Module 4 – Tools for using the Web

I already have loaded (and regularly use) all the various programs you suggested until I got down to “Search Managers/Combiners”. Considering that I had read a lot of people in the discussion board stating how out of date and not very useful Copernicus was, and that I am running a Windows O/S, I decided to try Glooton.com. On opening this program website I found it was next to useless, because it is a French site, written in French, with no link for an English translation.

Considering that now only left a Bookmark Manager and Offline Browser/Copier, that left me with very limited choices as to what programs to download.

The Windows option for a Bookmark Manager was “Bookmark Buddy”, a program that, if I believe it’s blurb, will do everything for me and remember everything for me and should just about leave me wondering what on earth I did before I downloaded it (can you hear the sarcasm here? I don’t tend to believe much about program websites that blow their own horns so loudly). It’s got a 30 day free trial, but it is a program that needs to be paid for, so once I’ve downloaded it and had a look around it, it will be being deleted because I don’t think (at the moment) that it has anything in it that I am so desperate for that I will buy the program.

I downloaded the program and placed it on my desktop (so I can find it easily to delete it later). When I went to open it, the first thing that occurred was that my computer gave me a security warning – “The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?” Well, no I’m not sure, but I’m hoping that the University wouldn’t be steering me in the wrong direction and assisting me to download a virus or something, so yes, I will run it.

When I first started to download the program it told me NOT to load it to my programs file, but put it on my desktop or My Documents, but when I go to install the program it wants me to install it to programs. Does this program KNOW what it is on about? Ok, removed it from my startup list and only let it give me a shortcut on my desktop.

It comes already loaded with 6 “SmartFolder” categories and 35 bookmarks. About 3 of those bookmarks I would use under normal circumstances. I’m not going to bring my Favourites list over to be put in Bookmark Buddy, because I don’t want that to disappear when I delete the program, and I’ve got no reassurances that that wouldn’t happen.

Ok, I’ve downloaded it and looked through the help file. I can see some bits of information that may be useful, eg: export & print bookmarks list and fill out login forms, but frankly, IE7 already has the ability to do those things. This seems to be another way of doing something that IE7 and Firefox can already do, and being further charged for the privilege of doing so. The program is not a common program in wide use, at least not here in Australia, and not amongst people I know elsewhere either. It has now been deleted, or at least my computer assures me it will be by the time I reboot.

Then I went to the OfflineBrowser/Copier. Once again, I decided to look at the websites for WebCopier & PageSucker, but this time, before I downloaded them, I also decided to check out if there were corresponding functions in IE7. Yes, there are. If I open a webpage & click on “tools” and then “work offline”, I can read the entire page without being connected to the internet. If I open a webpage & click on “Page” and “save as”, I can save the page to my computer and access it offline or even save it to disk or to my thumbdrive.

I have not downloaded either of these programs, but I did have a good look over their websites. PageSucker’s homepage was last updated on 05Jul03, and its latest “bug fix” was 22Sep2002. That makes this program nearly 6yrs old without having had further updates. There is a free demo version, which means it has some of the capabilities of the program, but not all of them, and the full version is $US10. This is “old” technology.

WebCopier is copyrighted 1999-2009, and has a 15 day free trial with a cost of $US30-$40 for the program. I can’t easily find another date that tells me the last time WebCopier’s site was updated, but in the User forums there is a question dated 23Feb09. This question hasn’t been answered yet, and the previous question was dated 20Oct08. This question was answered on 30Oct2008, so this site is a lot more current than PageSucker, but still doesn't seem to be a highly used program.

WebCopier states that it will download entire websites, I wasn’t sure if PageSucker would do that or if it would only download the current page.

I can see that it may be useful in some situations, but I’m not sure that the programs do anything more than IE7 does, once again at an added cost. They could be useful in the situation whereby a person is still on dial-up, with limited hours, or on prepaid wireless remote, once again with limited hours, but if you’re paying for a download limit, not hours, it’s not going to make any difference. It’s still going to “cost” the same amount whether you download all the pages directly to your computer to view later, or whether you view them as you open them. It could also be useful if, like me, you work at times where there isn’t any internet connection, but you know beforehand that you are going to need to access certain websites. But considering that the majority of people now have an “always on” internet connection (cable, adsl, wireless) that measures downloads (& uploads) rather than the number of hours online, this would have to have a very limited market.

Neither of these programs is a standard, or becoming a standard or becoming common. In fact, I would be very surprised if many people had even heard of either of these programs.