[Important] Furl transition update - 344 views
started by Maggie Tsai on 20 Mar 09
started by Maggie Tsai on 20 Mar 09
started by Maggie Tsai on 20 Mar 09
started by Maggie Tsai on 20 Mar 09
Summary:
* If you've initiated the transfer, it's being processed. Please be a little patient (see 2b)
* You can still access your Furl account to view and export your archives (see 2a)
* You can also log into your new diigo account to add new bookmarks (see 2c, d)
* Concerned with only partial transfer or tags not shown properly / searchable? (see 2e, f, g)
* Furl archives (cache) will be transferred later (see 2h)
* Very large data file transfer (see 2i)
* New users orientation (see 3)
==================
More details:
1) Furl and Times Files are scheduled to be phased out. Diigo will assist with the transition of furl users to the diigo service.
2) Given the short transition timeframe and lots of coordination need to take place, here is the latest status update:
a) Furl access & export: Although you cannot add new bookmark to Furl.net, you can still log in there and access your archives at this time. In fact, you can also export the archives to your computer - http://www.furl.net/tools/export
b) Transfer status: If you follow the transfer steps (http://www.diigo.com/import_all/transfer_furl), we will automatically create a diigo account for you and start transferring your bookmark links to your new diigo account. Note: due to the huge amount of transfer requests, transfer is taking longer than expected - may take a few days to complete (as you can imagine, our system is extremely busy at the moment). For those who have initiated the transfer and if you haven't received an email from us, don't worry. Your request is in the queue and will be processed soon. So, just be a little patient.
c) Diigo account: While your Furl links transfer may take a while to complete, you should be able to access your Diigo user account to add new bookmark right away. Use the diigo username (should be given during your Transfer Step #2 process - most likely the same as your Furl username, unless it's already taken) and the same furl password to access your new diigo account. In case you don't know what your new diigo username is, please go to Sign In page (https://secure.diigo.com/sign-in) and go the upper right hand corner > > Forget your password > > enter your email and send. You will receive an email with your username in the salutation. Should you need further assistance, please email us at info [at] diigo dot com
d) Add new bookmarks : To add new bookmark to Diigo, install toolbar, Diigolet or something even simpler (rapid bookmarking bookmarklet): http://blog.diigo.com/2008/06/27/tip-of-the-day-add-a-bookmark-on-site-diigo-simple-bookmarklet-now-available/
e) Partial transfer: Some of you have logged into your new diigo account and expressed concern that there seems to be "no" or "partial" transfer of your links. Please note again that we're processing huge amount of data now and the transfer may be still ongoing and not completely done yet. Please do give it more time and let us know if there are still issues after we finish processing most of the transfer requests.
f) Tags display: Once bookmarks are imported, it will still take one or a few days for your tags to get indexed, shown and searched properly due to the large number of data under processing. This also applies to edit your tags and the display result as well. Again, don't worry, if you cannot find and search your tags right away.
g) Data mapping: Diigo and Furl have different data structure. Based on user feedback, here is the new data transfer mapping scheme:
Furl Diigo
-------- ---------
Title --- > Title
URL --- > URL
Comments --- > Description
Topics --- > Tags, and Private Lists
Date --- > Created_at
Public --- > public
Unread --- > Unread
Clipping --- > Annotation
Keywords --- > Tags
Note: Originally Topics only mapped to Private Lists. However, different users have different tagging behavior, so we have made Topics mapped to both tags and lists now. That way, if some users do not like lists, they can easily delete them or ignore them. Should you initiated the import before our latest change and your data is showing your Furl as "Private Lists" only, please do another re-import again. This will help overwrite and get your data mapped the new way. Note: you can also easily edit your List to public view. Go to List > > Tools > > Edit to change the privacy.
h) Furl cache : Please note this transfer only takes care of link transfer first. Regarding your Furl archive (cached) articles - we understand that many furl users value their furl cache. If you need to access those cached pages now, you can visit Furl to view / export them: http://www.furl.net/tools/export Click the 2nd link > Zip File > > export "A zip archive of your cached Furl documents."
Meanwhile, given that those data are enormously large, we are evaluating the the best possible solution to transfer those cached pages, but it will take a while. So, please stay tuned!
i) Large file transfer : Some Furl users have very extensive links collection. Previously import by connecting with Furl's server often causes API time-out to prevent a successful transfer. We've just received their latest data dump and are in the process of rebuilding the database. When this is done, we will be able to smoothly transfer those large files very soon.
3) New users orientation:
While furl is being phased out, Diigo is richer and more powerful in many ways. It's also quite "flexible". You can just start with the basics and use the more advanced functions as you need them. We understand that it may take some time to explore and get used to a new system, and will try our best to assist you with the transition.
