It’s simple and fast to use. No sign-up is required; just enter a title for your slideshow and your list of URLs and hit “Create Link.” Here’s an example I created earlier. The buttons to navigate forwards and backwards through the slideshow remain unobtrusive until you move your mouse pointer to one side of the window; and there are also buttons for opening the current site in a new window.

Note: Some webpages won’t work with BridgeURL because certain websites (Facebook, for example) don’t allow their content to displayed in IFRAMEs. It’s worth quickly checking that your slideshow displays all the pages correctly before sharing it.

Found a useful free tool like BridgeURL? Share it in the comments.

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The Xmarks developers offer alternatives, but the only one they can suggest for Safari users is Apple’s  MobileMe service. As MobileMe costs $99 a year, subscribing just for the sake of syncing your Safari bookmarks is a bit costly. If you use any other browser, there are free alternatives such as Firefox Sync and Chrome Sync.

I’ve seen some weird and wacky ways of syncing Safari bookmarks, including emailing yourself every time you change your bookmarks, or simply “remember which bookmarks you’ve added and add them on the other machine(s),” neither of which are helpful. I’ve discovered a much more useful method involving Dropbox. It’s not as automatic as Xmarks was, but it gets the job done.

There are two ways of doing this: one uses a free download called SymbolicLinker, and the other uses Terminal.app. I’ll start by going through the steps for using SymbolicLinker, then I’ll talk about the Terminal method.

Using SymbolicLinker

1. Download SymbolicLinker. It can be found on MacUpdate. It’s not an application, but a Service you can install, which adds a new option when you right-click an item in the Finder. To install it, simply double-click the SymbolicLinker.service icon.
2. Get Dropbox. You can sign up for free. A free Dropbox account gives you 2GB of space. Obviously you can skip this step if you already have Dropbox.
3. Quit Safari. Safari will get confused if you start messing around with its files while it’s still running.
4. Create a ‘Bookmarks’ folder in Dropbox. It doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as you remember that it’s for your bookmarks.
5. Move the Bookmarks file from Safari to Dropbox. The file is called Bookmarks.plist and is located in [your Home folder]>Library>Safari. Make sure you move it rather than copy it over.
6. Create a symbolic link to the Bookmarks file. To do this, right-click Bookmarks.plist and choose Make Symbolic Link, which is the new option added by SymbolicLinker. Now drag the new file, ‘Bookmarks.plist symlink’, back to where you found the original file. Rename it back to ‘Bookmarks.plist’.

You can now re-open Safari to check that all your bookmarks are still there and that they work properly. Next, repeat these steps on the other computers you want to keep in sync:

1. Download and install SymbolicLinker. Do this exactly the same way as before.
2. Sync the computer with Dropbox. Make sure the new Bookmarks.plist file is completely downloaded before continuing.
3. Quit Safari.
4. Create a symbolic link to the Bookmarks.plist file in Dropbox. Delete the Bookmarks.plist file in Library>Safari and replace it with the symbolic link, again renaming it to simply ‘Bookmarks.plist’.
5. Reopen Safari and check it works. It should work first time, but if it doesn’t, retry the steps, and make sure Bookmarks.plist has a capital ‘B’.

The Terminal Method

Using Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal) achieves exactly the same thing, using the same method, but just doesn’t involve any downloads. For this example, I’m going to put the Bookmarks file into Dropbox>Safari, but it works for any folder. Just switch out the file paths in the Terminal.

1. Create your folder in Dropbox. Again, doesn’t matter what you call it.
2. Move the Bookmarks file into Dropbox. Once again, you need to make sure that you’re moving the file and not copying it, otherwise you get an error saying that the file already exists.
3. Navigate to the Safari folder using Terminal. This can be done by typing (or copying and pasting):

cd ~/Library/Safari

4. Create the symbolic link. Do this by entering the following into Terminal:

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Safari/Bookmarks.plist Bookmarks.plist

5. Restart Safari.

The Problem

Unfortunately, the problem with changing the Bookmarks.plist directly is you have to quit and reopen Safari in order to update the bookmarks on each machine. It’s still definitely a lot easier than remembering the bookmarks you’ve got and adding them to your other machines manually. Also, it doesn’t cost $99 a year.

I’m sure that there are a whole bunch of other methods, perhaps using Automator or maybe another service similar to Xmarks, which accomplish the same task. If you know about any of those, please share below.

