Captive Bookmarks
I’m feeling a bit trapped with my current online bookmarking service, BlinkList. I have over 500 bookmarks there… and I see no way to get them out in a usable fashion. Distressing. Normally such things don’t bug me, but things have been a bit unstable there this past week and I began to wonder just how “trapped” am I there?
To be fair, BlinkList does offer an export facility to back up bookmarks. And it works. I have a nice tidy little XML file here with all my bookmarks in it. However… I can’t do anything with it! In fact, I can’t even import the damned thing back into BlinkList. Doh.
I found a utility last night that alleges it will convert a BlinkList export to a del.icio.us format, Firefox format or Blogmarks (which isn’t real necessary as Blogmarks has an importer). Alas, so far all it has done for me is provide a new and reliable way to get server 500 errors. Well, I should be fair: I suspect my file is too large. I tried splitting it in half (and preserved the proper XML, no worries) and that still blew up. However, a file with one bookmark in it worked. So I have to find the sweet spot between 1 and 250 I reckon. Stay tuned on that if I find some free time soon….
[update: Keep the input file around 1500 lines or less and that utility seems to handle 'em much better]
[update2: Don't waste your time. The generated del.icio.us format doesn't actually work for del.icio.us. Suppose I'll see if I can at least convert to FF browser format next.]
[update3: Whoops. Converting to Firefox browser format is an excellent way to lose all the tags. Screw that.]
Blogmarks was able to import my BlinkList export. Had a few false starts last night (site was very unstable, I’m guessing I was trying this during a maintenance window). But now I’m in a similar situation there as again, I can’t really get my bookmarks out in a useable fashion. I was able to export from here to a del.icio.us format that del.icio.us won’t touch. Glancing at that export, I’m guessing it’s from an older version as it doesn’t look at all like what del.icio.us uses these days. (and can I just say, typing “del.icio.us” over and over is tedious as all hell?).
Frankly, I think that at a minimum, every bookmarking/social-bookmarking service should offer one useful export format. Perhaps the Firefox bookmark manager format? They pretty much all will import from that… so why not export back to it?
Possibly Related posts:
- My Bookmarks Aren’t Quite So Captive
- Social Bookmarking: BlogMarks.net
- Ma.Gnolia.com – the latest Social Bookmarking site
- Social Bookmarking: Blinklist
- Solved: Del.icio.us Imported Items Are All Private
Comments
4 Responses to “Captive Bookmarks”
Leave a Reply
Referrals and Ads
Flair and Sparklies
In fact there is an XBEL format which is created for bookmarks exchange.
Is it a secret or am I just missing it on the social bookmark sites? Or is it the dreaded “standard that nobody uses?”
Well, it’s used sometimes… but the real reason (I think) is that all those social bookmark sites are not interested in giving you the way out. They show you ads and raise money on that.
If you will be able to switch your online bookmark storage provider with a few clicks – this will blow up a lot of businesses.
[...] A couple months ago I was griping about BlinkList’s export ability. In short, you could export, but there really wasn’t much you could actually do with that export that didn’t involve some pretty serious hoop-jumping. [...]