Here are some resources to help you getting started:
* About Diigo: https://secure.diigo.com/about
* Diigo Overview: http://www.diigo.com/learn_more
* Diigo Tutorials: http://www.google.com/notebook/public/04712752710140234617/BDRqfSgoQquKe8MMj
* Install Toolbar, Diigolet (bookmarklet) or here is something even simpler (rapid bookmarking bookmarklet): http://blog.diigo.com/2008/06/27/tip-of-the-day-add-a-bookmark-on-site-diigo-simple-bookmarklet-now-available/
* Check out some "Tips of the day": http://blog.diigo.com/category/tips-of-the-day/
If you need more assistance, let us know how we can be of help.
Some have also asked: "I just want to bookmark for my own use and why all these social features?" Yes, Diigo is a great personal research tool!
You may find these posts helpful:
* Diigo now too "social"? http://blog.diigo.com/2008/03/27/diigo-now-too-social/
* Diigo ~ "Unintentional Social Networking" http://blog.diigo.com/2008/03/28/having-trouble-keeping-up-with-all-the-social-networks/
Again, welcome all new Furl users to the Diigo community! We'd like to make the transition as easy as possible for you, bearing in mind that of course, there are only few of us serving all of you, so we may not be able to answer every single email / post personally :-) We'd also very much appreciate other experienced diigo users to kindly pitch in and help answer some general usage questions whenever you can. Thanks!
I realize all you guys are under the gun, but....
I have had both Furl and Diigo accounts. I have initiated, at least a week ago, the transfer of my Furl items to Diigo.
The Question: How do we know if and when the transfer is complete?
Thanks,
Tom Johnson
I think a lot of us are struggling because we're not sure if our Furl links are in the process of being transferred or not. I initiated my transfer on March 18 (6 days ago) and haven't seen any of my furl links show up on my Diigo account. I'm beginning to doubt my memory.... maybe I didn't hit the transfer button? Maybe I missed something? Maybe there was a server glitch when I submitted my transfer request? Maybe I missed an email?
I'm very tempted to go try again, just to make sure that I really did hit the transfer button and there wasn't a hiccup in the system, but I know that that just adds to the amount of data you need to process.
In short, it would be immensely valuable to have some sort of "Transfer in progress" note on my Diigo account. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's considered retrying the transfer (maybe multiple times).
(~ 2000 Furl links, all marked private)
> In short, it would be immensely valuable to have some sort of
> "Transfer in progress" note on my Diigo account.
Seconded!
Preserving the private status is also very important to me. I have already initiated my transfer from Furl (not that I can see anything imported after 2+ weeks). Hopefully they will preserve "private" furls or at least work on a solution to mass update everything in diigo to "private".
>> One thing I noticed: The "private" setting of the Furl bookmarks does not
>> seem to have been preserved. While Diigo sets "lists" as private, the
>> bookmarks themselves are public.
>
> I'm waiting to hear an update on this from Diigo staff before I initiate my
> transfer.
> What should I do? Wait?
I requested my transfer about two weeks ago, and it took about a week to get 7000 bookmarks from Furl.
I am delighted to report that my private bookmarks remained private.
When I got my confirmation mail, the tags had not showed up yet, but they appeared in another day or two (though my tag cloud is not yet fully indexed.)
However, Furl Topics with spaces behaved oddly when converted into Diigo Tags. Each word became a separate tag, which makes nonsense of many of them.
For example Imported Bookmarks shows up as Imported and Bookmarks. Very confusing.
Will those tags be fixed?
> f) Tags display: Once bookmarks are imported, it will still take one
> or a few days for your tags to get indexed, shown and searched properly due
> to the large number of data under processing. This also applies to edit your
> tags and the display result as well. Again, don't worry, if you cannot find
> and search your tags right away.
I have already waited two weeks. Is this normal?
>> f) Tags display …
Re tags, please see very recent
Bookmarks do not attach to the tags and
Tags not working
Since Diigo now owns Furl (and the Furl Team seems to be long gone), it is really up to Diigo to tell us how long the present outage of Furl might be, and to announce the permanent shutdown date.
I hope they haven't shut it down permanently, when the data, features and backlinks have yet to be imported to Diigo, and no shutdown date has been announced by either Diigo or Looksmart.
> Furl will be shut down on April 17.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Furl+will+be+shut+down+on+April+17%22 finds 26 matches so whilst LookSmart may have not sent an e-mail with the date, the date was noted by a few users.
http://www.wuala.com/grahamperrin/Documents/diigo-public/42800-001.webarchive leads to a .webarchive of a Google cache of http://furl.net/doc/get_started
Seems like someone was in such a hurry they did not think to announce the date in the normal places like this forum or:
http://blog.diigo.com/
http://investor.shareholder.com/looksmart/releases.cfm
I am a little frustrated because I have (temporarily) lost access to my cache - Maggie's workaround in (h) above is no longer possible.
If I had received a reply to my support ticket saying that they weren't going to fix the backup issue, and I had known the shutdown date, I may have been able to make several dozen backups, topic by topic, and hoped not to hit the interface timeout issue that had prevented me from downloading a complete backup. However, Diigo/Looksmart were not even bothering to answer Furl support tickets, thus betraying the trust requested by the automated response mail:
"Regardless, we will be following up with a personal response in the order your message was received."
