The easiest way to save simple data (like email
contents) is to cut and paste what you are interested in into a Text Document on your
USB Flash Drive (right mouse click in the folder window, select
New
then Text Document). If you want to save a snapshot of the webpage,
including pictures and links, use the File->Save As option in your
browser and save a local copy to your USB flash drive. Make sure the name is
something identifiable AND short (it uses the page title and people have
been creating some HUGE ones to help with Search Engine Optimization). Play
with the various options now, while you are connected, to see the various
results. Make sure you check the resulting files before you download lots of
files from the same site, because some content
can't be saved or it is blocked. If you use Firefox your only real choice is
saving the full content of a web pages in native HTML format. This creates a
file (XYZ.htm) and a separate directory (XYZ_files), which contains images and
other extra files. One web page can contain 100's of files, which can
significantly slow down the synchronization software. If you want to rename
the file later you'll have to re-load it into the browser and do a "Save As"
again with a new name. Then you have to remember to delete the original on
the disk. If you try to rename the XYZ.htm file alone, it breaks the
connection with the rest of the images which is the whole reason you saved
it in that format. In addition to the HTML format, Internet Explorer has a
save Web Archive option which saves it as a single compressed file
(with .mht extension). This can
be renamed and moved because all of the page's data (including images) is
contained in a single compressed file. I have downloaded literally 1000's of
files individually, including notes on the next stop, Noonsite information,
travel guides etc, and it is a pain to manage the results. It's sort of like
when digital cameras first came out and their was no photo management
software. It is made even a little worse because the individual files you
have saved contain the links from the original web page which point to the
online files. Even if you download multiple files with the Save As feature,
the resulting pages are still disconnected and you have to navigate the
pages one by one, instead of following the links.
To get a feel for your new world, get your USB flash
drive, get in your car, go to the nearest Internet cafe and get the web
content you want. Then go home and plug in your Flash drive and see what
you've got. Then try and organize it all and imagine what it will be like
once you do this over an extend period. Luckily there is some help
available help
available.
Comments
For site comments or questions please use the site comments page.Comments by Disqus