Testing Firefox Beta with Sandboxie and importing bookmarks with tags.

Since i have not found a way to fully synchronize my Firefox bookmarks between different platforms, i also use to play with both Linux and Windows, and when i mean fully synchronize i intend that the bookmark manager has to respect the bookmark hierarchy an layout, i wanted to try the NEW Mozilla Weave extension and its service , available for both Mozilla and Thunderbird, but only the version 3 Betas. So i started to figure out in which way i can do it cause I'm addicted to use Firefox with all the lovely extensions updated, without them and i think everyone with yours personal choices, seems to be impossible to work.

Simply i installed Sandboxie, i would like to be a little bit more explicit with added screenshots, but the program is so simple and powerful, and sincerely I'm not yet blog-organized about. Let me explain in a few words: Sandboxie creates layers that don't affect the Windows subsystem, aka registry and original configuration files. It creates a directory called C:\Sandbox\(user)\(yoursandboxname) where your sandboxes data will be stored. You can run your favorites programs within the sandbox, there are predefined menu items like Web Browser, Mail Reader, Windows Explorer and so on, or, you can choose an arbitrary program and even install a new one. Firstly i installed Firefox 3.1b2 in a new sandbox called Clean, so the program data gone to C:\Sandbox\(user)\Clean\drive\C\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2\, while the following profiles and user data will be stored in a sister folder at C:\Sandbox\(user)\Clean\user\(users); it's clear, it's like a partial "mirror" of your user directory and a fake drive. So the new Firefox will be started with a clean profile.

"Could be important to say to launch different browsers versions in different sandboxes. For example i use Firefox 3.0.7 as default browser and if i launch it trough a sandbox where i installed Firefox 3.1b2 profiles will interfere, while if you launch your default browser (in this example Firefox) through the menu item hence sandboxed (virtualized, protected), a copy of your original profile will be stored in the user data Mozilla dir. I have not been able to install a clean version of Firefox 3.0.7 (which one i use, the default) and start it with a clean profile, it's strange, it's also true you can create a new profile with the the command (PATH)\firefox.exe -profilemanager."

All the programs installed under C:\Sandbox (is the default and can be changed), will run "sandboxed" and you can identify them because its title is preceded by # and followed by the same #. You can create shortcuts directly on the desktop and they will launch without affect your Windows data and configuration files. I have a shortcut pointing to "C:\Sandbox\harrison3001\Andrea\drive\C\Programmi\Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2\firefox.exe" onto it. Be sure to read the five steps tutorial on Sandboxie site http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?GettingStarted, feel free to contact if needed.

I'm becoming too verbose, we will return on Sandboxie maybe with a screencast, this post is calling me. Two things. I can confirm you that importing bookmarks trough the common used HTML way (bookmarks.html) don't restore tags. We have to save our bookmarks trough the Backup... menu item (JSON format).

"So don't save your bookmarks in HTML format if you want to restore tags in Firefox, not the delicious ones, but this is another story, or better another extension."

The second, Mozilla Weave is very promising i have tested it and seems to work well on synchronizing, it has restored the hierarchy of my bookmarks previously synchronized with the server but the tags have been putted in the Bookmarks Menu folder, i consider it a giant progress.

Suggested Extensions
Profile Manager and Synchronizer.
Bookmarks Link Checker Minus
CheckPlaces

Related Links & Articles
Firefox 3.1 now called Firefox 3.5 via Alien Babel Tech.
Find the right Firefox add-ons via The Download Blog - Download.com.

More on Audio, Volume Tools Update and device switching

Recently i installed an old PCI sound card laying around, just to support the onboard one trying to figure out why my monitor is losing the signal playing some old games. This is a terrible behavior that leave me blocked at some part of the game with the sound broken and looping. I'm not the only one having this problem but my video card is a PCI-E 2.0 on 1.0, and my power supply is supposed to be a 430W, end finally the card is connected trough the MOLEX to PCI-E adapter. I thought it was the soundcard fault, but i was wrong and i tried everything is possible and last but not least i lost the Windows XP CD and i can't reinstall the system to see what happen, or if something change. It's damn time for an upgrade.

