LastPass Buys Xmarks

LastPass Buys Xmarks | Kara Swisher

Looks like Xmarks has a new home & owner and will live on for its fans.

It will be interesting to see what freemium model LastPass might use, and will enough of those fans who pledged, now pay-up.

End of the Road for Xmarks (née Foxmarks)

Over four years ago, I leapt on Mitch Kapor's fledgling service to sync browser bookmarks.

For some time during my Firefox days, I was a committed user, utilising the product to sync bookmarks (and later passwords)  between at least three machines, and then different browser brands as support for them became available.

Then along came Chrome with its sync'ing capability. Chrome (for a number of reasons) became my primary browser on all my machines. Xmarks played its part for me when I moved to OS X to occasionally keep Chrome and Safari bookmarks sync'd, but but no longer was it in daily use.

Over the years, I watched with interest as Xmarks strived to build a scalable, sustainable business model, without success. Todays announcement bravely explains it all.

Rumour has it they came close to a deal with Google, and also that the code may now go Open Source.

Quoting Todd, who quotes Douglas, "..thanks for all the fish".

Google Sites ...or JotSpot reborn

Not exactly a Lotus Notes or MS Sharepoint killer, but pretty good collaborative free/low cost alternative! Another route for Corporates to lose IS control, and potentially leak intellectual property.

Facebook Widget Installing Spyware

The first of many? Another good reason to be wary of pimping out your Facebook profile!

Fortinet Global Security Research Team discovered a malicious Facebook Widget (officially, a "Platform Application") actively spreading on the social networking site which ultimately prompts users to install the infamous "Zango" adware/spyware.

FortiGuard Center - FortiGuard Advisory - Facebook Widget Installing Spyware

I share my birthday with...

:-)

Unfinished Symphony?

So today, IBM launches Lotus Symphony, a free, open-source "suite" of office apps in an attempt to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Office.

Who remembers the first incarnation? I do, I was working for Lotus Development when we launched "innovative" integrated office app, Lotus Symphony for DOS, back in the mid-80's; remember the hard plastic, strangely shaped, large slip case for all the manuals & (floppy!) disks?

A bit of deja vu occurring for me here!

IBM Software - Want really simple syndication? Subscribe to Lotus Notes software.

I'll be trying this new feature out soon..... 

Link to IBM Software - Want really simple syndication? Subscribe to Lotus Notes software.

Import Contacts from Thunderbird to Gmail

With the attraction of the recently launched Google calendar functionality, I wanted to migrate a number of family email accounts to use Gmail.

Contacts needed to be exported from Thunderbird and imported to Gmail. The version of Thunderbird in use (1.0.6) exports Contacts fine to a CSV file, but omits a header row, so Contact import fails to Gmail.

Slightly annoying, but easily fixed by pasting the header row below at the start of the CSV file. Not rocket science, but might save someone a few minutes.

first name,last name,display name,nickname,email address,alt email address, work phone,home phone,fax,pager,mobile,address1,address2,city,state,zip,country,work address1,work address2,work city,work state, work zip,,,,organization,,,,,,,,,,notes