del.icio.us

07 Sep 2004

I finally decided to start using del.icio.us to manage my bookmarks, because I have a disorganized collection residing on multiple computers and in multiple browsers - I can never find what I'm looking for. As an example, I can never remember the name of that Web site where you can check any mailbox or that list of PHP powered sites. Of course, this also means that it will take me quite a while to locate all of my bookmarks and import them into my del.icio.us bookmark collection.

Now, if only there were browser plugins for Firefox and Safari that integrated del.icio.us into the standard bookmark mechanism (with some intelligent caching to minimize traffic). I should be able to add a bookmark on any of my computers and see it in my bookmarks list on any other, and all that should be required is that I first set things up with my username and password. I should also be able to indicate whether a bookmark is public (del.icio.us) or private (local). If del.icio.us supported private bookmarks, there could be a third option.

I've looked at this Firefox extension, but I fail to see what it offers that I don't already have. Giving me the ability to post is great and all, but this bookmarklet already does that (I use the popup version).

So, if anyone is looking for a great project, write a del.icio.us Firefox extension. I would ask Apple to do the same for Safari, but I'll be satisfied when they finally fix the bug that prevents tabbing to select lists within HTML forms. If a browser can't handle simple HTML form elements correctly, del.icio.us integration is a bit too much to ask.

I think Joshua Schachter has created a really useful tool. Here's hoping that browsers catch up.