Every so often, to keep you going while I am writing a longer, more informative article, I will clean out my bookmark folders and show you some websites or software programs that I have found on my travels around the web. With dozens of websites being bookmarked daily and a backlog of 3000+ bookmarks, there'll be no shortage of sites to show you.

All the links to do with software or internet tools are free services or they have a free option. I have tried to test as many as possible but time constraints means that some have not been tested. I am not endorsing any of these sites in any way so I am not liable for any problems you have with them!


Disposable Webpage - you already have disposable email addresses. Now you can have disposable webpages that eventually self-destruct. Choose a time-frame from 3 days to 90 days. At the end of the time frame, watch the page disappear! Good for temporary promotional campaigns or practical jokes.

Keyword Selector Tool - if you use Google Adwords or an equivalent program, this free online tool can instantly generate lots of suggested keywords for you, based on the number of online searches for that term in the last month. Good if you don't know what keywords to insert into your Adwords campaign and also good if you want to know what people are currently searching for in your area of expertise.

OnlyWire - use one bookmarklet to post links to multiple online bookmarking sites. A great time-saver if you use a lot of bookmarking services.

360desktop - Grab all of your favorite web apps and content — web widgets, RSS feeds, AJAX start pages, or any part of any web page — and make them available any time, in an expanded photo-panoramic desktop.

MP3 Tag - Mp3tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit metadata (ID3, Vorbis Comments and APE) of common audio formats. It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more.

ObjectDock - ObjectDock is a program that enables users to organize their shortcuts, programs and running tasks into an attractive and fun animated Dock.

Office Online File Converters and Viewers - with the help of converters and viewers from Office Online, you can share your Microsoft Office files with people who have different versions of Office programs, or even with people who don't have Office installed. NOTE - you will need to access this page with Internet Explorer. It doesn't seem to like Mozilla Firefox.

Windows XP Resource Center - A site to fix common problems seen in Windows XP.

Know When People Submit Your Stories to Digg - a very simple method to know right away when someone diggs a story from your website.

Selectively Delete a Message from a Gmail Conversation Thread - a Gmail tip that I didn't know about yet!

Windows XP Hidden Applications - a list of "hidden" XP applications along with the Run command to start that particular program.

Avoid Windows XP Re-Activation - a tip to supposedly avoid having to re-activate your copy of Windows XP if you have to re-install the operating system. I would be interested to hear from anyone if this would work or not. At the moment I am rather sceptical.

WHOIS Search - enter a domain name and get the contact details for the owner, how long the domain is registered for and place a backorder so you can get the domain when it expires with its current owner. You can also search to see if a domain name is still available. If you are a website owner, this is good for seeing what personal information is out there on your domain. It's also good if you get ripped off by a website or if you are spammed by a website. WHOIS can give you the contact details of the webmaster and / or the web hosting company so you can report them to the authorities.

Process Library - ever opened up the Windows Task Manager and wondered what a particular running process was? Process Library has indexed every possible running process, both Windows and non-Windows so you can see what program it belongs to and if it is safe to close that process down.

Process Explorer - along the same lines as Process Library, this free Microsoft tool is supposed to complement the standard Windows Task Manager by giving you more information on what processes are running in your computer along with the option to enable or disable processes. It is also particularly good for identifying which programs are running the CPU-guzzling "svchost.exe" processes so you can zap them if need be. This is a standalone executable program which doesn't have to be installed first so it can be run from a USB stick for example.

Fmail - access, read, write and send your Gmail email in your Facebook account. This may be useful for diehard Facebook addicts but I for one would not want to reveal my Google account password to anyone. But I have to admit that the application does look well designed and aesthetically pleasing. Now if we could access our Facebook account inside Gmail....well that would be different!!

eText Reader - have you been looking for a good way to read those Project Gutenberg e-books? eTextReader is a nifty little book interface where you can read text files. You can also change the font size and type, and put a bookmark on a page when you need to stop reading. A really amazing piece of freeware software!

jZip - described as a "free alternative to WinZip". Although I personally prefer Winzip.

How to tap into online riches - a very interesting British newspaper article on the potential to make money on the internet.

A few months back, I bought a very cool Time magazine from 1994 and then promptly forgot about it. Today, while cleaning up, I found it again, buried underneath a huge pile of floppy disks.

What's so special about this particular edition of the magazine? The cover. The magazine did a feature article explaining what the internet is (very funny to read now in 2007, the article called "what is an email exactly?"). But I really dig the cover and so today I scanned the cover, found an old picture frame and it is now hanging on the wall next to the PC.

