Copy of Get organized with Web 2.0

For referenced websites see: http://krunchd.com/getorganised

Evernote - take notes, record voice messages, upload pictures & documents, & capture images & info on the web.

To subscribe, simply look for the RSS icon on your favourite webpage.

It looks like this

Here's what GoogleReader looks like

RSS allows you to keep up-to-date with all your favourite sites quickly & easily.

All you need is a reader page for your feeds to come to (something like GoogleReader/Bloglines) & to subscribe to your favourite webpages.

RSS & Aggregators

RSS allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from your favourite sites & delivering new content in short, easily digestible snippets.

Add & edit gadgets for email, Facebook, Twitter, news, weather & your top site feeds.

Alternatively you can use something called an Aggregator.

The home page of your browser is the one page that you see more often than any other. Aggregators like Netvibes enable you to personalise your home page & make the most of your time online.

There are a number of different things you may want to use when you start the browser up: email, news sites, blogs, search engines, quick games & other utilities.

Netvibes can incorporate information from your favourite webpages in a simple layout that you can adapt & customise.

Create different notebooks for different classes/topics.

Share notes by notebook via email, or publish to the web with a public URL. For shared projects you can create an RSS feed to update you on edits.

Downloading StudyBlue to turn your notes into flashcards you can print or view on your mobile (great for exams!)

Evernote can even recognise most handwritten notes & search for text within them.

A single note can be up to 25MB in size & you can upload up to 60MBs of new stuff every month.

All you need is Firefox (a web browser like Google Chrome or Safari) & Greasemonkey (a downloadable add-on for Firefox).

Greasemonkey allows you to customise the way a web page displays or behaves.

Edit the script as follows:

In UserScript add the URL's you want to avoid. Note the '*' which stands for all other linked webpages.

Ever wondered how you managed to spend that many hours on Facebook when you really should have been working on your essay?

Here's a solution to your task-avoidance problem.

The Invisibility Cloak will make time-wasting pages invisible until a specified time of day, to help you avoid all those little distractions on the web.

In function add the time you want to hide the specified websites.

Finally, customise your message. I've chosen

"Stop slacking & get back to work!"

The next time you start browsing instead of working on that essay you'll receive a little reminder to get back to work!

Using Firefox, go to userscripts.org & search for 'Invisibility Cloak'. Select the required script & install it.

Go to the Greasemonkey icon in the top right corner of your address bar & select the drop-down arrow to select 'Manage User Scripts'. Select 'preferences', then 'edit user script'.

Social Bookmarking - Organise your web resources via tags (keywords)

Adding favourites/bookmarking on your computer is a common way to keep track of your favourite web resources. However, the more favourites/bookmarks you add, the harder it is to find what you need.

Delicious has transformed bookmarking on the web. The more you add, the more efficient your collection becomes.

Instead of storing your web resources on a single computer, you can access your bookmarks on any computer with internet access. When you add a webpage to your Delicious bookmarks, you can add a summary of the resource & tags (keywords) to help you categorise & easily find your webpages.

The great thing about Delicious is the way in which you can organise & retrieve your web resources. By adding tags to your bookmarked webpages you can sort & search through your personal collection in a much more useful way.

Here is what Delicious looks like

Take a look at the tags down the left hand side of the page.

By clicking on a tag you can see all of the web resources you

have saved in that category.

Tags mean that you can search your bookmarks in a much more

effective way.

Delicious is a collaborate bookmarking service, which means that you can use the search box at the top of the page to explore other users' bookmarks. Alternatively you can navigate Delicious by URL: all you need to do is add whatever you're looking for to the end of the Delicious URL e.g. if you are looking for things that have been tagged 'art', enter http://delicious.com/tag/art into the address bar. To refine your search further, you can look for things that have been tagged 'art' & 'renaissance': just enter http://delicious.com/tag/art+renaissance

LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a great way to organise your critical reading.

LibraryThing lets you store books lists online & add all sorts of related data to your collection.

Adding books to your collection is easy, just enter some title words, the author or an ISBN into the search box & select the edition you want.

As you read the book add notes, chapter summaries, reviews, upload files related to it, & add tags & keywords e.g. Victorian literature.

LibraryThing lets you easily keep track of all your notes & also pick up on connections between all the books you have read.

You can even access LibraryThing on your mobile & add reviews on the go.

Use the forum to search & join groups that cover a particular topic that you are interested in.

LibraryThing Local keeps you informed of book festivals, readings, signing & other book-related events in your area.

Make your account private or share your collection on the web.

Sound familiar...?

Cloud Storage

Quick & easy access to your data from any location with internet access.

Cloud storage is like a virtual USB flash drive.

Files saved on one computer can be accessed on all your computers & phones & are updated automatically.

Access your files, photos & videos anywhere & share them easily so you can always have your stuff when & where you need it.

No need to worry about forgetting your USB flash drive.

There are a number of different Cloud storage providers:

Microsoft Skydrive offers 7GB free storage with an upload limit of 2GB

GoogleDrive offers 5GB free storage with an upload limit of 10GB

Dropbox offers 2GB free storage with no upload limit