Firefox and Dropbox syncronization for Bookmarks and Passwords

After upgrading from Mozilla FireFox 3.0 to 3.5 I tried Mozilla Weave for syncing my bookmarks and passwords in all my computers. I was using version 0.8 (1.0b1 is out now), but despite working more or less, most of my bookmarks where misplaced, put out of order, moved to unsorted bookmarks… a mess. Tiding up the bookmarks on one browser doesn’t mean that it would be ok on another, so after only 5 days of use, I thought that there is probably a better solution, and I found it.

The solution is to use Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE1NTQzMTA5, the FireFox Addon SyncPlaces: http://www.andyhalford.com/syncplaces/ for syncronizing bookmarks and passwords. It works as it should. It doesn’t mess with Bookmarks, the order is kept, Icons are kept, and passwords are synchronized without any issue.

So, what are the steps:

- Install Dropbox and create an account.

- Install the Syncplaces add-on for Firefox

- Create a directory for storing Firefox information on your Dropbox folder, for example: mkdir ~/Dropbox/Firefox

- On your Firefox menu, goto Bookmarks->Syncplaces->options

- Select the Server tab and then select on the Connection sub-tab, the protocol File

- Select now the Syncronization tab, and define the path for the files: prefix the suggested name with /home/primalcortex/Dropbox/Firefox. So it should look like

JSON PATH: /home/primalcortex/Dropbox/Firefox/syncplaces.json

If you want, you can output also in HTML and XBEL format. Use the same path for the files.

- For synchronizing passwords select the checkbox passwords, and input a strong password. The password path is like the previous ones: /home/primalcortex/Dropbox/Firefox/passwords

You’re set. So down on the FireFox status bar, there is now an icon with a blue and red lines/circles, right click on it and select Send Bookmarks/passwords. Make sure that on the Dropbox Firefox folder files where created. Now DropBox synchronizes these files into the “cloud”, and they are available to your other Dropbox computers.

On the other computers, just repeat the configuration process (Install Dropbox, SyncPlaces, same configuration) but this time select on those computers on the SyncPlaces icon, the Receive Bookmarks/passwords option. (Make sure that you use the same password for the password export/impor feature in all computers).

Voilá, full no fuss workable synchronization! You just decide now which is the master machine, if you want to, namely by tweaking the merge options of the Syncplaces Addon. Also to avoid bookmarks duplication, I recommend that the BookmarkDD addon at http://bookmarkdd.mozdev.org/installation.html be installed and set not to do pop-ups when duplicated bookmarks are found. This way, during import, no duplicate bookmarks are imported.

Now you can automate the synchronization process by just configuring Syncplaces to synchronize at a specific time, or periodically/automatically and your set.

Free/open source software

Why we should only use free and open sourced software:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/30/159232/Company-Uses-DMCA-To-Take-Down-Second-Hand-Software

You not own what you’ve bought….

ASUS VH242H

I’ve just bought one of these ASUS monitor: the VH242H… It’s an huge amazing quality monitor, with all the needed requirements that I was seeking: HDMI for connecting my Canon Legria HF200 and integrated columns to clear desk space, and of course big screen…

I’m using Kubuntu 9.04, and it recognized the monitor and the resolution of 1920×1080 without any problem with the drivers 9.7 from ATI (64 bits).  Sound is more than OK for my use, much better than I was thinking based on the net reviews…

At first, the image quality was not very convicing, but I’ve found out that the monitor comes with over sharpness. On the  Sharpness menu it was set around 52 and so letters had this bright shadow on them. I’ve pull it down to 27, and it solved all the image quality problems. So no problems at all.

Recommended!

VMware machines – Extending disk size and boot to bios

To extend a virtual machine disk size, you have to follow this simple steps:

1) Make sure that all snapshots are deleted.

2) Take note of the filename which the disk you want to extend is using

3) Got to a command session (DOS or BASH), and execute the command: vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10Gb diskfile.vmdk where 10Gb is the new disk size. change it to the value that you want.

4) Let it run.

