Bookmarks

One of my fave Edtech people, Richard Byrne this week posted an article "Tools and Strategies for Sharing Bookmarks" in response to a reader "who was looking for an alternative to Delicious for bookmarking and sharing bookmarks. .

I was surprised to see that he omitted Evernote as a tool for this purpose. Several years ago when Delicious changed hands I turned to Evernote for saving my bookmarks. Since then Evernote has taken over as my virtual memory.

I am wondering aboout other genealogists' bookmarking practices and if those who are Evernote users use some other tools to save and share bookmarks.

Incidentally you can see my two shared Evernote notebooks (that include lots of bookmarks) here:

Genealogy: https://www.evernote.com/pub/geniaus/Genealogy
Technology: https://www.evernote.com/pub/geniaus/technology

Family History Through the Alphabet – E is for …Evernote

I set up my present Delicious account in November 2008 I have saved over 7000 links to that account; the majority of these are in the subject areas of genealogy and technology. I previously had Delicious accounts when I was working in IT. Since Delicious was sold and taken over by Yahoo! I have not been impressed with some of the changes that have been made to the product and found that I was rarely using the product.

For some time I have been seeking a product that will allow me to save and catalogue (tag) my bookmarks, videos, photos, audio files and notes and access them via the internet from all of my devices and any other computer I may be using.

I downloaded Evernote to my laptop and tablet well over a year ago; I played around with the software but not in any depth. I tried Zotero, a product developed in a tertiary institution for use by students, but found that it was not as easy to access from a range of devices especially my android tablet and phone. Recently I decided to get serious about using  Evernote .

Evernote is now installed on my laptop, netbook, android tablet and android phone. I am using the free version of  Evernote  for the moment; once I become more competent in using the product I may pay for the premium version.

It was not possible to easily transfer my 7000 links from Delicious directly into Evernote and I realised that I probably did not want to keep all of those links. This presented an opportunity to do some housekeeping. Firstly I imported all of the Delicious links into Google Bookmarks and I have been slowly going through these and adding the ones I wish to keep to Evernote. Concurrently I have been saving new links and notes I make into my Evernote.

So what exactly is Evernote? This page on the Evernote site gives a much clearer explanation then I can.

To date I only have 176 notes in my eight Evernote notebooks (or as I would call them folders).  I am tagging all of these and adding annotations to some of them. I have chosen to keep most of these notebooks private but have made two: Genealogy and Technology public. Although you can see these without an Evernote account it is preferable to have an account to access more features. Hopefully the links and notes I have made will be of some use to other genealogists.

The Evernote Web Clipper on my Chrome browser allows me to save an article,a selection, a full page or just a link with a couple of mouse clicks; I am just saving either a selection which gives me information about the notes content or just a URL. I am concerned that saving a whole article constitutes some form of plagiarism. There is a collection of other add-ins and apps that can enhance your Evernote experience but, while I am on my L plates, I will concentrate on getting my bookmarks organised.

I am Excited about the possibilities Evernote offers for collaboration.

Do you have any public or shared genealogy notebooks that others can see?

Just what I need

Recently I decided to give Evernote a go. I have the app on 3 devices and am happily clipping away but that is as far as I have gone.

Apart from wishing that I could easily export my Delicious links into Evernote I haven't done much exploration.
I just read this article and have resolved to explore further.

5 Cool Features That Prove Evernote Is Still A Kick-Ass Service


Post Script
On rereading this post I realised that I have four devices - need to pop Evernote on my Android  'phone as well.

Pinterest - Timewaster or Worthwhile Resource?

Curiosity got the better of me a couple of days ago when Caroline Pointer of Family Stories asked on Twitter if anyone would like an invitation to use Pinterest.   I have been reading about this tool and wondering exactly what it was for a while now so, even as I prepare to leave for Salt Lake City this week and am time poor, I couldn't resist Caroline's invitation.

What is Pinterest? I see it as a social bookmarking tool that has a visual interface. Pinterest says "Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests."


Once I had my invitation to hand I logged in, set up my profile and looked for some genealogists to follow. What I immediately noticed was that the main focus of my contacts' pinboards was not genealogy but decorating, fashion, cooking and travel. Most of them also had a pinboard for genealogy. I decided to set up a couple of Genealogy pinboards with an Australian focus and then added Genealogy Humour, my Travel Bucket List, Recipes, Android Stuff and a pinboard for my US forthcoming trip. I wasted spent a hour or so playing with Pinterest yesterday and logged in a few times to monitor happenings there.

My Pinterest Wall

What are my first impressions?

• It is intuitive and easy to use - I only had to consult the help menu once.
• There are a number of well-known genealogists using Pinterest. Looking at their pinboards tells me a little more about them than what I glean from other social networking sites.
• It will be a valuable source of genealogy resources as more users add genealogy related pinboards.
• It has put me in touch with some new genealogy contacts.
• I can only find two other Australian genealogists using Pinterest at the moment and they don't have genealogy pinboards.
• Liking, commenting on and sharing others' pinned items is a breeze
• It has the potential to be a timewaster
• It has an attractive interface.
• I like this way of organising links.
• It is frustrating that it was not easy to pin pages/links that had no images in them (Shauna - would you mind putting a pic on Diary of an Australian Genealogist so I can easily add it?)
• I will not be giving up Delicious as my bookmarking tool quite yet.
• I will enjoy using Pinterest
• Pinterest is optimised for use on mobile devices so I can use it on my Android tablet.
• I hope it remains free to use.
• There are more females than males using Pinterest.

Thanks, Caroline, for the invitation. If any of my readers are on Pinterest please say G'day by following me.

Delicious - an old favourite

Family Sites. Whenever I find a website, maintained by an Australian, either devoted to the genealogy of a particular family or surname I tag it in Delicious with the tag familysite. I also tag any similar sites from overseas that have links to my family.

If you are considering creating a website you may wish to look at these sites for ideas or you may just wish to browse them to admire the work done my fellow family historians. Perhaps you'll discover a distant cousin.

You can see my lists of familysites here : http://delicious.com/geniaus/familysite. For a full list of the sites relevant to genealogy that I have tagged go here : http://delicious.com/geniaus/genealogy

If you don't have a Delicious account you may wish to sign up, - it is a free social networking site that thousands of people use to store share and discover websites online. It is one of my favourite tools.

Delicious

I have been using Delicious to save and tag my bookmarks for a couple of years both in my personal and professional life. I find it very useful for keeping track of family history links. I recently set up a separate Delicious account just for my genealogy links. Geniaus' Delicious Links . Updates will be posted to this blog via an RSS Feed.