Using a Macintosh is somewhat easier:

1) To save a link to a page of testimony, every browser can "bookmark" the page.
it's usually helpful to create folders for related bookmarks, so a "pages of
testimony" folder, or a separate one for each surname might be a good idea,
especially if you save lots of bookmarks. To make life even easier, add folders
for current projects to the bookmark bar. These are always directly available,
and you can drag and drop the current url straight into them (you can grab it
by the little icon to the left of the current address), without opening any
additional windows or menus.

1a) A slightly different approach is to store a link to the page independently of
your browser. The easiest way to do this is to drag the little icon just to the
left of the web address out of the browser window. This creates a weblink file
that can be stored in regular folders (and searched) just like any other file on
your computer.

2) The only complication that I've had with using the Yad Vashem site is that the
option to "click to enlarge" the scanned image doesn't work with safari or
explorer (but it does with netscape 7 - go figure). Instead, you can either
control-click directly on the little thumbnail, which allows you to open it in a
new window or save it in various ways, or you can just drag the little thumbnail
itself out to the desktop (or to a convenient folder), which will save the full
resolution image as a jpg file. These files can be opened or printed with any
graphics programme, or back into a web browser.

I usually prefer to save the image files, rather than just links, because the
internet is full of broken links as sites change their structure, or data is lost
in crashes, etc. even with Yad Vashem, I have had problems with server errors,
so I don't trust the internet to preserve my precious family data for me.

But whether saving links or full images, the files usually get created with
meaningless names (such as the web site's name or a picture's serial number), so
it's best to rename them to something meaningful. (I usually use "Surname
Givenname PoT ####.jpg", which gets them sorted by families.) it really helps to
have a system.


Tom Klein, Toronto