and (thus easier to print as well). So, how to print a web page the way you want it?

Subscribe to RSS feeds

Number one on the list and an absolute must do if you are into serious reading. One – it would keep you updated with all the latest content. Two – Many sites offer full text articles so you would be able to read, print, email article from within your RSS reader without having to visit the site. Try out Google Reader if you are getting started with RSS. If you never subscribed to sites using RSS feeds before, you should definitely give it a try. Here is the MakeUseOf RSS feed.

Readability

Readability is a simple yet wonderfully useful idea. Visit Readability and choose the basic setting as in how you would like to view the page. Customize it with the help of the example to see how you would like it best. Click and drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar.

Now whenever you visit a site you would like to spend some time reading upon, just click the bookmarklet to view it according to your selected settings. It doesn’t work on all sites as you might expect it to. Try it on MakeUseOf (it didn’t work correctly when I tried it.).

Firefox – Aardvark

One of my favorite extensions for Firefox, Aardvark lets you play with the structure of a webpage. Want a distraction free view of only the article on any website? Just Start Aardvark, hover over the article till you see a red rectangle bounding the article, press i (to isolate) and enjoy the view.

Additionally you may use Ctrl + + or Ctrl + Mouse Wheel up to zoom into the page to make the text look bigger. This may seem too much of a task at first but just try it for a day or two and you will make it a habit. Requires just 2 key presses (and some mouse positioning) and bam you’ve got your content.

There are a number of other options for Aardvark, it has been covered previously in detail on MakeUseOf.

PrintWhatYouLike

A site similar in concept to what Aardvark does. You enter the URL of any site and then it would allow you to retain only the content you want and remove all other distractions. Both Aardvark and PrintWhatYouLike also make excellent choices while formatting a page to be printed. They can help you save some ink and paper by only printing the content you really want and not all the accompanying links and navigation.

TidyRead

Same concept as Readability, but offers greater control via a Stumbleupon-like toolbar of sorts. Using the toolbar you can modify the options on the fly without having to create separate bookmarks for each setting.

Using Custom Style Sheets

You can use custom CSS (Firefox users see Stylish, Opera has it built-in) on any website to make it work according to your needs. Add in some Greasemonkey scripts and you can even get rid of the so called “clutter” and focus only on the content.

If you are into some serious reading you would greatly realize the power of the above methods in allowing you to get through the content fast and easy and print the web pages the way you want them. You might also have figured out some cool ways of your own to do the same. Please share them in the comments!

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Therefore optimizing my browser for search was the first thing I did when installing it. Since then I’ve been looking for more and more ways to access the search features easily and instantly in FireFox.

Now let’s see which methods I have come up with to make my FireFox search-friendly:

1. Install the Google Toolbar

The most obvious way to access Google search.

Besides allowing you to access Google search instantly, it also has a number of other handy features:

• search suggestions (based on your search history and/or popular queries);
• search multiple verticals (image search, news search, blog search, etc);
• search term highlight;
• spell check, etc.

Its major drawback is that it only allows you to search Google (and there are other search engines and sites you might want to search).

2. Take advantage of FireFox search plugins

You can search the huge directory of search plugins or create your own (and that’s where your own imagination is your only limit). Let’s take a quick look at how you can create your own search plugin for any search engine or site you refer to daily:

• search the site you are creating the plugin for;
• copy the query string;
• change your search term in the query string for {searchTerms};
• go to mycroft.mozdev.org and complete the form as shown below;

• test (install and perform a few searches) your plugin before submitting;
• click “generate” and you are done!

As you understand you can include any search parameters, use advanced search or play to your heart’s content to create the search that fully satisfies your needs.

3. Use FireFox “smart keywords” feature

(it allows you to search right from the address bar).

To create a FireFox smart keyword you need to:

• Search any site / search engine you are interested in [keyword];
• Copy the URL of the query string;
• Substitute keyword in the query string for %s;
• Go: Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks => New Bookmark;
• Create new search bookmark the following way:

Alternatively, you can go to YubNub, install its search plugin and either use multiple quick searches already created there or create your own ones using a simple wizard.

4. Use The CyberSearch FireFox plugin (download it here).

Another way to search from the address bar.  It supports multiple Google services and also displays your related search history (again, it’s limited to Google only):

To access different Google services, use these commands before the search query:

• gweb – Google general search;
• gloc – Google local search;
• gvid – Google video search;
• gblog – Google blog search;
• gnews – Google news search;
• gbook – Google book search;
• gimg – Google image search;
• gpat – Google patent search.

5. Tweak your FireFox about:config settings.

Yet another way to search from the address bar. (tip by FireFox facts).

• type into your address bar about:config;
• filter keyword.URL;
• modify the string in there and replace it with your preferred engine search string, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

6. Use Search Bookmarklets

Use search bookmarklets to access your preferred search engine by selecting any term on a page:

• Google;
• Google Blog search;
• Yahoo!;
• Exalead;
• Ask

or to easily switch between search engines:

• @Google – perform Google search;
• @Yahoo – try Yahoo search;
• @Exalead – search on Exalead.

7. Search Highlighted Words With Multiple Engines

Search the highlighted word using multiple search engines: KallOut

Kallout is a new awesome desktop application that allows you to search for any highlighted term (integrates with FireFox, Outlook, txt files, etc). With it you can choose between multiple verticals (general search, shopping portals, reference resources, etc) and search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live, Twitter, etc).

