(Google Chrome) Bookmarks

Since around October 2008 I have been using Google’s browser Chrome as my default browser. Upon installing I imported my Firefox bookmarks into it and you can imagine that by now I have collected quite a bunch of other bookmarks.

I think that the Google Chrome browser is a reasonably good browser, but what they don’t tell you is that exporting your bookmarks is a general pain in the butt. Oh yeah, you can export a list of your bookmarks as an html file, but the entire structure you have worked on to organise your bookmarks to be able to find them in the first place is then completely gone!

On top of that, Chrome is not available for Mac.
Anyways, this post is about a solution, not about making more problems.

At first I thought that it would be an idea to export add all my bookmarks to delicious, but after 20 orso and almost 500 to go I decided that that would become my last resort.

When I started my search on how to solve this annoying problem, I stumbled upon a solution from someone who experienced the same and actually had made a little program for it: ChromeDump by Mark Clouden. As described in the program:

This program was created to provide a few simple maintenance tasks for the Google Chrome browser that are not yet available through that application itself.

With one mouse-click ChromeDump creates an HTML file that shows all your bookmarks in the right categories and order. Chrome itself seems to be doing the same only Chrome’s HTML file is useless and ChromeDump’s file is valuable! Just look at the difference in filesize!

Then I set to organise bookmarks in Firefox on my PC and imported my ChromeDump file. For that to work you need to go into the Organize Bookmarks menu of Firefox (ctrl shift B) and then click Import and Backup. From the dropdown menu choose import HTML, select the file and your import will be complete.

Then I exported this file into an html file, moved to my iMac and imported it there in Firefox. On some old forums they say that to import Firefox bookmarks into Safari is just a matter of drag and drop, but I do not recommend that. It is much better to import the HTML file you also used for the Firefox import, as the structure of your bookmarks remains.

delicious to Firefox

Since I’m talking about bookmark migration, I also want to add something else. It can happen that you want to synchronise your delicious bookmarks with your Firefox bookmarks. The recommended way to do that is not to export your Firefox bookmarks, but instead to backup them. Firefox will then create a file with a JSON extension, something that sounds pretty incompatible with anything else. Fortunately there is a free tool available which is called del.icio.us to Firefox by fellow Dutch-man E-Accent and Jackfruit Design.
Here you can upload your delicious html file and your Firefox json file and the online tool merges these two together and outputs an html file that you can import back into Firefox.

OK enough on bookmarks now, in my next post I will describe what alternatives I am using now for programs that are not available (for free) to the Mac user.

Outlook

For exporting Outlook uses .pst files whereas Apple uses .mbox files for email, .vcf files for contacts and .ics files for calendar items. Unfortunately the different Microsoft and Apple file types are not interchangeable.

Browsing the net for a solution I quickly discovered that a free AND smooth conversion from Outlook to Apple Mail is not possible.

Probably the cheapest solution is to download O2M from Little Machines; it costs only 10 bucks. There are other options out there, but they’re all more expensive, so why bother if the end result is the same?

For now O2M only supports U.S./English versions of Windows and Outlook, so that is something to keep in mind. You can select which folders to add and for your calendar you can select a certain date range.

Before I set O2M to use, I decided that now was the time to clean up my email and I archived everything from before January this year.

Then I let the program do its job and copied the results to an external HD to be able to move it all to my new iMac.

Easier than making Apple pie!

[screenshot courtesy littlemachines.com]

In the computer department on the 2nd floor, the first display was that of Apple, the brand that lately has become more and more of interest to us.

This particular week the special deal they had was actually pretty good, so I decided to pay a bit closer attention to them and ask a few questions.

Mia and I have been talking quite a bit about “The Switch” (from PC to Mac) and it seems that unless you do it in the spur of the moment, there is not “the right time” for it ever!

[singlepic id=531 w=320 h=240 float=left]Mia was therefore very surprised when I came home with a MacBook Pro for her and the iMac for me! On top of that I also brought a 320GB HD for her and a 500 GB HD for me; those were part of the special offer.

Well and from that afternoon onwards we have been in the process of converting from PC to Mac.

Of course we knew upfront that it would be quite a lengthy process to get everything right and working on the Mac’s. Everyone who has done it says that the first few days are the hardest, you’ll get used to it very quick and once you’re a Mac-user you will say that you should have done “The Switch” many years earlier.

Well, I’m not there yet as I’m still in my first week, but I’m on the right track and getting there eventually.

I will write a few other posts about the exact conversion processes of for example Outlook and (Google Chrome) bookmarks and the alternatives I am using for Dreamweaver, WinSCP and others.