UnearthedBookmarks Application - What Is It?
There are a lot of websites out there. Keeping track of the ones you are interested in can be difficult; especially those sites that don't update very often. UnearthedBookmarks allows you to keep track of the sites you are interested in.
UnearthedBookmarks keeps track of the web pages that you tell it to monitor. The program will navigate to the site for you, and it will determine the last time it was updated (or the date the page is set to expire if a last modified date is unavailable). Since every site you visit may not necessarily maintain any date information, UnearthedBookmarks also gets the title for the page you book marked (many times, the title will have changed and you can go from there).
UnearthedBookmarks is also designed to deal with your firewall proxy server (if you use one). It allows you to define the server, the port, your user ID and password. All of the information (minus your password) is stored in an XML file and read into the program. This allows you to define multiple proxy servers (great for laptop users).
Where Can I Get It?
You can download the UnearthedBookmarks application right here (UnearthedBookmarks.sit - 129k). This file is in .sit format which allows you to use a utility such as Stuffit Expander (if you need a decompression utility, check them out at download.com). The file includes the necessary jar files (the actual Java programs), and base XML files for the database.
What do I need to run this?
You will need to a Java runtime environment capable of running Java swing applications. If you need to download a Java run time for your system, check out http://www.java.com for details (note: This application was developed using the Java j2sdk1.4.0. While I tried to include everything needed to run this application, you may experience problems with an older version of Java).
How do I use this?
The program is stored as an executable jar file (once you unzip the application, you should be able to double click on UnearthedBookmarks.jar and it should start just like any other program). If you have trouble starting it this way, you can always go to the command line and type java -jar UnearthedBookmarks.jar (as long as you are in the directory where UnearthedBookmarks.jar is located).
Use the 3 tabs in the top of the application to control the program (Manage Bookmarks allows you to add bookmarks to the list and to refresh the list at any time; Proxies allows you to enter your proxy information and reload the bookmark list; About tells you a bit about the open source bits of the program). To remove a bookmark from the list, just click on the checkbox for the bookmark in the Remove? column.
Patience is a virtue. Depending upon the number of bookmarks you store, it may take a while for the program to check on the status of all of them. Just watch the status bar (bottom of the window) for the current status. If it is working on processing your bookmarks, it will tell you which bookmark it is on (out of how many) and indicate that it is working. Just be patient (especially with a dial up connection).
Once your list is loaded, it will sort based upon the Last Modified/Expires column in descending order. That way, the sites that have been updated most recently appear at the top of the list. In case of a tie (same modified/expires date), the site will be sub sorted based on the URL. Feel free to change the order of the columns in the application (just drag the column to the new location). You can resize the application to whatever size works best for you.
This is a functioning bookmark tool. Just double click on one of the lines in the table to launch your system's default browser heading towards your bookmark.
