Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bookmark

How can I launch URLs from the OS X dock (with proper icons)?

SethLeonard — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:34:09 -0800

How can I create an app/shortcut that lives in the OS X dock that has an icon of my choosing and launches in the browser of my choice? Difficulty: no @ icons, no SSB. It seemed like a simple task when I decided I wanted to launch Google Docs from my OS X dock. However, after much searching and testing, I have found the following options, none of which work for me:

1) Drag the URL/favicon onto the dock. This works great to launch the web page I want from the dock in my default browser (what I wanted). However, it also has that lame @ icon (which I can't seem to change to anything but a file type preview icon) AND it is forced to live outside of the app section.

2) Use a tool like Fluid (fluidapp.com) to create an application to launch the URL. This works great by using the icon of my choice and being able to be placed in the app section (solves above problems). But it also forces these links to open in an SSB (site specific browser) that loses all of my cookies, etc. I'd rather it just open in Firefox.

So, does anyone know of a way that I can combine these and have a URL launch from the dock:

- with the icon of my choice
- in Firefox
- from the app section of the dock (optional)

???

Thanks,
Seth

Emacs wizardry for the non-programmer.

Barry B. Palindromer — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:37:05 -0800

How can I automate emacs to open a file, execute a bunch of macros, then save the file in a new format? I need to extract bookmarks from large PDFs into text files importable into MS Access. I have been using emacs to open the file, then used 5-6 macros to extract the bookmarks and format it properly to be imported into Access. This gets extremely tedious, I have about 100 files to convert.

Is there a more elegant or convenient way to do this? I would love to be able to automate it in emacs. I am not a programmer, and although I have tried to figure out how to do this with elisp, it just doesn't make sense to me. I'm running emacs 22.2.1 on Windows and Acrobat 6 and 7 standard.

Need help finding a replacement for Yahoo Bookmarks service.

atm — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:47:47 -0800

Need help finding a replacement for Yahoo Bookmarks service. I really like Y! Bookmarks, but I want to close my Yahoo email acct. which requires either
a) closing of entire Y! account, which means also losing access to Y! Bookmarks., or
b) leaving the email account untouched for 4 months. However, if the account accepted emails I'd need to respond to them. There are too many people for me to remember who all to notify that my address is changing, and I don't want to pay the $$ for the forwarding capable upgraded email acct.. With the email account closed, incoming emails will bounce back to the senders as undeliverable and they'll know I didn't get their email.

I'm looking for a service that, like Y! Bookmarks:
1) is online, accessible from internet, preferably online only
2) caches copies of the page being bookmarked (so that future searches will find the words on the web pages, not just tags added during the bookmarking process)
3) is private by default, unlike Del.icio.us which requires putting a check in a box to keep a bookmark private
4) is free
5) is easy to add bookmarks, preferably without an additional toolbar
6) has a good chance of being around for many years to come

Thanks for your help.

Bookmark ettiquette?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:48:19 -0800

It seemed like a trivial thing to me, leaving in another bookmark while reading someone else's book, but it's come up before. Was he rude to take it out, or am I being over-sensitive? Yesterday, a friend asked to borrow a book. He picked a book I had been rereading a while back, that still had my bookmark (a business card of nostalgic importance) inside. Without asking, he tossed away the bookmark, and refused to put it back after repeated requests. Instead he questioned me on why I wanted it in the book, accusing me of being secretive when I didn't go into every detail.

I thought he behaved rudely, so I asked for an apology. Instead, he said that I was being "crazy OCD" and was wrong to be annoyed when he threw away the card.

What is going on??

Need an alternative to MyHQ for my homepage(s).

iamkimiam — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:30:17 -0800

Need to find an alternative to MyHQ.com. MyHQ is a web-based homepage that is simply lists of links that you can add to, customize, and organize into categories. You set it as your homepage, and voila!, every place you regularly visit on the internet is right in front of you. Their site is currently down, which has happened before, but this time I fear its for reals. I am literally lost without it (not to mention the 100+ organized links that I no longer have access to). This is different from social bookmarking (please do not recommend delicious.com; its a wonderful site, but won't suffice for this purpose). This would be like if you had access to your computer's bookmarks list as a homepage, from any computer, anywhere. There has GOT to be another website that is comparable to MyHQ. Anybody know what that is?

