Cool Tools!

Marilin Meghan Dunsmore posted on a blog earlier about Bubbl.us, a mind-mapping, or creative brainstorming software online (free, of course), and it reminded me of some of the other cool tools I use for my online genealogy research. I thought this group would be a great place to talk about this subject and share! These are my current top 3 favorites:
1. Evernote.com - basic accounts are free. Store notes, clips, pictures, whatever online. You can work on different computers and keep the same files because its stored online. You can also download it to your computer, and keep it sync'd (updated) when you do use another computer. Definitely a great note-organizing program. And it works really, really well with...
2. Snag-It, or Jing. Snag-It is the program you pay for, and Jing is its free counterpart - both by TechSmith (SnagIt.com or Jingproject.com) Anyway - these programs both allow you to easily grab a screen shot - but just whatever part you want, not the whole screen (unless you want that). So you can grab just a photograph, or just a page of a book, or just a paragraph - whatever! Used in conjunction with Evernote, you can grab the pic, paste it into Evernote and paste in the URL too.
3. ShareThis! I really like my ShareThis button that downloaded from www.ShareThis.com, and now sits on my toolbar. If I go to a page and want to either e-mail it to myself, or someone else, add it to my delicious bookmarks, post to Facebook or Twitter, I just click the button and tell it where to go, and it sends the page there. So easy!

Do you have any "cool tools" that you use for online research?

Tags: SnagIt, evernote, genealogy, internet, jing, notetaking, organization, research, shareThis, tools

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dae Powell on July 17, 2009 at 4:46pm

Why, yes. Yes, I do.

Do you search the Internet for genealogical information?
Wanna good deal on a Search Engine Agent?
Need to search Newsgroups and BBS as well as websites?
Wanna save time searching?
Wanna reach into the Invisible Web, too?
Wanna get it really cheap?

Did you know that Web search engines do not give you access to all the information available on the Internet? Furthermore, each search engine covers different areas of the Web. So even when using the largest search engine, you are missing relevant information.

Copernic Agent Basic gives you the ability to cover more of the Web and to get relevant, high quality results from more than 90 search engines grouped into categories. From a single query, Copernic Agent Basic gives you better search engine results by consulting multiple search engines at once, combining their results, removing duplicates and keeping only the very best of the information gathered from queried search engines.

Get More from Your Search Results

Regular Web search engines leave you on your own with only a list of search results. Where search engines end, Copernic Agent Basic is only just beginning. Copernic Agent Basic allows you to do a lot more than simply clicking on your search results.

From a single click, you can remove broken links, search within results, save pages on your computer for offline browsing, sort your results, e-mail your results to colleagues or friends, generate extensive search reports, and much more.

Copernic Agent Basic also saves your searches for later use. The advantage of this is that you can just click on a previous search to instantly see the results, to modify the search, or to update the results. You can even categorize your search history within a custom folder tree.

So ... how much is it? The Basic version is absolutely free, no shipping, no handling. They have even more powerful versions, but they hope that once you see the power you get for no cost will encourage you to purchase the upgrades. I did, but you don't have to. The Free version is yours forever.

Download it at Copernic.com.

Happy Dae·
ShoeString Genealogy

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 18, 2009 at 9:16am

Thanks Dae! Copernic really is a good search tool/engine. I don't always turn to it first, but when I'm not getting any results on other search engines, I remember to go to Copernic then. Isn't that silly? But I'm rarely disappointed. It seems to find little hidden gems that other engines miss. I've only used the free version though, so can't really say about the $ version myself. So if you haven't tried it yet, definitely check it out.

Permalink Reply by Lisa A. (Thamm) Spegal on July 21, 2009 at 6:08pm

Copernic is great, have used it for years!

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on September 26, 2009 at 7:08pm

I only use Firefox, and Copernic has always worked just fine for me. I wish I could tell you why, but I really don't know why it would work on mine and not on yours. Sorry!

Permalink Reply by Sue McCormick on September 26, 2009 at 8:00pm

I went to download Copernic today, but it is only for Windows — and I use Macs. I only mention this because I thought it might be a clue to Ila East's problem.

Permalink Reply by Kurt Laidlaw on March 3, 2010 at 11:05am

Copernic is great tool. Unfortunately, after a computer crash a couple years ago, I never reloaded it. I had actually bought the advanced version to show support for the developers. I may have to look at it again.

Permalink Reply by Ada Nelson on July 17, 2009 at 4:58pm

My husband has used for years a Microsoft application called OneNote. You can create notebooks with tabs organized by sections. You can add multiple pages or subpages to each tab. You can copy/paste text, URLs, graphics, sound, movies. It automatically saves what you enter into a page. If you use Outlook, you can manage and synchronize your calendar and tasks also. It is not free, but it comes bundled with Microsoft Office. It's a great research tool.

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 17, 2009 at 5:17pm

Evernote works very much just like One Note, only it has a free version. I really liked the tabbing feature of OneNote, but I'm OK with just using folders. You can 'tag' each note in EN so you can easily search and find them that way. The main plus to Evernote over OneNote is that your files are also saved online, so you can access them from any computer that is online, whether it has the program downloaded or not. I switched from OneNote to Evernote for that reason. But OneNote is a great product too!

Permalink Reply by Gregory on July 18, 2009 at 8:58am

I find that I need to store a lot of user account names and passwords for the various sites that I use. I currently have upwards of 100 different userids and passwords. It was hard to remember them all because each web site has differeent requirements for paswword length and so on. Then I came across RoboForm Pro from Siber Systems Inc. http://www.roboform.com. This program securely keeps track of all of my userids and passwords. In addition, it automatically and instantly fills out web page forms where you have to enter your name and address and other such information. In addtion, I can securly syncronize multiple computers with RoboForm allowing me to use my userids and passwords on my laptop and my desktop. RoboForm has increased my productivity quite a bit.

Gregory
After Your Name
http://www.afteryourname.com

Permalink Reply by Kathleen Fox Allen on August 19, 2009 at 2:02pm

Thank you for the post, Gregory.

I've heard of RoboForm and some others that have similar functionality, but I've always been concerned about security. Do you (or anyone else who has tried one of these programs) know of any issues?

I would love to be able to let an application do the remembering for me!

Permalink Reply by GaryRea on July 25, 2009 at 10:06pm

One "cool tool" I've discovered is Prism for Firefox. It's a Firefox add-on that allows you to create a very small (less than 1 MB) desktop application out of any website. I have used it to make desktop apps out of my favorite genealogy sites. It's especially useful when you're not in your browser and you don't feel like opening and it scroll through all your bookmarks to find a site. One of my more useful applications I've made was created from Rootweb's SSDI search page.

http://www.universefirefox.com/add-ons/convert-any-web-site-to-desk...

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 26, 2009 at 7:06am

ooooo that sounds interesting. I'm definitely going to try it out.