Synchronizing Your Bookmarks On All Your PCs

如今很多人都有不止一台的电脑：家里有一台办公室有一台；很多人还不止用一种网络浏览器，这样你的网络书签（也就是IE中的“我的最爱”）就很难统一起来。打个比方，在办公室个人电脑上用微软的IE浏览器上网时，你将某个网站标注为“我的最爱”，可你家里那台Mac电脑的苹果Safari浏览器是不会自动将其标上书签的。不过最近我试用了一个刚推出的免费新程序，该程序能够帮你解决这个问题。它可以自动同步你每台电脑中的网络书签，适用于Windows系统和Mac系统，涵盖了IESafari和火狐(Firefox)等一众主流浏览器。也就是说，在运行Windows XP或Vista系统的个人电脑上，它和IE和火狐浏览器兼容，也适用于Mac电脑的Safari和火狐浏览器。foxmarks.com这个程序就是旧金山Foxmarks公司推出的Foxmarks系统。Foxmarks系统大约在2006年便已推出，不过当时仅适用于火狐浏览器，所以起了这么个名字。不过Windows系统也好，Mac系统也好，火狐都不是用户最多的浏览器，所以Foxmarks公司决定将其扩展至Windows系统内置的IE浏览器（当然也是全世界用户最多的浏览器）及Mac系统内置的Safari浏览器。这个新版软件可以在foxmarks.com上下载，它不仅仅可以同步同一种浏览器不同版本的书签，还可以同步不同浏览器的书签，甚至Windows电脑和Mac电脑之间的书签也能通过它实现同步。在我的测试中，Foxmarks运行效果很好，只有几个微不足道的瑕疵。在试用了五天后，我在Windows电脑和Mac电脑上十二种不同版本的IE火狐和Safari浏览器上已经有了完全一样的书签，次序也完全一致。Foxmarks有分别针对这三种主流浏览器的版本，不过都对应于同一个设置有密码的网络账户，该账户中保留了用户最近的书签信息。你在任何一台电脑的任何一种浏览器上添加删除重命名或者重新排布书签时，Foxmarks软件都会把相关改变的信息发送至这个网络账户。当你下一次通过其他浏览器查验该网络账户时，便会接收到修改的信息。比如，我在测试的时候，在我运行Vista系统的戴尔电脑上使用火狐浏览器登陆网站，给维基百科的一篇文章加了书签。Foxmarks便在这台戴尔电脑的IE以及我的苹果Mac电脑的火狐和Safari浏览器中也都加了同样的书签。而且，维基百科这篇文章的书签在两台电脑中的位置也是一致的。还有一次，我在一台Mac电脑上调整了Safari浏览器的Bookmarks Bar中两个书签的次序，这个调序在Windows电脑IE的Links Toolbar和火狐Bookmarks Toolbar中都得到了体现。假使你并不需要同步每一台电脑上的书签，那你也可以在工作电脑和家用电脑上设置不同的书签内容。你可以在任何一台电脑（不是你自己的电脑也可以）上输入密码，进入保存有你的书签信息的网页，也可以通过iPhone或其他智能手机的浏览器进入这个网页一个定制化的版本。你还可以创建手机网络浏览器的书签配置，不过手机的书签无法做到同步。在这个网页上，你可以变更原先设置的书签，这些改动随后会传输至你所用电脑的浏览器。你还可以通过电邮或RSS跟他人分享你的书签。除了Foxmarks之外，还有其他一些网络书签工具，比如常见的Delicious书签工具，不过据我所知，这些工具都无法实现自动同步不同浏览器及电脑之间的书签，而这正是Foxmarks的主要功能。Foxmarks还有一个功能：可以将你存下的一些经常使用的网站密码进行同步。不过这个功能只适用于火狐浏览器，而且在我试用时，并不是每次都管用。该软件还有其他几个局限及不足。其用于IE浏览器的版本仍被标注为beta版或是测试版，因为它在同步IE书签时偶尔还会出错，在Vista系统中尤为如此。我在测试时就碰到了这样的情况，所以我在Vista系统中使用Foxmarks时会特别地谨慎，不过它在Windows XP系统中表现还是很稳定的。此外它目前仅适用于IE 6和IE 7版本，还不能够支持最新的IE 8版本。在Mac电脑上，Foxmarks只适用于最新的Leopard操作系统和最新的Safari三版，不适用Safari的Windows版本。此外，同步也不是即时实现的。电脑需要一个小时后才能从网站处获取到相关的变化信息。Foxmarks公司计划继续免费提供Foxmarks软件，他们把盈利的希望寄托在未来的其他产品上。Foxmarks是一款设计巧妙的好产品，用户通过它可以在多台电脑多种浏览器间有条不紊地享受网络生活。Walter S. Mossberg（编者按：本文作者Walter S. Mossberg是《华尔街日报》科技栏目Personal Technology，Mossberg's Mailbox等栏目的专栏作家。这些栏目主要介绍一些最新的消费类科技产品和解决方案，并解答读者提出的问题。）


Lots of people now have multiple computers, at home and at work, and many use more than one Web browser. That makes it hard to keep bookmarks straight. If, for instance, you bookmark a Web site as a 'Favorite' on your PC at work using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, it doesn't automatically show up as a bookmark in Apple's Safari browser on your Macintosh at home.But I've been testing a new, free program, available now, that aims to solve this problem. It synchronizes your bookmarks automatically among all your computers, Windows or Mac, and across all the main brands of Web browsers -- Internet Explorer, Safari and Mozilla's Firefox. On PCs running Windows XP or Vista, it works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. On Macs, it works with Safari and Firefox.The program is called Foxmarks, and it's from a San Francisco company of the same name. The Foxmarks software has been around since 2006, but worked only with the Firefox browser -- hence the name. Yet Firefox isn't the dominant choice on either Windows or Mac. So the company decided to expand the product to Internet Explorer, which is the built-in browser on Windows (and thus No. 1 in the world) and Safari, which is the built-in browser on Mac.This new version, available for download at foxmarks.com, doesn't merely synchronize your bookmarks between copies of the same browser. It synchronizes them between different browser brands, even if some are running on Windows PCs and some