Keeping found things found
Keeping found things found is an interesting article. I mean, who of us has never tried to re-find something that we found only the other day?
Bruce calls this the “personal anticipation of information need,” or PAIN. The acronym suggests two motivations for users struggling to keep track of information, according to Bruce. “People are motivated by PAIN,” he said.
In my experience I definately go for the PAIN. If I am at home on my wee little 48kbps connection, If I find something that is usefull, say a software guide or other documentation, I will download it and keep it as ready reference.
On the other hand, if I am at work (with a soewhat larger connection!), I will tend to bookmark the file using favourites, and then on a periodic basis, say once a month, or when it becoms too unweildly, use firefoxe’s bookmark manager to reorganise, and prune, the links.
I also E-mail myself. Terribly ego-centric, but jolly handy way of remembering a link that I found at work, and making it availiable at home. especally if that link points to something that I will want to download later.
I’m not sure I would use a specific tool, as it would have to be availiable from anywhere that I was using the internet, although I suppose, a webbased interface could do the trick. With drag-and-drop-url and a brief note, maybe a form with a list style interface, where you could just add a new row on the bottom?
It would have to be simple, secure… maybe even a bookmarklet, that sends an xml-rpc call to a waiting server?
Hmmm. Thinking aloud…