I am ‘cross posting’ here which is something that I try desperately to avoid.  I think you’ll find this helpful.

I don’t know how many of you know about these applicaions, so those of you that so will have to bare with me here. 

One that I use every day is Netvibes .  It’s  an ‘aggregator’ site which allows you to put in the addresses of all of the websites that you like to visit.  So, for instance, all your blogger friend’s sites, and your news feeds.  Once you’ve put them in (which is really fast, you simply paste the address in and Netvibes confirms the feed) then you just go to the Netvibes page and it shows you which feed has been updated.  You can then click on the post, and it’s there to read!

It saves a lot of time and effort over visiting each site individually.  The only caveat is that you should become a member, otherwise all of the feeds will be lost when you log out.  It’s a small price to pay.

The second site, is more of a browser filter.  It will appeal to anyone who has kids of a young age using the internet.  It’s a Firefox add on called Glubble.  It’s still very much in beta, but promises to be a great feature once they’ve worked out all the kinks.

The way it works is that you add this onto your FF browser, and you become the ’super user’.  You then can set up accounts for your children.  They can visit a dozen or so very primary sites like Clifford the dog.  Anything beyond that you must first approve. 

Once you approve a site, the child can visit it at any time.  So, instead of trying to filter content for words like breast, or what have you, it simply blocks all sites.  I tried it out with my kids, and frankly they are beyond the age for which it is useful.  I think you really need to start using it with little ones who only visit one or two sites a time.  Mine were simply ticked that they couldn’t go ANYWHERE on the net.  Mind you one was trying to research the question of whether the restoration of the Parthenon will be a success, and the other was looking for Gameboy Cheats….

One of the really neat features of Glubble is that you can join forces with other trusted Superusers and link into their approved website list.  It may well save time if you trust your friends’ judgement.

 So, now that I’ve had my techie release for the day, try out the sites and see what you think.