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Need help tracking web pages
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Posted by Jonathan Probber
Jan 13, 2011 at 01:57 PM
I don’t know if you’ve discussed iCyte before, but I’ve been using it to good effect. Web-based, installs in your toolbar, and very good at clipping and organizing web pages, by both project folders and topic tags. They just went to a paid model, but it’s still free for academics.
Jon
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 13, 2011 at 03:26 PM
In view of your requirements, Ken, I’d suggest using something like “Awesome Screenshot” (an extension for Google Chrome), which allows you to take complete screenshots of a web page (including the bits that aren’t on-screen), then mark them up/annotate them, then save the resulting image out as a PNG file.
So, the benefits: it’s free, and it runs in a standard web browser (Google Chrome). And it doesn’t just create screenshots, it allows you to annotate them.
On the downside, it only creates PNG files rather than files with editable text. But OneNote or another OCR application (e.g. EverNote) could be used to extract text subsequently. Of course you could (as somebody else has suggested) use OneNote to take screenshots (Windows key + S) and then share and annotate them, but OneNote’s screenshot feature isn’t as powerful as Awesome Screenshot’s.
I’m sure similar extensions are available for Mozilla Firefox. I have no idea whether they are for Internet Explorer.
On a slight tangent - to track web pages you could do worse than try out Martin Aignes’s Web Watcher application, which also allows you to annotate them (it’s payable software, unfortunately). His Local Website Archive application allows you to save web pages locally, but you have to pay for the version capable of annotations.
Hope one or more of those helps!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 13, 2011 at 03:35 PM
Sorry, quick self-correction here: Website-Watcher, is the name of the app. Local Website Archive would probably be more relevant, and isn’t expensive. You can highlight and edit text in saved web pages too! But you’d need a version for each one of your 35 colleagues - not good!
Website-Watcher and Local Website Archive interact, and can be found at http://www.aignes.com (I know I keep recommending this guy’s stuff, and hasten to add that I have no commercial, personal or other interest in Martin Aignes’s affairs, I just use his programs!).
One final suggestion for a solution - have you considered using something like HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com) to download the entire website, put it on a network folder so all your colleagues have access to it, then providing them with a Word template (including crucial fields such as e.g. page title, author etc.) and opening another (neighbouring) network folder into which they can put their notes? Okay, it’s not super-sophisticated, but it may prove more conventionally convenient (and I speak as one with years of attempts at training in-house staff on relatively straightforward IT systems behind me!).
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 13, 2011 at 03:38 PM
Hm - your quandary has got me thinking, and of course I’m forgetting the wonderful ScrapBook extension for Mozilla Firefox, which you can use to save entire web pages exactly as they are, then add annotations etc. That’s another option!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Ken
Jan 13, 2011 at 04:16 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Just another thought, in case it had not occurred to you. If your team has access to the
>common MS Office applications, does that include OneNote?
Steve,
I had asked if we could have OneNote when they deployed the new version of Office, but was told that it would not be installed. I wish I knew why, as it would be very useful for many projects I work on.
—Ken