Software Review Column: Powermarks

By Kevin Cox

This column introduces and reviews lesser-known software that might be helpful to technical communicators. Major software applications, such as Word, Framemaker, etc. will not be reviewed here.

Powermarks 3.5
If you're like me, you probably have a diverse array of interests, and your bookmark collection reflects this. In my case, I have over 1200 bookmarks! Yes, I know ¾ it's a ridiculous amount, but, believe it or not, I've trimmed it down from over 1800! With so many bookmarks, I've used a couple of Web-based bookmark managers such as Blink and Backflip, but although I found these tools helpful, they were also inconvenient; I became aggravated waiting for that fourth level hierarchy page to appear. And I found that it was sometimes difficult to keep track of bookmarks between browsers and between my home and work computers.

No longer. I've found a tool for managing bookmarks that will improve your life, and clean your kitchen, too ¾ okay, maybe not, but Powermarks is a very cool tool.

Powermarks, by Kaylon Technologies (www.kaylon.com), takes a unique approach to bookmark management: instead of relying on a cumbersome hierarchical display of bookmark categories, all bookmarks are organized in a flat, non-hierarchical list, and it relies on the keywords within Web sites. Keywords are the words in the HTML structure of a Web page that allows search engines to find sites based on the words input into the search engine ¾ no more wondering which category to file a bookmark. For instance, the STC Web site includes these keywords, among others: technical communication, communication, STC, Intercom, technical writer, conference.

Powermarks users enter a word in the program's search engine, and the program returns all sites in your bookmarks collection containing that word. What's more, Powermarks is compatible with Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera browsers. Registered owners of Powermarks (registration costs $24.95) can also, for free, store their bookmarks privately on Kaylon's server. Powermarks includes a synchronization tool called NetSync that allows you to backup and sync your bookmarks with your bookmarks stored online. This way it is very easy to keep your home and work bookmarks in sync. Very cool, eh?   more-->HOW IT WORKS

Kevin Cox is Assistant Editor for The Willamette Galley.
He can be reached at knccomm@yahoo.com.