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There was some uncertainty as to whether Apple would okay this app, but I’m guessing that it was approved because it doesn’t change the bookmarks in the iPhone’s Safari browser. Instead, one uses it by opening the Home app, and scanning or searching for tabs and bookmarks, which, when selected, open in Safari. Firefox Home doesn’t track or sync your browsing history on the iPhone. The new Xmarks iPhone app (iTunes link), which I haven’t tried yet, looks to be set up the same way.

To set up the Firefox Home app, you’ll need to create a Firefox Sync account if you don’t already have one, and install the Firefox Sync add-on to your desktop browser. Synced data can be saved on Mozilla’s servers, or you can set up your own server if you want more security.

The app’s design is simple and attractive, and does what it’s supposed to do. I found that the initial sync from my desktop machine took a while, but that’s to be expected, according to the app’s website.

Firefox Home doesn’t yet save or sync passwords, although Firefox Sync does, so I assume that this function will be added to a future release. Meanwhile, you can sync passwords to iPhone using such programs as 1Password and LastPass.

How do you sync browser information to your phone?

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Previously named Foxmarks, this plugin has now been made available for Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer as well as Firefox, which previously was the only browser it supported.

Once you’ve downloaded Xmarks for whichever browsers you use, all you have to do is set up an account and the software will do the rest, working either as a preferences pane or as a plugin directly in the browser. All your bookmarks, whether they are in the bookmarks toolbar or in the folder hierarchy, are sent to the cloud, ready for syncing with another computer. When you log in from the second computer, you can even choose whether to replace your local bookmarks or merge them with the cloud.

Now whenever you make a change to your bookmarks, even if you only change the name or the location of one of them, the changes are synced with the website and changed accordingly on your other computers.

Xmarks also allows you to access your bookmarks from the Xmarks website, which is useful if you need to access one of them from a public computer, for example. Also available on the website is the ability to search the web and have the results sorted by how many people have the site in their bookmarks, allowing you to find sites based on whether other people have decided they are good, rather than what a search engine decides.

This isn’t even about bookmarks. This is the first step of many to unite the desktop and the cloud. With Chrome OS, synchronization of data between a laptop and Google’s servers will be a huge selling point (or detraction, for privacy advocates), if the company can make it work seamlessly. After the brouhaha over the lack of viability for web apps on the iPhone — see Google’s lackluster Latitude “web app” — I am skeptical that Google can make an all-web-apps-all-the-time platform work on a full-fledged netbook, as it seems to be trying to do with Chrome OS. The company has been pushing the cloud pretty hard lately. This morning, Google announced it was launching a billboard-based ad campaign focused at getting IT staff to “Go Google” and switch their companies over to Google’s Apps platform.

Bookmarks sync on Chrome has been a requested feature for a while. Last December, a Google employee hinted that it was coming soon, saying “baked-in integration” between Chrome and Google Bookmarks was “definitely on our minds.” Apple has offered bookmark syncing between the browser and its MobileMe/DotMac service for years, though for some reason, the company removed online access to the bookmarks when MobileMe was rolled out. Popular browser add-on Xmarks is similar, and works on Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari — not just Chrome.

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The iPhone app does everything that the Firefox extension does, giving you the ability to mark web pages to read later and then catch up on your reading at a more suitable time. It supports offline viewing of downloaded content so you can save pages to view when you might have patchy reception. The interface is nicely designed, and it’s very easy to use.

What’s really cool is that you can sync Read It Later accounts between your computer (or computers, if you have several) and your iPhone. This means that while you’re working you can easily flag interesting content to read later in your browser. Before leaving the office for your journey home or the gym, sync up your iPhone and you’ll have all of that content downloaded and ready to read. Once you read the pages, they’ll be marked as such on your iPhone and on your computer.

This type of functionality is certainly not new (the iPhone app Instapaper is similar, for example) but Read It Later is more fully-featured and has a nicer interface.

The app comes in two flavors: Free and Pro. Pro costs just $2.99 and has some nice additional features, such as the ability to view content full-screen, screen rotation settings and a “Tap to Save” bookmarklet for adding content to your Read It Later list.

Do you use Read It Later?

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Going through the day-to-day realities of web crawling I find myself using the Favorites or Bookmarks feature of browsers less and less. Oddly enough, however, this statement is coming from the same guy with thousands of them backed up on multiple drives.

