Featured: 2/12/2013 ProfessorWord [English]

ProfessorWord is a tool that can help you improve your vocabulary while you surf the web, with one-click definitions and highlights of SAT/ACT vocabulary words on any site.



Drag the free [Run ProfessorWord] bookmarklet button to your browser's bookmarks bar. Run ProfessorWord on any web page you're reading by clicking on the bookmarklet.

Now you can click any word to view its definition. You can also click words within the definition pop-ups. ProfessorWord automatically highlights all the SAT/ACT vocabulary words on the page.



Features for teachers:

• Find readings for your classroom by analyzing any website for text complexity and vocabulary words used.
• Search the database to find articles where words were used.
• Assign readings and track your students' progress, articles read, words looked up.

With a free ProfessorWord account, you can save 1000 words for up to 30 days to create printable personalized study lists. With a free teacher account, you'll be able to manage a group of student accounts.

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Read Later: A Mac App for Your Read It Later Services

Read Later gives you Mac OS X access to both your Read It Later and/or Instapaper accounts in a single clean, efficient application with a more Mac-like look and feel.

Read Later enables you to manage your read later service accounts without logging in to them in a browser. Read Later stores articles so they are just one mouse click away. The Read Later design offers you quick navigation through your archives with support for tags in Read It Later and folders in Instapaper. Manage one Read It Later and one Instapaper account at the same time.

Read Later is free to use with a Read It Later account, but to use it with Instapaper requires an Instapaper subscription that costs $1 per month.

Read Later downloads the text content of your saved articles for faster access and/or offline reading. If you archive/unarchive, star/unstar articles or move articles between folders when you are offline, Read Later will save this action and push the changes to the appropriate service the next time you sync.

Customize the look of the Main Window and the Article View for your own reading experience. Shorten links with bit.ly/j.mp or send articles to Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard, Delicious, or Evernote.

I have used Read Later with my Read It Later account. Reading my saved articles with Read Later is a far more pleasant experience than using the website. I have not used it with Instapaper.

Read Later is free from the Mac App Store.

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Create Text-Specific Links

 

BookmarkQ and Citebite are two utilities that allow users to create a short URL to  selected, specific text on a web page rather than just linking to the entire page.

Both BookmarkQ and Citebite work with bookmarklets that you drag onto your browser's bookmarks toolbar. Highlight the text on the web page you want to link to, then click the bookmarklet button.

BookmarkQ generates a small pop-up box with a short URL that takes you directly to the selected text. The pop-up also has buttons to share the link directly via Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or other email.

Citebite opens a new window with a direct link URL with options to send the link directly to Delicious, Stumbleupon, or Digg.

In either case, when you click on the the generated link, you are taken to a version of the web page with the selected text highlighted and a header at the top indicating that this is an annotated page view.

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Catch of the Day - Copyto - 4/15/2011

 

Copyto is a private bookmarking site that lets people save only the useful content from the pages that they find online.

The purpose of Copyto is to just mark the most important parts of a particular page rather than a link to the entire page. Even if the original page disappears or changes, you won't lose the content on your bookmarked page.

Clip only the wanted parts of pages by using copyto.co or the browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. A small screenshot of your saved content will always be included with the bookmark making browsing your bookmarks easier.

You can share your bookmarks with contacts or groups on Copyto. You can also  share a bookmark with the the world by making it public.

Import bookmarks from Delicious, Firefox, Chrome or any other service that lets you export your bookmarks in Netscape bookmark format. All the content of these bookmarks will be saved to your Copyto account.

With the mobile version of Copyto you can add new bookmarks or search through your already collected items using your mobile device.

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yummymarks-a Delicious alternative

If you are still looking for an alternative to the Delicious online bookmarking service, you may want to take a look at yummymarks.

Yummymarks is a simple way of keeping track of the websites you want to revisit. Yummymarks allows you to take your bookmarks to any computer, with plugin capability promised for major browsers.

You can't directly register for yummymarks, login using your Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Steam, or Open ID account.

There is a Google Chrome extension for yummymarks, bookmarklets, and a tool for importing your existing bookmarks from Delicious and Pinboard.

Go to an earlier post about Delicious alternatives

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Delicious to Google Bookmarks

 

You can use this tool created by Mihai Parparita to export your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks without the need to install any browser toolbars.

