Introduction
What is MSDN Social Bookmarks?
MSDN Social Bookmarks is a new social bookmarking application created by Microsoft to let you save and tag your favorite Web resources and share them with others.
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What is social bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is a way to:
- Store and organize your bookmarks (also called favorites) on the Web.
- Share bookmarks publicly with other users.
- Explore bookmarks stored by other users to discover new links of interest.
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Why should I use MSDN Social Bookmarks?
This social bookmarking application lets you:
- Access and manage your bookmarks from any computer/browser connected to the Internet.
- Use a flexible tag-based organization system to remember and find your bookmarks.
- Share links that are relevant to your professional community.
- Discover interesting links by seeing what other users are bookmarking.
- Learn from experts by following their bookmarks.
Some of the key features of MSDN Social Bookmarks are:
- An integrated bookmarking/tagging experience across other Microsoft social/community applications like Forums.
- A bookmarklet that you can add to your browser toolbar so that you can quickly add bookmarks.
- Your own My Home page that shows your profile along with your activity across other Microsoft applications.
- A Community Bookmarks page that lets you explore bookmarks saved by all users.
- The ability to explore bookmarks saved by a specific user.
- Automatically-produced RSS feeds for bookmarks.
- The ability to import bookmarks from your browser or from another bookmarking application.
Any forum threads that you add tags to (from within the forums) are automatically saved as your public bookmarks.
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How is using MSDN Social Bookmarks different from storing my bookmarks in a browser?
When you store a bookmark using MSDN Social Bookmarks, the bookmark is saved on the Web. This lets you access your bookmarks and manage them from any computer connected to the Internet.
Social bookmarking also lets you share interesting links publicly so that everyone can see them. (You can always mark a bookmark as private if you do not want to share it.) Similarly, you can find new links by looking at what other users have bookmarked. You can see how many other people have bookmarked the same link – helping you easily find popular links.
Finally, you can use your own tags to organize your bookmarks, giving you more flexibility in organizing your bookmarks compared to a hierarchical folder system.
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Is this just for bookmarking Microsoft web sites?
No. You can save any URL to your bookmarks.
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What are tags?
A tag is a descriptive keyword associated with a bookmark. You can add as many tags as you like to a bookmark, and you can make changes to them whenever you like.
You are not required to use tags, but you may find them useful in helping to organize your bookmarks. To decide what tags to use, you might think about words that would help you remember a bookmark in the future. You can also use tags to categorize your bookmarks. For example, you can associate all of your video bookmarks with the tag "video," or can keep a running list of links to read by associating them with a tag of "toread."
Tags are also useful for exploring bookmarks from other users (or to help other users explore your public bookmarks).
To add tags to a bookmark, enter them into the Tags field when saving (or editing) the bookmark. Use a space to separate each tag. To create a tag using more than one word, use quotation marks around the words (for example, "sql server"). Tags are not case sensitive, and punctuation is not allowed in tags.
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System Requirements
What operating systems and browsers are supported?
The following browsers and operating systems are supported:
- Windows Vista with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, or Firefox 2
- Windows Server 2008 with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, or Firefox 2
- Windows XP SP2/SP3 with Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 3, or Firefox 2
- Windows Server 2003 with Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 3, or Firefox 2
Other browsers and operating systems may work, but some features may not be fully functional.
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What are the recommended screen resolutions?
A minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768 is recommended. Lower resolutions may work, but some features may not be fully functional.
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Do I need to enable scripting in my browser?
Yes. Scripting must be enabled in your browser in order for the application to work correctly.
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User Profiles, Registration and Login
Do I have to create a profile in order to use the social bookmarking application?
You can view and explore bookmarks stored by other users without using a profile. However, in order to save your own bookmarks, you do need to sign in. This requires a Windows Live ID
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How do I register for a Windows Live ID?
You can register for a Windows Live ID by visiting http://account.live.com and clicking Sign Up. Once you have a Windows Live ID, you can use it to sign in to MSDN Social Bookmarks.
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How do I set up a profile?
The first time you sign in to the application with your Windows Live ID, you will be prompted to set up a profile. You are required to choose a display name. All other information is optional.
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What is a display name?
Your display name is the name that is shown to other users. You can use your real name as your display name, or you can choose a nickname. Note that the display name is visible to all users of the application.
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How can I edit my display name?
You can edit your display name by clicking the My Home link on any page. On your home page, click Edit Profile, and then change your display name. Click Save Profile after completing the changes.
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Bookmarklet
What is the bookmarklet?
The bookmarklet is a button on your browser (created using JavaScript) that provides an easy way to bookmark online content.
To install the bookmarklet, follow the instructions on the Tools page.
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I installed the bookmarklet, but I don't see it on my Internet Explorer toolbar. Why not?
In order to see the bookmarklet, the Links bar must be displayed. To display the Links bar, click the Tools button, click Toolbars, and then select Links. (A check mark to the left of Links indicates that the bar is displayed.)
If you still cannot see the links bar, it's probably locked on the right side of the screen. To unlock the Links bar, click the Tools button, click Toolbars, and then click Lock the Toolbars to clear the check mark. Drag the Links toolbar down so you can see it.
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How do I uninstall the bookmarklet?
For Internet Explorer users:
- Right-click the bookmarklet on the Links bar and choose Delete.
- Click Yes to confirm that you want to remove the bookmarklet.
For Firefox users:
- Right-click the bookmarklet on the Bookmarks Toolbar and choose Delete.
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Issue Reporting
I have found a bug. Where can I report it?
Please post any bug reports in the Social Bookmarking Forum.
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I have a suggestion for a feature, or a question or concern that is not answered here. Where can I post it?
Please post any feature requests, questions, or general concerns in the Social Bookmarking Forum.
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Other Questions
I do not want to share all my bookmarks publicly. Can I keep my bookmarks private?
Yes. You can mark individual bookmarks as private. You can also edit a bookmark to change it from private to public (or vice versa).
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Can I import my existing bookmarks (from my browser or another bookmarking service)?
Yes. You can import your existing bookmarks by following the instructions on the Tools page.
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Somebody else has saved a bookmark that I liked. Can I copy that bookmark and save it to my collection?
Yes. You will see a Save link below the bookmark. You can click this link to save the bookmark to your collection.
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Somebody else has saved a bookmark that is offensive. How do I report this?
You will see a Report link below each bookmark. You can click this link to let us know that the bookmark is inappropriate. Reported bookmarks will be reviewed and removed (or marked as private) if identified as inappropriate.
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What languages are supported?
MSDN Social Bookmarks is available in the following 12 languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish).
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How do you determine the popularity of a bookmark?
The popularity of a bookmark is determined by the number of users that have bookmarked a link publicly. Next to each bookmark, you will see a link which shows how many people have saved it.
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Why are there five different Microsoft Social Bookmarks sites?
Social Bookmarks is available as five different sites:
There are different URLs in order to provide a more scoped experience, with bookmarks accessed via each site meant to be more relevant to that site’s users (Developers, IT Professionals, Designers and Consumers).
Bookmarks saved to a given site will be discoverable at the same site. For example, if you save an bookmark to MSDN Social Bookmarks, the bookmark and its tags will be available when others access bookmarks via MSDN Social Bookmarks, but not from the other sites.
Note that your own bookmarks will always be available to you when you are signed in, regardless of which site you were using when you bookmarked them.
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