Diigo is a social bookmarking service which we covered briefly while it was in private beta. But the service is out of beta, and has launched a new set of tools that make it easy to mark up web pages, save pages to your account, and search through your bookmarks and those of other users.
The service has also added a recommendation engine. Since users are constantly saving and tagging web content, Diigo has a huge database of web pages that may feature similar content. So if you like pages about Windows freeware, Diigo probably knows that and when you click on the recommendations feed you should be able to find pages that you'll like.
Eluma is a new Windows application for viewing and managing web content. Basically, it's an RSS reader and bookmark manager bundled together. When you first run Eluma you can choose from a list of popular feeds, or you can import an OPML file. We found that it handled our OPML file with several hundred feeds quite well, importing the feeds in a matter of seconds.
But the desktop application is just one part of Eluma. There are also browser toolbars available for Firefox and Internet Explorer that make it easy to add feeds to Eluma with the click of a button. If a page doesn't have an RSS feed, or if you just want to mark a single web page, not a feed, you can click the flag button to save an individual page to your account.
Using Eluma, you can tag items to make them easy to find later. You can also rate items, set up desktop alerts that will pop up whenever there's a new item in your feed, and share items with other users.
Eluma launched as a private beta this morning, but you can request an invitation at Eluma's web page. Check out a video walkthrough of the Eluma interface after the break.
BookmarkPreviews is an awesome, but kind of useless plugin for Firefox that lets you scroll through thumbnails of bookmarked web pages using an Apple Cover Flow-style browser. When you install the add-on, BookmarkPreviews will create a snapshot every time you visit a page you've already bookmarked. Then when you open your bookmark manager you can scroll through them in graphical form.
The only problem is that we can't imagine a circumstance where it would be faster to scroll through your bookmarks this way than to just click on the one you're looking for. Plus most folks we know use online bookmarking services like del.icio.us to store their bookmarks anyway.
While del.icio.us Spy might sound like the name of an upcoming Austin Powers movie, it's actually a new way to find web pages using social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Like the popular Digg Spy visualization tool, Ajaxonomy's del.icio.us Spy presents new links as they're submitted. Each link includes a thumbnail and buttons that make it easy to add a page to your own del.icio.us account, or to Digg or Reddit.
You can also filter results by keyword so that you're more likely to find links you're interested in. Because let's face it, people submit all sorts of crap to del.icio.us, which makes del.icio.us Spy a bit more of a crap shoot than Digg Spy.
But somebody should totally write to Mike Myers about using the name on his next movie as well.
AM-DeadLink, while lacking a creative name, does serve a creative purpose. The program will scan through your bookmarks: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera; and locate all the dead links that have taken up unwelcome residence, like those malign spirits in the movie Poltergeist.
Can you believe Poltergeist was rated PG? We still think about it...about the clown...it's not under the bed, it's right behind you Robbie!
Okay, where were we? Yes, AM-DeadLink. Like we said before, the program detects dead links and duplicates in browser bookmarks. If a bookmark has become unavailable, or if you find a duplicate, you can verify it in the program's internal browser and delete the bookmark permanently.
The program itself is easy to operate, with simple toolbar buttons and drop-down menus to select the browser you wish to clean up. AM-DeadLink can also scan .CSV files and tab-delimited text files for dead links. If your bookmarks are lacking favicons, AM-DeadLink can import them into your bookmarks, with the option to pass over or overwrite all existing favicons.
Iterasi is a new bookmarking service that allows users to save dynamic web content. What does that mean? Once upon a time web pages were relatively static. If you wanted to see the content of a web page, all you had to do was enter a URL and up pops your news article, movie listings, or photo collection. But today more and more sites are packed with dynamic content which changes regularly while the page's URL remains the same.
For example, imagine you're searching Google Maps and you zoom in and drag the map around. When you bookmark the page, all you get is a link to the map you saw when you started. Or what about pages that are changing every day like Techmeme or the New York Times? Sure, you could bookmark pages for individual articles, but what if what you really want to save is the equivalent of today's front page of the paper?
You could take a screenshot of those pages, but once you save the text content as an image file, you lose the ability to search the page. And that makes it pretty unlikely that you'll be able to find that page again when you need it. Iterasi solves this problem (even if you didn't know it was a problem) by creating snapshots of web sites using a process the company calls "notarizing."
All you have to do is install a browser toolbar and click the notarize button any time you see a page you want to save. It will be saved in its current state to Iterasi's online service. The page includes active links, searchable text, and everything else you could need. You can find your content by logging into your account from any web browser. You can also add notes and tags to pages for easier indexing. And of course, you can share pages with your friends. Iterasi also includes a scheduling application for saving pages at regular intervals. So if you want to save the front page of your local paper once a day or 6 times a day, you can schedule automated backups.