If you want it yourself, here's the scanned PDF image. Or click on the image to your left to view it in my Flickr account.

I have 3 remaining invitations to give away for Pownce. This is a site where you can build a network of your friends and securely send them links, files, messages and much more!

If you'd like one of the three invitations, please contact me with a valid email address. When the three invitations are gone, I will post an update to this post so you can all stop emailing! ;-)

The internet being what it is, there's a lot of crap out there. But in among the dung are a few gold nuggets which you should fish out and treasure. One of them is 3 particular email newsletters.

Email newsletters have partly suffered from the advent of RSS feeds (I cut my newsletter subscriptions by as much as 75% when RSS was introduced). A lot of email newsletters contain advertising and I quickly unsubscribe from those. But there are 3 newsletters that I practically read as soon as they arrive in my inbox.

Here, based on years of reading, are my recommendations for the top 3 newsletters you MUST subscribe to. I have removed specialist newsletters such as freelance writing vacancies or computer geekery as they won't be of much interest to the non-writers and non-geeks of the world.

1. This Is True

Written by Randy Cassingham, This Is True comes out each week as both a free version and a paid premium version (after months of procrastination, I finally upgraded to the paid version). TIT (great acronym!) covers weird and wacky stories found in the international media such as a man suing his doctor because he survived his cancer longer than the doctor predicted. Or only 68 of 200 Anglican priests polled could name all Ten Commandments, but half said they believed in space aliens. All the stories are true (hence, "This Is True").

What I like about Randy is that he makes some commentary on the stories and his views are often thought-provoking. He also adds on funny tag-lines to each story which are almost as funny as the story itself. He also has a "Bonzer Site" section where he shows you a cool new website he has found and "Honorary Unsubscribe" where he does an obituary on a recently-deceased person who made an impact in the world but was probably overlooked by the world's media. Oh and if that ain't enough, he has other sites such as his blog, Jumbo Joke, and Cranky Customer.

TIT has spawned books and also a TV channel broadcast on YouTube. Oh and if you're feeling a little unsecure, why not purchase a "Get Out of Hell Free" card. Hey, I've got mine! ----------->>>>>


2. True Stella Awards

Also written by Randy Cassingham (where does this guy find all the time?!), the True Stella Awards are named after Stella Liebeck who won $2.9 million from a New Mexico jury after she spilled hot McDonalds coffee on her lap. So the "True Stella Awards" are a look at some of the most ludicrous lawsuits currently working their way through the US legal system. Includes commentary and links to relevant online news stories. TSA are not published as often as This Is True due to Cassingham's time restraints (he has recently hired some "guest writers" to help him with the articles). Still worth a look though if you have an interest in the law.


3. The Straight Dope

I'd like to ask Cecil one important question - how does he know so much? (my hunch is that he looks on Google!). The Straight Dope gives you the answers to any burning questions you may have. Cecil gives long and fascinating answers and I guarantee you will be bookmarking a lot of his pages for future reference! Oh and the FAQ is a real hoot - especially number 15.

If your computer is your second home, like mine is, you might, from time to time, have a power-nap at the computer while you're waiting for that defrag job to finish. I recently found an online alarm clock that can wake you up in either 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 60 minutes.

Amusingly called "The Naked Alarm Clock", it is a simple clock which shows the time on your computer and allows you to set an alarm to wake you up again. You can choose from four different alarm types and is easy to use.

I have been a huge fan of Ad-Aware for years, ever since Spybot Search & Destroy really DID search out and destroy by nuking my Windows OS. Ad-Aware, on the other hand, has never caused me any problems and I have become a huge fan of the product - I like products that work like they say they do, without any hidden surprises. But after installing Ad-Aware 2007, I may have to revise that opinion quite a bit.

The first problem was that when installing the 2007 version, it didn't automatically over-write the previous version. So I ended up with two Ad-Aware programs on the computer. So I had to uninstall both programs and delete any relevant remaining files on the hard-drive including registry entries. I then re-installed 2007 on its own and it seemed to work - for a while. But to date, I have been unable to get the program to complete a full spyware scan.

When I ask it to do a full scan, it starts off promisingly enough but 15-20 minutes into the scan, it says it has encountered an "unexpected error" and it shuts the scan down, effectively forgetting what spyware it has found and going back to square one. This has been going on every day for ten days now and I am about to search out and destroy Lavasoft (the company that makes Ad-Aware).