Now i discovered the the old PCI soundcard (als4000) works great and the sound quality is better than before and the system appears to be less heavy playing the games that don't crash (Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R), obviously. Only the DirectX 8, i think, are affected by this frustrating problem, i have to restart every time. By the way i connected the now new als4000 (drivers link) to the headphones and the integrated soundcard is playing happily through Winamp.

Is there a way to switch on the fly the main audio device? Thanks to Google, yes it is, the apps is Quick Sound Switch by www.Tools.ToFlo.de consist in a small executable that doesn't need installation, resides in the system tray upon launch and is very complete. The words that we have always to say are support, support, support, by donating to these guys, tomorrow will be my turn. While Quick Sound Switch is capable to create desktop shortcuts for doing the audio device change (the soundcard), iVol, also for the Mac, is able to switch the sound device (Master, Wave, etc.) by a combination of keys (ALT + Mouse Wheel), and to change the volume (SHIFT + Mouse Wheel) with a nice positionable green indicator.

Always on the Volume adjusting side, VolumeTouch 1.1 has a nice mouse gesture feature over the mouse wheel one, you can raise or lower the volume by moving the mouse vertically or horizontally plus a chosen combination of hotkeys, commonly Shift + Ctrl. It's funny that the tray icon animate when you change the volume.

"The good is that all of these utilities can be used together and together 3RVX and Volumouse (Make your mouse happy on this blog), now 3RVX is at the recently updated version 2.4, and i discovered that Volumouse now v1.60, has a nice big OSD feature in the Advanced Rule Options panel. The bad is that when switching the main audio device, Firefox needs to be restarted, any extension out there?"

I have to thank Softonic for letting me discover iVol, i suggest to subscribe to the blog OnSoftware and watch at it has to offer, Mobile, Phones, PC, Palm OS, whaterver. Softonic is international and features many languages.

Adobe AIR apps i use

Application based upon Adobe AIR are becoming very popular these days, this is common. The main resource to refer is the Adobe AIR: Showcase applications page and is located on the Adobe site itself while the Adobe AIR Marketplace is the place where developers can share and publish their creations, and where they can be downloaded.

The following four apps are the most important i found, ranging from funny, useful or simply beautiful. From Adobe utilities and tools like, Acrobat.com for My Desktop and the Adobe Developer Connection Developer Desktop to multimedia applications, see Adobe Media Player, and some dedicated to the graphics productivity, where kuler desktop is a shiny example.

In brief kuler desktop is a color palette chooser, but defining it this way only doesn't describe neither its potential nor its features. Is it possible to choose different predefined themes, or create your personal one and then storing it to Mykuler section on the kuler site and "synchronize" them with the application. Chosen colors can easily copied to the clipboard and are ready for the web.

Applications using Adobe AIR, for which is needed the runtime, nevertheless automatically installed if not present, are many and growing on number and quality. Another point of interest could be the RefreshingApps.com website.

Customizing Windows Tray Icons

Sometimes it's not enough to keep things clean on your desktop, and if you are ready to go a step forward in customizing come necessary to look in deep through your interface reaching apparently inaccessible parts of the interface. The most difficult part to customize in the Windows environment it's the tray, especially tray icons. PS Tray Factory is capable to do any sort of customization of your tray icons, like grouping, sorting, hiding, reordering, changing original icons, and securing your tray.

from PS Soft Lab. website

"PS Tray Factory is a powerful and handy tool meant to flexibly control ALL the other icons in the system tray of the taskbar. PS Tray Factory will help you to manage all the applications that place their icons in the taskbar tray. When you have installed PS Tray Factory, you will forget about the problem of lack of space in the system tray, and will also get an easy, fast and handy tool to handle those applications." (...)

