View 529 July 28 - August 3, 2008 (original) (raw)
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.
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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.
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There is considerable mail includingan 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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.