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16 January 2011
Do you ever think to yourself “Boy! I sure wish there was a better way to do this?” only to find out, often a little too late, that there is one – or in this case – several?
Old School Research
Back in the days before Internet, research was conducted in things called “books” and keeping track of important bits relied on the use of various tools such as highlighters, sticky notes or post-its, bookmarks or dog-ears and notes jotted in margins. Regardless how adept you were at keeping track of all these various “reminders”, getting them all sorted out and putting these bits to good use was a monumental task.
These days people often eschew books in favor of the vast resources available on the Internet. It’s easy to see why. The Internet provides access to tons of current and relative information, doesn’t weigh much or take up a lot of room and can be accessed anytime from almost anywhere.
The Problem With Doing Research Online
While the Internet is an invaluable resource and research tool, it does present challenges when it comes to gathering your important bits of information and pulling them all together.
Copy/Paste, Print And Browser Bookmarking
The common tools we often turn to when researching any given topic are to Copy and Paste selections into our favorite word processor for future use, printing selection or whole pages to hard copy (which harkens back to old school research methods) and creating Bookmarks or “Favorites” in our browser.
Many of us make do with these outdated techniques simply because we think we have to! No more! Here are 5 bookmarking, annotation, highlighting and research collaboration tools that will change the way you look at the Web forever.
1. Diigo
Diigo (www.diigo.com) is a free social bookmarking, research and knowledge sharing tool. Providing familiar note taking tools such as:
Highlighter: allows you to highlight text on any web page or document served up on your browser.
Web Notes: annotate web pages easily using web based sticky (post-it) notes.
Bookmarking And Saving: Bookmarking via Diigo allows you to add tags for easy retrieval. You can choose to make your bookmark private or public (for collaboration or sharing). Furthermore, when you bookmark a page with Diigo, it saves an image of the current page complete with your highlighted text, tags and sticky notes allowing you to retrieve your information even if the link is ever broken or the page content changes.
Searching And Sharing: Easily search through your bookmarks, tags and notes. Share your bookmarks, complete with annotations, with friends and colleagues whether they use Diigo or not.
Support for Mobile Devices: Diigo several Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices.
Cost: Free!
2. WebNotes
WebNotes (www.webnotes.net) has both free and paid versions available. With a tagline like “Research Management For Professionals”, WebNotes lives up to expectations offering tons of useful annotation tools and collaboration options.
Similar in scope to what Diigo offers, WebNotes also adds report generation, RSS, Folder system and more to its Pro and Platinum services. Though the Pro ($35/year) and PLatinum ($300/year) may be a bit steep for the average user, the free version still provides a lot of functionality.
3. PinBoard
Pinboard (www.pinboard.in) touts itself as “Social Bookmarking For Introverts”. Similar to the Del.icio.us Social Bookmarking service, PinBoard allows users to mark bookmarks as private.
While not as fully featured as either Diigo or WebNotes, PinBoard does allow users to make notes. What it lacks in features it makes up in providing a fast, lightweight and capable bookmarking service.
Cost: $9.19.
4. SharedCopy
SharedCopy (www.sharedcopy.com) is a slick wen annotation, collaboration and bookmarking service that offers similar functionality to Diigo and WebNotes but requires no download or installation to use – you simply need to bookmark the SharedCopy link and you are ready to roll. SharedCopy works with IE, Firefox and Safari, allows you to share and collaborate via EMail, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Posterous, straight to your Blog and several other services. It also has a neat “Read Later” feature.
Cost: Free!
5. ScrapBook
Scrapbook (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scrapbook/) is a Firefox only Add-On. While it doesn’t allow you to highlight text or simple annotation web pages, it shines as a light and fast bookmarking utility. With ScrapBook, you can save web pages, web sites or snippets or web pages and organize them in several ways. Quick search and full filtering allows you to keep your information at hand. Notes can be applied by editing the page “Text/HTML”.
Cost: Free!
Do you know of another great service not listed here? Let us know!
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