Are you the sort of person who likes to bookmark interesting web pages on del.icio.us, submit important or odd articles to digg, share rumors with Truemors, and send funny pictures of cats to your Twitter followers? Then have we got a Firefox add-on for you.
Sharealic is a Firefox add-on that works with Firefox 2, 3, and Flock and Songbird. It adds a handy menu to Firefox that lets you submit any web page to a ton of social bookmarking sites or similar services with just a few clicks. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to share items with your friends, but if you like to spread your love across multiple services, Shareaholic can save you a lot of time.
Shareaholic also lets you know at a glance how many times a page has been dugg or submitted to del.icio.us. Of course, if you'd rather submit a site to multiple services all at once, you might want to check out the Mahalo multi-submit toolbar. Shareaholic requires you to submit your links to one service at a time.
All Browser Bookmarks, from the makers of 1Password, is a free program that gives you easy access to your Internet bookmarks from multiple browsers via the Mac OS X menubar. Instead of launching Safari or Firefox and then opening the respective favorites menu and selecting a favorite, you can click the menu bar icon for All Browser Bookmarks and choose a bookmark.
The program lets you view your favorites separated by browser or combined, and you can choose which browser's favorites you want All Browser Bookmarks to show. 1Password users will find a section for their saved web forms making it easy to get to sites requiring authentication.
Recently, we told you about some ways to organize and manage your Firefox bookmarks, and one of our readers asked for similar suggestions to use with Internet Explorer. Since we want Michael and our other IE-using friends to loved too, we put together a few ideas for you. Favorites Box lets you add extra attributes to your bookmarks to make them easier to find and organize. Add comments, categories, tags, or login information or even set up a reminders. This one's free to try, but sets you back $19.95 if you want to keep it. Favorites Finder is a free extension that adds keyword functionality to your bookmarked sites so you can access them in just a couple of keystrokes. Just type a few letters of the site you're looking for and Favorites Finder will search your bookmarks and find all the matches, including whatever's in your folders. Power Favorites is a slick little extension that merges bookmarks from IE, Opera, and Firefox, then syncs them across multiples computers. You can annotate each bookmark with notes and tags, then view them by tag list or tag clouds. (Tag clouds? Are you listening, Foxmarks?) Power Favorites has a 30-day free trial, then it's $19.95.
When you finally decide to winnow down that super-long list of Favorites you've accumulated over the past two years, it's a pain to have to check each bookmark to make sure the site still exists. Use the free tool Favorites Inspector instead. It will plow through your whole list for you and alert you to any "404 error" pages so you can delete those Favorites instead of filing them.
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet then you've probably accumulated dozens hundreds of bookmarks. Here are a few Firefox extensions to help keep them -- and you -- organized.
Bookmark synchronizer Foxmarks is a must-have if you like to access your bookmarks from multiple locations. Install the Foxmarks extension on your laptop and your desktop PC, and whatever Web site you add to your bookmark manager on one machine will automatically show up on the other. You can also access your bookmarks via the Web from any computer with Internet access, no download required.
People who use the Opera Web browser often rave about its "Speed Dial" function, which allows you faster access to sites you visit regularly than searching through a long list of bookmarks. Though similar functionality isn't available natively in Firefox, there are a couple of extensions that get the job done. Speed Dial for Firefox places a button on your toolbar; click it to bring up thumbnails of up to nine Web pages whose addresses you've pre-programmed. Adding a Web site to the list is easy: simplfirefox; ffy right-click and select "Set as Speed Dial." Fast Dial does the same thing as Speed Dial, and also adds middle-click functionality and keyboard shortcuts.
If you like your browser's address bar to do your thinking for you, then take a look at Autocomplete Manager. This little extension checks what you type in the address bar for matching bookmarked Web sites; it even checks page titles and names you've assigned to the bookmarks in your folders.
Want to give your boring old bookmark folders a face-lift? Use Favicon Picker to decide what icon you want appearing next to each bookmarked Web site. Once installed, simply open Firefox's Bookmark Manager and right-click on a bookmark. Choose "Properties", then the "Browse" button in the Icon section. Select a .jpg to replace the existing default icon and click "OK".
New to the whole concept of bookmarks? Then make sure this is the first site you save to your Bookmark Manager.
Ever come across an interesting headline that you just don't have the time to read? If you're using Google Reader, you can just star an item to come back to it later. But if you're just browsing the web, you might want to mark a page for coming back to without going so far as to create a bookmark. Read it Later is a Firefox add-on that lets you create a reading list from interesting links. Once it's installed, you can right-click on any web site or link to save it to your reading list.