Early this week, I had an epiphany that resulted in me deleting thousands of old Bookmarks from Firefox, as I started filtering through a list which has been gathering digital dust for years. While narrowing down a list of seemingly endless Bookmarks, I noticed all of these web sites I no longer visit or, for that matter, remember. Many of these sites no longer existed or had since been left to ruin, and I began to remember how only a few years ago I typically carried a copy of my Bookmarks on a flash-drive wherever I went. But then I looked at a few of these old sites and started thinking… I started thinking about how someone such as myself can go from utilizing thousands of bookmarks to only using a select few.

I have noticed that many people such as I have began to use bookmarks less and less, but why?

RSS was one of the first widely used formats that allowed people to retrieve their information in quick truncated lists. Now that RSS has become mainstream, people have turned to Digg, Reddit or Delicious to not only uncover new Bookmarks but to store personal ones as well.

People are turning to more outlets for information than ever before. Services such as Facebook and Twitter have drastically changed how people receive information over the Internet. Allowing people to get vast quantities of information at any time, and thanks to the iPhone Apps for services such as these, we can now access this information anywhere.

The point is, people are moving away from using the Bookmarks feature of browsers and choosing a more advantageous route. People naturally want to find easier ways to accomplish tasks, and using services like Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious someone could find a link, a quote, song, or any other bit of information at any time of day. Where it is commonplace to update your Twitter status via your iPhone in the morning before brushing your teeth, and where people no longer mail invitations to a party, instead sending them via Facebook, it is in this same world that browser-based bookmarks have become obsolete.

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I have two computers: a MacBook Pro and an iMac. Even though Firefox 3 is my default browser on both computers, I regularly have at least three different browsers open to do what I need to do in my work day. Certain sites only work in Internet Explorer, while others simply behave better in Chrome or Safari. Other sites are bookmarked in Safari solely for the iPhone.

Foxmarks has long been the free go-to utility for syncing bookmarks between multiple instances of Firefox. I’ve long preferred Foxmarks to Mozilla Weave which, while it syncs more information between Firefox browsers, I’ve found to be less reliable. For non-Firefox browsers, I’ve had to use my.foxmarks.com to access sites using IE or Safari that are bookmarked in Firefox.

No more. Last week, Foxmarks introduced syncing for both IE and Safari (I can’t wait for a Chrome version).

How does it sync browsers that don’t support plug-ins the way Firefox does?

On the Mac, it installs a new system preference:

On the PC, it’s a little application that can also sit in the system tray:

This solution is not quite as elegant as it is for Firefox, where it can work entirely in the browser without requiring any additional system resources. On the other hand, you don’t have to wait for IE or Safari to launch to sync bookmarks, like you do with Firefox.

After a few hours of testing, I’m quite satisfied. Make a change to bookmarks in one browser, and within seconds the files are synced in all other browsers, regardless of the platform. I did notice that the Firefox “Bookmarks Toolbar” is renamed to “Links” during the sync and is accessible through a drop-down menu in the upper right corner.

Limitations:

• It does not appear that Foxmark’s new password syncing is available outside of Firefox. For site password syncing that is available cross-browser, I would highly recommend 1Password on the Mac (works in both Firefox and Safari) and RoboForm on the PC (works in IE and Firefox, among others, not including Chrome).
• On the Mac, it only works in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)
• On the PC, it only works in IE 6 & 7 and it’s a bit buggier than the Mac/Firefox syncing. It did crash IE once for me. Of all the browsers I use, I’m in IE the least so this is not an issue for me. But if IE is your mainstay browser, perhaps because a work-related application requires it, you should probably hold off on Foxmarks.

Have you tried Foxmarks? What tools do you use for browser bookmark syncing?

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Beyond that, they have plans to turn this collective intelligence of bookmarking into human-powered search, though those plans are as yet a bit fuzzy. Right now, their drag-and-drop user interface needs some tuning, and there’s not much content on the site yet. But if you’re not already committed to another bookmarking site, they might be worth a look.

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I am sure that Apple is doing all they can to make sure you don’t lose any data in the process, but it might not be a bad idea to back up everything if you have deleted it from your computer.

It looks like MobileMe will be available on July 10th for current .Mac subscribers, but July 11th is probably when Apple will start selling it officially, and add it back as an optional add-on for new computers. Or maybe it will be on sale tomorrow, since the Apple Store is down! and it is available as a boxed item from Amazon and Apple.

Apple is offering additional storage, above the standard 20GB for a very Apple-esque fee: 20 extra GB for $49/year and 40 extra GB for $99/year.

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