Working the web | Bangkok Post: tech

GOBBLEDEGOOK

I've always loved the expression "Work the web", but what exactly does it mean? How do you work the web? It sort of reminds of that old Microsoft slogan "Where do you want to go today?". It sounds nice, but, what does it mean, if anything?

A snapshot of the Ubernote website. Ubernote lets you save web pages with the click of a button.

Well, that aside, I've been "working the web" lately in my dogged determination to write the Great American Novel. The novel is about homelessness and there's so much information out there on the Internet that I, at first, didn't know what to do with it. The old way was to print the information and read it at leisure, but we're talking lots of printing here. Not only is there the subject of homelessness - its causes, trends, numbers, statistics, the who, what, where and when - there are also related issues.

One character, for example, is going to be a crack addict. Since I don't much about crack (in fact, I know nothing at all about it) I have to go on the Internet and search for information so that I can make my character seem believable. How do you use crack? Do you smoke it, inject it, heat it up, what? I have no idea. So one of my research topics is "crack". The story will be set in a major city that I've only been to a couple of times and couldn't, for the life of me, speak knowledgeably about. So there's another research topic. And on it goes.

With several different research topics to tackle, it was time to "work the web".

Which is how I discovered that I'm not the only one with this particular problem. There are a lot of people out there doing research and they need a way to store the information they find which makes it easy to file and retrieve.

I came across several sites that you'll want to visit and test because, unfortunately, there isn't one site that does everything you need (or at least in my experience). Some of these Web 2.0 applications have certain killer features that you can't live without; some only work on certain web browsers; some offer a free plan that doesn't have much space for storing your information, whereas others have pay plans depending on how much space you need.

Let's start with one of the best: Evernote. Located at http://www.evernote.com, Evernote is both a website (if you want to work that way) or a downloadable program that does the same thing, and more, and since the information is stored on your computer, there are no storage qualms.

Evernote says of itself, "Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use."

Evernote works via an icon stored in your system tray, regardless of the version you're using. As you are browsing the web, and see something you like, you click on this icon for your options ("clip screenshot", for example; the clipped screenshot will be sent automatically to your account.). With Evernote, the program, you can email "notes" to your friends, and with both versions of Evernote, you can organise your notes by storing them in folders and applying tags.

With the free version, you can transfer 40MB of information per month; if you would like subscribe to the service, you can pay either $45 (1,490 baht) for a year or $5 (165 baht) a month. If you're using both the web site and the standalone program, you can synchronise them so that your info is up to date.

Evernote is well worth a look.

So is Ubernote, another web clipping site, located at http://www.ubernote.com. Ubernote also uses folders and tags to organise information (which I find rather limiting), but it does have a killer feature: it can take a snapshot of an entire website and post it to your account with the click of a button. None of the programs I tried has that ability, which is what makes Ubernote stand out. Ubernote has "bookmarklets" that you can drag from the screen to your browser's bookmark bar. Then, when you're browsing, you can use those two bookmarklets to either bookmark the site for future reference, or clip the whole site, or just part of it, into your account. You are also given a special email address that you can clip and send things to, and they'll end up in your account. It also allows you to share your notes with others. And, as with Evernote, you can search through your notes as well. For now, the storage is unlimited, although a "premium" service is on the way.

WebNotes is a similar service. It, too, uses a bookmarklet, which you can drag to your browser's web site bar (it says "Annotate"). As you're browsing, and you see something you want to "annotate", just click on that bookmarklet and the WebNotes tool bar with pop up. The toolbar gives you the following options: post a sticky note on the page, highlight the text you want to clip and save (and specify which folder), bookmark the site, or share it with others. What WebNotes will do that the others won't is create a report for you. It will take all the items you clipped and put into a certain folder and create a PDF for you. They also have a free service, a paid service, and so forth.

Finally, there's Zotero, for which you must use Firefox. If that scares you, then read no further. Zotero is a Firefox plug-in, and it takes a different approach to web research. After you've installed the plug-in, you find Zotero down in the bottom right corner of your browser. When you click on that, a half-page shows up displaying your notes and options and so on. It's not the most intuitive program but it's big on references and citations. To get the most out of it, one will have to, alas, read the user manual!

There are other research tools, but these seem to be the four main ones.

For a more professional web research site, see http://www.questia.com/, which is a paid service.