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WEBSITES THAT MULTITASK FOR YOU

By Esther Yu Sumner Sometimes it’s hard to remember that it wasn’t so very long ago that the Internet just wasn’t an option. Many of us remember having to burrow through card catalogs and microfilm to find the tiniest grains of information. While both are still around, especially microfilm, we rely heavily on the Internet. The problem now is that there is so much information that it becomes time-consuming and difficult to find the best website resources and know when they’ve come out with useful new tidbits. However, there are two great features of the World Wide Web today that help people to keep track of their preferred websites - with a multi-tasking twist. These features incorporate the ability to get daily updates from multiple websites without having to individually visit every website. You can also see what websites other people with similar interests are visiting; this is a great tool for discovering new websites that are useful to you. These two features are RSS readers and social bookmarking. RSS readers (stands for “Really Simple Syndication”) are like digital newspapers, tailored just for you. They’ll show “headlines” for any new content that has been added to your favorite websites. You can then click on these headlines to go to the actual website being highlighted. The point is that you can see if new content has been added, and decide if it’s interesting to you, without having to visit each website that you enjoy. You can check for updates from just one place. here are a lot of free RSS readers available. When you’re ready to get your own RSS reader, here are two solid options: www.netvibes.com http://www.google.com/reader/view/#directory-welcome-page Each site comes with instructions for new users on how to set-up their own RSS reader, as well as an offering of sites that you might want to include in your reader. For example, you might find it helpful to have an RSS feed for the weather so you know what days to hit the library for more research. Once your reader is set up, you can easily check whether websites you like have RSS feeds by entering the website address into the feed reader. You can then simply check your RSS feed as often or as little as you need to see which websites have new content. New sites and blogs are common sites that offer RSS feeds. Typically in an RSS reader, you can click on a headline to link to the actual article or website. Any items you have read will still be listed but will move from a bolded to an unbolded status so you know you’ve already visited the website for that headline. Whether you think you would enjoy the benefits of an RSS reader or not, you will likely enjoy the social bookmarking site known as del.ici.ous at http://del.icio.us/ This website works like your Favorites feature in Internet Explorer or your Bookmarks feature in Mozilla except that it saves website links online instead of to your computer. That means you can hop on a computer anywhere you have Internet access to locate a link you may have found earlier. Better yet, at the time you save your link, you’re asked whether you want to apply tags (keywords) that help you to quickly find the website you may not have had time to look at previously. When you visit your del.icio.us account again, for example, you can look for all addresses you tagged with the word “genealogy” or perhaps with a family name related to the website Better yet, at the time you save your link, you’re asked whether you want to apply tags (keywords) that help you to quickly find the website you may not have had time to look at previously. When you visit your del.icio.us account again, for example, you can look for all addresses you tagged with the word “genealogy” or perhaps with a family name related to the website. To take advantage of this benefit, visit del.ici.ous and follow the instructions to get an account. Then, try bookmarking a few sites using del.ici.ous instead of your browser bookmark. Now go back and look at the website addresses you saved to your account. You’ll notice that below each website you tagged, you can find a note like, “saved by 52 other people.” Click on that link, and you’ll see a list of all the people that have tagged that site. You can then click on the name of any of the people that have tagged the site to see what else they have tagged, or click on the tag word they used to describe that site. Either way will get you to a list of links related to your original link, and could help you discover great websites you have never heard of previously. Esther Yu Sumner is a freelance writer. She can be reached at esumnertime@gmail.com