| Thursday,
July 31, 2008 QUERY: I am about to
change main communications computers. One of the requirements is that I get
Firefox going on it. I have it on Alexis, and it has a ton of passwords,
customizations, plug-ins, and such. When I installed Firefox the only import
options I am offered is to import from Internet Explorer. I have nothing on
Internet Explorer I care to import, but I sure have a lot on Firefox on
another networked computer if I knew how to do it. Suggestions?
THERE IS A LOT ABOUT THIS BELOW. We seem to have a happy ending,
and I will give the explicit instructions for doing it. For now WE HAVE
APPARENTLY SOLVED THE PROBLEM, so please don't respond for now. And
THANKS TO ALL who helped, but especially thanks to Jeff Cohen.
============
I got up at 0800 and although I want to get back to bed I am
going to see if I can get a full day's work done. That includes changing
main communications systems, and writing that up into a column or part of
one. It promises to be an interesting day if I don't weaken.
I know how to do most of this, but the Firefox setup seems a
bit difficult. It don't seem to want to be transferred to another system.
==========
There is considerable mail including
an important note from
Ed Hume on ADHD and other such matters, and a rather lengthy comment by me.
And now I have to get to work on moving to the new system.
Outlook is driving me mad. More in the column, or at least I hope so.
===============
Transferring Firefox profiles to another machine
I've successfully done this. It isn't hard at all,
it's just necessary to know where Firefox keeps all of its files. They are
in hidden directories.
The first place is "\Documents and Settings\your
name\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox" and the second is
"\Documents and Settings\your name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox"
Just zip them up and unzip on the other machine. Note
that "Local settings" and both "Application Data" are hidden. Windows
Explorer will not show them by default (it's an advanced view setting).
Jeff Cohen
My problem is that I cannot figure out where Microsoft Vista
puts those files! I am not familiar enough with Vista to understand its
search features (if it continues to be as bad as I think, I may just scrub
Vista and go to XP) and I have been unable to locate where Vista puts
Firefox application files. Sigh. Maybe it's my head not working properly,
but this seems needlessly confusing.
Does anyone know where those files hide? I suppose I ought
to learn all this.
=============
In God's Name why is Rush Limbaugh replaying that neurotic
woman who called in yesterday, and he keeps running it over an over. I
suppose it makes him feel that he is clever and demonstrates his wisdom in
running roughshod over an annoying whiny neurotic? Has Limbaugh lost his
mind?
========
Well, Firefox keeps its profile information in two different
hidden directories in XP. Neither of those directories exist in VISTA. There
are analogs of them, but I have been unable to figure out where they are.
I hate Microsoft. Why put key files in obscure and hidden places then change
those places? Do they hate users? Do they want us all to become systems
programmers? I hate them.
I have copied everything I can think of that might be
relevant, but when I open Firefox over on the Vista machine it has no
bookmarks or anything else.
The simple solution is to scrub Vista and install XP on the
new machine. Then it ought to be simple. Ye gods, have I become senile?
I am pretty sure I have lost my mind.
Is there any way to make the VISTA search panel STAY WITH ME
while I look at the properties of various folders it has found? That
is, I open Start, type Profiles in the search window, some places appear,
and when I try to look at one everything else closes down. Then I have to
start all over. The XP desktop search function has a way to let you
open the darned thing so it doesn't go away; but I can't figure out how to
make that happen in Vista.
Clearly I need to learn more about using Vista, but it's all
so very different from everything I ever did before. It was all right for
games and office and such, but when I want to do anything more complicated
it's all different. After 30 years of working with these little
machines I am finally overwhelmed.
I suppose I ought to go take a nap.
=====
But then this happened:
Jerry Pournelle wrote:
I suspect I have lost my mind. After a couple of exchanges of emails I
sent this to Jeff Cohen
I can't figure out what to copy from the XP machine to the Vista
machine, and where to copy it from and where to copy it to. Microsoft is
attempting to drive me insane by hiding all the relevant folders but I
think I have told it to show me everything now. But I still don't
understand this stuff. What the heck is "Roaming"??? Why have they done
all this to us?
Jerry Pournelle Chaos Manor
And Jeff Cohen answered:
Copy the entire subtree at "\Documents and
Settings\your name\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla" on XP to
"\Users\your name\AppData\Local\Mozilla" on Vista. AppData is also
hidden. Then copy the entire subtree at "\Documents and Settings\your
name\Application Data\Mozilla" on XP to "\Users\your name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla"
on Vista.
and for the XP locations above better to copy the
entire Mozilla tree and not just Firefox.
And that seems to have done it!! At least we seem to have a
start!
More in the column. I hope.
I could use MORE HELP:
Firefox seems to have transferred BUT: I have 80 open tabs.
On my XP system they appear in three rows and there are up and down arrows
to increase the number of rows if needed.
On the new system I get one enormous long line, with arrows
at the ends, so I see only one row at any given time. I am sure there is a
setting that changes this, but "View" doesn't seem to have any such setting,
and there are so damned many settings...
