RSSGetting Started With Delicious
Any browser you use will allow you to add the page you’re viewing to your list of bookmarks/favorites.
Unfortunately, that list is not very useful or flexible, especially when it comes to sharing what you’ve found with others.
That’s where web-based social bookmarking services can help.
At a minimum any of them will allow you to:
- add to and access your bookmarks from anywhere
- save notes about the page along with the address
- add tags (keywords) to better classify the sites
- search your bookmarks
- share some or all of your bookmark list with anyone
Currently the most popular social bookmarking site is Delicious and the rest of this page will give you the basics of how it works and why it’s a far better way to manage your information on the web.
Step 1: Get an Account
The first step is to sign up for a free account at Yahoo. Don’t worry, you’ll only be entering some basic information. Skip to the next part if you already have a Delicious or Yahoo account.
1. Go to the Delicious main page and click the Join Now button in the upper right corner of the page.
2. On the next page, click the Sign Up for Yahoo button in the top right part of the page.
3. In the top section enter your name, gender, birthday, country and zip code.
4. In the second section you will be picking an ID for Yahoo (but not for Delicious). If you have a relatively common name, it may take some trial and error to find one that’s not taken and you may wind up with a name/number combination. When you have your ID, enter your choice of password twice.
5. In the third section choose two questions and enter the answers. These will be used by Yahoo to recover your password if you forget it. You DO NOT need to enter an Alternative Email address.
6. In the last section, enter the letters you see in the graphic. This is a security tool used to make sure it is a human entering the information. Click Create My Account.
7. The next page will confirm the information you entered. Click the Continue button to return to Delicious.
8. We’re almost finished with the sign up process. This screen is asking you to establish a link (user name) for Delicious. The first item is the same as the user ID you chose for your Yahoo account. Unless you like one of the others, it’s probably best to stick with this one. Click Save.
9. In the newly-revealed lower part of the page, click the button that says Skip This Step.
Finally, we have reached your Delicious main page where, of course, you have no bookmarks.
Bookmarking a Page (the sorta hard way)
Now that you have a Delicious account, it’s time to start adding bookmarks to it.
There’s the hard way to do this and the easy way. We’ll start with the hard way.
First, open the page in your browser that you want to add to your Delicious collection
Next, open another browser window or tab and go to your Delicious Save page. If you need to login, you’ll be prompted to do that first.
Copy and paste the full address of the page you want to save into the URL field (don’t forget the http://) and click Next.
The next window will look similar to the one above. Fill in all the information and click Save.
Bookmarking a Page (the easy way)
For the easy way, you’ll first need to install the Delicious buttons in your browser. Here’s how.
1. In the upper right corner of the page, click Help. On the next page, click the link under Need tools? in the third section.
2. In the first section of the next page, click on the link for the browser you use most often (I recommend Firefox!).
3. Click the Install link at the top of the next page and follow the instructions for your computer and browser.
4. If you haven’t done so already, restart your browser.
Now you should see some new buttons in the header section of your browser (exactly where will depend on the browser you’re using).
When you arrive at a page that you want to save, click the Tag button 
in the group three Delicious buttons you’ll see in the browser button bar. We’ll look at what the other two do later.
If you aren’t signed into your account, you’ll be asked to do that before continuing. Sign in and click the Tag button again.
Next, you’ll see the Save a Bookmark window. Enter the information about this page.
Title: Normally, this space will be filled with the title of the page as designated by site creator. Often, you will want to change this to make it simpler.
Notes: This is where your annotation for this page goes. A good way to remind yourself and others why you chose to save this page.
Tags: These are even more important than Notes. Tags allow you and others to more easily find the pages you’ve saved. Be generous with tags and consider using some of the ones suggested by Delicious (just click to add them to the list).
Ignore the Network Tags section for now.
Using Your Bookmarks
Now comes the fun: finding what you’ve stashed away.
Again this will be easier if you have the Delicious tools installed in your browser. However, one of the advantages to the site is being able to use it when you are not on your own computer.
First, open your Delicious page by clicking the right button in the Delicious group. Or go to www.delicious.com/yourloginID (For example, you can find my page here: http://www.delicious.com/tstahmer).
In the wide left column you’ll see you bookmarks with the most recent entry at the top. In the skinny right column you’ll find a list of all the tags you’ve used on your entries.
Elsewhere on the page are other tools to help you manage your bookmarks but the one that will be most useful for finding what you need from your collection is the small search box next to your login name that says Type a tag.
So, type a tag and click the arrow. The box that appears as you type shows you how many entries are tagged with that term.
Type another tag in the next box to further refine your search. You’ll see the list of tags grow and the list of results shrink below. Click the x next to the tag to remove it from the search.
There’s another search box in the upper right corner of the page. Using this tool will search both the tags and the words used in the title, URL, or description.
Forming a Network
Now comes the best part. Once you’ve collected a list of bookmarks, it’s very easy to share the good stuff you’ve found as well as find the good stuff being shared by others.
That same search box in the upper right corner can also search through all the bookmarks saved by every user of Delicious who has elected to make their collection public.
Even better, you can form a network of people you know and trust and choose to search the bookmarks they’ve saved.
To create a network, first ask your friends and colleagues for their Delicious name. Then, in your Delicious account, click the Network link in the upper left corner.
In the upper right corner, under the Search box, click the link for Add a user to Network. Enter their Delicious name in the box and click Add.
Now when you click the Network link you’ll see the most current links from anyone in your network.
Well, there you have the basics.
Play around a little with these tools and then move on to the page on Becoming a Delicious Power User.
Last updated December 15th, 2009Filed under Online Tools, Read/Write Web
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