Can't save anything for past few days
xionga
I've used Furl for years. For the past four or five days, whenever I
try to save something, I get a notice that I should update and am
directed to the tools page. Nothing about updating there but, what the
heck, I've tried every option there--installing again (I'm told I
already have the toolbar), adding icons. Nothing improves. And, no, I
can't ignore he notice about updating; I don't have any choice in the
matter.
There's a link "if you have problems." I've filled out that form
several times but it's like sending a complaint to Microsoft: you know
it's hopeless. I'm also supposed to get a copy of my complaint sent to
my e-mail box but I've never gotten one.
I guess I'll go try Simpy. I tried Scrapbook--yuck.
GeoFan49
I have not had any trouble with FURL.NET, today or yesterday.
I use the bookmarklet, not the toolbar. I do know that there was an
update of the bookmarklet code, but that was more than a few months
ago... When was the last time you updated your FURL bookmarklet?
After you login at FURL.NET, use My Tools... "Installing" a Furl
Button -- to get a new copy of the javascript.
...
Let us know if that helps, or not.
If you do go to Simpy, let us know what you like and dislike, after
you have some experience with it.
If you want to do some troubleshooting, you can try this, and report
back:
... How can I use Furl to save pages from a computer where I can't
install the button or toolbar?
Follow these steps when you come across a Web page you want to Furl.
1. Open a new browser window.
2. Type http://www.furl.net/save into the address field.
3. You will be prompted to log in. Enter your account username and
password.
4. You will then access the "Furl It - Save" page. Enter all the
relevant details for the page (Title, URL, Topic, etc.). When entering
the URL (Web site address), be sure to include http:// at the
beginning of the address, so it will be saved correctly.
5. Press the Save button and you're done.
...
Sierra Web
You all heard the CEO of LookSmart call Furl, Furl.net in the company
conf call the other day?
He said Furl.COM is for sale.
The good news is whoever buys it will make the improvements LookSmart
neglected.
On Nov 12, 1:23 pm, GeoFan49 <Geo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> xionga,
>
> I have not had any trouble with FURL.NET, today or yesterday.
>
> I use the bookmarklet, not the toolbar. I do know that there was an
> update of the bookmarklet code, but that was more than a few months
> ago... When was the last time you updated your FURL bookmarklet?
> After you login at FURL.NET, use My Tools... "Installing" a Furl
> Button -- to get a new copy of the javascript.
>
> ...
>
> Let us know if that helps, or not.
>
> If you do go to Simpy, let us know what you like and dislike, after
> you have some experience with it.
>
> If you want to do some troubleshooting, you can try this, and report
> back:
>
> ... How can I use Furl to save pages from a computer where I can't
> install the button or toolbar?
>
> Follow these steps when you come across a Web page you want to Furl.
>
> 1. Open a new browser window.
> 2. Typehttp://www.furl.net/saveinto the address field.
xionga
I got a reply from Furl and now it works. FWIW, I know how to access
Furl when I'm not at my own computer, but that method didn't work.
Here is the reply I got in case someone else gets into the same trap.
I didn't have uninstall the old version.
"First of all, my apologies for the lengthy delay in replying to you.
The endless upgrade loop you were encountering was due to a nasty bug
that went to production with our major release last week. It puts
users
to upgrade but then doesn't allow them to successfully update Furl
Tools.
We believe we have fixed this issue as of this afternoon. You should
be
able to go to Furl and successfully download and update your Furl
tools.
If for whatever reason this fix hasn't gone into effect here's how to
get Furl up and running for you again.
Please go to http://furl.net/tools/install and install the latest Furl
button or toolbar. You may need to uninstall your older version of
Furl
button / toolbar manually. By manually updating your Furl button or
toolbar will resolve the issue you are reporting.
If you have any issues with the installation, please do not hesitate
to
let me know.
Again, our sincere apologies for the frustrating experience.
Regards,
The Furl Team"
What about Simply or Smarky? Well, since you asked ...It's not very
intuitive. I think I can speak for a lot of other journalists. We're
all constantly collecting paper clippings and filing them, without
having a particular story in mind. We may haul them around for years.
So, except for the particularly technophobic, I recommend Furl. I
don't think I would suggest Simpy to many and, even then, I would
suggest it only to people already adept at Furl.
You've got to rewrite the instructions with a professional writer.
Yes, the grammar and punctuation aren't bad (so at least it wasn't
written by an English person! And I don't think it ever says--
ugh!--"successfully update/download.whatever"), but a professional
writer asks: "What does the user want to know?" *If I want to copy
this page, what steps do I take?* Number the steps. Use an example.
Offer a screenshot if you can. If this was in the FAQs, I missed it.
Do two how-to sections: one for beginners, and the other for more
adventurous experienced users. As it is now, there's way too much
information, in a very cluttered format.
To give you an idea of my problems: My favorite thing about Furl is
the ability to save articles that will drop behind a pay wall after a
week or two. Actually, I save a private copy of just about everything
that way because who knows what will disappear? I couldn't really
figure out how to use Simpy, so what I hit on was going to Simpy and
the "Notes" part and then copying the article as a note and adding
tags. For the first tag, I always used a familiar topic from my Furl
files. I don't understand how the Bookmarks feature works, but it
appears to be totally divorced from this Note feature. It also seemed
that once you had a Bookmark called "unnamed bookmark" or something
similar, it was impossible to rename it.