I loved so much this application and i think is one of the best around, it takes care of almost every part of a customization approach, a complete survey to follow. PS Tray Factory, is shareware, and worth any penny you can spend. I hope in a Vista 32/64 version release, as we are going to change our OS, going toward the 64 bit world, loosing "soon" our beloved XP, i think. A little adage says: "We know what we leave, but you we don't know what we find", hopefully the future. Always thanks to programmers capable on creating kindly software like this.

iNT Resumé : 22/03/07 - 21/06/08, a Summary

22/03/07 - Publishing Tools and Browsers cross-opening.
20/12/07 - Capture .NET and Screen Rulers, your utils.
10/02/08 - Software that works, SUMo.
23/03/08 - How to keep your GNOME settings when using Window Maker, the fabulous.
02/05/08 - Make your mouse happy.
18/05/08 - RSSOwl is gaining my respect.
20/05/08 - Updated Firefox 3 extensions.
13/06/08 - aptitude, an autoremove tip
21/06/08 - Integration of Favorites, PlainOldFavorites and BixBookmark explained

Integration of Favorites, PlainOldFavorites and BixBookmark explained

I'm trying to wrote posts to keep the blog focalized, following recommendation about blogging lovely dispatched by IGTB. Let's go viewing something integrate. Two applications PlainOldFavorites and BixBookmark, on Windows Favorites management.

Favorites are those web pages bookmarks that Internet Explorer calls so, like Opera calls them Hotlist. They can be accessed in various ways, from the start menu, within IE itself, organized through bookmarks managers. BixBookmark is the brilliant approach of such, in many cases, hard job: a tray icon (can be disabled) and a titlebar bookmarking tool with web page snapshot functionalities. The bookmarks manager sits quietly in the taskbar notification area. Nothing exceptional you can say, but i tried almost twenty of "these" before find it. Importing, exporting, URL checker, bookmarks updater, snapshot page and favicon customizing, on your right hand.

Otherwise, if you are left-handed, PlainOldFavorites could be more interesting, it seems that the Favorites menu, still present within your Start menu, jumps to the Firefox menubar, keeping glued to the OS while surfing, favorites are reported as is, and you can directly organize them. (Firefox 3.0 compatible).

from iostart.com

"Firefox has a great Bookmarks system. It has many wonderful and useful features, and the bookmarks can be exported and imported from many bookmark formats. There are even several extensions out there that allow you to synchronize your bookmarks with a remote server, the Windows Favorites folder and so on. Some users still wish to keep some or all their bookmarks in the Windows Favorites folder. There can be several reasons [...]"

Obviously these tools are targeted primarily to multi browsers users, but who use always the same browser? This is the next upcoming poll. Sorry, the next is "Do you like favicons?", keep in touch.

(TIP) Take a look at flickriver, badges included.

Thanks to the authors of both PlainOldFavorites and BixBookmark for indirectly giving me the ability to write something new, at least i hope.

aptitude, an autoremove tip

I love Debian, and its packaging system, everybody loves it but if someone wanted to build its own package after downloading source from Debian repositories could be issued by missing dependencies, and to resolve them some little steps need to be done.

Supposing you want to compile ee, fig. 1. Switch to your preferred build directory, and apt-get source ee, cd, , change directory, to the newly created directory and try to issue sudo dpkg-buildpackage. If every dependencies is satisfied your build starts, and you will have your new and fresh compiled packages in the parent dir. Otherwise, imagine that libncurses5-dev whose ee depends is not installed, your command will stop asking you to install it. The simplest way to do this is to install pbuilder, OK, you can do apt-get install libncurses5-dev, but imagine you want to further compile a bigger package that requires not only one dependency.

Maybe someone will dislike my non-purist approach, but i use /usr/lib/pbuilder/pbuilder-satisfydepends to automatically install missing packages within the unpacked folder. The above command depends on your aptitude settings, there are other implementations too, everything rely to pbuilderrc man page, the default one is the aptitude that is faster and more accurate.

This is the point, if not set, the command above will remove all unused packages from the system, but we don't want this to happen, now we are going to compile and probably we will need some package that is going to be removed by the autoremove feature of apt. The only thing to do is to search within aptitude options. aptitude --> Options (CTRL-T for the menu) --> Preferences, and toggle "Remove unused packages automatically". fig. 2.

fig. 1, ee in action
fig. 2, aptitude Preferences