8. Search The Web (Or Any Website) With One Searchy

An experimental FireFox addon (thus you will have to login to install it). Just hit a shortcut (by default: Ctrl+Shift+K) and search without having to leave the current page. Search results will appear as you are typing your search term. To search any site, type @ before the search term and you will be shown results from the current domain:

Have I missed anything? Please add your own way to search with the FireFox browser!

Image credits: Fun with FireFox

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If you are like me, who has multifaceted web avatars and duly has his Gmail configured to handle different accounts, personal and professional, you would love to sign off with custom signatures for each. So this handicap of not having multiple signatures built in seems to have found a universal protesting echo around the web. Faced with the vexing problem, I fired up Google to search for ways to put my stamp within Gmail.

Here are some of them for those who like to send emails from within Gmail.

1. Blank Canvas Gmail Signature

The Firefox add-ons page is showing 1,500 downloads per week for this experimental add-on and a five star rating. This Firefox add-on supports four HTML signatures for each address you have set up. A drop down gives you access to the signature options. You can manage your signature within Gmail using the available editor which lets you also see a preview of the custom signature.

You need to download and install the plug-in. (you will have to create a Mozilla log-in account as this is an experimental add-on). Next, write your HTML signature. You can upload any image file to any photo-sharing website and use the source URL in your signature. For those not versed with HTML, a few templates are provided here. Also, the plug-in itself includes a tutorial.

Before creating it, you will see a ‘Create Signature’ button next to the ‘From’ field in the compose window. Copy-paste your HTML signature into the create signature box and save. You are now ready with your own sign.

2. WiseStamp – Email Signature

An add-on that is still in beta. This Firefox extension enables you to create personalized multiple signatures for any web based email service.

With its rich text editor you can set up personal and business signatures (text or HTML).  You can also include your IM identities and social profiles. The WiseStamp interface automatically adds the signature at the end of your email. Of course, it can also be added manually at a choice mouse cursor location and if you don’t want to sign off, just switch it off.

3. Clippings

If you can make do with plain text signatures, then this Firefox add-on should be in your download queue. Clippings saves and manages often used texts for later pasting into any text entry field. More commonly used for entering text into Web page forms in Firefox or email and newsgroup messages in Thunderbird, it comes in handy for email signatures too.

Pasting a clipping is accomplished with just two right mouse clicks within the body of the email, doing away with the hassle of retyping or repetitive copying and pasting. Also, shortcuts keys can be configured to make it a one step action. Clippings allows you to store as many signature texts as you want in designated folders.

4. Bookmarklets

You guessed it…bookmarklet is a portmanteau of ‘bookmark’ and ‘applet’! Bookmarklets are small Javascript applets which are stored as a URL bookmark in a browser. You can simply create a signature in a bookmarklet creator and organize it on the Firefox bookmarks toolbar. I found an easy to use bookmarklet (Gmail signature generator) here.

Create a HTML or text signature and then drag and drop in onto the browser toolbar. Once you are in the Gmail compose window, click on the bookmarklet and it gets inserted at the cursor location. Create as many signatures you want and organize them in your Firefox Bookmarks.

5. Texter – A Text Substitution application

With Texter (an open source text substitution app) we are moving away from the browser environment. Texter lets you define small text strings which work like shortcut keys for larger pieces of text. So you save many a keystroke by not having to type in the same block of text again and again. Using Texter, you can define a series of shortcut text strings that would be replaced by different text-only signatures in the email body.

You can add a new signature on the fly by hitting Ctrl-Shift-H, typing in your shortcut string and the replacement text, selecting the trigger you want to execute the replacement with (Enter, Tab, and/or Space, Instant), After that it’s a simple matter of composing your mail, writing the shortcut string and clicking the trigger key. If you had enabled ‘Instant’ as the trigger then you can save on the last click too.

I hope these five ways will help you to sign off your mail in style. Do you have your own workarounds for using multiple signatures in Gmail?

Gmail Photo from Basajaun

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Even as research went online, taking notes on that research really didn’t. It still involved either cutting and pasting into Word, or writing furiously in a notebook. Research became easier, but recording it fell behind. That is, it did until WebNotes happened.

WebNotes‘ motto is “Annotate. Organize. Share.” That’s exactly what they do, nothing more and nothing less. For bookmarking and other features, as we all know, I turn to Diigo. For pure research, though, WebNotes is my new favorite, and may be my last.

WebNotes is not the only Web annotater I’ve ever used (I even loved the annotation features of Diigo), but it’s the simplest- which, for research, makes it the best. It’s simply a tool for taking, organizing, and sharing (if you want) your research findings.

Set-up is a breeze: once you’ve got an account with WebNotes, you either install the toolbar (a Firefox extension, Firefox-only) or a bookmarklet with many of the same features (which worked in any browser I tried). Then navigate to a site you’re using for research, and let the fun begin!

With WebNotes fired up, you’re able to highlight any text on a page, as well as create sticky notes that float on the page. There’s no limit to how many you can do, and WebNotes works surprisingly well in every page I tried to use- highlighting and note-taking were always responsive. The way I liked to do it was to highlight relevant things on the page, and then write a couple of notes about the key points of the article.

