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[Go to top] Overview

On Netvouz you organize your bookmarks in folders and tag them with keywords according to their contents. Bookmarks and folders can be either public or private. Public bookmarks and folders are available to others visiting your bookmarks page. Private bookmarks and folders, on the other hand, requires logging on to your bookmarks page to access them.

On Netvouz you get your own bookmarks page (example) where you have quick and easy access to your bookmarks. On this page you can either browse your bookmarks by folder or tag or search for them. You can also log in (to normal mode) to see your private bookmarks and perform basic administative tasks. When logged in you can also switch to edit mode where you get additional features to modify your bookmarks and folders.

Your bookmarks page has an address like http://www.netvouz.com/YourUsername.

[Go to top] Bookmarks

A bookmark (or favorite) in your web browser usually only has a name and an address (the URL). On Netvouz, however, bookmarks contain more information to make it easier for you to organize them as you like:

  • Description - You can (and should..) give each bookmark a short description where you briefly describe what the site is about. This will help you and others to see if the site is worth visiting or not. The description is also used when searching for bookmarks. To make Netvouz available for a broader range of people and to make searching for bookmarks easier, we recommend that you write your bookmark names and descriptions in English, unless the bookmark is for a web site that is only available in a non-English language.
  • Tags - Each bookmark can also be tagged with keywords, such as news, weather, economy, sports, football etc., that further describes what the web site is about. Your bookmarks page displays the tags you have used and you can easily find bookmarks matching one or more tags.
  • Rating - Each bookmark is also given a rating which indicates how good you think the site is. There are five levels to choose from and they are indicated with the following icons; Poor Poor, Average (no icon), Good Good, Very good Very good and Excellent Excellent. On your bookmarks page the bookmarks are normally sorted by rating but you can also sort them by name or date you created them.
  • Hotpick - Bookmarks that you use very often (such as your favorite online newspaper or your email account) can be marked as "Hotpicks". Hotpicks are always displayed on the top of your bookmarks page regardless of which folder or tag you are browsing. You can arrange your Hotpicks in three rows. There is no upper limit on the number of Hotpicks there can be in each row, but no more than 4-6 bookmarks per row usually looks best. But it all depends on how long names the bookmarks have.
  • Intranet - Because you can add bookmarks that are not publicly accessible from the Internet but only from e.g. your company's intranet, you can (and should!) mark publicly unaccessible bookmarks as intranet bookmarks. All intranet bookmarks are excluded from the automatic link checking feature because Netvouz can not determine if they are valid or not.
  • Note - You can also enter a short note for each bookmark. If the bookmark is public you can also select if the note should be public or private (if the bookmark is private the note is always private).

[Go to top] Normal mode

Normally you want to keep your bookmarks public so that your friends and other people can use them as well, but some bookmarks (e.g. your company's internal web sites) are not meant to be seen by anyone. These bookmarks can then be made private.

To access your private bookmarks you must log in. If you allow Netvouz to set a so called cookie in your browser, you can automatically be logged on when you visit your bookmarks page.

When logged in you can easily toggle between your public and private bookmarks, or show them all. Your public bookmarks are shown in blue and your private are green so you can easily distinguish them.

[Go to top] Edit mode

When logged in you can toggle between normal mode and edit mode. Both modes provide you with a set of admin tasks (such as adding new bookmarks, importing/exporting etc). that you access by clicking the admin tasks links at the top of the page. In edit mode your bookmarks page is also decorated with additional icons and checkboxes that also let you modify your bookmarks and folders.

[Go to top] Add2Netvouz button

The Add2Netvouz button is a special link ("bookmarklet") that you can add to your browser's toolbar (Internet Explorer calls the toolbar Links, Mozilla Firefox calls it the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder and Opera calls it the Personal Bar). When added it will appear as a button that you can click on. When you then surf the web and come across a web page that you want to add to your bookmarks page you simply click the Add2Netvouz button and a form is displayed, allowing you to add the bookmark to your bookmarks page. On the form the web page's address (URL), name and sometimes also a proposal for a description is filled in and you only need to select in which folder you want to place the bookmark. To make sure that noone else is adding bookmarks to your bookmarks page you must also enter your password.

To add the Add2Netvouz button to your browser, go to the "Tools" page on your bookmarks page and following the instructions.

[Go to top] Adding new bookmarks

The easiest way to add new bookmarks is to use the Add2Netvouz button when you come across an interesting web page. However, if you are logged in to edit mode you can also select "Create new bookmark" from the menu and fill in the fields in the form that is displayed.

[Go to top] Organizing bookmarks and folders

When you have logged in you can easily organize your bookmarks and folders using the admin tasks at the top of the page. And in edit mode your bookmarks page is enhanced with even more functions. Bookmarks and folders are then shown with an icon in front of them. Clicking this icon lets you edit, move or delete the bookmark or folder. If you delete a folder all bookmarks and folders it contains are also deleted and if you move a folder all bookmarks and folders it contains are also moved.

You can also easily move bookmarks and folders back and forth between your public and private folders.

[Go to top] Searching for bookmarks

From your bookmarks page you can search for bookmarks among your own bookmarks or among all other members' bookmarks. The search engine matches your search argument against the names and descriptions of the bookmarks.

For more information about the search function, see the search tips.

[Go to top] Importing bookmarks to Netvouz

To make it easy for you to transfer your existing bookmarks from your web browser to Netvouz you can export them from your web browser and then easily import them into your bookmarks page. The bookmarks and folders exported from your web browser are then merged with the bookmarks and folders you have on Netvouz.

[Go to top] Exporting bookmarks from Netvouz

The bookmarks and folders you have on Netvouz can be exported to two different file formats; 1) an HTML format compatible with Internet Explorer, Netscape and Mozilla Firefox and 2) a Netvouz proprietary XML format.

If you export your Netvouz bookmarks using the HTML format you can import the resulting file directly into Internet Explorer, Netscape or Mozilla Firefox and your bookmarks will then appear in your browser's bookmarks (favorites) menu.

[Go to top] Automatic link checking

At regular intervals, your bookmarks are checked to verify that they still work. If we discover a link no longer works it is marked with the text Maybe broken. If it then doesn't work during any of the two consecutive tests it is marked with the text Broken link. If you have broken links you will see a message about that when you login on your bookmarks page. You should then switch to edit mode and click the "Manage broken links" menu option and decide what to do with those bookmarks. Link checking is performed automatically so you do not need to think about it. All you need to do is to clean up your broken links.

[Go to top] RSS feeds and JavaScript and HTML feeds (Linkrolls)

Bookmarks are also available as RSS, JavaScript and HTML feeds. To access the RSS feed, click the RSS feed icon at the bottom of each bookmark's page. For details on how to use (and customize and style) the JavaScript and HTML feeds, select Linkrolls for blogs from the Tools menu on your bookmarks page. NB: Feeds for private bookmarks are only available when you are logged in.