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If you have a large collection of coins, stamps, dolls, autographs, or anything else, you know that organizing and keeping track of your collection can be a challenge. A new web service called Squirl (http://squirl.info) makes organizing your collection easy and fun. It's free up to 200 items (and only $10/year for up to 5,000 items, with an unlimited plan coming soon) and all of your data is stored online so you can access it from anywhere!

Signing up for Squirl is free and only takes a minute. You'll need to provide an email address, login name, and password of your choice. You'll get a confirmation email from Squirl with a link to click on to verify your registration.

Once you've verified, you're ready to start posting your collection on the site. The site will prompt you to create your first collection and give it a name (e.g. "My Superman Action Figures"). At this stage, you have a few configuration choices to make. Within the "Create New Collection" menu, you can choose whether you want your collection to be private or public. If it's private, only you can see it. If it's public, anyone can see it. You can also configure settings such as whether or not you want people to be able to leave comments on your collection. Other settings let you choose how you want your collection to be displayed on the screen. All of these settings can be changed after you create your collection in case you change your mind about anything.

Now that you've created your collection, it's time to start adding to it! There are over thirty customized templates you can use for entering different types of collectibles on Squirl. These templates include Antiques, Books, Coins, Diecast Toys, Dolls, Ephemera, and many other common collectibles. If you don't see the category that's right for you, you can enter your items as "Things" and send the site owners a request for a new category. For books, movies, music, and video games, you can import items from Amazon, which makes adding to your collection very quick and easy. For each item you add to your collection, you can upload a picture and add a description. For large collections, you might want to consider Squirl's "batch upload" option, which lets you upload five pictures at a time. Here's an example of what a collection looks like:

In addition to giving you a tool for organizing your collections online, Squirl lets you network with other collectors. You can browse through and comment on members' collections, send them messages, and add them as your friends. It's a great way to see what other people have and to exchange information about your collectibles. To personalize your homepage and let other Squirl users know more about you, edit your profile using the "My Profile" link on the top of each page. In your profile, you can provide a picture and description of yourself. There's also a place to put a link to your website where you could link to your current eBay auctions, and you can include links to eBay in the description of any item on Squirl. So it's a great way to let people know what you currently have for sale on eBay.

All in all, Squirl is a great way to catalog and organize your collection. And the social aspects of the site give you the added bonus of being able to connect with other collectors around the world! Check it out at http://squirl.info.