Thanks. I'm staring at the blank browser window and am completely clueless without my handy homepage! (I actually had to TYPE "ask.metafilter.com" into the URL bar...oh, the horror!)

Undeleteable bookmark folder

aerotive — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:32:15 -0800

Is there any way to move or delete a top-level folder in the All Bookmarks folder in Firefox 3? In FF2 my bookmark toolbar folder is named "null" and has no bookmarks. When I installed FF3 this folder was carried over into the All Bookmarks section and it seems to be undeletable and unmovable.

Here's what it looks like from the main Bookmarks menu, here's what it looks like in Organize Bookmarks.

Where to buy the abracadabra bookmark?

JamesJD — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:24:11 -0800

I want to buy this abracadabra bookmark. Where can I? I tried googling it, unsuccessfully.

"Placeholder" for Google Reader?

illflux — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:53:46 -0800

Many of the feeds I follow have a lot of activity (such as the one for ask.mefi), so by the time I get a chance to look through them, there may be hundreds (thousands?) of items. If I'm not able to get through all of the items at a time, the next time I come back to the feed, I have to scroll through the items I did get to before I can reach the older items. Is there a way to "mark my place" in a feed and skip directly there, rather than having to scroll through all the already-read items? I have my "Feed Settings" set to "sort by newest" and have "In expanded view, mark items as read when you scroll past them" checked in my settings.

I've tried using "sort by oldest," but that only shows posts from within the last 30 days. Depending on how long it's been since I've had a chance to catch up with a feed, this may not be enough.

Perhaps as an alternative, is there a way to make "sort by oldest" show more than 30 days?

Furl - is there an alternative free online bookmarking service that saves a copy of the page?

katala — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:24:19 -0800

Furl - is there an alternative free online bookmarking service that saves a complete copy of each page? I've been using Furl - http://furl.net/ - for a while now, and quite like it, but it's got some issues like not saving pages properly, usability issues, poor searching, etc. Does anyone know of a good bookmarking service out there that does the same job as Furl - particularly saving a copy of the page on their server as well as bookmarking the actual link - but has better usability and searching, and is more reliable?

Suggestions for paid services as well as free would be great. Thank you very very much :)!

Can I add saved navigation points in XML Spy?

The_Partridge_Family — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:27:42 -0800

I'm working with huge XML files in XML Spy so I'm using bookmarks to navigate around the files. But the bookmarks aren't saved so every time I reopen a file I have to add all the bookmarks again - goddamn does this drive me crazy! Is there any way to add navigation points in XML Spy that are saved?

Mutant hybrid office supplies

doift — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:22:37 -0800

Flat pencil or pen that can be used as a bookmark- does such a thing exist successfully? Recently, I was reading a book in which I needed to underline things, and I took it on some errands on the subway with me. I was using a regular mechanical pencil as a bookmark so I could underline as needed. However, the book wouldn't close properly, and the pencil kept sliding out of the book when it was in my bag, and it was annoying. Also, like many people, I sometimes like to carry a notebook and pen or pencil around with me, and have similar troubles then. It occurred to me that a flat or nearly flat writing instrument that could double as a bookmark would be an extremely useful thing. Google search produced these "flat sketching pencils", which still seem too thick. This comment in a previous thread led to these pens, which seem kind of cheap and poor quality, and also maybe too thick.

