Bookmarklets — I’ve heard the word. I never really cared about them; just one more thing online that I’m not interested in. This was my opinion before I actually knew what bookmarklets were. Now I know, bookmarklets are tiny bits of javascript that you bookmark to add functionality to your browser. It sounds pointless, but when you find some useful bookmarklets, you’ll see a point. Added bonus? Finally use your Firefox bookmark toolbar for good instead of evil. Before I get started on my list you might want to check out a useful screencast on using bookmarklets.

  • TinyURL - click this bookmark to create a tiny url for the page that you are currently viewing.
  • BugMeNot - click this to open a window with a username and password for the site that you’re currently viewing.
  • Wikipedia lookup - highlight some text, click this bookmarklet and it automagically searches for the highlighted text in wikipedia.
  • Google Translate - Translates the page you’re view to english (google translate can also be used as a proxy to view restricted pages)
  • IMDb - highlight the plain-text title of the movie you want to lookup on IMDb and click the bookmarklet
  • Oxford English Dictionary - highlight work and click for definition
  • Ebay - highlight item name and click bookmarklet
That about does it for my list of favorites. Check out this much longer list from Smashing Magazine.

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