All bookmarks will be imported as private with all their tags intact (plus an additional tag, "delicious-export") on your Google Bookmarks page.

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Tasty Alternatives to Delicious

As a consequence of yesterday's unfortunate news that Yahoo! would appear to be dumping the online bookmarking service, Delicious, many users of that service, like myself, are looking for a good replacement.

For many, the first thought would be Diigo. However before you rush to Diigo, there are several good but lesser known alternatives that you should consider.

Pinboard

The focus of Pinboard is less on socializing, and more on speed and utility. The goals of the site, in order of priority, are to never lose data, be ridiculously fast, and offer useful features.

Pinboard's basic functions work very much like Delicious. I think that if you liked using Delicious, Pinboard will be your choice.

The unfortunate part of Pinboard is that users pay a relatively small one-time signup fee. In return, they are promised a fast, spam-free service with prompt support.

Zootool

Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents, and links from all over the internet. The Zootool graphic interface is unique and sharing web content is easy.

Some of the accounts you can connect Zootool with are Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, Flickr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, and YouTube. At the time I was preparing this post, Zootool was offline because of extremely heavy import traffic.

Historius

Historious saves you time by enabling you to find webpages you saw before. Bookmark sites with a single click, then find them again by searching for any word in the content of the page.

All your bookmarks are individually indexed to create a personalized searchable database of your links. Note: The free account will import only 300 bookmarks.

Licorize

Licorize is a minimalist and fast to-do manager that you can feed with your bookmarks and web updates. With Licorize, turn web page bookmarking and status updates into projects, ideas, and collaborative teams.

Licorize can import your bookmarks from Delicious as well as from Instapaper, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer. You can also synch them with Read It Later. By enabling DropBox integration the user it will be capable of sharing strips with project colleagues.

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Migrating from Delicious

These services will all import your Delicious bookmarks from an HTML file. You must first export your bookmarks from Delicious as an HTML file, and then upload it.

Adding Bookmarks

You can easily add bookmarks to any of these with bookmarklets and/or browser extensions.

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Google Bookmarks has been around for a long time and is easy to use, however, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to import your Delicious bookmarks without installing the Google toolbar in Firefox.

Catch of the Day - BagTheWeb - 9/7/2010

Earlier this year, BagTheWeb launched as a website that enables users to curate Web content. You can easily create a "bag" for any topic to collect, publish, and share related Web content.

BagTheWeb features a Web curation tool called a "bag." With bags, users can collect, publish, and share curated Web content in a simple way. To create a new "bag" simply write a title and a description. Then put links into the bag any time. Rich media such as videos from YouTube and Vimeo, photos from Flickr, and Slideshare presentations can be added to a bag. Bags can be embedded into your own blog, wiki, or website.

BagTheWeb is a social network as well. You can follow people who have or recommend interesting bags.

On the Tools page, you can get bookmarklets for your browser  or iOS device to make "bagging" content quick and easy.

Take a tour of BagTheWeb

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More Bookmarklets

Marklets.com is a beta site that  searches specifically for bookmarklets from throughout the web.

Read an earlier post that explains bookmarklets

Marklets.com even has a bookmarklet of its own that lets you search for and use the bookmarklet you need without leaving the website you're visiting. This one bookmarklet gives you access to the internet's largest bookmarklet database.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Quix - Jun 2, 2010

Quix is a bookmarklet which opens a command prompt, then responds on demand to what you enter. For example, if you type tr, the page you’re currently on will be translated using Google Translate. It can also understand more complex commands,img ducks, will go to Google Image Search, looking for images of ducks.

You can also select a word on the page, and use that as input for the command. For instance, if you select the word bookmarklet, then click the Quix bookmarklet in your links bar, and just type d in the prompt, it’ll take you to a Google Dictionary search for the word bookmarklet.

There are commands to search the currently open page, Flickr, IMDB, Wikipedia, Netflix, and more. There are Quix commands that will send the current page to Readability, Delicious, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, and others.

See a complete list of Quix's built-in commands

If those aren't enough for you, you can extend Quix using your own custom commands file.