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=site:looksmart.com+Diigo suggests that LookSmart may have blogged about the closure around three days beforehand, but http://blogs.looksmart.com/furl/2009/04/to-ensure-continued-access-to-your-furled-items.html presents nothing.
http://blog.diigo.com/2009/03/09/diigo-acquires-furl/ is no longer available, and I can not find a cached copy of that blog entry, but http://www.diigo.com/user/grahamperrin/furl%2Bdiigo+looksmart may be of interest.
It seems clear that the acquisition occurred in March, but I wonder whether the date of closure (by whoever continued to run the furl.net servers) was undecided until very late in the day.
> http://blog.diigo.com/2009/03/09/diigo-acquires-furl/ is no longer available
That seems to have moved here and been updated:
http://blog.diigo.com/2009/03/16/welcome-furl-users/
> That seems to have moved here and been updated:
> http://blog.diigo.com/2009/03/16/welcome-furl-users/
As my contact with Furl was limited to their Firefox plugin, I didn't know it was being shut down until I was redirected to Diigo. I guess an email message would have been nice.
The blog entry above does state:
"Furl cache (archives): This transfer only takes care of your bookmark links. We are evaluating the the best possible solution to transfer those cached pages, but it will take some time. So please stay tuned! Meanwhile, you can access Furl directly and export them there."
Seeing as exporting is no longer an option, I guess I'm "staying tuned" for their best possible solution for transferring cached pages.
> Maggie wrote:
>
> > [Important] Furl transition update
>
> @ bekay00:
>
> 1. now, I can not reproduce the problem, 42800 does appear in my cloud
> seconds after creation of the tag
>
> 2. earlier, in a topic relating to tags, I could not reproduce the problem
>
> For any issue that does not affect all transitioning users, it may be best to
> detail the issue in a separate topic.
When I create a new bookmark, the tags of it are accessible at once - my cloud: http://www.diigo.com/cloud/bekay00 --> but when you click "sprache" you will find more than this one bookmark. So, it is a furl transition problem, because merely the furl-tags are not shown and evaluated in my cloud :(
bekay00 wrote:
> When I create a new bookmark, the tags of it are accessible at
> once - my cloud: http://www.diigo.com/cloud/bekay00 -- but
> when you click "sprache" you will find more than this one
> bookmark. So, it is a furl transition problem …
The problem is not limited to users who are transitioning from Furl.
AFAIR we have a separate topic relating to the mis-counts.
> Sorry, I don't have time for tidying this up and repeating old posts.
Birgit, please see the topic 'Will Furl export/Diigo import "private" Furl bookmarks?' and in particular, follow the advice from Diigo at http://groups.diigo.com/Diigo_HQ/forum/topic/will-furl-export-diigo-import-private-furl-bookmarks-42662#14
If, after following that advice, you find any issue, please detail the issue in a separate topic. Thanks.
birgit kellner wrote:
> multi-word tags
To anyone with an interest in this subject: please enable e-mail notifications for topics such as http://groups.diigo.com/Diigo_HQ/forum/topic/furl-tags-broken-caching-for-new-articles-42895 and http://groups.diigo.com/Diigo_HQ/forum/topic/not-all-topics-labels-imported-from-furl-43326 in which multiple word tags are discussed.
birgit kellner wrote:
> tags imported from Furl are not accessible to the routine that
> auto-suggests tags when bookmarking a new page.
To anyone with an interest in this subject: please enable e-mail notification for Imported tags do not show up while adding tags. Whilst that topic originally focused on import from Delicious, it has broadened to include import from Furl so there may be a mixture of problems in a single topic. Still, it will be useful to gain notifications for the subjects.
My ONLY reason for EVER using Furl, or I would even consider using Diigo, is to have access to my cached pages, that's why I selected FURL in the first place. Someone took away that option for me without any semblance of fairness, so that a precious irreplacable resource is gone to me forever. Diigo email help info@diigo.whatever (I forgot - ADDish here) chosen response to my questions was to not send me any reply or recognition to both my emails whatsoever, so I can only conclude they don't care. I think that Diigo deleted my cached pages, and they don't wish to give me the unpleasant news, or apologize, or respond to me like I am a human being.
There are hundreds of bookmarking sites out there, I just want a place to save a captured image of a web page as it existed on the day I saved it. I guess that option is not available to me. If I click on "cached" at one of my "bookmarks" in Diigo, they try to serve me today's version of a URL that I saved between some approximate time in 2007, and some approx time in November or December of 2008. My precious stories and letters posted at these blogs, news sites, and time sensitive civil rights forums are lost thanks to Looksmart and Diigo having no concern to answering emails or allotting a reasonable amount of time whatsoever to download our Furl cached pages. I have endeavoured to use a civil communication style, and all I have received in response is silence over 60+ days. I guess I should show more patience, since we as consumers were afforded so much patience before we were denied access to our precious downloadable Furl archives.