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Software Review of:
My Favorites 

From the January, 2001 issue of PC Alamode Magazine
byJoe LaBonté
inKline LogoMy Favorites, by inKline Global, is a utility that will help you organize your bookmarks better, and allow you to surf more efficiently. They describe it on their website this way:
“Your Browser forces you to surf the net with bad habit. Say every morning you have to read the news, check your stock portfolio, visit your homepage for guest comments, do some groceries shopping and check your course schedule. How long does it take to perform all these actions? By the time you finish your morning routine, your coffee is cold! Try My Favorites, it cures your headache by launching these Web sites simultaneously within seconds, with just ONE mouse click!”

“My Favorites is a Bookmarks Manager and utility that puts the power of the web link to work for you. One click sets the Web link to fetch the page for you. Clicking onto a group launches multiple sites. View each page with your favorite font and color and set the browser size for each. Have more viewing space and click less to get to your usual sites.”

This program is supposed to make your bookmarks easier to use and organize. And it’ll allow you to set up folders (called groups) that contain one or more links, so you can launch a group of links (or Favorites), making it easy to load multiple pages at once. This is good, say, if you want to check your stock ticker, weather, news, and whatever, all of which are on different web sites. You can launch the group, and all the pages load. You can even have them launch automatically, or have a stock market indices page refresh every couple of minutes. And you can place each page in a different location on the desktop, sizing each to fit the info you want to view.

It does have some other features that were interesting. You can modify the launch properties of each page, so when you surf to that page (through My Favorites, of course), you can get more actual viewing space. You can hide the Menu Bar, Address Bar, Links Bar, Toolbar, and Status Bar. Each or all or none. Pretty cool. You can get 20% more viewing space from your browser if you remove all of them.

You can even set each favorite with its own colors and fonts. But this works only when the site does not have certain attributes set in stone. Sometimes you cannot change things.

Okay, despite all the things it can do, I was not impressed by this one. The things it can’t do overshadow the good things.

For instance, it is not as easy to use as they lead you to believe. The “drag and drop” feature is only partially functional. If you drag something to the bottom of the page, it should scroll downward till you reach where you want to drop it. Nope. And if you drop something into a “group,” and then want to move it to another group, or even out of the groups all together, you can’t. You have to delete it, and try again.

Also, it does not have an Undo feature. So, if you mess up, you really messed up. And since it saves automatically (no manual save!), you can’t just exit the program and try again. It has no save or apply buttons. So, if you alter the properties of a link, you have to open another link (which saves the first link’s changes), then reopen the first one. If you launch the first link without going to a second one, the new properties of the first link don’t launch. That may sound trivial, but after a bit, it gets old.

My recommendation
All in all, for the price of this one, I would not purchase it. Not versatile enough. And for those of you that are Netscape fans, forget it. It only works with Explorer. It will work with AOL, but only if you have Explorer 4.0 or above.

Minimum requirements
Pentium processor or better; 8 MB of RAM; 8 MB of free hard drive space; Windows 95/98/NT/2000; Internet Explorer 4.0 and above; and Dial Up Networking capability and Internet access through a modem.

I could not find it around town anywhere. But, on InKline Global’s website, you can download a trial shareware version, fully functional, to check it out. As with all shareware, after the trial period runs out, if you want to continue using it, you should buy it. It sells for $25.95. You can register it online, or download an order form to send payment via regular mail.

You can reach InKline Global via their website
or just e-mail them at: info@inKlineGlobal.com. 
Their regular mail address is: 

inKline Global, Inc.
P.O. Box 5479
Reno, NV 89513. 
phone(800) 242-4775.


Joe LaBonté lives in Converse with his wife, Denise. He has been married for all of 11 years (seems like 20!), and wouldn't trade his wife for anything (however, any offers will be carefully considered.)