If you're like me, I always seem to have bookmark issues. 'Hmm.. where did I put that bookmark for cool new packaging ideas? Was that in Firefox or Safari? And was it on my laptop or desktop machine? And was that my old workstation or new workstation? Great googily moogily... there's gotta be a better way.' Enter del.icio.us. My bookmarking debacle instantly got a whole lot easier... and cooler. I feel compelled to share this little bit o' heaven in hopes that somewhere I can help just one person who suffers from the same plight I used to. Okay, that last part was a little dramatic and so charity cliché speak, but roll with me here - there's a payoff somewhere down the line. I promise. So what is del.icio.us? Quite simply, it's a way for you to tag your favorite sites into categories that you can then access from any browser on any computer at any time. For example, I've got several packaging resource sites that I've tagged, so anytime I want to see one I just go to my del.icio.us page (you'll need to create a free account, and no, you don't get junkmail offers) click on my "packaging" tag, and voila... there's all the sites I've bookmarked in addition to any notes I made about each site as I bookmarked it.

Also, there's an option to add super convenient del.icio.us icons and/or links to your browser of choice (or at least Internet Explorer, Safari & Firefox and possibly a few others) so that you can tag any site for future reference or quickly get to your list of tagged sites. So go ahead, tag anything you want. Tag that "Top 10 Signs You Might Be Addicted to Blogging" site you stumbled upon the other day. You know you want to read it again. Seriously, you need to.

Here's a sample of my collection of tags I've used to group the sites I want to remember. Each tag brings up a list of at least one and most of the time multiple sites I've bookmarked under that category. You can also choose to view your categories in list format and it will show you in parentheses how many sites have been bookmarked in those categories.

One of the coolest things about del.icio.us, too, is the "popular" feature where when you click on this link you see a constantly updated list of - what else - popular sites that people are tagging recently. You'll see a fair amount of techy programming sites here, but you'll also find just as many entertaining if not useful sites. Warning, this may not help your aforementioned addiction. If you're looking for a way to simplify your internet life, give it a try. It might be just what you're looking for. And if not, you'll at least spend 5 minutes of your life trying it out that you would have otherwise spent wasting brain cells mindlessly surfing the web.