Jump to Your Radio Task Using Favorites

I almost blush to share this tip. I'm not even sure it qualifies for the title of 'tip'. Still, sometimes we never think of the simplest things until someone else points them out. Here is the genesis of the tip:

If you are like me, you spend your time in Radio flipping between your local and public weblogs .... browsing, hunting, pecking and otherwise managing (sic) your blogging.

I find that generous use of Internet Explorer Favorites shortens my writing cycle and reduces frustrations.

This tip applies to other Web browsers too, though they use the Favorites concept slightly differently. No matter which browser it is that you love-to-hate, you can create a bookmark for jumping directly to a given website.

For Internet Explorer, go to the weblog/website you want to mark. Then, open IE's Favorites folder and click 'Add to Favorites' as shown below:

Building My Bookmark Set

Notice some of the sites listed above.

'Local Weblog' is my name for the home page of my local version of Radio. To add this to your Favorites list, go to your Radio home page (it will have the URL http://127.0.0.1:5335/), add it to your Internet Explorer Favorites and give it the same name I did or one you like better. Now, wherever you are in Radio, you can return quickly to your home page.

(I admit this is particularly lame: Radio provides - of course! - a Home button at the top of every local Radio page. But consider this: Radio is open but you have browsed elsewhere on the Internet. Your home page is not currently displayed in your browser. Clicking this favorite puts you back to your desktop home page in a jiffy).

The next favorite (I gave it the evocative name '100059 Home') is a bit more useful. This takes me directly to my public weblog page at http://radio.weblogs.com/0107019/.

Again, Radio provides a direct path to our public page from the Cloud Links section of our local home page. But what if you aren't currently on the home page? What if Radio isn't running? Suppose you aren't home but have connected to the Internet elsewhere?

Stories, Images and More ....

This kindergarten technique becomes more useful when I add other access points such as my public story list and my personal images folder.

The URLs for your public stories folder will be http://radio.weblogs.com/0107019/stories/  and for images http://radio.weblogs.com/0107019/images/.  Of course, substitute your own user number where you see mine.

(The 'myImages' folder on my list in the screen capture above is just that - mine. Radio delivers a prebuilt folder for images that you may prefer to use. The URL just above links to the prebuilt Radio folder.)

Finally, I have collected together two links to Radio-related sites that matter to me. One routes me to the top 100 Radio sites (again, there is a path to this from your desktop home page as well). The other loads the Radio Discussion Forum.

Look. I said it was incredibly simple. But then, I am pretty simple. In fact, if you have simple - or even simpler - ways to help folks like me get more pleasure from Radio by .... simplifying ... what we do with it, please email me so I can share it with everyone who reads this weblog.