I am seriously considering re-installing the older version. I normally don't like to do this but hey it worked for years without a hitch! Plus the 2007 version keeps bugging me to upgrade to a paid version which is seriously pissing me off. In my dictionary, "free" means "free of any charge". It DOESN'T mean, "free but only on the condition that we bug you every day until you upgrade".

Is anyone else having problems with Ad-Aware 2007? Please tell me I am not the only one going through this crap.

Going off-topic for a moment, I often get asked to explain the title of this blog and it's quite simple really. For those of who who don't know me on an intimate level, I have epilepsy and manic depression. The epilepsy has been around like an unruly relative outstaying her welcome since 1988 and the manic depression burst out in 2002 after God knows how many years lying in dormant wait.

When I had my breakdown in 2002, I went through various forms of medical treatment - first off was invariably the pills (LOTS of them) and then came therapy sessions which were basically forced upon me by a health insurance company trying to protect their profit margin, growing alarmed at my mounting medical bills. But therapy in the end wasn't for me. I hold the mental health profession in the highest of respect but some people just don't take to therapy. Others find it beneficial and others find it a total waste of time. I belong to the latter group. The therapist tried hard but really he only ended up making things worse. But I was obliged to do all 24 sessions as prescribed by the insurance company. In the end, I only did 23 and then walked away. Maybe missing the last one was a small act of rebellion on my part or maybe I just didn't have the time and inclination. Who knows and who cares 4 years on?

As treatment options faded for me, I was told that in all probability I would have to deal with the illnesses on their own. That I would have to find some way of reconciling myself to a life of hardship and suffering and one doctor told me to only do things in life that gave me pleasure. That way, if I was doing something I enjoyed, that at least would partly blunt the brutal effects of the depression & epilepsy symptoms (which by this time were inextricably linked). He advised me to find some hobbies and pleasurable pursuits. He urged me to decide what I was passionate about and then throw myself right into it without thinking about it. It was good advice.

I realised at that point that computers were my main passion. Up until 2001, I only had a passing knowledge of them but when I moved to Germany in 2001, my girlfriend's brother introduced me to computers and the internet. I discovered software programs that thrilled me with what they could do. I fervently monitored the rapid development of the internet and how it was able to influence our lives for good or for worse. I realised that my passion for writing would be helped by starting to write blogs like this one, and I realised that the internet could connect me with fellow epilepsy & depression sufferers as well as being a source of information for the latest advances in medical research in psychiatry and neurology. Then I started to learn HTML and I got my own domain. I am currently starting to study Microsoft Access to learn how to build databases.

In short, I realised that the time I spent in front of the computer and learning new things is much better than a therapy session. For when I learn something new and build something new, that achievement boosts my ego. It makes me realise that I can do anything if I put my mind to it. So when I was thinking of a title for this blog last year, there really was only one title in the running!

But I have other passions apart from computers and the internet - I love to collect stamps (my grandad has been collecting for 60 years and it gives me immense pride to continue the family tradition). I collect books, I collect banknotes & coins, and my other passion is my family. For years I slowly drifted apart from them but my health problems have made me realise that family can be better than medication, that blood really is thicker than water. I try to connect with them as often as possible, contacting relatives who haven't heard from me in a long time and allowing them to make me feel better in ways that compulsory therapy never could.

So as well as writing about computer issues, I would like to diverge a little now and then and write about other things that I am passionate about. The latest stamps I have found, the latest coins I have picked up and the latest books I am reading. For all these things really are better than therapy.

PC Magazine has published a rather self-righteous rant about "sites that have sold out". Their basic premise is that if the website is making a profit as well as being "mainstream" and legal then that qualifies them for the "sold out" label.

Since when has becoming legal and profitable been a bad thing? Out of the ten sites mentioned, I only use three - Google, YouTube and Last FM. It is my considered opinion that those three sites have improved by leaps and bounds over the years.

PC Magazine obviously seems to think that websites are only cool if they are breaking the law and losing money but instead I would say that is the fastest way to go out of business.

Listen to this post by podcast! Download original mp3 file

One of my friends sent me a very interesting news article on the future of Joost and this reminded me that I still haven't posted a review of Joost here on the blog yet.

I currently have Joost installed on my computer but at the moment, the number of channels is very limited and not that exciting (but they do have the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit channel!) and truth be told, the whole program is rather unstable (hence the "beta" label). The program sometimes freezes for no reason and when you want to flip channels, it takes forever to get the channel list up on the screen and then takes a lifetime to get the channel to change. Joost also has a bad habit of slowing the computer down with the CPU usage often hitting 100%. This means that watching Joost is a really big effort and you can't really do anything else on the computer while you watch - to make it run properly, I have found that I have to shut down all non-essential PC programs. Forget surfing the net while watching Joost. Forget doing anything period!

