Xmarks Hits the Browser Bookmark Synching Spot

I got another productivity tool recommendation for y’all today. Xmarks. I discovered this a couple of months ago and I love, love, love it. If you work on multiple computers and/or multiple browsers, this is a must. What, you’re not using multiple browsers? Well, if you’re a professional creative, you should be!

Why You Should Work on Multiple Browsers

Before I started using WordPress for my blog and ShowIt Sites for my company’s website, I maintained my company’s website with Adobe’s Dreamweaver. Anyone who’s done any kind of extensive website development and/or design will tell you, you HAVE to test your sites in multiple browsers. That is the only way you can be sure of the end users’ experience. So I got into the habit of testing sites on multiple browsers. Now with the advent of HTML5, Apple’s proliferation of iPads and iPhones (which don’t do Flash), and so many video sharing sites, if you’re a video producer using the web, you’ll want to test how your videos look in various browsers as well.

Another reason I use multiple browsers is because of multiple online accounts. For instance, since Google owns YouTube, Google and YouTube accounts are connected. I’m logged into my Google docs and Gmail all the time. But sometimes I need to access the YouTube account for our photography company Teen Identity. It’s a pain to have to log out of my main Google accounts in order to log into the Teen Identity YouTube channel (my bladeronntertv channel is connected to my main Google account). The same thing goes for blip.tv, Facebook, and other Teen Identity social media accounts. Rather than log out of all my main accounts (Facebook, Twitter, blip.tiv, YouTube, etc.), I just open up Firefox or Safari (I now use Chrome as my main browser) and use one of those other browsers to do online Teen Identity work. It’s then easy to toggle back and forth between browsers using CMD-Tab.

Lastly, a majority of the work I do is on my desktop computer. But when I’m traveling, or when I’m surfing the internet in my comfy bed, I use the MacBook Pro. I therefore want to be able to easily access the sites I normally do via my bookmarks.

Xmarks Hits the Spot

Since I am doing so much work in multiple browsers, or on different computers, synching bookmarks is a necessity. I used to use delicious, but back when I was using Firefox, after I updated, my delicious plugins no longer worked. I had to find another solution. That’s when I discovered Xmarks. I’m so glad I did. It perfectly synchs my bookmarks, not only across different computers, but across different BROWSERS! That’s huge. That means when I’m working in another browser, I have access to all my usual bookmarks. But there are a few other cool features too.

• Online Access. If you’re on somebody else’s computer and need to see or access your bookmarks, just go to my.xmarks.com and log in.
• Share Bookmarks. From your my.xmarks.com page, you can share individual bookmarks or entire folders. You can then share a URL or RSS feed for that bookmark or folder. (Click here to see my “Filmmaking Resources” bookmarks. Don’t get happy. It’ ain’t very full.)
• Profiles. Maybe there are some bookmarks you don’t want synched. Or maybe you want one set of bookmarks for the office and another for home. Maybe you want a shorter list of bookmarks for your mobile phone. With bookmark profiles, you can set up multiple profiles to access the bookmarks you want from the places you want them.