SharkLinks: Great Mobile Web Shortcuts

For a very long time now I have been looking for an application that would allow me to create standalone URL shortcuts as .prc files on my Treo which I could launch as easily as any other standard program with just one click.

I’m glad to write that I finally found a simple and free application called SharkLinks which can do this.  The current version 1.2 of SharkLinks allows you to create URL shortcuts by simply pressing the ‘New’ button in the application (below left) and then adding the ‘Name’ and ‘Link’ that you want.

In this way I proceeded to create over 100 shortcuts (using the keyboard on my PC with PDAReach) which I then filed in a new category called ‘SharkLinks’ (below).

However, the best thing about SharkLinks is that because they are created as .prc files you can easily share them with other people either by beaming, email directly from your Treo or find the file on your PC in the Palm or Treo ‘Backup’ folder.

This means that since I’ve already invested hours filling out these Top 100 links you won’t have to in return have to waste your time doing the same…  I have therefore created a ZIP file called SharkLinksPRC.zip which contains these 100+ links across 15 subfolders (from Email to Weather links) that you can now download and install on your Treo. 

You can also first just try this single SharkLink for Answers.com and install it as you would any normal .prc application on your Treo.  Finally, as SharkLinks are all self-contained files you don’t even need to have the application installed to make the links work – they’ll simply open with your Blazer browser when you click on them.

Overall, while the _individual_ links created work perfectly well SharkLinks nonetheless suffers from some shortcomings which I hope will be improved in future versions.  Among others I would look to:

• Enable access to ‘Keyboard’ function as for example the character ‘=’ cannot be written via the Treo keyboard alone
• Auto-create a ‘SharkLinks’ category when first installing the program
• Auto-file new links in the SharkLinks category
• Add an ‘Edit’ button!!!  Currently there is no way to edit whatsoever…
• Allow ‘grouping’ of links within the main application
• Pre-populate SharLinks with Top 50 online links so that Treonauts don’t have to input these manually…
• Add ‘Description’ information so that Treonauts sharing SharkLinks can also add view what some of the lesser known sites are about

Having said all this, SharkLinks is a terrific application which has in a very short time proven to be an absolutely terrific addition to my Treo and I can highly recommend that you install it to start creating + sharing your own links.  This is one new application that is certainly being added to my Top 100 list.

Treonauts are always looking for the best…