So it is with webpages. They might vanish between the time you discover them and your next visit. The desire to access otherwise evaporated pages spurred the creation of iCyte. And I say good riddance to that evil Web Page Not Found error message.

While it's nice to have your own personal Wayback Machine, iCyte offers more. Think of it as "bookmarks meet TIVO." Instead of recording television programs for later viewing, you save webpages for later scrutiny. Add annotations in the form of tags and notes, as well as the ability to share your findings with others, and you've got an effective research tool. Forget all that copying and pasting. Say goodbye to slogging through acres of possibly pertinent bookmarks. Add power to your research by collaborating with others.

Yet, inevitably, the cheeky question must be asked: Why bother with iCyte when you already have bookmarks?

Bookmarks have served us well and have a place in the cosmos. You don't need iCyte, for example, just to go to the homepage of Politico, eBay, or some other browsing oasis. However, if you want to save a page on one of those sites for retrieval later, and if you want a nicely organized bundle of pages, iCyte is your ally. Being able to access a page that might otherwise be lost in the ozone is good. Quickly and easily fetching a page or collection of pages is even better.

Starting Up
Set up is simple. Go to the iCyte homepage and click on Create Account. The next window that appears is the download page.

The only browsers iCyte works with-at the time of this writing-are Internet Explorer and Firefox. (iCyte prefers Firefox.) Safari? No dice! Google Chrome? Forget it for now. According to an iCyte spokesman, "The HTML5 database API isn't supported in Google Chrome. The Google Chrome team plans to support the HTML5 database API, as well as the other APIs that WebKit supports, including offline and workers, in a future release." Just for the record, I miss my Google Chrome.

So assuming you are using an approved browser, you just download and install iCyte. Next, set up a new account by supplying your name, email address, and password. (Later on, the email address and password will be the sign-in open sesames.) Two iCyte icons, placed between the homepage icon and the address bar, will appear on your toolbar.

Instructions, Please
The program is almost intuitive, yet it is the "almost" that got me into trouble.

After installing iCyte on the desktop, I innocently tried to install it on my laptop. I found myself staring into the abyss of limp documentation. Those of us who are too literal-minded or too trusting (or both) have been stung before.

When you arrive at the iCyte homepage for the first time (or for the first time on a particular computer), you are greeted with Download Now and Start a New Account. And if you click on download now, it takes you to start a new account.

"But I already have an account," I sobbed.

I navigated all around the iCyte site, searching for the door that sidestepped the start-a-new-account invite. Exhausted by the cyber loop-the-loop ride, I finally just said, "What the hell. I'll just start a new account." It was only then that I was proffered a little "Already have an iCyte account?" Phew! Neither Help nor FAQ pages offered guidance for additional downloads.

Sometimes iCyte's instructions were too general when they should be specific, and sometimes they seemed specific but weren't. Generally, the documentation was helpful, but there were moments that caused me to tremble. The good news is that support via email was helpful and courteous. And, to be fair, iCyte continually refines its documentation.