Of course I know Google exists, and that I have some
resources, and my head is not entirely vacant; thanks to those who informed
me of all that. I suppose it's time to emphasize something I have to say
every now and then:
THIS IS A DAY BOOK
From the View page:
Think of VIEW
as my column on the installment plan, but there are major differences; here
you see what happens as it happened. That has some disadvantages: it's not
as smooth as the column. There is little rewriting. It's a day book.
I appreciate help from readers. I generally write up the
problem here, then do what I can to solve it; often a reader will KNOW,
saving me much time, and for which I am very grateful. Even more often
readers will think they know how to do things, and those turn out not to
work, showing me that I am not the only one out here that is confused about
using these little machines.
I have often pretended to know everything, but the column
ought to make it clear that often I have to stumble my way to the happy
ending.
Anyway if anyone KNOWS how to change the view of the line of
tabs I'd appreciate the help. I've looked through much of the Firefox
Options and tools and I just can't find it.
======
Well I have found out how to set the tab bar display in Tab
Mix Plus options -- but there is no such options in the tools menu on the
VISTA system. So after lunch I may have to uninstall Tab mix Plus and start
over, or some such, to get that into my display bar. Dang this is
complicated.
Now I find that on the VISTA machine I am being told that
Tab Mix Plus is not compatible with this version of Firefox. That
sucks. I will experiment to see if there is a compatible version, but this
is ridiculous. It works just fine on this XP machine.
Apparently what I have is Firefox 2 something on the XP
system, and they have "improved" it to Firefox 3 which is what we have on
the Vista machine. And Much of what I used to do on Firefox and which made
it valuable including displaying the tabs in rows rather than one long
incomprehensible row NO LONGER WORKS>
In other words Mozilla like Microsoft is more interested in
the happiness of its programmers than in the users. Bloody hell.
==============
Well, Firefox seems to have been improved to unusability. If
there's any way I can get the OLD Firefox on the VISTA machine I would
appreciate the information. The new one simple doesn't work the way I expect
and if I am going to learn a new browser I may as well learn the Microsoft
Internet Explorer. Does anyone know how to install Firefox 2.whatever
instead of Firefox 3+ on a Vista machine? Because if not, I think I
will dump it and try Internet Explorer instead.
=============
Moving Firefox Profile
Jerry,
Information/Instructions are at
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing+up+your+information
Best, Everett Harper
Except that it doesn't work with Firefox 3 which is what
installed on the Vista machine. If I can figure out how to scrub Firefox 3
and install Firefox 2 all kinds of wonderful options work including just
copying things now that I know where the stuff is kept.
=============
AHA! I found at Digitalchemy that you can install the
"developer" version of Tab Mix Plus for Firefox 3, and I did so; and that
seems to be working. At least the tabs are now arranged in lines again!
I am now installing Front Page 2003 on the Vista machine.
Assuming that goes well, and it seems to be, I should be able to move all
communications over to the Vista Quad. That ought to stop the infuriating
long hangup pauses this machine experiences when Outlook goes out for mail.
Outlook 2007 calendar is better than the older one, and I suspect I will
like Outlook 2007 once I get started. I will have to live with Word 2007,
which doesn't do dictionaries right and has to be relearned damned near from
scratch, but I do the columns mostly on the iMac anyway so that's not such a
disaster.
If this all works, I will have to rethink Roxanne's role:
she does games (only lately I have done World of Warcraft on the Mac) and
she's the writing machine (except lately I have done most of that on the
iMac) and serves as the place where we keep the master copies of all
documents. That is due eventually to be replaced by the Extreme Intel Quad
as soon as I get that built.
Anyway, I seem to have solved most of the problems!
Thanks to all the readers who helped. As to those who asked
why I don't just Google, I did, but I'm not as fast as I used to be, and
besides, I heard directly from half a dozen readers who had already had
these problems and KNEW what to do about them. That's one of the big
advantages of being me: Sure I can do the work, and have done it, but often
a reader knows more than I do, and it sure saves me time -- and ENERGY,
which I don't have so much of as I used to.
===============
Well this is me on the Vista machine.
Front Page works. There are a tonne of upgrades that I probably ought to
download and install -- three separate Service Packs for this version -- but
that can wait. The letters are tiny, but that's probably the monitor, and it
should be better when I get this over to the main desk and the big flat
screen monitor. At least I hope so because this is intolerable. I don't
remember how you get to the screen resolution settings in Vista. I know it's
more complicated than it was in XP -- thanks, Microsoft, for making
everything we learned over the years not only obsolete, but doing it for a
system with no particular logic.
WSFTP32 doesn't work. WSFTP95 works but
they have "improved" the interface, and it's nowhere as convenient as the
older one was. The older one can't access the registry whatever that means;
I have a feeling it's some kind of Vista security thing, but it doesn't ask
for permission, it just dies with the error message that it can't access the
registry. WSFTP32 which is in the same folder works all right and uses the
same initializations. It works, but it's not fun.
