Saturday, May 19, 2012

B is for BOOKMARKS


Two Bs or not two Bs.  That is the question I have been procrastinating on.

I couldn't make up my mind between Backup or Bookmarks.  Although it is very important to backup all your data and hold a copy offsite, it makes researching easier if you have all your favourite websites Bookmarked and sorted.

When I started researching, I would often come across a good website but then be unable to find it again later.  Once I started bookmarking my favourite websites, I ended up with a list a mile long and still had trouble finding the one that I wanted.

It has made it so much easier to find things now that I have sorted them into folders based on topics and labelled them so they are easy to find. I also sort them into alphabetical order. In the picture below, you will see that within my Family Tree bookmark, I have folders for various topics (eg Aust research, BDMs, Cemetery & Graves, Defence, Immigration and specific family names).  This makes it so much easier for me to find the relevant website.  Some websites (such as the Public Records Office) are listed in more than one folder.


So how do you organise your bookmarks and folders?  It is different for the various browsers but they follow a similar theme. I have provided instructions below for Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

In Google Chrome;
Step One:  Go into the spanner (tools) on the top right of screen - bookmarks - bookmark manager
The Short Cut is to press Control+Shift+O



This will bring up the bookmark manager
Step Two:  Select (click on) the folder that you want to organise in bookmark manager.  Then click on the "organize" button.



Step 3:  "Add folder"
Add your folders and then click and drag your bookmarks into it.

Internet Explorer is very similar
Step 1:  Go into Favorites in the top Toolbar
Step 2: Select Organize Favorites
Step 3: Create Folders
Step 4: Drag or "Move" your existing favourite websites into the correct folder.


My tip:  Bookmark your favourite internet sites and organise with folders sorted in alphabetical order.  Also don't forget to Backup your research regularly and hold a copy offsite.

7 comments:

  1. Bookmarks are so important, otherwise we'll never find our way back to that page/site again ... it's Murphy's Law :P

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  2. I'm sure many people will be grateful for the screen shots showing how to do it. Personally I recommend Google Chrome as a browser. A 'techie' friend told me to switch to Chrome when Internet Explorer was causing me headaches, and it was good advice.

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  3. Totally agree Judy. Alot less frustration now that I use Chrome.

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  4. I'm a Chrome Kid too. Having used Delicious to manage my bookmarks for years I have now switched to Evernote which allows me to access and add to my bookmarks on my 4 devices or via the web wherever I am.

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  5. Jill, I hope you cover these in your A-Z blog. Sounds very interesting.

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  6. Wow, you do your homework well! It is a shame how lives were lost so easily and if they were in today's world many more lives would have been saved...a great post!

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  7. Thanks for stopping by my blog too! ...and for the follow and now I'm returning the follow! You have an amazing blog!

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