My question, then, is: Does a really good implementation of this idea already exist? Or are the above-linked examples the best we have for now? Has anyone encountered any interesting bookmark/pencil hybrids in the wild?

ie7 bookmarking hell

jak68 — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:41:21 -0800

is there really no way to have ie7 save cached local copies of pages that you bookmark in the favorites folder? (without saving the page separately as an mht file in a different folder outside the favorites folder, that is). In ie6, when bookmarked a website to your favorites folder, you had the option of saving a local cached copy of the webpage. That way if the site went away, you'd still have your local copy.
IE7 seems to have eliminated that option to save a local cached copy.
And whats more, despite a fair amount of googling, I have not been able to find a third party add-in or plug-in or third party 'bookmark manager' type software that actually allows local cached copies.
Isnt that incredible? Is it just me, or is this one of the most basic things that people who save lots of bookmarks would like to do?
I know a handful of online bookmark services (like furl) offer cached copies, but they are deficient in other things (like folders - furl does not allow unlimited nested folders). Spurl claims to offer both but cached copies there dont work and its going out of business it looks like.

So - any ideas out there for a bookmark manager (online or offline) that offers local cached copies as well as unlimited nested folders? Thanks!

MP3 player designed for audio books?

Dave Faris — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:34:22 -0800

MP3 player designed for audio books? I've tried a couple different MP3 players (Creative Zen and Ipod Shuffle) , and while they're great for listening to 2 or 3 minute long songs, they're not very well suited to listening to audio books -- especially ones I've purchased from a well-known online retailer specializing in them. The files I've downloaded are huge. One or two files make up whole books of hundreds of pages. The mp3 players I've used don't allow me to navigate inside the track. FF and REW move me from track to track instead... more like an audio tape.

Ideally, I'd like an mp3 player that will allow me to navigate inside a track, as well as give me the ability to set a bookmark inside the track. Is there an mp3 player that can do that?

Moving Files To A New Computer

Mckoan1 — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:40:01 -0800

Hello: After several years, I am finally upgrading and purchasing a new computer. My dilemma is moving files onto this new computer. My operating system on both computers is Windows XP. 1. I need advice moving my Thunderbird Email and Email folders onto this new computer. I understand that emails are really embedded and can be a problem. I also need assistance moving my FIREFOX bookmarks. I would really hate to loose those bookmarks! 2. I then plan to copy all my document files onto a CD using Nero and then recopying to the new computer. 3. I plan to go through the arduous task of reinstalling all my programs. That is my plan; however, I want to insure I am not overlooking a vital task! I really do need assistance moving my email and bookmark files. If I have missed anything, please advise. Thanks in advance. Bruce Thompson

Open Source Too Open for Me

JLobster — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:40:44 -0800

What type of open source software should I use to disseminate information I have collected over the years? I have a HUGE series of links on a topic that I would like to start sharing with friends and the net as a whole. I am having trouble deciding what to use to post it: CMS (like PHPNuke or Joomla), Wiki, Blog (like WordPress or MT), or just a bookmark manager (like SiteBar). Right now I have SiteBar to share bookmarks between all the computers I use. It has about 2,000 links from personal to work -related.

As I use a small subset of them more and more, I felt it would be better to share them as a group. More specifically, I would like to share software and procedures I deem necessary or extraordinarily helpful in setting up and maintaining computers (I know there are others like it, but none please me 100%).

Open source or free (as in beer) and actively developed.

An easy way to post/update links. The popup posters for blogs and SiteBar are an example of easy post. I know HTML, so I can do it manually if necessary, but if I am going to be regularly updating it, I'd rather have an easier way.

Some way to rate the links.

A way to categorize these links in multiple ways, be it either tags or multi-category.

The ability to also write articles/rants/diatribes

Somewhat elegant without too much customization necessary. I am kind of turned off by some of the ones that do not consider CSS a vital feature. Times New Roman is not for me, if you know what I mean.

Commenting would be nice.

My host is running a VDS, so anything that runs on Linux is good. I would prefer PHP/MySQL, but Perl is OK too. Java is supported, but is also not preferred since I have never set it up.

Looking around, I have not been able to determine what meets my needs best. I realize that there may not one solution out there, but any suggestions and examples would be extraordinarily helpful.

