Wow... I hadn't even thought of this. The only problem is the widgets will not get updated as new versions of browsers come out. Unless we could convince them to open source the widget code.

Yeah - but the beauty of Xmarks is it synced Chrome, Firefox, MSIE and Safari with one central repository of bookmarks. Now I have to keep four separate ones... one for each browser. For people like me who have to use and check my work on all browsers it was a major time saver when you have several hundred client bookmarks.

I've been using Xmarks since they were Foxmarks and it's the only tool out there that syncs multiple browsers. It's really handy when you have a folder full of client URL's and you need to check them on multiple browsers and operating systems. I'd gladly have paid for the service - but they never asked or proposed it. Sure some people would have balked and left, but those that stayed could have supported your business. I refuse to give my bookmark data to Google and I really just don't trust anyone else that is associated with a search engine or browser developer.

I get my degree from Kaplan University in about 2 weeks and while it had it's ups and downs, my experience was mostly positive. Sure there were some idiots in the class and even one student who complained because she "couldn't write her paper in anything but ebonics" but those were the exceptions as opposed to the rules.

I made some friends that I keep in touch with via facebook and twitter who have similar interests and career goals and it's also been a great networking opportunity.

I put in a lot of time, but it was worth it. I graduated with a 3.85gpa and get all my degree honors in Chicago on August 7th.

I've not done any other online school - but because of being a single dad with a full time job and limited ability to be in a "real physical" classroom, it worked out well for me. I was in class for two and a half years and yeah, it was expensive, but I learned a lot and I grew as a developer and learned some a lot of things I would not have known ordinarily.... so I have to say my experience overall was very positive.

Ultimately this is a good thing. I've worked with a number of non-GPL based PHP solutions like Interpire and to a lesser extent Magento - and have (against my better judgement) "bought" modules for these which typically meant the thing is encoded with Zend Optimizer or some other crap and doesn't work half the time anyway.

While I'm not crazy about Wordpress, you do have the same issue with Drupal or many other CMS solutions. It's part of the price you pay for playing ball with someone elses CMS/Framework.

Frankly, I'll accept these terms any day than having to play ball with byte-code compiled PHP.