on Macs.In my tests, Foxmarks worked well, with a few minor caveats. After using it for five days, I now have exactly the same set of bookmarks (or Favorites, in Internet Explorer's parlance), arranged in the same order, on multiple computers -- Windows and Mac -- in a total of 12 different copies of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.There's a different version of Foxmarks customized for each of the three main browsers, but each talks to the same password-protected Web account, which contains the latest version of your bookmarks. When you add, delete, rename or rearrange any bookmark in any browser on any of your computers, the Foxmarks software sends the change up to the Web account. Then, the next time any of your other browsers checks with the Web account, it receives the change.For example, in my tests, I bookmarked a Wikipedia article in Firefox on my Dell running Windows Vista. Foxmarks then caused that same new bookmark to appear in Internet Explorer on the same Dell, and in both Firefox and Safari on my Apple Macintosh computer. And, on each machine, the new bookmark for the Wikipedia article was in the same location.In another case, I changed the order of two bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar in Safari on one of my Macs, and the same re-ordering was replicated on a Windows PC in the Links Toolbar of IE and in the Bookmarks Toolbar of Firefox.If you don't want exactly the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, you can set up different profiles with different bookmarks for your work and home computers.You can access the password-protected Web site containing your bookmarks from any PC, even if it isn't one of yours, and can view a customized version of this site via the browser on an iPhone or other smart phone. You can even set up a mobile profile that will show you just a subset of your bookmarks in your phone's Web browser, though you can't sync bookmarks to and from a phone.From the Web, you can alter your bookmarks, and these changes will then be pushed down to the browsers on your computers. You also can share bookmarks with others via email or an RSS feed.There are other Web-based repositories of bookmarks, notably a service called Delicious. But none that I know of automatically synchronizes bookmarks among browsers and computers, which is the main function of Foxmarks.Foxmarks has another feature: It can also sync stored passwords for Web sites you frequently visit. But this trick works only in Firefox, and in my tests didn't work properly all the time.The software has a few other limitations and glitches. The Internet Explorer version is still labeled a beta, or test, version because it still produces occasional syncing errors, especially in Vista. That was true in my tests, and I'd be wary of using it with Vista, though it performed solidly in Windows XP. It works reliably only with Internet Explorer 6 or 7, not the pre-release version of Internet Explorer 8, which the company isn't yet supporting.On the Mac, Foxmarks works only with the current Leopard version of the operating system and the current version 3 of Safari. It doesn't work with the Windows version of Safari.And syncing isn't instant. It can take as long as an hour for each computer to check with the Web site and get the changes.The company plans to keep Foxmarks free, but is hoping to make money from future, unspecified products.Foxmarks is a clever, well-done product that can help users of multiple computers and multiple browsers to keep their Web lives in order.Walter S. Mossberg