Furl
If to "unfurl" is to unwrap, or spread out, to "furl," (which we rarely use) is to wrap up tightly into a nice, neat package.
This is what Furl.net claims to do for your web searches.
We all know the frustration of having found a perfect resource on the internet, and, failing to bookmark it, we lose it, and can't readily access it again.
Of course, bookmarks were supposed to be the solution to this problem (or favorites). The problem with them is sheer numbers: bookmarks or favorites are organized in a list, or into a list of folders of like content. This is (and was) all well and good when most of us hand a mere handful of favorite locations. Now, we have dozens, hundreds, even perhaps into the four figures of websites that we don't want to lose track of.
There are many schemes devoted to helping you find, catalogue, and keep up with your favorite websites that go far beyond your bookmark list (bookmarks still being, I think very useful).
Most of the newer notions center around the idea of store, tag, and search. You store a website you have found particularly interesting or useful. You tag it with values that will help make it accessible again (for example, let's say I've found a site that gives me great info about grammar - I tag it with grammar, writing, spelling, etc.). And finally, you search your stored data, helped along by your tags, to locate the relevant website sometime down the road.
Many of these tools also make use of groupthink, helping you find sites that others have found relevant, and tagged accordingly.
Furl describes itself this way: "Furl is a free service that saves the important items you find on the Web and enables you to quickly find them again. Furl archives a personal copy of every page you save. When you want to recall it, you can find it instantly by searching the full text your archived items. Each member has a personal archive of 5 gigabytes (GB), large enough to store tens of thousands of searchable items.
If to "unfurl" is to unwrap, or spread out, to "furl," (which we rarely use) is to wrap up tightly into a nice, neat package.
This is what Furl.net claims to do for your web searches.
We all know the frustration of having found a perfect resource on the internet, and, failing to bookmark it, we lose it, and can't readily access it again.
Of course, bookmarks were supposed to be the solution to this problem (or favorites). The problem with them is sheer numbers: bookmarks or favorites are organized in a list, or into a list of folders of like content. This is (and was) all well and good when most of us hand a mere handful of favorite locations. Now, we have dozens, hundreds, even perhaps into the four figures of websites that we don't want to lose track of.
There are many schemes devoted to helping you find, catalogue, and keep up with your favorite websites that go far beyond your bookmark list (bookmarks still being, I think very useful).
Most of the newer notions center around the idea of store, tag, and search. You store a website you have found particularly interesting or useful. You tag it with values that will help make it accessible again (for example, let's say I've found a site that gives me great info about grammar - I tag it with grammar, writing, spelling, etc.). And finally, you search your stored data, helped along by your tags, to locate the relevant website sometime down the road.
Many of these tools also make use of groupthink, helping you find sites that others have found relevant, and tagged accordingly.
Furl describes itself this way: "Furl is a free service that saves the important items you find on the Web and enables you to quickly find them again. Furl archives a personal copy of every page you save. When you want to recall it, you can find it instantly by searching the full text your archived items. Each member has a personal archive of 5 gigabytes (GB), large enough to store tens of thousands of searchable items.
Furl recommends new Web pages that may interest you, guided by the sites you've already "Furled," or saved.
Furl also offers the best ways to share the content you find on the Web. Send a daily email newsletter of links to friends and colleagues, use Furl to generate RSS feeds for your links, or integrate them quickly and easily into an existing Web site."
Another very useful feature of tagging websites like Furl is that, unlike favorites, they are accessible no matter what computer you're using.
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