It just so happens, that the first Midweek Motivation is an application where I store all of the links to the forthcoming, worth-the-mention, motivations. It is the hub of bookmarks and it is not what you are probably thinking. It is clean. It is simple. It is useful. It is Only2Clicks, a visual bookmarking service. It made sense that I would begin here.

I try to keep my computer as clean as I can. I’m not real big on clutter. In fact, I hate clutter. It bothers me. It steals my energy and stresses me out. Even when it comes to my applications. One kind of app in particular, and closely related to this midweek’s motivation, are browsers. Mine have to be clean since I use them the most. I don’t want stuff to muddy them up and slow them down – even bookmarks.

I bookmark sites just like anyone else, but I have to keep my favs restricted to those that I use regularly each day. For example: my blog, my work, my clients. So, for my other favs, those that are very useful but not necessarily needed each day, I add them to my free account on Only2Clicks. Here are some the things worth highlighting about this service:

Bookmark Categories
bookmark categoriesFor anal-clean-freaks like myself, categories are another way to set us at ease. Like folders in a drawer separating your bills, categories can keep your similar bookmarks together. This will make it easier at a later time to find the one you are looking for. In my account, I have categories like Tools (full of online apps that make my creative process speedier), SEO (sites that assist me with my search engine optimizations), Resources (my favorite media library sites), and more. The point is, group your favs – you may forget the name of a site, but remember what it does. You can find it later this way.

Automatic snapshots
automatic snapshots thumbnailSpeaking of forgetting the site name, maybe you remember what the site looked like. When adding bookmarks to your account, Only2Clicks automatically takes a snapshot of the site and embeds the result as a thumbnail. This is a life-saver for at least two reasons: (1) it provides an easy way to identify the site when combing through many, and (2) it doesn’t require you to do anything – it does it for you. Simple and fast. I like it. (Of course, you can embed your own image if you like – but why?)

iPhone Ready
iphone ready thumbnailA newer feature that popped up sometime last year is the ability to call the site through a smaller interface on your iPhone. I have an iPhone and use it quite a bit for the web. So, being the genious that I am, I created a category called iPhone and saved all of my favorite iPhone sites there. When requesting your Only2Clicks account via the iPhone, a stripped-down and easy-to-use web page is returned. Perfect for the iPhone (maybe next, they will make an iPhone app).

Boomarklet
One of my favorite additions to the service, is the bookmarklet. The point of having a service like this is to make things easier and faster. It would not make all that much sense to have to go to the site every time you wanted to add a new fav. The makers of the service, created the bookmarklet feature. It is basically a javascript that can be saved as a bookmark on your browser. When clicked, it will give a floating window that allows you to save the current site in the category you desire – in your account. Sweet!

Import Bookmarks
Something worth mentioning (also something that I have never used) is the import your existing bookmarks function. At anytime, you can grab all of the bookmarks from your browser and import them into your account.

Change Your Skin
What web service would be without the ability to change your skin?

There are other features for you to check out, but the above ones are those that I like the most and think that are more common to others. I love this service and recommend it to you with great confidence. The makers of the service are working to gradually make it better with more features. You can track them at their blog. And, to top it off, it is absolutely free. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Tags: inspiration, Midweek Motivation, webtools

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Blog, Midweek Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.