Google Browser Sync was an awesome tool that automatically synchronized your Firefox bookmarks, passwords, autocomplete information, and even your tabs between multiple computers. So if you installed Browser Sync on your work and home computers, you could close your browser at the office, then come home to the exact same experience – the same bookmarks, the same open tabs, same saved passwords, etc.
Sadly, Google announced that Browser Sync would not be updated for Firefox 3.0. So the Mozilla Foundation announced that they were rolling out Weave, a Firefox plug-in that would do all that Browser Sync did (and more, some day in the future). Although Weave is still very much in beta mode, it promises to be great one day. If you have any need for a browser synchronization tool, Weave’s where it’s at these days.
A few days ago, a guy named Marios Tziortzis posted this article on his blog about setting up Weave on any WebDAV-enabled webserver. So if you have your own website, you can set Weave up to sync to your server instead of Mozilla’s servers, which frequently go down for testing or maintenance.
Now, one of my “commandments” for running this site is that I always test out everything I recommend here. Most of the time, if I say that “[program name] works great!”, it’s because I use it at home and have tested it in detail here at home, not only on my own computer, but on virtual computers and test machines, too.
In the case of installing Weave on my own server, I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It seems that WordPress and WebDAV don’t get along that well, and much of the follow-up advice Marios offers in the comments section of his post is a bit over my head (for example, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to change the WebDAV login type to “AuthType Basic” from “AuthType Digest” using my host’s control panel).
Still, many others have had success with this, so it’s worth checking out if you want to sync up to your own webserver.
One Reply to “Using Weave On Your Server”