WebNotes’ usefulness doesn’t end there, though.  Once you’re done taking notes, the organizer gets the spotlight. Right from the organizer page, you can see all the highlights and notes you grabbed from a particular page- it becomes your notebook, with all the information you need right there in one place. You can look through your highlights, read your notes, and see where it’s all coming from.

One small feature that I loved is that WebNotes automatically updates your organizer as you send it more information, meaning you don’t have to constantly hit “Refresh.” It’s a small feature, but a sanity-saver.

You can organize notes into folders, with endless numbers of folders and sub-folders possible. From the organizer, you can launch any page on which you’ve taken notes- with or without the notes on it.

Though sharing features aren’t the point of WebNotes, they’re extremely useful and easy to use. You can share a page, and its highlights and notes, to another person whether they have a WebNotes account or not. Each page gets a marked-up permalink, which you can send to your friends and study buddies. Pages can also be shared via email, or even turned into a PDF. This makes WebNotes useful for group projects and studying, which is a great feature.

WebNotes is still in private beta, but I’ve managed to snag 100 invites from them. The first 100 people to register for WebNotes by clicking THIS LINK will be able to try the private beta – for everyone else, it shouldn’t be long before it’s public.

If you manage to snag an account, please come back here and let us know what you think about the site.   Is this something you see yourself using often?   In your opinion, how does it compare to other note taking sites?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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A bookmarklet can be a good alternative to a FireFox addon as it is easier to organize and backup (as a usual bookmark), faster to install (all you need is just grab a link and drag it into your bookmarks toolbar) and usually compatible with multiple browsers.

As one who searches daily (and I’d even say constantly), I am mostly interested in various ways to customize my searching and using search bookmarklets is one such way.

Easily switch between search engines: if you failed to find anything in Google, for example, switch to Exalead or Yahoo (all opens in the same tab):

• @Google – perform Google search;
• @Yahoo – try Yahoo search;
• @Exalead – search on Exalead.

Search for the selected text: select a term on a page and send a query to one of the search engines (opens in the same tab):

• Google;
• Google Blog search;
• Yahoo!;
• Exalead;
• Ask.

Search dictionaries and reference sources: select text on the current page and search its meaning and definitions:

• Wikipedia – find a wiki article for the highlighted term;
• Acronym finder – learn what a highlighted acronym stands for;
• Urban Dictionary – find a slang variation of the highlighted word;
• Google definition: highlight a term on page and get the definition from Google

Customize your Google search - just a few tweaks specifically for Google search (there might be more but I failed to find them useful enough):

• Gf=0: change number of search results to 100;
• filter=0: removes Google result clustering;
• Search within this domain – for sites that lack the search option of their own (based on Google site: advanced search operator) select a term and it will search for it in Google within current domain only.

Create your own search bookmarklet: use this cool tool that allows you to create a search bookmarklet and customize its behavior.

Note: the site allows to create a bookmarklet for an impressive number of search engines (many of them do not work though).

Sources:

• Search bookmarklets;
• Jesse’s bookmarklets;
• GoogleSystem.

Note: all the above bookmarklets have been tested on FireFox 3.0.4. Please let me know in the comments if any of them failed to work on any other browser.

Please share your favorite search bookmarklets that I missed out!

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Then I found Diigo, and suddenly Delicious didn’t look so good anymore.

Diigo is another social bookmarking service (and one we’ve covered before), offering all of Delicious’ relevant features and much more. I left Delicious, and haven’t ever looked back. There are a lot of things I love about Diigo, but there are seven features that sold me on using Diigo for all my bookmarking needs.

These are all in addition to the features I deem non-negotiable for social bookmarking sites- tagging, Firefox extensions, looking at popular bookmarks, etc.

1. Highlighting

I seem to always bookmark a page, and then come back to it later and forget what it was that I cared about on the page. With Diigo, you can highlight the page you’re bookmarking, and then later view the page with highlights, or just the highlights themselves. No more searching through the page again to find what it was you cared about.

2. Saving Pages is Easier Than Ever, Regardless of Browser

If you’re using Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Flock, the Diigo toolbar has all the features you could want – bookmark, search, highlight, and organize all your Web pages right from the toolbar. If you’re not into those browsers, though there’s a great bookmarklet that lets you do most of that with any browser.

I use Chrome, and all the functionality I need is built right into the bookmarklet. Delicious becomes more difficult to use outside of Firefox (there are bookmarklets, but they pale in comparison), and Diigo keeps on working fine.

3. Functional Commenting and Real Conversations

This is one of my favorite features of Diigo – when you’re reading a page, you can make comments right on the page, that show up as speech bubbles. If another Diigo user comes across the page, they’ll be able to see your comment. You can see (in the Firefox sidebar) who’s reading a page you’re on, who’s talking about it, and a real conversation can happen – unlike in Delicious, when all you can see is someone’s bookmarks.

4. Send Bookmarks to Facebook or Twitter with one click

With one click, you can send a Diigo bookmark to Twitter, Facebook, or your blog. It truly takes one click, from “Send” to the service you want to use. If you want to send bookmarks to Facebook, you’ll have to install the Diigo Facebook app.

You can also have Diigo create a daily digest of your latest bookmarks and send it to your blog, which I’d debate the usefulness of, but the functionality is there. Being able to bookmark a site on Twitter in particular straight from Diigo is big for me, and makes Twitter easier and quicker to use.