How can I bookmark my videos in OSX?

unsupervised — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:22:02 -0800

Is there a media player available for OSX that would allow me to bookmark my place in a video before closing it? I've set up my home theater to have make-shift media center capabilties (in other words, I've hooked the computer up to the projector). Movies or long television programs don't always get watched all the way through in one sitting, so I'd like to be able to save my position in the video so I don't have to fast-forward-guess when I open it again.

There seems to be quite a few solutions for Windows, but I can't find anything for OSX.

Any social bookmark archive service that can bookmark, archive and export (in the future) a webpage that is likely to disappear?

studentguru — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 11:26:29 -0800

Any social bookmark archive service that can bookmark, archive and export (in the future) a webpage that is likely to disappear? I have been checking out some social websites that allow one to bookmark as well as archive in as a cached webpage for future reading .

In other words, I am looking for a bookmark archive service that will allow me to read a webpage even if the webpage is no longer hosted anywhere else.

IN ADDITION , the service can easily allow me to export the saved webpage to my hard drive in the future.

So far, only http://www.furl.net/faq.jsp#byeFurl seems to be the only that can do all these with relative ease. But it has its limitations because it cannot save some webpages with frames well.

I have checked out the following services and none of them comes close to what I want.

http://www.spurl.net/help/faq.php#data_safety

http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/ ----- no export feature .

http://www.esnips.com/ from netsnippets.com ---- only 1 Gig free space. Does not look like it has export features.

http://hanzoweb.com/

http://www.clipmarks.com/

http://www.simpy.com/ ---- Exporting definitiely not as user friendly as http://www.furl.net/.

Does anybody know any service/invention/software that can allow me to bookmark and archive and export a saved webpage (in its entirety) with ease ?

Thank you very very much.

Can social bookmarking services prevent a bookmark from becoming dead links?

studentguru — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:47:04 -0800

Can social bookmarking services prevent a bookmark from becoming dead links? As you can probably tell, I am new to this game.

As I understand it, bookmarking means making note of a webpage that I might want to go back to later. And this is true even before the invention of social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us .

So is there a software/invention/service out there that can prevent a webpage from disappearing or becoming a dead link once bookmarked/tagged ?

In other words, is there a software/invention/service out that that can automatically save the webpage into a hard drive somewhere once the webpage is tagged/bookmarked?

Now I am aware of wayback machine but somehow this doesn't quite cut it.

Please enlighten.

Thanks a million.

What's the best online bookmark managing tool?

chefscotticus — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:59:24 -0800

What's the best online bookmark managing tool? Importance placed on being able to access them from any computer and an interface/usability similar to bookmarks native in firefox? I like how Firefox manages my bookmarks. It's quick, always there, easy to search, can be added to in a flash, and sits in the sidebar always in the order that I added them and am used to using them.

However, I'm tired of only having access to those links while sitting at home. What I'm looking for is an online bookmark manager that
- will sit in my Firefox sidebar,
- look/act just like the native bookmarks on my own computer,
- is easy and extremely quick/painless to add a bookmark to (and remove one if i want)
- is accessible from public terminals (and not only through Firefox)

less, but still important
- doesn't require me to log-in for each use
- has the option of keeping bookmarks private (yes, I realize these two clash a bit)

I've tried del.icio.us, and I like it, but I can't find a Firefox extension I like/that works the way I want to bring del.icio.us to my sidebar. I've tried pluck, but it reordered by bookmarks when I uploaded them and does not make it super smooth to add a new bookmark. I've tried Yahoo! My Bookmarks, but it is way to cumbersome to manage them (reorder, delete, etc). I've looked at the Firefox extension Foxmarks, but it doesn't appear to let me view my bookmarks from IE, or a public terminal.

So which service do you suggest, and why? Or, are my priorities wrong, do they emphasize the wrong things, and should I change what I expect from my bookmarks?

...what's next?