For the record, I have a broadband DSL connection so my internet connection is not the problem here. If you have a dial-up connection, definately forget trying to run Joost!

If they can get the stability issue sorted out and get the channels to easily and immediately come up then they have an absolute winner on their hands. But right now, it's a huge turkey on the computer and as such, I rarely open it. Today, it took 20 minutes for the update server to update my version of Joost and a further 15 minutes to get the channel list up. Finally, it crashed and I had to use the Windows Task Manager to shut it down.

Despite all that, if you'd like an email invite to assess it for yourself, let me know (by email) and I'll send you one. But in my opinion, it'll be a while before Joost performs to an acceptable standard. When it does, I'll review Joost again and I will then probably try to start using it more often.

The audio files that come with Skype to make its sound effects are not too bad (better than Yahoo Messenger's anyway with that really irritating "YYYAAAHHHHOOOO!" rodeo sound) but still I wanted to change my Skype sounds a little. I wanted a more normal sounding ringtone plus I wanted a few catchy sounds for incoming chat messages, failed file transfers and so on.

I came across this site today and it has a selection of interesting sounds in "wmv" format which you can use for Skype. I now have a flushing toilet noise for anything that goes wrong (failed file transfers for example), I have a sci-fi "ka-pow!" noise for incoming messages and I have the trumpets playing for when I log on and off.

If you don't like what's on offer on that page, you can also just Google what you are looking for. So if you are looking for say a dog barking, you can search for something like "bark.wmv". A duck quacking might be found as "duck.wmv" or "quack.wmv". Normally you can easily find free audio files via Google as there are a lot of websites which are basically just huge online warehouses of free audio files in both "wmv" format and "mp3" format. Fan sites such as South Park Studios have their own downloadable South Park sounds section (I used to have Cartman screaming at me when someone called me on Skype!) and many other TV programmes also have fan websites with free sounds you can use for Skype.

It's easy to change your sounds on your Skype program. Just go to your options panel and choose "notifications" then the "sounds" sub-tab. Then at the bottom, it says "import your own sounds". Click on that and upload the relevant sound file from your computer. Then go to the panel above that, choose the action you want to change (such as "ring-tone") and if you drop down the menu to the right, you should see the sound file you just uploaded. Choose that file with your mouse then press "save". Before saving, you can preview the sound to make sure it works properly.

I am thinking of using Audacity and a microphone to make my own personal sounds. I'll keep you updated on that little project if I ever get it going.

On my trip to Scotland in April, I wanted to take Skype along with me so I could check voicemail & chat messages while surfing the net on my dad's laptop. Since there is no official portable USB version of Skype, anyone wishing to carry "Skype On A Stick" needs to make a few tweaks here and there. The good news is that it is easier than you might think to achieve this. In fact, it's child's play which is really good news for a techno doof like me.

First, go into the Skype folder on your computer and look for skype.exe. Normally it is in the "phone" folder. Now right-click on that skype.exe file and copy it to a folder on your USB stick (you can create a directory folder called "SkypeUSB" or something similar). Note, I said "copy" and not "move"! You have to keep the original "skype.exe" file in its usual place for Skype to work normally on your computer.

Now within the SkypeUSB folder on your USB stick (next to your copied skype.exe), create another directory folder called "data" (without the speech marks). Next, using Microsoft Notepad, open a new text file and name it "skype.bat" (again, without the speech marks). Inside this text file, write the following line and then save the document : skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable . Once saved, place this text file inside the "data" folder you just created. And then you're done.

Clicking on skype.exe on your USB flash-drive will now run Skype portably without the need to properly install it on the computer you are using. You can log on, make phone calls, start chats, etc just as you would with any regular Skype installation. Even if the computer you're using already has Skype installed and running under another username, you can still run your USB version without the two programs conflicting with one another.

This portable method of Skype works perfectly for me. I plugged the USB stick into an internet cafe computer (despite the cafe owner looking at me worriedly) and Skype instantly booted up.

Just remember to pack your Skype phone or headset and you can make calls at will!

As well as a writer, editor and computer / internet geek, I also occasionally do English teaching to Germans (preferably blue-eyed blondes with pigtails called Heidi but beggars can't be choosers!). But for some reason, I am averse to having people come round to my place and this causes problems when you're trying to build a private tuition empire. They want to come round to your place because they don't want you to know where they live (you never know, I might be the mad homicidal axe-man teacher!) and they don't want to meet in cafes because it is noisy, crowded and they end up with the coffee bill.