5. Sites Help You Find Deeper Cuts

I’m a big YouTube fan, but there are way more videos than I can possibly figure out. With “Sites“, you’re able to go through a particular site (including MakeUseOf) and find out what other people are bookmarking and reading about. You can create a watchlist, and whenever someone bookmarks a page from that site, you see it. It’s a great way to find popular and cool stuff in big, content-full sites that you might not notice otherwise.

6. Simultaneously bookmark things to Diigo and Elsewhere – even Delicious!

If you have a Ma.gnolia, Delicious, or Simpy account that you want to hold on to for posterity, you can set up Diigo to simultaneously bookmark pages to Diigo and to your other service, using the “Save Elsewhere” feature. I like this because it means you can use the vastly superior Diigo, but for all four different services. Just enter your account info, and you can start bookmarking all over the Web, with one click!

7. Bookmark and Search Entire Web Pages

When you bookmark a page with Diigo, it bookmarks more than just the link (like those other sites). It bookmarks the entire page you were on, which has two great implications. First, it means you can preview sites within the Diigo page. You can view your bookmarked page, without ever leaving Diigo.

It also means that you can search the full text of pages you bookmark. You don’t have to perfectly tag everything, because every word on every page you bookmark is totally searchable. Your bookmarks live in Diigo, so if a site goes down or is unavailable, you can still find it in Diigo, as well as search and view it.

Diigo’s become a social-bookmarking machine, and I left Delicious and never looked back. If you want to make the switch, you can import your bookmarks from most other services- making the switch is so easy, there’s no reason not to! Diigo’s the new gold standard in social bookmarks.

Do you use social bookmarking services? Which one? What are the killer features that make you use the one you’ve got?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Su.pr – An Extraordinary URL Shortener from StumbleUpon (13)
• 17 Greasemonkey Scripts to Diversify Social Media Experience (7)
• Zigtag – A Web App For Extreme Tagging (BETA Invites Included!) (4)
• Update all your Social Status Messages with Ping.fm (14)
• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)

Despite all that though, I continue to dislike the way Twitter works, or used to work. For a long time, you had to go to the website, log in, type your 140, submit it, and then leave. Getting to the update was often longer than the update itself.

That got me looking for faster, simpler ways to update my Twitter status and read others. In my searching, I found a pretty huge number, but narrowed it down to the eight fastest, simplest, and most robust ways to update my Twitter status without ever typing “twitter.com”.

Here they are :

1. BeTwittered

My homepage, in any of the browsers I use, is iGoogle. Especially with the new canvas view, which a lot of people aren’t fans of, I’m able to access Gmail, Reader, the news, and a bunch of other great things all in one place. One of my favorite iGoogle gadgets is BeTwittered, where you can update your status as well as see other people’s updates and replies.

2. Digsby

Digsby is my IM client of choice, for a whole bunch of reasons; not the least of those is the fact that I can update and view my Twitter info right from it. By creating a new account under the “Social Networks” menu in “Accounts”, I can update my own status, as well as see others and write and view replies, all from within Digsby.

3. The Twitlet – Post to Twitter Bookmarklet

This one’s probably the simplest of the bunch: Just drag Twitelt bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, or bookmark it in any way you want. Then, anytime you want to tweet, click the bookmark. It brings up a tiny window asking what you’re doing. Type your 140, and then close the box. It really is that simple.

4. IMified

Even if you don’t have Digsby, you can still update your Twitter status from any IM client, by adding IMified as your friend (Mark did an article on Imified here). You can interact with IMified to do things like add to Google Calendar, your blog, your task list, and yes- Twitter. It’s as easy as sending an IM to either imified@imified.com or IMified, depending on your instant messaging program.

5. Your cell phone

With a simple text message, you can update your Twitter status. You’ll have to connect your phone to your account, which you can do in the “Settings” menu at the top of your Twitter page. Once you set it up, just send a text message from your phone to 40404, and update away! You can also send a direct message by typing “d whoyou’resendingitto your message”. I use this all the time, because I always have my cell phone on me.

Careful, though- this is an easy way to rack up big texting bills.

6. Twhirl

There are a ton of desktop applications out there for managing your Twitter account, but Twhirl seems to be the best and most popular. A free download, Twhirl lets you manage your Twitter account as well as several others, like Friendfeed and Seesmic. It offers several other features, which you can see on their website, but it does the basics- reading, writing, and following- really well. Being an Adobe Air app, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

7. Ping.fm

If you’re a social network heavyweight, Ping.fm ought to be a huge timesaver for you. You can use it from almost anywhere- phones, iPhones, IM, email, and their website, among others.

Ping.fm works with all your social networks, including Twitter, and you can post new stuff to one or all of the networks you choose. If you’ve got multiple micro-blogs, blogs or social networks, Ping.fm’s a great way to go.

8. Twitterbar

This one’s another easy one for someone looking to update Twitter without all the hassle involved. Using an extension called “TwitterBar,” you can tweet just by typing into your Firefox address bar. Instead of pressing enter, you click a green button the extension puts in your address bar, and off to Twitter it goes.

It’s also great for tweeting links- just click the green button, and the address of the page you’re on goes right to Twitter.

9. Twitterific

This one’s just for people with iPhones and iPod Touches, but it’s worth mentioning. There are several applications for the iPhone and Twitter, but Twitterific is definitely the best. Boot it up, and all your Twitter information is right there, presented in an easy and attractive way. You can tweet pictures and text, mark tweets as favorites and view user information, as well as send and view replies.