Another thing that is not fun is this
tiny text. I hesitate to change the font sizes, but I can't read this. I am
hoping that when I change to another monitor it will be all right, but this
is a big glass 19" monitor and no resolution I can set will make this text
large enough that I can actually see it. I don't believe I can
continue like this, so I may be stuck until I can do something else. Vista
recommend that I set things at 1280 x 1024 but that makes the text tiny. I
thought Vista was supposed to fix that sort of thing but apparently not. If
I set to 1280 by 768 it looks odd but it's large enough to see.
I haven't been through these problems
in a while.... And my memory isn't working. This is a lousy keyboard,
too
The blooming fonts have all changed to
Times New Roman. I have to manually change to Georgia, and it doesn't seem
to stick when I do that. AHA. You need to go to PAGE OPTIONS and
change the default font. At lest Clippy knows how to tell me to do that. For
all his irritations, he was better help than a lot of the more modern stuff.
===================
OK. I am getting used to it all. At
this resolution, and having found the various settings, and how to make
Outlook display incoming mail in Plain Text (it's entirely different in
Outlook 2007 from the older Outlook) and allowing for this awful keyboard
and mouse, maybe I will change over. I seem to have most of this working.
WS_FTP95 is nowhere as convenient as WS-FTP32 but it does work and seems to
access the registry just fine; why the other one doesn't access the registry
is not apparent.
There are other irritations, but
overall it works, and by gollies the machine never locks up. There are no
hesitations. I have 98 tabs open in Firefox and several in IE. I am running
a bunch of stuff in background. And it all works smoothly. So I guess I'll
have to give it all a try.
Shutting down this system. I will physically move this
machine to my main office work station, and take Alexis, the current
communications system (only I am writing this on Bette the Quad 6600 which
is what I am about to move) --Alexis goes on line out here. For the moment.
She's a pretty good system except for Outlook. I need to
find her a home. Maybe I'll install a good disk burner and use her for
all that. She has a lot of disk capacity.
==================
All right. Bette is now at my principal desk, and connected
at 1280 x 1024 to my elderly but very nice LaCie monitor. Everything seems
normal. I can read the text from a distance. It does seem to be working just
fine. I may have got my transition done.
============
One thing about Macs. With the iMac 20, move the table it's
on and the darned thing shuts itself off. I mean powers off. I had to hold
the ON button down for about a count of 20 to get it to come back on.
I had to move it in order to change machines at the stand next to it, but
all I did was roll the table it was on. Maybe that stretched a power line,
but the plug was still in, and the switch on the power strip was lighted.
==============
2350: I am still using the Quad 6600, Vista ultimate, and
Outlook 2007. I have a new copy of InBoxer, the Bayesian spam filter I have
relied on for some years. That is installed and seems to work. It has not
yet asked me for my registration code, but I have that.
Firefox is not entirely well behaved, but I'm taming it. I
have the Mac running again and connected. Vista on the Quad 6600 does not
seem to have any of the problems I had with Vista on Roxanne, and I am not
sure why other than that we have lots more memory and cycles on this system.
FrontPage 2003 is working fine. WS_FTP95 is working and is
only minorly less convenient than the previous WS_FTP32 I used for years
(and still use on all but Vista machines). Adobe Acrobat reader is working
fine, and doesn't seem to eat cycles on this system as it did on the XP
system.
I am getting used to the quirks in Outlook 2007 (some are
definitely improvements) and Word 2008; no big problems. Cutting and pasting
from Outlook to FrontPage works as it always did. One thing is clear: Vista
and Outlook 2007 are both more comfortable with a wide screen than with my
LaCie 20" square. I begin to see why most laptops are now configured as
"wide screen" (but achieve it by chopping the top of a larger square like
the t42p).
And after supper I went to LASFS (I am supposed to be on my
way to be Guest of Honor at a convention in Dayton but I was not
sufficiently confident of my energy level to do that); when I got back
Roberta and I watched Burn Notice, which is sort of Get Smart only the hero
is impressively competent); then I took Sable for a 2 mile walk, and now
it's pretty well time to get to sleep.
If I could be sure that I'd have the energy I managed to
have today, I'd have gone to the convention. I really am sorry to miss it.
Niven is on his way (there by now I guess) and he can show the flag for both
of us, but I am sorry to have let them down. Perhaps I will recover
completely enough to be able to go another time. I sure hope so.
So we will see about tomorrow. I have a column to do; what I
will feel like in the morning isn't entirely clear. So off to bed and find
out.
=======
George Noory has a guest who can send beams of energy out of
his eyes. Is this like the ability of plants to detect distress? There
were a number of stories about plant telepathy. Anyway this chap is going to
try for The Amazing Randi's money in a demonstration. Now that may be
interesting, but I would bet small amounts that it's a lot easier to send
beams -- visible beams -- of purple light with gold flecks in it, than it is
to get a nickel out of Randi.
Anyway this chap says he can prove he can send beams of
energy out of his eyes. He also claims that there is nothing paranormal
about it at all, but since everyone says there are not energy beams from
one's eyes, Randi accepts that it's a claim of the paranormal.
Interesting again.
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