Ozarks Genealogical Society

For the monthly Computer Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting, I have pulled together the following list of technologies that I am using on a regular basis to make my life easier. These tools allow me portability in some cases (managing and sharing my bookmarks or reading feeds) while others enhance my ability to capture research information in a variety of formats and share it. How often have you found an interesting website only to discover the original information that drew you to the site is gone? Check out the Screen Capture discussion.

Web Technologies start with your home page, a location you determine and can now personalize with all of the major platforms. Now you can have your email, calendar, RSS/Feeds, bookmarks and other tools in one location. And it travels with you.

AOL
Google
Microsoft
Yahoo

RSS or Feeds You may have heard of the term(s) but you still don’t understand how it applies to you. Here are a couple of locations to check out
About.com explains RSS or try Yahoo’s FAQ about RSS

You can use your Personalized Home Page or try a Dedicated Feed Reader such as…

Newsgator web-based reader/aggregator

Another alternative that I love is the Onfolio Add-in for Windows Live Toolbar. Onfolio is an add-in for the Windows Live Toolbar that helps you collect and organize online content, read RSS news feeds, and share content in emails, blogs and documents. With Onfolio, you get all of these tools built into your browser for simplicity
Requires Windows Live Toolbar.

If you are interested in considering an alternative to Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird is a great choice. It’s simple, fast and by adding an extension you can use it as a Feed Reader as well. I’ve set it up on my parent’s PC so when I visit I can read email (I have six addresses) and my daily feeds.

Bookmarks, or Favorites in Microsoft parlance, are something I have a love/hate relationship. They add up fast, are not necessarily easy to organize and have been tied to my PC in the past. No longer. Now you can save them so they are accesible anywhere you have internet access, you can share them and in addition to folders, you can add tags or keywords to make it easier to find them. It is also becoming an excellent way to search and receive highly targeted results.

Each of the homepage/email vendors discussed earlier offer some form of ‘portable’ bookmarks. Here is where you can find information on them:

Google Bookmarks
Microsoft Windows Live Favorites
Yahoo My Web Beta v2

I’m also going to suggest you consider a third-party alternative, although they are now owned by Yahoo it is a tool that continues to develop on its own and grow in popularity. Del.icio.us helped popularize the model and one of the key options they offer is Tags, so in addition to organizing a bookmark by a folder such as a Locale, I could add tags including surnames or other clues to make it easier to find when I am looking for it.

How about Screen Capture? By that I mean saving website pages (or snippets) as well as email, documents (incl PDF) for viewing, storing and sharing in the future use. Because websites change and because you want to include these new virtual repositories and the information you capture into your research, consider these two tools:

Onfolio Add-in for Windows Live Toolbar (see details under RSS/Feed above)
Onfolio makes it easy to collect information from the Web and store it on your computer as links or local copies. Your captured content is organized into research collections where you can combine it with personal notes, documents and emails from your PC.

For Firefox users, Scrapbook is an easy to use, fast little browser addition that can accomplish many of the same things.

Browsers - there are several choices now, especially with Microsoft’s recent introduction of version 7. Regardless of your choice, here’s a recommended security tool to help you determine if a site is ‘authentic’.

Site Advisor - http://www.siteadvisor.com/
A system of automated testers which continually patrol the Web to browse sites, download files, and enter information on sign-up forms. Our easy to use software for Internet Explorer and Firefox summarizes our safety results into intuitive red, yellow and green ratings to help Web users stay safe as they search, browse and transact online.

Internet Explorer v6
Onfolio for Windows Live Toolbar Beta v3 (Windows XP/SP2) http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/index.cfm
• Collect Content http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/features_01.cfm
• Organize Research http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/features_02.cfm
• Share http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/features_03.cfm
• RSS Reader http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/features_04.cfm

Windows Live Toolbar (Windows XP/SP2)
http://toolbar.live.com/

http://del.icio.us/help/ie/extension

Internet Explorer v7
Includes a Feed Discovery/Reading capability like Favorites

Onfolio for Windows Live Toolbar Beta v3
http://www.onfolio.com/product/toolbaraddin/index.cfm

http://del.icio.us/help/ie/extension

Firefox v2
News-Leader/Dean Asby recommends the switch. These type of articles, that often go behind ‘for fee’ archives after a short period of time, are another reason to consider the capture tools listed above.

To switch to Firefox, go to Mozilla.com and click on the “Download Firefox — Free” button. Save it to your desktop. Once the download finishes, double-click on the Firefox Setup icon. In the Open File Security Warning window that pops up, click “run” and wait for it to extract.

In the Mozilla Firefox Setup window, click “next,” select “I accept the terms in the License Agreement” and click “next.” Select “standard” for the type of setup, click “next,” wait for it to install and click “finish.” Once Firefox is launched, you have the option of importing your bookmarks, history, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer.

http://del.icio.us/help/firefox/extension - Bookmarks
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/427/ - Scrapbook
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search-engines/ - add Search Engines

Other Browsers
How do I install Del.icio.us posting buttons on the AOL, MSN, or SBC Yahoo! browsers?
Del.icio.us doesn’t support posting buttons for those browsers right now, but you can still bookmark and use the posting page to add items to del.icio.us while using them.

How are you backing up your materials? Are you sharing research materials with another family member? Here’s a perfect solution to ensuring that your research collections are backed up and stored in seperate locations. Foldershare allows you to create a private peer-to-peer network that will help you to synchronize files across multiple devices and access or share files with colleagues and friends. You no longer need to send large files via email, burn them to CDs/DVDs and mail them, or upload them to a website. FolderShare allows you to share and sync important information instantly with anyone you invite, making it the perfect solution for personal or small business use.

csigpresentation20060106.doc