My Scrap List

Do you backup your bookmarks?

noreply@blogger.com (Rachael) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:59:00 +0000

Hopefully you are in the habit of regularly backing up your digital supplies and layouts. I know I have my supplies backed up on three different hard drives plus DVD's as well. But do you back up the links to your favourite scrapbooking sites? I had not really thought about doing this before until a good friend of mine had the situation we all dread, when her laptop crashed with the information never to be seen again. My friend is very organised and only lost the one layout she had been working on, thank goodness. It was a couple of weeks later, after she had loaded all of her software and digital files back on her new laptop that she remarked to me about how annoyed she was with herself for not backing up the scrapbooking links she had accumulated. In losing her bookmarks she now had to build up her list again by visiting each store and blog that she could remember off the top of her head, others she had to google to find, and some others are probably lost forever.

It was this conversation that actually sparked the idea for My Scrap List. I had instantly thought ugghhh, imagine having to find that file deep in the program files somewhere and remembering to back it up along with the rest. I don't think that I would actually remember to do that. Wouldn't it be much easier to just click on a link and have the site added to my very own online bookmarking account and then not have to worry about it? With the added bonus that I can then also access my favourite sites from my laptop as well as my PC, or even when I am staying over at my Mother's house.

I know that there a plenty of other sites around that offer this service but I like the fact that with My Scrap List, because it serves just the scrapbooking niche, I can also share my favourites with others (like yourself) that share the same interests as me. Also when you use the service, I can discover new scrapbook related sites and blogs as well. It's a win-win-win situation.

So do yourself a favour, before you lose all of your links and click onto My Scrap List, register for your free account and start adding your favourite sites to it. While you are there, explore a little and see what others have been bookmarking.

My Scrap List - how it works

noreply@blogger.com (Rachael) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:35:00 +0000

Now that you know that My Scrap List is just the thing you have been looking for, let me tell you about a few of the features of the site that may not be immediately obvious.

When you bookmark a site using My Scrap List, the URL, the description and the tags you used will be able to be seen by other visitors to the site on the "Home" and "Popular" pages. Your identity is not in any way associated with this public information. That means no-one else will know that it is you who bookmarked that site.

The primary reason for this is due to the purpose of the site: to share and discover. By sharing bookmarks we will build up an excellent resource for everyone. My Scrap List will become a great place to easily search for and discover new sources of information and inspiration.

You do, of course, have personal tabs called "My Favorites" as well as "My NET" and "Shared Favourites" where you can view all of your own bookmarked sites and those you have elected to share with other specific people. The information contained within these pages can only be viewed by you.

More detailed information on each of the Menu tabs can be found in the Help files

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at myscrapadmin@gmail.com

Are you addicted to scrapbooking?

noreply@blogger.com (Rachael) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:58:00 +0000

Well help is at hand, let me tell you about a fun and interesting way to feed your addiction.

Do you love to find new sources of inspiration, be it a new designer, blog, tutorial or online magazine article for instance. I know I do but I sometimes find it just a little overwhelming trying to search for new information. I mean really, who has the time to go through the 11,500,000 sites that come up on a Google search under scrapbooking? Not me, but I also know that I ultimately miss out on a lot of really great stuff.

In my last post I outlined the reasons why social bookmarking is becoming such a popular method of finding information on the internet. In terms of scrapbooking I believe that social bookmarking offers a fantastic way for us to pool our resources and share our favourite sites with each other. I think that it is the perfect fit for the scrapbooking community since we, as a group, genuinely like to share information and are always very generous in helping each other better our craft. So why hasn't this idea of social bookmarking taken the scrapbooking world by storm? I know that some of you have already embraced the concept and are using sites like del.icio.us for example but the problem is, in my humble opinion, that the big social bookmarking sites can be a little daunting to the uninitiated. I also find that they are just too generalised and that you can get lost trying to find scrapbook related information amongst all the politics and current affairs. So where does that leave us?

Imagine if there was a social bookmarking site that was dedicated purely to the scrapbooking community. A site where all the tags are of interest to scrapbookers. Imagine having just one site from which you could feed your scrap addiction, one site where you can share your favourite sites with your peers and in turn discover new sources of inspiration and information that you didn't even know existed. One site that made it easy to share and discover. One site to become your favourite source of new information and inspiration. What a fantastic resource it would be.

Well, have I got great news for you. There is now a social bookmarking service that does all this, that is specifically geared to the scrapbooking community. It is called My Scrap List. Whether you are a paper, digital or hybrid scrapper this site is designed for you. Whether you scrap for fun or profit this site is for you. Whether you are a consumer, a site owner or a blog author this site is for you. It is designed for the scrapbooking community and your support will make it a valuable resource for all as well as a fun way to feed your scrap addiction.

All you need to do is to click on the link below, set up your free account, import your favourite sites you already have bookmarked and start exploring. Once you have had a good look around make sure you invite your friends to come and join in because as they say, "the more the merrier." I'll see you there and I look forward to sharing with you.

Rachael

My Scrap List

Social Bookmarking - an overview

noreply@blogger.com (Rachael) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:31:00 +0000

Quite simply social bookmarking is a system for keeping your Bookmarks or Favourites online as opposed to on your computer harddrive. The benefit being that you will always have access to your favourite websites no matter whether you are accessing the internet via your home PC, laptop or work computer.

You may have heard of the larger social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us or Digg and you more than likely have heard of Flickr. You may have noticed too that a lot of blogs now have links asking you to add their post to your favourite bookmarking site.

The reason social bookmarking is becoming so popular is because not only can you store the links to your favourite websites online but you can share them with others. The sites are usually set up in such a way that you have your own dedicated page to which you can add your bookmark, tag it with a keyword and add any comments you may want to make for future reference. The real benefit is that people share their bookmarks. The site can then rate the tags by popularity, you can see which categories people are most interested in and which websites/blogs/articles are being heavily bookmarked and must therefore be of interest. Browse the categories, click on a link that interests you and visit the site. You may then also want to bookmark it for yourself.

The really interesting consequence of all this activity is that social bookmarking is establishing itself as a serious alternative to the search engines as a way for people to find information on the internet. Instead of a computer robot using maths (all-be-it complex maths) to judge web content and deliver results to you based strictly on the keywords you enter, social bookmarking delivers content that is determined to be of value by a dynamic human element. Herein lies the beauty of this system as it invariable delivers interesting and unpredictable results due to the unstructured nature of the tagging system. The sites allow you to use your own keyword classification system to tag your bookmarks with, so conceivably an article on fractal art could be tagged by one person under "digital art" and under "complex mathematical formulas" by another. Imagine browsing the maths tag and coming across these beautiful works of art.

Thus my advice to you is to join the revolution and get involved with the sharing and discovering of information and inspiration, you never know what you might find.