Typing your 140 should be the longest part of using Twitter – now, with any of these nine applications, it can be.

Which ones do YOU use? Or do you use one not seen here? Why do you like the one you use? What features make it a keeper?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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ShoppingNotes is one of those ways and it has been a fantastic tool so far. What it does is allow you to put in the URL of a product page and it then monitors that page for you on 30 day intervals. If the product price moves in any way, it alerts you instantly by email.

By using this service, I was able to immediately grab much wanted books whenever Amazon spontaneously decided to cut the price in half. I was able to pick up birthday presents for friends and family. I have even started to plan Christmas early this year, monitoring prices on various sites to see if the prices are going to move significantly.

When it comes to setting up an alert, you are given the following options :

This is where it asks you how you want to be alerted when the price moves. You can choose to be alerted when the price drops below a certain price threshold or when the price moves at all. Since I am not in the United States and therefore not dealing in US dollars, I decided not to mess around with a certain price level and opted instead to be alerted to any price movement. But if you are in the US, you may decide you only want to be interrupted if the price drops below a certain amount.

As you can also see, you can set up lists and assign your pages to a certain list to keep your account tidy and organised.

Now how do you use it? Well that’s simple. ShoppingNotes provides you with a bookmarklet which you place in your browser bar. Then whenever you are on a product page and you want to put that product into your ShoppingNotes account, just hit that bookmarklet :

By pressing the bookmarklet, all the details of the product are then instantly passed along to the ShoppingNotes website and pre-filled into the correct fields. Then after checking to make sure that everything is to your satisfaction, press “save” and you’ll then be brought back to the site you were at before – in my case, Amazon. Then you can keep on surfing for more things to buy! Very smooth.

If you’re the sort of person who buys a lot of things online – clothes, books, DVD’s, CD’s, clothes, games – and you’re constantly getting complaints from your significant other about the amount of money you’re spending then maybe you should think about using ShoppingNotes? Plug all your desired items into the service, let it monitor the prices for you and wait for the prices to drop! Then grab them before anyone else realises what’s going on!

Then email me and I will bestow upon you honorary Scottish citizenship for being able to spot and grab a genuine bargain and save money.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Zigtag is currently in private BETA, yet the wonderful folks at Zigtag have given MakeUseOf readers exclusive BETA invites. The only other thing you need is their Firefox/Internet Explorer Add-On which allows you to add tags, share pages, etc. (You are also able to simply drag and drop a bookmarklet if you are unable to install the add-on.)

After that you should be ready to start tagging! To do so, simply click on the Zigtag logo in your web browser to allow it to load in your sidebar. You should then receive a certain number of suggested tags that Zigtag believes are directly related to the page you are currently viewing. You may then click on one of the tags to add it to the page and/or add your own by typing it in the box. All of which are used to describe the page you are currently viewing, and make them available to the rest of the world – somewhat like Digg or del.icio.us in that sense.

Let me give you an example:

I picked the “Powersurf Through Friendfeed with StumbleRead” article by Mark. I added some keywords and “favorited” it. I then decided to share it with the group I created by clicking “Share,” and “Group.” The article then showed up on the group page, which I created. Even more options arise including the availability to: comment on pages, tag them further, view other pages with the same tag(s) – which I may add includes even more options.

Of course, as you can see, groups are a major part of Zigtag. You are allowed to create your own group or join another (there are tons of them). Groups range from computers to being existent, so I am sure that you could find many different groups. Furthermore, in groups you may discuss different things on the group page and see updates on your Zigtag homepage regarding your groups.

One really neat feature of Zigtag is the option to import del.icio.us bookmarks. You may do so by clicking “My Account,” then clicking “Import/Export Bookmarks.” You are as well allowed to import existing bookmarks from different web browsers, including: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera (sorry Flock users). Once your bookmarks are imported you should receive an email indicating that they were successfully imported.

Zigtag is definitely a great resource for finding sites related to anything and possibly could be the next level of Digg? I highly recommend trying it out as you will most certainly enjoy using it.

If you like, you may even add me as a friend here, or join my group here.

What do you like – or not like – about Zigtag? Grab your beta account, test it out then come back and tell us what you think in the comments!

Will Mueller is a computer nerd and geek that has been working with computers for far too long. He currently works on one of his blogs at FirefoxGeeks.

Will Mueller is a computer nerd and geek that has been working with computers for far too long. He currently works on one of his blogs at FirefoxGeeks.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The Winners of ‘Extend Firefox’ – Best Firefox Addons (14)
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Let’s take a quick walk through to get a better understanding of how easy it is to use Kwout.

The Basics

Everyone should at least give Kwout a try and the best way to do that is to go to their website and use the demo on the front page. All you need to do is enter in the web address of the site where you want to take a screenshot.

Once you’ve put in the address, Kwout will take you to that webpage and two little boxes will pop up. The first box I messed with was the box that pops up on the right. This box allows you to adjust the size of the website. Think of it as how you adjust the size of a Word document or PDF. You can pick from three different sizes in order to find the best size that fits your needs.

Now that you’ve made your size selection, just drag the cursor around the webpage to highlight the area you want in your screenshot. Next, click the “Cut Out” button in the other box that appeared in the beginning. On a side note, there is a maximum size shot you can take of 600×600.