But the problem is I don't want them to come round to my place either. First of all, I am extremely protective of my "private space". Second, the flat is normally a messy unorganised place with stacks of books, papers, unorganised stamp collections, remains of lunch sitting in the kitchen area and I am not an enthusiast of dusting the shelves on a regular basis. Oh and let's not forget that in the summer it's not really professional to meet students while I am wearing very little clothing and drinking a cool beer! So if someone was coming around here for English lessons, I would have to get dressed properly, perhaps have a shave, clean the flat up, move the Playboy magazines and the beer.......as you can imagine, I am not really inclined to do that too often.

So for over a year, I did another job and I thought my teaching days were over. But then I realised that with the internet, students don't have to come around here and I don't have to go to them. They can be taught online. I sit in my messy hovel and they sit in theirs and never the twain shall meet. Hell, we don't even have to be in the same country.

I am a huge enthusiast of Skype and I try to use it as often as possible for my phone calls. Skype also has a built-in chat function. So that got me thinking. I could advertise to non-native speakers all over the world and if they download Skype, I could teach them over the Skype lines. So I advertised online for some experimental lab-rats and within 24 hours, I had my first students - one from Switzerland, one from Italy and another from Brazil. Payments can be made by EU bank transfer or Paypal, payable before the lesson starts. Any worksheets necessary for the lesson can be scanned into an Adobe PDF file and emailed to the student, who can then print it out at their end.

If you're looking presentable and you both have webcams, you can also switch on the cams and turn the lesson into a live video-conferencing lesson. If the student doesn't understand a word or would like you to write out a phrase for them, you can use Skype's chat function to type it out for them.

So far, things have been a success and I have interest from other people in other countries. I would say the only negative aspect to it is that in many countries, people can't afford to pay too much as their standard of living is lower and their salary is lower. Plus if they pay by Paypal, you have to take those fees into account. My normal fee is 20 Euros a hour (app. $25) but in many cases, I have had to take a pay-cut in order to get some extra work and to also test this online experiment.

I also like the Skype teaching idea because I don't have to travel anywhere to meet the student. So this saves me travelling expenses and travelling time. I can just sit in front of the computer, do one Skype lesson, hang up after 45 minutes, then the next student calls, then the next one......I don't even have to move at all!

I do have a problem which perhaps someone could help me out with. I am going to scan some flashcards into a Powerpoint presentation and I am looking for a way to share that presentation online with the student in real-time. So when we are both on Skype and the lesson starts, I would open the Powerpoint presentation and it opens at the same time at the student's end. They see what I see. Anyone have any idea how I could go about that?

Oh and if anyone wants English lessons over Skype, please let me know! We can begin negotiating!

Someone passed along to me a link to a new Digg tool called "Diggwatcher". It enables you to monitor a particular story and the page refreshes itself every 60 seconds to show the current number of diggs for that story as well as the number of comments people have left. It's a web-based tool so there's no need to download anything.

It was the comments that really put me off Digg. I've tried to get into the "Digg atmosphere" and be part of the Web 2.0 group but I very quickly realised that the people who rate and comment on Digg are immature idiots who are ready to flame anyone whom they deem to be not worthy of being there. Some of them are also rather cruel - someone once posted a story on the site about a dead body being found in an apartment and all the commenters on Digg could do was make very distasteful and unsensitive remarks. When I angrily told them that they were being rather tactless, I was hounded off the site.

I still occasionally check the site to see if I can find any good weblinks but on the whole I tend to avoid the place. Nevertheless, Digg Watcher is a neat looking tool and worth a mention.

I have always been split on how I feel exactly about instant messaging. On one hand, I like it because it instantly connects you to people such as friends, family and business clients and decisions can made instantly. On the other hand, I sometimes hate having my privacy invaded by pop-up chat messages from total strangers asking me for "a/s/l" (if you're a chatter, you will know what that means). I also don't like my valuable time taken up with mindless small talk (unless it is a good friend who is chatting to me).

Despite my continual hesitation to fully embrace instant messaging, I still maintain chat accounts on all the major chat networks (AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ and Google Talk). At the very least, it makes good business sense to have this avenue of communication available to any potential overseas clients who may be reluctant to telephone Europe from say the US. Since chat accounts are totally free of charge (at least for now) then it's a win-win situation. I can keep the account active and if I use it then great. If not, what have I lost? Zilch.