The add-on also installs two buttons in your Firefox toolbar. You can click Read Later to save the page you're currently on. And when you click on Reading List you'll cycle through saved pages. Clicking the little black arrow next to it will bring up a list of saved stories.
When you're reading a saved page, the Read Later button turns into a Mark as Read button which you can use to remove pages from your list.
Sure, you could always save pages as bookmarks, add them to del.icio.us, or use Google Notebook to save pages for later. But we like the clean and easy to use interface of Read it Later. Of course, if your Firefox Toolbar is already overloaded with add-ons, Read it Later might add more clutter to your life, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Mozilla doesn't plan to officially launch Firefox 3 beta for another few days. But the crafty folks over at Digg have umm, dugg up a few download links for anyone who can't wait to get their hands on the newest version of the popular web browser.
As usual, Mozilla is releasing Mac, Linux, and Windows versions of Firefox. And the developers have put a handy little Read Me note up on the FTP site stating that they'd really prefer if you waited until the official announcement to download the browser so that their servers don't get hammered. Thanks to Digg, it's probably too late for that, so we went ahead and downloaded a copy of Firefox 3 beta anyway.
At first glance, you won't notice many changes from Firefox 2. In fact, Firefox 3 beta will import all of your settings, bookmarks, add-ons and plugins from Firefox 2, so at first you might think you've opened the wrong program. We even installed Firefox 3 beta using Sandboxie so that it wouldn't overwrite our old settings, and all the data was easily imported.
Update: Mozilla has posted a note making it clear that the Firefox 3.0b1 is a release candidate of Firefox 3 beta, which was not meant for general consumption yet. If you can hold your horses a few more days, there should be an official release soon.
The folks behind the Opera web browser have launched a public beta of Opera 9.5 today. We kind of knew that was coming, but it's still nice to get a slightly more stable release of the updated web browser. Probably our favorite new feature is the full history search that lets you do a full text search covering every web site you've visited recently from the URL bar.
Opera is has also launched Opera Link, which lets you synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial preferences. Have Opera on your home and work machines, and Opera Mini 4 beta on your cellphone? Opera Link will let you keep the same preferences on each.
There's no synchronization love for Opera Mobile, the Windows Mobile version of the web browser. That's kind of sad, considering Opera Mobile is the only browser of the bunch that you have to pay for. It costs $24 while Opera Mini and the desktop browser are free.
Launched over the weekend as part of a one-day-startup party, Tagmindr links up with your del.icio.us account and lets you easily and automatically send yourself bookmarks in the future. Simply signup and then tag your del.icio.us bookmarks with the tagmindr tag and a date in the format of "remind:YYYY-MM-DD". Tagmindr will then put your bookmark in an RSS feed on the date you indicated. Eventually they may support SMS, Email and IM. But it probably wouldn't be wise to hold your breath.
The product took about 6 and a half hours to create (plus 4 hours of cleanup) last Saturday as part of a Seattle Saturday House meeting. Leo Dirac has some more detail on the process if you are interested. Hopefully we'll see more slick and useful tools created in this manner.
Homepage Startup tries to set itself apart from astampedeofweb2.0startpages by focusing on the fact that the majority of web users regularly visit no more than a handful of websites. The concept is pretty straightforward (if not exactly original): set this site as your homepage and when your browser window opens you have instant access to your favorite search engine and a grid of links to your favorite websites. Each link is identified by a screen shot and you can easily rearrange them by dragging and dropping to your hearts content. You can even get this all setup before creating an account.
When put up against the likes of iGoogle and My Yahoo there isn't a lot to do here, but that isn't a bad thing. Often the key to success is doing one thing well and not overpowering your users with unneeded features. Links are what Homepage Startup does well and they deliberately do not burden users with RSS feeds, weather, widgets, news, or anything else that is likely handled better by a dedicated service.
If you are looking for something simple to pop up when you click your browser's Home button then Homepage Startup is well worth checking out.
AM-DeadLink, while lacking a creative name, does serve a creative purpose. The program will scan through your bookmarks: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera; and locate all the dead links that have taken up unwelcome residence, like those malign spirits in the movie Poltergeist. 
Recently, we told you about some ways to organize and manage your Firefox bookmarks, and one of our readers asked for similar suggestions to use with Internet Explorer. Since we want Michael and our other IE-using friends to loved too, we put together a few ideas for you.
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet then you've probably accumulated 
Mozilla doesn't plan to officially launch Firefox 3 beta for another few days. But the crafty folks over at Digg have umm, dugg up a few download links for anyone who can't wait to get their hands on the newest version of the popular web browser.