After you take the screenshot, you are taken to another screen with lots of options. Here you can select if you want to post it to your website, Flickr account, Tumblr account or just email it to some of your friends. You can edit the size in the options area in order to better fit your liking, and you can decorate the screenshot in order to make it nice and pretty.

Bookmarklet and Firefox Extension

To “kwout” most efficiently you will need something other than going back to the website all the time. This is where the bookmarklet comes in handy. All you need to do is drag the bookmarklet onto your bookmarks toolbar, and then you can kwout any webpage at any time.

If you aren’t a fan of bookmarklets, you can install their Firefox extension instead. This extension places a small button on the bottom bar in Firefox. It is very similar to the bookmarklet in its function, so I think it just comes down to personal preferences.

Kwout This! Button

If you own a website, you may want to encourage people to quote you or use screenshots of your website in order to get some much needed exposure. Kwout recently introduced a new button that anyone with a website can easily place on their webpage that lets their users and readers take and post screenshots of their webpage.

Overall, I think Kwout is a great solution for quick, fast and easy online screenshots. So why not try it out and let us know what you think in the comments. Do you think this could replace traditional screenshot software such as SnagIt or Irfanview?

Kyle Judkins is a 24 year old marketer and part-time tech blogger.  He is the author of LostInTechnology where he talks about some basic technology tips and tricks that everyone can use.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Zigtag – A Web App For Extreme Tagging (BETA Invites Included!) (4)
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Also there are times when you come across an interesting webpage or an article which you think deserves your time but you are in a rush and can’t read it. So what do you do then ? You might consider bookmarking it but it may be not always very convenient to do that since it could create a long unmanageable list of bookmarks.

There are better solutions and this article aims to highlight 4 such solutions. Each of these 4 tools have their own set of features and qualities but one thing in common in all of them is that they allow you to save a page for later reading in just one click.

1. Instapaper

Instapaper is a simple way to save pages for reading later. You need to sign up for an account at their site and then drag the bookmarklet which they provide to your browser toolbar. You can click on that bookmarklet to save any page for reading later. All the pages are saved in the text format in your Instapaper account and you can also get the RSS feeds for the same. You can also visit the original links from your account.

2. LaterLoop

Laterloop is a service which really caught my attention since it has some features worth talking about. It is built on the Google App Engine and therefore you can use your Google account to log into the service. It comes as a bookmarklet as well as a Firefox extension but I personally prefer using the bookmarklet. It also lets you archive the links and star them. Hence the links which you consider important can be starred for future reference.

LaterLoop also lets you subscribe to the RSS feeds for both current and starred links. One of the best features is that you can also access LaterLoop on your mobile phone. It also has the ability to integrate with the Scrapbook Firefox extension which we’ve recently covered here at MakeUseOf.

Last but not least, LaterLoop also allows you read your 30 newest links offline. It does this by letting you download them in a zip file. It calls this the LaterLoop Airplane Mode. Although this mode is in experimental stage and the quality of some downloaded webpages may not be up to the mark, it still can be a convenient way to read stuff when you’re not connected to the internet.

3. Read it Later Firefox Extension

The Read it later extension for Firefox does a lot of other things apart from allowing you to mark websites for reading later in one click. I have already talked about this extension in great detail in this post but Mark was the first one to talk about it here on MakeUseOf back in February.

4. LaterThis

LaterThis is another service which offers you a bookmarklet which when clicked will save the webpage for reading later in your LaterThis account. It has two interesting features which might excite you as a user. First, it comes with built-in support for the iPhone and iPod touch. Secondly, and this is something which I think could be useful, is that it lets you organize the links through tags. Plus, like LaterLoop, it also lets you archive and star the links.

So which of these services do you use to save links for reading later?

(By) Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips and productivity hacks at Jeet Blog

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Print A Web Page The Way You Want It (7)
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I’d love to hear from you. Send me your MP3 files containing comments about the show, reviews of your favourite websites or just general chitchat. I’ll choose a few to play on the show each week. Send them to podcast [at] makeuseof [dot] com.

If you look underneath the links from the show on this page, you will see a little media player where you can listen to the podcast right here on the site. Or if you prefer, you can right-click on the “audio MP3″ logo and save the MP3 file to your computer for listening on your MP3 player or iPod.

The podcast is available through iTunes so don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast if you have an iPod, or in another podcatcher if you have a different MP3 player.

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Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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But as the web has evolved, some bookmarklets have become redundant as their use has become integrated into the web browser. For example, a bookmarklet to subscribe to a RSS feed is no longer necessary because in Firefox, you can now subscribe to a RSS feed by clicking the orange RSS logo in the Firefox URL address bar instead.

Here are a small selection of the bookmarklets that I have gradually built up. To use them yourself, just drag the link with your mouse up to your browser bookmark bar. If you have the programming know-how, you can also re-write them to make them do whatever you want them to do (such as the Gmail This! one).