Watch a video: An Introduction to Quix

 

Read an earlier post on bookmarklets

 

Thank you to @sharnon007 for pointing me to this resource.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

 

Catch of the Day - Bookmarklets: Enhance Your Browser - May 17, 2010

Bookmarklets are simple free tools that extend the capabilities of web browsers. The term bookmarklet is a combination of the words bookmark and applet. Bookmarklets work in virtually any JavaScript-enabled browser and on any platform (Windows, Mac, etc). You do not have to download or install any additional software to use bookmarklets.

Bookmarklets are tiny JavaScript programs stored as bookmarks. Bookmarklets have access to the current page. Consequently, they can be simple "one-click" tools which add functionality to your browser, in the same manner as the typical browser add-on/extension.

You often have the choice of using either a browser-specific add-on/extension or a bookmarklet to perform the same function. In such cases, because I use multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE) on both Mac and Windows machines, I almost always opt for the bookmarklet. Syncing bookmarks across my browsers (using Xmarks) means that once I've added a bookmarklet in any one browser, I now have access to that functionality in all my browsers. I don't have to try to locate add-ons for each browser (if any even exist) and install them individually.

Typically, a bookmarklet won't lose it's ability to function if your browser upgrades as can sometimes happen with add-ons. Adding a bookmarklet won't require a browser restart, either. Bookmarklets have a negligible effect on your browser's memory use since they are only executed on demand.

Bookmarklets are typically installed by dragging the bookmarklet onto your browser's link toolbar or by right-clicking the link, then clicking the bookmark option.

Here are links to some popular bookmarklets you might find useful ...

• bit.ly
• is.gd!
• Instapaper
• Read It Later
• Readability
• LiveBinders
• Sqworl
• Evernote
• Google Notebook
• Delicious
• Diigo
• Tumblr
• Blog This! (Blogger)

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bookmarklets available for many uses. You might like to visit Collection of Google Bookmarklets for bookmarklets related to a number of Google services.

Catch of the Day - Xmarks - 3 Dec 09

Today's delectable catch is Xmarks

Install Xmarks on each computer you use and it seamlessly keeps your bookmarks safely backed up and in sync. Xmarks will sync your bookmarks across browsers, too, supporting Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari (on Mac OS). Xmarks for Chrome is currently in the alpha development stage.

Xmarks Home Page

Some of the other features of Xmarks:

• Xmarks will highlight the top sites in your Google results based on how many people have bookmarked them. Move your mouse over the site info icon to learn more about that site.
• Click on the Xmarks site info icon in your location bar to see detailed information about the site you are on, and discover similar sites.
• When you add a bookmark, Xmarks will automatically suggest a list of tags based on the tags other Xmarks users chose for that site.
• Xmarks can securely sync your passwords across all your computers. Secure Password Sync is an optional feature (available only with Firefox) that lets you keep your saved passwords in sync between your computers.
• Read Xmarks user reviews to see a more complete picture of a website. If you have experience with the site, you too can write a review.

Xmarks Site Info Icon

I've been using Xmarks for years, since it was known as Foxmarks and worked only with Firefox. It is a "must have" tool for me.

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Catch of the Day - LiveBinders - 19 Aug 09

Livebinders, the knowledge-sharing site, is the catch of the day.

LiveBinders is dedicated to helping you empower your students with the information you worked hard to collect.

LiveBinders was created so that you could do with digital information what you do with the papers on your desk - organize them into nice containers - like three-ring binders on your shelf. Teachers place Livebinders on desktops so kids don’t have to type URL addresses or get lost searching on the web. And they don't have to add a bookmark to every computer everytime they have a new link to share - they can just update the Livebinder.


LiveBinders lets you use not just one binder, but as many binders as you need to help organize the stuff you collect and share over the internet. You can create as many LiveBinders as you want for free.

View links like pages in a book instead of URLs on a page. Combine PDFs and Word documents with the links you collect. Organize your links and documents into tabs and subtabs.



Build a library of Livebinders and allow others to view your public and private binders. You can embed Livebinders on blogs, web pages and desktops.

Add the LiveBinder It bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. Then start browsing the web. Find a link you want to save then click on the LiveBinder It bookmarklet to automatically add the link to a new Livebinder.

QuikGuide to Google Bookmarks

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

This video from Common Craft explains social bookmarking in plain English ...