Make Your Own ActiveRain Toolbar

OK, so admit it... ActiveRain is where you spend a good portion of your online time! In this post, I'm going to share a tip that I use to help me navigate very quickly to all the different pages on AR that I frequent the most. I'm going to show you how to set up your browser's bookmarks bar (a.k.a. favorites bar) with links to your favorite AR pages.

Your favorite pages might be a little different, but mine are "My Home" (ah) stats and dashboard, "Statistics" (as) where you can see hits on your articles as well as who has subscribed to you. "My Comments" (ac) page where you can jump directly back to the comments that you had left to check on if the author continued the conversation with you. "Social Blog" (ab) the best way to catch up with all those that you subscribe to and see what they have just posted. I moderate two groups "Gold Stars" (ag) and "VBloggers" (av) so I have links to each of these.

My favorite browser is Google Chrome. Bookmarks are extremely easy to add -- when you are on the page that you want you simply click the star on the address bar. Next you name it. Important tip: use abbreviations! The bookmarks bar is for you and you will know what the abbreviations mean. When you use abbreviations you will get many more links in the same amount of screen space than if you used full names. I start all my ActiveRain links with "a" (you can see my abbreviations noted in parentheses above). Use whatever codes you want that make sense in your head! :)

In Firefox and Internet Explorer the concept is the same but the procedures vary slightly in each browser. In Firefox, you can also click on the star in the address bar. However, after you click to add the star, you need to click the star icon a second time (quickly double-clicking also works) to pop up the properties box. Here is where you can put in the abbreviated name and also tell it to move it to the Bookmarks bar.

In Internet Explorer, you can click the add to favorites bar button. Next you need to right-click on the button that you newly created and choose rename. This is where you can put in the abbreviated code.

Now that you know about the bookmarks/favorites bar, you'll be jumping around in the rain much easier than ever before! (some of you may say, wait isn't there a AR toolbar that I can download and install? True, there is. However it is missing some of the favorite pages that I have showed you here... plus it may have buttons for pages that you may not really use. So customizing your own toolbar lets you create one just tailored perfectly to fit! now you have a choice if you want AR tools easily accessible)

My next article, I'll be telling you what my gb and my gb+ buttons are all about, stay tuned! :)

About the Author - Craig loves technology and loves to teach others about it!
If you'd like to learn more about Craig, see recent post "Who Is Craig Daniels?"
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