While we were developing SharingLinks, I polled my Surfnetkids readers to learn more about what worked and what didn’t work with their current bookmarking system.

Based on feedback from more than three hundred Surfnetkids readers, I learned quite a bit. For starters, most have between 100 and 500 bookmarks, add sites to their bookmarks a few times a week, and access their bookmarks everyday.

Yet they mostly were frustrated with their current bookmarking system. Here are a few of the complaints:

• “I feel that my current method is disorganized.”
• “I use one computer at school and one at home. I would like to be able to access my bookmarks from any computer.”
• “I hate that they are not alphabetized or in categories.”
• “Accessibility is an issue - I have one set of bookmarks at home and another one at school. I often end up needing one that is at the “other location.” I would also like to be able to move them around in the list more than I am allowed to do, also.”
• “I use different computers so I have to repeat bookmarks.”

And that’s just four comments from over three hundred! I knew we were on the right path with SharingLinks as I read through the feedback.

Sharing Links is an online bookmark manager that will allow you to access your bookmarks from any computer anywhere, to categorize them with tags, or to display them in alphabetic order. Please give it try, and let me know what you think.

Today’s video topic is how to copy your existing Firefox bookmarks into Sharing Links. The process consists of two steps:

• First an export from Firefox
• Then an import into Sharing Links

Open Firefox, then click Bookmarks and Manage Bookmarks (you might need to scroll up if you do not see Manage Bookmarks at the top of your Bookmark list)

Then from the Bookmark Manager, it is File/ Export. Remember where you save your bookmarks.html file, because you are going to need to find it in step two.

Now, visit http://www.sharinglinks.com/importbrowser/ . (If you forget the name of the page, you’ll find it on the HELP page)

Click Browse to find your saved bookmarks.html file. Select your privacy option (we recommend Public whenever possible) and it a few seconds you will be redirected to YOUR Bookmarks page.

Add tags to apply to imported links. Check Use Folder Names as Tags if your bookmarks are organized in folders.
*If you import a single folder (without any sub-folders), you can not use the feature. You must have both a “Parent Folder” and a “Child Folder” in order to use the “Child Folder” names as tags.

Now is a good time to add tags. Start by clicking Edit, then by clicking on previously used tags, or entering new ones in the tag data entry field. End by clicking Save Changes.

1. Log in to the export page at del.icio.us.

2. Save the resulting XML file to your computer.

3. Click Browse… to find this file on your computer. The maximum size the file can be is 1MB.

4. Select the default privacy setting for your imported bookmarks.

5. Click Import to start importing the bookmarks; it may take a minute.

Moving your bookmarks (or favorties) from your brower requires two steps: first an export, then an import.

1. Export your bookmarks from your browser to a file:
* Internet Explorer: File > Import and Export… > Export Favorites
* Mozilla Firefox: Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks… > File > Export…
* Netscape: Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks… > Tools > Export…

2. Visit the Sharing Links Import page. Click Browse… to find the saved bookmark file on your computer. The maximum size the file can be is 1MB.
* Select the default privacy setting (we recommend Public) for your imported bookmarks.
* Click Import to start importing the bookmarks; it may take a minute.