Give an option for the user to see nobody else's tags. I don't give a
damn about who else is using the same tags as I, though I don't mind
if anyone else can see mine. On Furl, it's sometimes interesting to
see that one topic of mine, which most people would think is obscure.
consistently gets a large number of views. But it's not an important
feature. I'm interested in what I'm interested in.
I don't see how importing Furl files into Simpy would work because the
latter doesn't have topics and Furl only introduced tags in the last
year or so.
On Furl, it would be nice if the Topics could contain Sub-topics.
Then, if you found yourself with 40 or 100 articles under one topic,
you could sub-group them by months or years. I don't agree that
classifying a thousand or 10,000 articles by folders (or topics, as in
Furl) is so daunting because isn't that the way they're filed on our
computers? I'm a very messy person otherwise, but if I've saved
something, as paper or in digital form, I can find, usually very
easily. Being able to able to search them with keywords (or tags) is a
huge help, but I wouldn't want to dispense with folder names or the
tree branch system.
Best regards.
On Nov 13, 4:23 am, GeoFan49 <Geo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> xionga,
>
> I have not had any trouble with FURL.NET, today or yesterday.
>
> I use the bookmarklet, not the toolbar. I do know that there was an
> update of the bookmarklet code, but that was more than a few months
> ago... When was the last time you updated your FURL bookmarklet?
> After you login at FURL.NET, use My Tools... "Installing" a Furl
> Button -- to get a new copy of the javascript.
>
> ...
>
> Let us know if that helps, or not.
>
> If you do go to Simpy, let us know what you like and dislike, after
> you have some experience with it.
>
> If you want to do some troubleshooting, you can try this, and report
> back:
>
> ... How can I use Furl to save pages from a computer where I can't
> install the button or toolbar?
>
> Follow these steps when you come across a Web page you want to Furl.
>
> 1. Open a new browser window.
OG
I see several mentions of Simpy. With Furl.net about to be sold, that
is to be expected. Let me respond to some of the remarks made, even
though I don't fully follow all that was said in this last post in
this thread:
1. "not very intuitive" remark must be about the UI. Since the last
message mentions both Simpy and Smarky, I am not sure to which of the
two this remark refers to. If it's about Simpy, then indeed the UI
could use some work. However, if you spend just a few minutes on
simpy.com you will quickly figure it all out -- all main functionality
that you will want to use frequently can be accessed with the single
click in the navigation bar at the top of every simpy.com page. I
recommend logging in, at least using the available demo/demo account,
because logged in users are not shown *any ads*, thus making the pages
more readable. Only logged out visitors and passer-bys are shown ads,
so thank them for keeping Simpy free! :)
2. Re: "successfully update/download.whatever" not showing up, I'm not
sure which portion of the service you are referring to, but it
definitely see a similar message upon a successful bookmark upload.
Are you referring to Simpy or Smarky?
3. Indeed, Notes and Bookmarks are two separate features. You can
enter notes in bookmarks, too, but Notes are designed for longer
textual content. It sounds like you are after 'cached page' type of
feature, the feature that makes Furl look like an archive. You'll be
pleased to hear that Simpy has that feature ready, too, and it will be
available in the next release, either later this month or in early
December.
4. Using Simpy in an "asocial fashion" is definitely available - just
change the appropriate setting from Public to Private in your
preferences - http://simpy.com/preferences . Your bookmarks and their
tags will not be seen by anyone but you, unless you choose to
explicitly share them. You can override this every time you add a new
bookmark or edit an old one. Your Notes are always private, as are
your Watchlists and Watchlist filters. Groups can be public or
private, and more.
5. You can easily use tags to replace Topics. Tags are a lot more
flexible in many ways. Use Simpy's search functionality (within your
own bookmarks or notes, for example), it's quite powerful - check the
FAQ at http://simpy.com/faq showing a number of search options, which
are a lot like Google's.
You can see what others have said about Simpy: http://www.simpy.com/testimonials
You can ask questions about Simpy on http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/simpy-user/
If you would like to import your Furl bookmarks into Simpy, please let
us know. The best way to express your interest in that is via
http://simpy.com/contact (or via simpy-user list above).
I hope this helps.
On Nov 16, 2:55 pm, xionga <susanjcunning...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, GeoFan49 for your kind response.
>
> I got a reply from Furl and now it works. FWIW, I know how to access
> Furl when I'm not at my own computer, but that method didn't work.
> Here is the reply I got in case someone else gets into the same trap.
> I didn't have uninstall the old version.
>
> "First of all, my apologies for the lengthy delay in replying to you.
>
> The endless upgrade loop you were encountering was due to a nasty bug
> that went to production with our major release last week. It puts
> users
> to upgrade but then doesn't allow them to successfully update Furl
> Tools.
>
> We believe we have fixed this issue as of this afternoon. You should
> be
> able to go to Furl and successfully download and update your Furl
> tools.
> If for whatever reason this fix hasn't gone into effect here's how to
> get Furl up and running for you again.
>