Shuffled playlists for iTunes podcasts

jchgf — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:09:05 -0800

iTunesFilter, part I: Why can't podcasts downloaded from the Music Store play in shuffled playlists? Is there any way around this? If I'm in a shuffled playlist mixed with podcasts and regular MP3's, it will only go from regular MP3's to regular MP3's and skip the podcasts downloaded from the MS altogether. Of course, if I go back to linear play mode, the podcasts play allright. iTunesFilter, part II: Is there any way to make the podcasts always start at the beginning of the track (i.e., to remove the bookmark function)? Part I: I use PowerController as my iTunes alarm clock and I would it to boot up with a playlist of recent podcasts playing on shuffle, since I like the surprise / random element in the morning.

Part II: I like to scan through the podcasts when I first download them to check out the audio quality / voice of the host, etc. If I forget to rewind before going to the next track, once I'm in my room actually listening to the podcasts that made the cut, the podcasts start right in the middle, at the last point where I was scanning them. Since my speakers are in my room and the computer is in the living room, this is annoying.

Is there a del.icio.us-style program I can install?

lewistate — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:35:28 -0800

Is there a simple del.icio.us-style bookmarking system that I can install on my own server? I know that most blogging programs can be modified to do this (I've played around with Movable Type and WordPress for this purpose), but there's something very nice about the simplicity of the del.icio.us interface. I also know that there are plenty of hacks to import my del.icio.us bookmarks into whatever content management system I'm using, but I would prefer to have everything running on my server.

I have briefly looked at de.lirio.us and Scuttle, but I haven't installed either of them yet. Has anyone used these? How well do you like them? Are there other options out there?

If it matters, the server hosting my sites runs FreeBSD, and I have access to PHP, MySQL, cgi-bin, and pretty much anything else I might need. I am reasonably proficient at installing sever-side software, but I'm not skilled enough to write my own program.

Web-Based Bookmarks

Gyan — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 03:07:10 -0800

Main Q: I wish to host my bookmarks on my webspace now. Am hosting with Dreamhost (MySQL/PHP/Python/Perl..etc). Want code with 1)mefi-like tagging 2)nice selection filter(ALL flash AND word-games BUT NOT anagrams OR java) and quick search. You get the idea. 3)Ability to set 'shared' and 'private' access. Bonus points for three options i.e. bookmarks visible only with my password, those visible by all, and those accessible by others with "guest" privileges. I looked at Yahoo! directory. Most seem to be hosts like furl or del.icio.us.
Slightly-related Q: How do I extract all my stumbleupon sites in the Firefox profile directory to a nice HTML file?
Tie-in Q: How do I make the bookmark app I choose, import these StumbleUpon links?

Thanks! Addendum: I wouldn't mind the app to also support notes with hyperlinks, but that's not so important. Ideal situation would be cross-referencing, i.e. say each link has an unique ID in the Db -> #667 (www.metafilter.com). So, I can compose notes like:

Some good community blogs are [link id=667]Metafilter[/link] and [link id=872]Monkeyfilter[/link].

Now, in the bookmarks mode, when I display entry 667, there's a "trackback", this link is referenced in [note id=233]Note Title[/note] and [note id=592]Note Title[/note].

Don't fret if such an app isn't present, just a hope.

Flaggin particular parts of avi videos

humuhumu — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 04:47:46 -0800

Is there any way to bookmark or flag a particular point in a video file (avi specifically, but any other format is good) and then to be able to have the video start at that point automatically when opened?

How do we set up two distinct sets of preferences in Firefox?

John Smallberries — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:36:56 -0800

Firefox question - I have a situation where two people share this computer, and each of us want our browser set up OUR way - bookmarks, toolbars, look and style, etc. Is there a way to set this up in Firefox? Compromise is not likely, and I don't want to have to kill them to keep them from replacing my toolbar links. Nor do I want either of us to go back to IE and its gaping security holes again. Any ideas?

IE Favorites

briank — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 06:31:49 -0800

Why do IE favicons stop appearing? I'll bookmark a site, and for a while it will have its nifty little favicon next to it in the Favorites menu of the browser, then POOF!, it's gone. (Please don't bother with answers like "Switch to Mozilla" or "Microsoft sucks!", I'm curious to know why this happens, I'm not soliciting opinions)