Add to Mixx – this will add the selected URL to Mixx.com
Share on FriendFeed – this will allow you to share something (a URL, a photo, whatever, on Friendfeed).
View in Google Earth – if you highlight an address and then click this bookmarklet, Google Earth opens and automatically goes to the address you highlighted.
Delete Twitter Direct Messages – for this one to work, you need to be on your Twitter Direct Messages page. Then press this bookmarklet. A small box will then show up in your Twitter sidebar asking you if you want to delete your direct messages. Say yes and your direct messages will be deleted one by one. It’s very fast.
Add Note in Google Reader – this allows you to highlight a piece of text in a website post, add your own note to it then add it to Google Reader for your contacts to read.
Gmail This! – allows you to send Gmail emails without having to open Gmail first. The main purpose of Gmail This! is to email the weblink of the page you’re on but you can easily use it to send any email to anyone by opening it up and removing the weblink.
Save as PDF – if you click on this one, the page you are on will be turned into a PDF file which you can then download and save to your computer. It even makes the links on the page clickable.
del.icio.us Backlinks – this one is invaluable for SEO people and for bloggers obsessed with tracking who is linking to their posts. Just go to a page and click on this bookmarklet. You’ll then be taken to the Del.icio.us page for that webpage.
Show Stumbleupon Reviews – this one is useful if you are using a computer that doesn’t have the Stumbleupon toolbar installed. It quite simply takes you to the Stumbleupon review page for that webpage.
Post to Del.icio.us – as the bookmarklet says, it posts the webpage to your Del.icio.us account.
TinyURL This! – clicking this one will turn the page link into a TinyURL

What bookmarklets do you use on a regular basis? Post them in the comments!

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. He drinks countless cups of tea a day, checks out countless websites a day – and uses keyboard shortcuts and bookmarklets as much as possible. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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http://www.howmuchlongercanmyurlsget.com/before/Igo/totally/insane.htm

If you’re blogging or uploading files frequently, passing out lengthy links to your posts can get pretty tedious. That’s where URL truncator services come in, stepping up to provide a shorter link that’s easier to remember and share. There are a ton of options out there, and most have something unique to offer.

Tinyurl

Probably the best known truncator around, TinyURL offers the features most people are looking for: an easy to remember domain name, fairly short (though at 6 characters it’s double what some create) identifier, and a preview page for your shortened link by using “preview.tinyurl.com/[link]“. Their page also automatically copies the new URL to your clipboard, and they offer a bookmarklet.

You can’t really fault TinyURL for not being able to pull off three-character identifiers like some of the other services I listed – they claim they have more than 74 million in their database and receive 2 billion hits a month. With numbers like that, it makes sense that they need a couple more letters.

is.gd

A single blank box for your address on the main page (which is totally uncluttered) and you’re sent to the finished product. If you’ve got Flash enabled, the new URL is automatically copied, which is pretty slick. You’re also given the option of sending your visitors to a preview page first by simply adding a hyphen to the end of your new URL. I really like this idea, especially if you’re linking directly to a file and not a web page – just in case your visitors need to be able to right-click and save as to get it.

This is about as short as you can get, my URL weighing in at just 9 characters including punctuation. Not bad.

URL.ie

Again, very simple interface; fill in one blank with your URL and receive a three-character, truncated version. There’s not really much else that URL.ie does, but they do offer a bookmarklet for you to drag onto your Firefox bar – something is.gd doesn’t offer.

EasyURL

Something is a little amiss with their CSS code, and it didn’t present well in Firefox. Specifically, the button I needed to click to create my URL was mostly covered by the tools and contacts links.

Still, hitting enter still submits the form, and my shortened URL comes with a stats view – nice! All it gives you is creation time and total number of hits, but it’s still a nice addon to throw in. Better yet, they allow 2MB file uploads with automatic URL creation. No, it’s not a ton of space, but it’s a nice offering from a truncator. It’s a nice way to quickly share a .zip with a bunch of documents or photos. They also provide a bookmarklet, Firefox extension, and API access!

jmp2.net

The only service I’ve used so far that offers URL masking, which doesn’t really provide much anonymity anyways, but it is a feature some may look for. Again, creation was simple, and they offer a Firefox addon for URL creation.

w3t.org

Offers a “tag” feature, which can be very useful. Using my test link I added the tag “demo” to it and was given “http://w3t.org/c/demo.” The untagged version came across as “/u/7wal” so there’s definitely some value to tagging with this service. Their creation page is more cluttered than the other sites reviewed, with links to several other sites in their “network.”

xil.in

If w3t cleaned up their page and Ajaxed it, it would be this. Xil.in is a single page with tag support. Once you’ve filled in your URL and tag, the resulting truncated URL appears beneath the form in red text. Short, sweet, and a welcome change from being redirected to a second page. They offer Firefox integration in the form of a search bar, which works nicely to create new URLs.

xaddr.com

The only site to offer a Windows client, a somewhat unique method of creating URLs. Download and install the client, and it sits in the system tray. Copy the url you want shortened from your browser, click the icon in the tray, and a pop up balloon notifies you of the new URL. It’s also automatically pasted to the clipboard. I can see this being useful if you’re someone who needs to create a lot of short URLs and blog them.

They also offer a bookmarklet for both Firefox and IE. Unlike a lot of the other services, xaddr checked to make sure my URL was valid – it didn’t create a link to a non-existent file like the others did.

doiop.com

Doiop is a little different in that they don’t offer alphanumeric URLs like the other services. Instead, you pick a word: http://www.doiop.com/snickerdoodle. The downside is, obviously, that someone else may have taken your word – which can make the process a little frustrating. There’s no bookmarklet, toolbar, or anything else to ease the process either.

Snurl / Snipr / SnipURL

The best for last? Snurl offers the usual single-blank url truncation, but they go way beyond that. Register on the site, and your “snips” will be stored and you can manage them whenever you want – and clickthroughs get automatically tracked. Awesome! What’s more, the management page offers emailing of any or all of your snips and instant sharing with the usual suspects (Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc.).

