Toolbox Keepers - Part 2

Posted by Ken

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To continue with my series of Internet productivity tools, I’m going to focus the spotlight on three online services that can really help you stay organized. All are free and easy to use.

Spurl
One of my favorites is Spurl.net. It’s a FREE online bookmark manager that I use all the time. You browse a site that you like and you click on “Spurl!” in your Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers and it will send a bookmark to your “spurls”.

But it does more than that! When you want to spurl a Web address, a window pops up allowing you to enter tags to search on later, add a description of the site you’re spurling, and the choice to make it private or public.

Another useful feature is that you can view a list of recently added spurls from other members. The filter they have for removing adult-related links from view works most of the time. Sometimes members choose not to mark a URL as “explicit”, and so fall through the cracks. However, you can usually tell from what the name is, and just avoid them.

You can also import your existing bookmarks to get you started as well as export your spurls to your browser. It even features a nifty sidebar for your browser, so you can have quick access.

GishPuppy
Another service I like is GishPuppy. I posted about this earlier, but had to include it in my list of toolbox keepers. I use this quite frequently.

Your GishPuppy account acts as a proxy to have e-mails sent to it first, which then sends them to the target e-mail address you give it. If for some reason you want to stop receiving e-mails sent to a particular proxy address, you can cancel it anytime, or even set an expiration date. These proxies, or temp addresses can be generated on the fly using the plugin they provide for Internet Explorer or Firefox. GishPuppy is a must have!

Remember the Milk
Now, I’m going to be honest with you — I haven’t used Remember the Milk, but once I saw it I was quick to bookmark it for the time that I will use it.

This humorously-named service offers you a way to remember things…like the milk, pickup the kids, watch your favorite TV show…whatever you want to remind yourself of! You can categorize your lists, set priorities to them, and group them into other folders.

And get this! You can even have it remind you via instant messaging services like Yahoo!, Google, AOL, MSN and others. Plus, you don’t even have to logon to your account to enter a task. You’ll be given a special e-mail address so you can e-mail tasks to your account. That’s pretty cool! Any type of service that thinks that far ahead makes my list any day.