bookmarking sites

So in my previous post I discuss a possible workflow for writing essays and in particular gathering data from online sources. What about web sites??

Well lets imagine the scene. Your at your home computer and youve done some searches on the usual databases but you want something more. Ok, so you take a stab and do a google search. You find a few sites that are of use to you and you want to bookmark them.

The next day you go to college and have some 5 minutes to spare so carry out a similar search on the library computer. You find some links but a) your not sure whether you bookmarked this at home b) you dont want to have two sets of bookmarks of links.
When you get back home and start doing some research you think "now where did I bookmark that site that was about rheumatoid arthirtis and patients experiences" You would love it to be clearly outlined but alas it isnt! The bookmark has some random title, quite possibly even "untitled"!! how useful!!

Enter del.icio.us.There are some excellent resources in understanding this tool (e.g. this one but I prefer pictures than just text so Im going to give you a quick run-through.

Fist up, if you are a) a OT and b) about to read no further because this bores you just go here first. Its a big big list of any sites that are OT "related" (NB: since OT is huge - a lot of this will seem un-related).

Right. On with the show. Firstly Ill show you what it is..

1. http://del.icio.us/: The front page. Here you will find any bookmarks that have been created. Refresh the page (press f5) and I bet you it will change - that basically means that while you have been looking at it somebody else (quite a few actually) has added bookmarks. So you now realise this thing gets used a lot
2. http://del.icio.us/popular/ The "Popular" links. This is exactly what it says. Popular links
3. http://del.icio.us/metaot. A user's page. This lists all of "meatot"'s links (that's me if you havent already guessed). Note a couple of things. The words on the right (known as "tags") vary in size. This is refered to as a "cloud" where big words mean they have a lot more pages linked with tag than others. Just click on a few and look at the number of links - you'll get the idea. Ok so you now know what a del.icio.us page looks like, lets look at what each bookmark means.



1. Link. Click on this takes you to the site somebody has bookmarked. Note that the text for the link is called a "description" and you cannot have a link in the system without this description
2. Explanatory Text. Note that not all links have to have this - its really for your purpose so you can say "Ahh that site is about my holidays!" for example
3. Tags. This is the key to del.icio.us. When you add a bookmark you dont put into a folder or long list like you do in your web-browser, you identify it with things that make sense. So if the link is about your holidays you may have "holidays 2005 france sun sand fun" etc..
4. "and nnn other people" (nnn being a number of course). This just means that a certain number of people have also bookmarked the same page. If you were to click on the number you will see the same bookmark and how others have named, described and tagged it
5. User's Tags. So you now know what a tag is? click on one - go on (try "schools" for size)! Now that's showing you all of metaot's links that have been tagged with "schools". What about UK only schools. Easy - see "related tags" at the top right - look for "UK" within that and click on the small +(plus) symbol next to the word. This should take you to http://del.icio.us/metaot/schools+UK . You can carry on doing this so that you find all Scottish OT schools e.g. http://del.icio.us/metaot/schools+UK+Scotland

Ok so you now its cool. So how do you start adding links?? Follow these steps:

1. http://del.icio.us/register Create a account
2. http://del.icio.us/doc/about Follow the instructions under "Bookmarklets". I won't repeat what is written since its obvious

Thats it! You should be ready to go. Now surf the web. Lets go somewhere like http://metaot.com. When its finished loading, go to your "Bookmarks" menu in your browser and click on the "remember this" link that you have just created.
Now edit the "description", "extended" and "tags" as necesary. I *strongly* recommend that you tag it with memorable, related tags. So perhaps metaot.com would have tags - "willwade occupational-therapy information general useful" (or not as the case may be!) - here's the OT bit: these tags should be "Meaningful" to You! - this will usually mean they are meaningful to the rest of the world too and we can all make use of your well tagged bookmarks!
One tip though: If you want to have more than one word remembered place a dash in between them as i have in "occupational-therapy". Also note that these tags are seperated by spaces - NOT commas..!

Now that you are logged in and your getting the hang of bookmarking-browsing-playing, you come across a few users who have similar tastes to you. How can you remember there bookmarks? Well, if its only one or two bookmarks you can "Copy" a persons link (see first image above). If its more - just "subscribe" to their bookmarks.

Lastly, if you come across a URL that you want to bookmark but think "My friend Jo would like to see that" then you can do it easily by adding the tag
for:username
where username is the username of the other person. To see which sites somebody may have sent you see the link at http://del.icio.us/for/ (only available once you have logged in)

So can I end this little piece on something completley selfish. If you come across anything that you think might be useful for the whole OT community add the tag:
for:metaot

Hope this information is useful to you. Any problems feel free to give me a shout