Snurl is so smart, it even creates RSS feeds for your snips. How cool is that? Sharing a pile of links is as easy as letting people subscribe to your feeds. You can also change the default domain name amongst snurl.com, snipr.com, and sninpurl.com at your leisure. Worried people might randomly leech your links? You can set a private key up and it will be automatically added to your new snips.

These features put Snurl in a class by itself, and I’d say it’s easily the most advanced truncator available – but what do you think? Have you found a service that you think is better? Go ahead, comment on it!

(By) Lee Mathews is a blogger who writes to share downloads, links, and tech advice with other slightly frustrated users at Unsightful.com.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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In that spirit of laziness, lots of bookmarklets have been developed by internet users to help cut down on the amount of work we do on the keyboard and live life as a slacker to the full. Since that describes me perfectly, here’s five of my favourites -

1. Gmail This!

Do you have a Gmail account? If so, do you want to email someone but you can’t be bothered to do a couple of clicks and properly launch Gmail in a browser window? Instead, why not launch the Gmail This! bookmarklet?

Pressing this bookmarklet button will quickly fire up a new Gmail email window, without having to open Gmail first.

Obviously you have to be logged into your Gmail account first, and this particular bookmarklet captures the weblink of the page you are on. But with a bit of tweaking, you can remove that feature if it irks you.

Using the Gmail This! email window, you have access to your auto-complete email addresses and sent emails are slotted automatically into your Gmail sent folder.

2. TinyURL

I’m sure you’ve often emailed a URL to someone and that URL takes up three lines all by itself. If Murphy’s Law has its way, that URL will be broken into several pieces and totally unusable by the time it gets to the other end. Plus doesn’t a long URL look really messy? Then what you need is the TinyURL bookmarklet.

Just go to the webpage URL that you want to send and click the TinyURL bookmarklet. You’ll then get a nice short URL to send on to your email contacts.

3. BugMeNot (see under ‘Menu’)

Most websites with regularly updating content (especially newspapers) require you to register before you can read the story on their webpage. But I don’t want to have 20 different registrations for 20 different publications – and be spammed to death as well! So this is where BugMeNot has stepped in to save the day. BugMeNot has set up registrations at websites all over the net and you can use one of their ID’s to bypass the registration page. This bookmarklet automatically fills in the fields for you and signs you in.

4. FormTextResizer

This is quite a neat little script that fixes one of the most niggling problems on the net – how to write in a website text box which is as big as your thumb! This bookmarklet allows you to stretch the text box to whatever size you want so you can write whatever you need to in comfort.

5. View passwords

Most websites, when you log in, don’t allow you to see the password you’re typing and instead you see ********. But how do you know if you are typing the correct password?

In a time when most websites only give you three log-in attempts before locking you out, this bookmarklet will reveal your password on the screen so you can see what you are typing in. Just be sure that no-one is looking over your shoulder with a pen and paper in their hand!

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So today I want to share a free program which I have been using on and off for quite a while now and it has proven to be very useful in finding the links I am looking for. It’s called LocalDeli and it is a small desktop application which directly links to your del.icio.us account and updates itself as you add new links.

After installing, you just enter your del.icio.us username and password in the boxes provided and then click the “update” button in the bottom left-hand corner. Your links all then get pulled up into the box with the title of the link on the left and the tags you gave that link on the right.

Now, when you want to look for a specific link, just drop the search box down (using the little magnifying glass to the right of the search box). You can then filter your search by tag, description or both. Searches are conducted in “real-time” so as you type in the search box, results are filtered down immediately. The more you type in the search box, the more specific results are returned right away. Results are quick and highly accurate.

When you have found the link you’re looking for, just double-click on it and the link will open in your default internet browser.

I want to stress though that LocalDeli does NOT allow you to add links to del.icio.us. All it does is allow you to search the links you already have stored in your account. If you are looking for plug-ins and tools to add links to your del.icio.us account, then head on over to some official tools such as bookmarklets or Firefox users can use the brilliant extension tools. Internet Explorer users can use these tools.

If you would prefer not to use a desktop app like LocalDeli, another possibility is a script that basically takes over your del.icio.us page. For a while, I used Direc.tor which works along the same principles as LocalDeli, except it sits on your del.icio.us page and everytime you go to your page, you are re-directed to the Direc.tor interface. It works using a javascript bookmarklet and again it searches in real-time as you type. One advantage of Direc.tor over LocalDeli is that it breaks down the tabs a lot more specifically so you can easily find what you are looking for. However, I got tired of my del.icio.us page being hi-jacked all the time and I missed the simple del.icio.us page design, so I switched back.

Another great del.icio.us software tool is Fresh Del.icio.us which checks your account to see which links are dead. Despite some pretty silly spelling mistakes on the interface (the inventor’s native language must not be English), this tool has still been very informative as it has told me some links which were now dead and I was subsequently able to clean up my del.icio.us account a little.

Here are some other tools and tips for using del.icio.us :

• If you use Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension, you can find some great scripts for Del.icio.us.
• Are you too lazy to fill in all the tags fields on Delicious? Then why not let Lazy Sheep do it?
• Do you want even more delicious tools? Then here’s a huge stack from Quick Online Tips

(By) Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, editor and blogger. Visit his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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