How to use Evernote to store and sync your Google Chrome bookmarks

August 11, 2009 By 2 Comments

google-chrome-logoI use the Google Chrome browser because it’s fast, clean and light.   Unfortunately because it is fast, clean, light and new it still lacks features you might expect in a browser.  Chrome’s bookmark management is especially lacking.

When I read news, I’m a compulsive ctrl-clicker on links that look interesting and that I want to read and write about later.  By the the time I’m finished, I have a very full window of tabs.  In Firefox I would choose to “Bookmark All Tabs”. To save the tabs, my only choice in native Chrome is to bookmark each tab separately.   That still won’t make them available to other browsers or other computers.

evernote-logoEvernote, the very powerful multi-platform free information storage and retrieval app comes to the rescue.  I just open a new note in Evernote and drag the contents of the URL bar from Chrome into the Evernote note.  It becomes a clickable link in Evernote.  When I’m finished, I can reorganize the links and annotate as to why they’re interesting and what I plan to do with them.  When I’m finished I have a  workplan for the day that can be synced via Evernote to other computers or used with any browser.

If would be nice if this also worked for creating links with Firefox, unfortunately when the contents of the URL bar from Firefox is dragged into Evernote, it’s not clickable.

evernote-tab-note

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Why you should upgrade to Firefox 3.5

July 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

firefox-down-logo

We started writing Enquiring Mimes just over a year ago and one of our first entries was intended to convince you to start using the Firefox browser. Mozilla had, amidst great hoopla,  just released Firefox 3.

We gave you a number of reasons to switch if you were still using MS Internet Explorer — they’re probably still true today, but the landscape changed.  There are now two other competitive web browsers, Google Chrome and Apple Safari, both very fast and by comparison their speed made Firefox 3 seem very slow.

Our story has a happy ending. Firefox 3.5, a major release, has been sent out into the world and once again, Firefox is great.  They replaced the Java engine and it’s now as fast as the other guys and there’s a lot to like.  It’s nice to come home to Firefox without sacrificing speed and there are more great plug-ins than ever.

Here’s the top five best features of Firefox 3.5

  • Fast – according to betanews.com, Firefox 3,5 is 251% faster than Firefox 3.
  • Location-aware browsing – if you let it, Firefox can figure out where you are and give location information to sites you’ve approved providing you a more local experience.
  • Support for new web technology -  This will be a benefit in the future as sites begin to use the new features like downloadable fonts
  • Better handling of tabs and windows – easier recovery of mistakenly closed tabs and windows.
  • Private browsing – Firefox will keep no records of your browsing if you head for the wrong side of the tubes.

Here was our list from last year for Firefox 3: (all still true, “great performance” has been regained)

  • Secure
  • Great performance
  • Smart URL bar learns how you browse
  • Smart bookmarks
  • Smarter “Remembered Password” handling
  • Good security and malware protection
  • Use it on Windows, Mac and Linux

Download Firefox 3.5.

Firefox browser speed comparison

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You do know what a browser is, don’t you?

June 23, 2009 By 1 Comment

I went on and on about web browsers last week. I wrote about the different ones and how there was a new browser war underway. Did you follow me?

The reason I ask, is Google sent a team into Times Square in NYC to ask about browsers and found that only 8% of the folks interviewed actually knew what was a browser. Most seemed to confuse browsers and search engines.

Now this was probably a pretty unscientific sample but also probably fairly typical. I’m not sure Google’s point in this exercise but it comes off a bit like a sequence of Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking”.

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Winning Small Battles in the Browser Wars

June 17, 2009 By 1 Comment
Mosaic Browser Logo credit: CSA/University of Illinois

Mosaic Browser Logo credit: CSA/University of Illinois

The Browser wars are heating up again after years of only minor scrimmages and few battles.

The original browser wars of the 90′s was between the giant Netscape and the well-funded challenger Microsoft Internet Explorer. The questions asked then was had Microsoft lost the Internet or would they be able to come from behind and create a credible challenge against Netscape’s market dominance.
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Google Chrome for Mac is so cool, now finish it!

June 8, 2009 By 1 Comment

The Chrome team has released a developers copy of the browser for Mac and Linux, so far Google Chrome has just been available for Windows.

While to call me a developer would be a gross misuse of the term, I’ve been using the browser ever since it was released last week.  It is so cool.  Well actually so fast!

The team admits it’s far from finished.  Among other things, it doesn’t print, it doesn’t display YouTube-like videos and there seems to be not much in the way of bookmark management.  So let’s give it a number and say it’s 75% done. What it does well is render a web page really fast and when I’m digging around the web that’s what’s most important to me.

The Chronium Blog warns you not to download this version unless “take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.

How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won’t yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.”

It hasn’t crashed for me in about 20 hours of use.  The only gotcha for me was when checking a blog post and panicking when I couldn’t see the YouTube video, but I had been warned.

mac_chrome_screen

Anway, if you live life on the bleeding edge and are so Type A that anything faster is better, download the browser and give it a try on Mac or Linux.

As for me?  I’ll probably use it for most of my work on my slight aging Macbook because it just makes the experience so darn fast!

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