Use the Finder, a PIM, or the Web itself to manage your online life
Michael Swaine
Net Traveler
You shouldn't have to use separate tools for managing your Web bookmarks, e-mail contacts, telephone numbers, and snail-mail addresses. In fact, you shouldn't even have to shift gears mentally to access the Internet. Although this ideal hasn't been fully realized, there are tools available that can help get you closer to this goal, whether you're a desktop person, a PIM person, or a Web-head.
The Net on Your Desktop. For some, the Mac desktop is the perfect metaphor for managing Web links and contacts. If that's you, check out CyberFinder, from Aladdin (http://www.aladdinsys.com/). You'll find plenty of bookmark managers on the Net, but CyberFinder does the best job of integrating URLs into the familiar Macintosh way of doing things. Drop the $30 product into your System Folder. Now, when you hold down the Shift key, the Finder's New Folder command becomes New URL and lets you save a Net address (e-mail, Web site, and the like) in a file. When you double-click on the file, your Web browser or e-mail client opens and takes the express to your new URL. You can also grab a URL by selecting it in any application and typing a key combination.
Once you've set up some URL files, try this: Create aliases to the ones you use most often, and drop them into your Apple Menu Items folder. Voilà: live addresses of people you e-mail frequently or a live wire to Apple's FTP site for downloading system updates, all under the rainbow Apple. What the heck -- put a link to http://www2.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_President.html in there, and assign a red phone icon to it.
Like most good link-management tools, CyberFinder uses Peter Lewis' free Internet Config (ftp://ftp.share.com//pub/interne -configuration/). If you've already set up Net preferences and helper applications here, the trip from desktop file to browser or e-mail client will be a snap. If not, you'll get IC when you install CyberFinder and the preferences you choose will work with any other IC-compatible applications you have.
The Net in Your PIM. Do you use a PIM (personal information manager) or contact manager to organize your work activity? Then you're one of the PIM People and you probably want the Net to plug into your contact database. Two companies are building the plugs.
WebArranger, from CE Software (http://www.cesoft.com/), is a full-fledged PIM that lets you manage URLs as if they were phone numbers, with an auto-dialing equivalent: When you choose a URL, the link opens. WebArranger's automated "agents" notify you if a favorite Web page has changed since you last visited it. (See "Untangling the Web," March '96, page 26, for more on WebArranger.)
Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact, from Now Software (http://www.nowsoft.com/), have been upgraded to handle URLs, and the company's new Now Up-to-Date Web Publisher software can put your company's public calendar onto a local Web page.
You can drag and drop events or schedules, names or directories from Web pages to Now Up-to-Date and Contact and later click to open the links. You can also use Contact to send e-mail to large distribution lists.
Your Custom Web Interface. If the Finder or a PIM doesn't address your organizational needs, you might try using HTML pages themselves to manage information.
If you can afford the RAM, put an alias to your Web browser into your Startup Items folder and set the default URL to a site that's updated frequently. It's like having the local paper delivered to your desktop when you start up the Mac each morning, especially if your local paper's on the World Wide Web.
Take the next step by creating an HTML page on your hard disk that contains links you use frequently. You can start from scratch or modify your browser's bookmarks .html file (System Folder:Preferences: Netscape if you use Navigator). When opened with a browser, your bookmark file displays links and headings. You can rename and edit the bookmarks.html file with a word processor, changing bookmarks or organization to include sites you use for reference or that you visit daily. Then, add the Alta Vista search form to your page, by pasting in the HTML code you'll find at http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=tips. Using this new page as your browser's default file will open it when you launch the browser.
Don't Know a Site from a .snd?
MacUser maintains a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the Internet, MacUser itself, and this column specifically. Send mail to faq@macuser.com. MacUser's address on the World Wide Web is http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/. You can reach me at traveler@macuser.com.
