Bookmarks, Favorites and Social Bookmarking, Oh My!

FireFox and Internet Explorer have great features that allow you to bookmark your favorite websites quickly and easily with the click of a mouse.   I use them both and have loads of favorite sites I’ve visited and bookmarked.  Having them organized neatly into folders to save me time when I want to go back and reference them again.

Hint:  Bookmarking websites and putting them into folders is extremely helpful when you are doing research on a subject.  Say you’re planning a vacation.  Labeling the folder the name of your destination and putting all the sites you’re planning to go back and reference into that folder can make finding them again very easy.

Using these features has saved me time and kept my frustration low when I’m looking for something and I just can’t recall the exact URL for.  However with all the bookmarked sites, I’ve worried about backing them up and found a super easy way to do that.  There are also sites that allow you to share or save your bookmarks.

Note – in FireFox, it’s called Bookmarks, in Internet Explorer it’s called Favorites.

Worry no more!  Favorites and Bookmarks are incredibly easy to backup or transfer to a new computer so that you don’t lose those precious links!  Here’s how:

INTERNET EXPLORER – EXPORTING FAVORITES

Click File
Import and Export.
A wizard will open
Click Next
Export Favorites
Click Next
Select the Favorites folder
Click Next
Select where to export the file to
Click Next
Finish
Now burn that file to a disc or save to a flash drive

INTERNET EXPLORER – IMPORTING FAVORITES

Click File
Import and Export
A wizard will open
Click Next
Import Favorites
Click Next
Browse to where your Favorites file is located
Click Next
Click on the Favorites folder
Click Next
Finish

FIREFOX – EXPORTING BOOKMARKS

Click Bookmarks
Manage Bookmarks
Click File
Export
Select where to export the file to
Click Save
Now burn that file to a disc or save to a flash drive

FIREFOX – IMPORTING BOOKMARKS

Click Bookmarks
Manage Bookmarks
Click File
Import
Browse to where your Favorites file is located
Click Next
Select the file
Click Open

There are other add on program that run well in FireFox that allow you to save your favorites on the web.  Here are a few I’ve used:

delicious.com

www.allmyfavorites.net/

www.stumbleupon.com

digg.com

www.bookmarkall.com/bookmark/default.aspx

Many of my clients have found that backing up the favorites they use at home and copying them to their office PC is very useful and a real time saver.  Keeping track of all your favorites and making sure you never lose them is easy.  Taking the time to back them up or adding them to an online resource can save you frustration and aggravation in the future should you have a computer failure.

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