tail -f findings.out

I recently performed a fresh install of Intrepid Ibex on one of my home PCs, and restored the files I cared about from backup. I decided to use a Firefox backup created by FEBE from a machine whose Firefox setup I preferred. For a while, all seemed to have worked just fine. Then I came across an image I wanted to save. I right-clicked it, select “Save image as”… nothing. Tried it again, still nothing. I went to File, Save Page As. Nothing! Now I am a little worried. Various forum posts suggested people that had this issue had to remove their profiles and have Firefox remake them. Forget that.

As it turns out, the problem was caused by both me and Firefox being a little dumb. In the PC where I made the FEBE backup, I had all downloads set to go to /home/MYUSER/Downloads. In the new PC, however, my username was different, so that location didn’t exist. Instead of politely informing me the specified location didn’t exist, Firefox just did nothing. Changing the download directory to something that existed fixed the issue immediately. Didn’t find any matches in the tracker, so I have added a ticket to Bugzilla.

Once again this week I had occasion to use the amazingly handy FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension). Once installed, you can backup part or all of your Firefox environment, one-time or on a regular schedule. And if you grab everything, you can pull it over to a new instance, follow a few easy steps, and you won’t be able to tell it’s any different from your old one. It even worked fine going from Linux to Windows platforms!

This article helpfully explains how to go about the restoration process, which you wouldn’t necessarily be able to guess (at least I wouldn’t) without doing it once. Basically you make a new Firefox profile (a feature that you might never have had occasion to touch before now), restore your backup to that, and then switch to using that profile. And it can restore everything: all extensions, themes, remembered passwords, bookmarks, even form history.

For migration, it takes what used to be a long, error-prone process of finding and installing extensions, copying and restoring the bookmark directory, and still missing a number of useful things into a quick process that faithfully clones your friendly Firefox. And even when not migrating, just have it back things up once a day, include that folder in your normal backups of your machine, and sleep better that night.

[EDIT, 2008-11-30]: If your are migrating across OSes, or have a different user on the same OS, you may run into an issue with your Downloads directory. See this post for more information.

Recently, my boss requested (read: required, but that’s ok, learning is good:-)) that I switch over to using Windows Vista. While I used to use Windows XP at work and home for a number of years, moving now from Ubuntu Linux to Vista is going to be a big shift. So, as I cajole/beat/force/coerce Vista into shape for my taste, I will be sharing useful things here.

Some very handy tweak guides I have come across:

• Top 12 Vista Tweak
  
• Super Tweaks for Windows Vista

Some handy widgets (yes, the Sidebar can be handy, give it a chance):

• All CPU Meter
  Compact, attractive display of CPU and RAM usage. Works for dual and quad cores, includes a graph of usage per core.
• Wireless Network Meter
  Very handy widget. Shows local as well as external IP, allows you to copy these to clipboard and refresh them. Also shows current wireless network, connection strength, and upload/download graphs.
• System Control
  Allows you to shutdown, restart, lock and more. Faster and easier to read than going through the Start Menu.
• System Information
  This can show a lot of information. Everything from CPU, RAM, to removable drives, CD drive contents, networking, and more. Highly configurable as well, thankfully.

Windows Gallery seems to have issues not infrequently. Sometimes I would come across a widget that looked worth a try, only to find its Gallery page down. But often there are other sites that offer the widget for download, so just give it a Google.

A useful shortcut for the Sidebar: Window key + spacebar brings the Sidebar to the top and selects it. So if you have a number of windows open and want to do something in the Sidebar, this is what you do.

One major complaint so far: Cygwin is lame. Seriously. It’s a great idea, and I am sure there are a lot of smart people that have worked on it. But for a regular Linux user, it just doesn’t measure up. If you are going from a DOS prompt, sure, it’s a breath of fresh air. But if you are moving from a mature, up-to-date, well-loved thing like bash on gnome-terminal with apt-get or yum, well, it’s just plain ridiculous. First, the unintuitive setup screens. It took me several minutes to figure out how to install any package, and even when I know the purpose of their UI elements, they are still terrible. And you have to re-run the setup installer every time you want a new package? Where is my sudo apt-get install thing?? Past that, I install everything I think I want, start it up. Oh, things are wretchedly ugly, how about I grab my .bashrc. If only subversion didn’t crap out with .dll and memory errors as soon as I try to run it. So I go with Tortoise. That works like a charm, have all my files. Now I try to symlink them into Cygwin’s /home/user/x folder. That will work, if you use Linux style line breaks when installing Cygwin. Otherwise you will have an unreadable mess for a config file. And on and on, every time I tried to run/read/change much of anything. Case in point: I have to open a preferences menu and set the number of pixels height and width?!? I can’t just drag it? Really?

General thoughts thus far: Vista is great for general business, media, and personal use. If I don’t have to do any Linux related programming or mess with a Linux server, it is fairly pleasant to use. But the utter lack of a decent shell is rather bothersome. So far I have resorted to connecting to Linux boxes with PuTTY (which works wonderfully, by the way), and doing all programming there.

Watch for more Vista related posts (I promise they will be utility-heavy, rant-light henceforth) in the Vista category.