But then the problem arises that if you have too many chat programs open, your computer CPU goes through the roof. Too many chat programs running also makes it difficult to sort all of your contacts and keep chats organised. So for many years, I uninstalled all of the individual chat programs and instead used Trillian which enabled me to open all of the chat programs under a single interface. But I was never really happy with Trillian - to me, it was (and still is) a very basic "no frills" program and I often had connection problems with it. I also couldn't attach Google Talk to it.

Then I discovered Pidgin which used to be known as Gaim (until AOL objected). It allows you to attach Google Talk and I think the interface is smoother and more aesthetically pleasing. Connections to the various chat networks are also never a problem. There's even a portable version for my USB stick and lots of neat plug-ins to make your Pidgin client even better. The various individual programs are uninstalled (saving both hard-drive space and CPU usage) and everything is organised in one central contact list. Perfect.

I often get asked by friends and sometimes by strangers what my favourite pieces of software are and what my favourite webtools are. These days, there's so much to choose from online which means that personal recommendations are often best to separate the wheat from the chaff. People often gravitate to me for recommendations because I am ALWAYS testing new software and webtools. I am a complete sucker for gadgets and beta software. I love seeing what is around the corner, internet-wise. I love seeing the rapid advances being made. At the same time, I am also extremely fussy and my attention span is extremely short. So for something to survive on my computer, it has to be GOOD, it has to be USEFUL and it has to WORK. Nothing irritates me more than something that doesn't work (such as the Wordpress fiasco the other day). The program / tool must also help my productivity in some way and make my life better as a result.

I am going to start a little series of posts on what I consider to be "essential tools for your PC". Please note though that if anything goes wrong on your computer by trying these things out, I am not liable! It worked for me and I like it. That's the extent of any guarantees I am willing to offer!

OK, to start this little series off, I am going to start with Del.icio.us :

For those of you who are not aware, Del.icio.us is owned by Yahoo and it allows you to bookmark websites in an online central location (the Del.icio.us website). Whereas the late 1990's were all about information being stored on your computer (with programs such as Outlook Express), the new millenium is now focused on the much-overused phrase, "Web 2.0" - social networking websites, user-driven content and encouragement to move everything online (Google being a big proponent of this with their Gmail and Google Docs), the main benefit being that you can access your weblinks no matter where you are and what computer you are using. Del.icio.us covers all these areas. All bookmarks are stored on the Del.icio.us website, you can access them on any PC with an internet connection, and users can see how popular a link is by the number of people that have also linked to it. Users can link to one another so you can see any new links that the user posts and you can arrange your links in various ways (more on that later).

Del.icio.us offers various ways to post links, once you have created an account but I personally like the Firefox extension (although NOT the new one that automatically synchronises your browser bookmarks). If you have Firefox installed, then I can't recommend the "classic Del.icio.us extension" highly enough. It makes posting links an absolute breeze.

You can find old links later by tagging each one as you post them. So a bookselling post which deals with the business aspect of bookselling would get the tags "books" & "business". Or a Star Trek wikipedia site would get the tags "wiki", "reference", "star-trek", "sci-fi" and so on. When you want to find a link, you can just click on the relevant tag or you can use the Del.icio.us search engine. Be cautious though about how many new tags you invent though as your tag list can very quickly get cluttered. Only make very general tags which can be used for countless other posts. So make a "books" tag instead of a "Leo Tolstoy" tag for example. Every few months or so, it pays for you to do some spring cleaning and delete the tags that are no longer needed.

As well as cleaning out your tags every now and then, you can also make your tags even neater by bundling them into categories. So all your history-related tags can go into a "history" category for example. This is something I have only just started doing myself as it is quite time-consuming!

One of the things I REALLY like about Del.icio.us is that other sites such as Feedburner offer blog owners the ability to have their newly posted Del.icio.us links added to the blog's RSS feed every day. So if you were to subscribe to my RSS feed then every day, you would get an extra post in your RSS reader with all the new del.icio.us links that I have posted in the past 24 hours. Del.icio.us also offers some services for bloggers and webmasters which enables you to publicise your links.

You could probably work out more just by viewing my del.icio.us page itself. It's all fairly self-explanatory. Oh and feel free to add me to your network. I post nearly every day. After a while, posting all your links to Del.icio.us becomes second nature and dare I say it, slightly addictive?

How do you use Del.icio.us? Do you have any tips about how to use the service better? Leave your views in the comments section!

The next entry in "Essential Internet Tools" will be tomorrow. Subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss it!