Aha! It fits.

Information overload is rampant in my life. Yesterday, while sitting in a class on brass literature, I picked up another pair of web sites which look really useful. One led me eventually to a database of all published literature for brass quintets, a project of the American Brass Quintet, and clearly a nice thing to have while investigating literature for brasses. I noticed two things in this process.

First, I got the original web site addresses by copying onto paper an address from a computer display, projected somewhat blearily onto a screen, then transferring the address by hand to my browser. Getting computer output into another computer by retyping it has always annoyed me.

And, second, we should be able to share this stuff, so that what I find can be easily used by others in the class. More to the point for me, so that I can easily use what others find. Yup. Pure laziness. So?

My first thought, in my usual overly complicated way of doing things, was a Wiki solution. Put up a wiki page and let everyone add their own stuff. Easy, yes? Well, no. It quickly became apparent that this is overkill. A much more sensible approach, one directly to the point, is to use and promote del.icio.us which does exactly what I want, allows any or all of us to share bookmarks to sites of interest.

Del.icio.us is a tool I found a while back from the 43folders productivity web site by Merlin Mann. It looked interesting, a tool hunting an application. I knew I needed that, but only today did I know why. It fits the current need, is simple to set up and use, is free, and eminently sharable. Aha. It fits! How's that for cool?