At the end you need to extend the partition so the operating system knows about the new space. If you don’t do this you need to create a new drive/mount point on the operating system.

Just donwload the latest ISO for Gparted live image, and make sure that the Vmware machine CD-Drive boots with this ISO.

Now you need to boot the VMware machine, but using the CD. The problem is normally the BIOS boot screen is too fast to stop and select the CD-ROM as the boot device.

You can do it in two different ways:

1) Add the following line to the machine VMX file at the end, so you can delete it later:  bios.bootDelay = “5000″ This will delay the boot long enough so you can press ESCape and choose the CD as the boot device

2) Second you can boot directly to bios by adding the key:  bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

On this last option after booting the key will revert to false, and so the next boot will be normal.

After booting into Gparted, just increase the size of the partition, and don’t forget to choose apply.

Backup your digital photographs

When film ruled you had the prints and the negatives, and that’s was about it. If you lose the negatives, or by any chance destroyed or corrupted there was almost no way to get it back. But at least the prints might be available.

With digital cameras, all photos are computer files, are easier to mantain, easier to copy, and yes easier to lost them. I know people that have lost huge amount of photos, including their unique family photos, and didn’t even had a print of them, just because it was all stashed on one computer and one hard disk. You know, hard disks do fail…

So when I’ve switched to digital, my mind kept worrying in how to make sure if disaster strikes at least the loss is not a huge one.

So I’m documenting here my digital photography backup process. This method has two parts: A easy one that every one can do, and the complex part just make sure that some lose ends are covered…

The easy part:

I use a external card reader to read my camera SD cards. Why? They are normally faster than connecting to the camera directly, and during the copy process the camera is safely stored. Also there is no fiddling with USB cables and low battery’s.  My Nikon D80 uses SD cards, and an external USB 2.0 card reader costs around 3€.

I also use Picasa to organize and browse my photos. So I copy all the photos from the cards to a meaningful named folder (Ex: 2008-Holidays_Portugal) under a root folder that I named Photograph, that Picasa scans automatically. After all photos are scanned by Picasa, it’s time for quality control.

Please notice that at this point I’ve not deleted anything from the cards. The cards are like the original master copy.

Using Picasa, I view and check every single photo that was copied. It can be time consume process but it’s necessary. This is to make sure if a corrupted photo appears, you can check the card to see if it happned during the copy process or not.

At this point still don’t format your cards. First make a backup of your Picasa folder!

So at this point you have all your photos checked, and it’s time for the first backup.

I use an external USB hard disk with it’s own power connection. This disk is always disconnected from the PC and from the mains. Why? If a power surge happens It can fry my computer, but it will not fry the hard disk and it’s power supply…

So run a Picacas backup procedure into your external hard disk. If you want you can also copy them to DVD, albeit my experience with DVD’s are not very good.

(If you have several hard disks, you can make multiple backups, for example, and one of the hard disks is stored at safe).

So now you have three copys of your photos: The master original on your SD cards, on your computer hard disk and on your external hard disk.

After seeing that all photos are ok, using the camera I format all the used cards. Why? First, formating on the camera will make sure that the card is usable by it, and second, if you don’t do this when using again the camera and the card has photos, you may get the doubt if you already have copy them or not…

So, now you are safe, right?

Well, more or less.

This is the point where the easy process end’s. With the above instructions, you are almost 100% covered, and if you store your external hard disk on a fire proof vault, it will be safe from fire or being stolen. Yet, it’s not safe if it fails, so you may use at least two different hard disk, preferably from different vendors, so that you do not hit the misfortune of a bad hard disk batch from the same vendor…

The complex part:

Despite of no hardware problems with the hard disks, data corruption happens, due to software or hardware glitch.  So I have a second level and a third level of data protection. These are based on the rsync command and on the Linksys NSLU2 with the SlugOS firmware that allows a full blown Linux operating system to be running on a device that consumes around 5W of energy… (http://www.nslu2-linux.org). I’ve installed on all my windows PC’s the DeltaCopy program.

This will allow to do backups into my NLSU2 rsync daemon of the folders and files that I want, namely my digital photography files. You can start the backup process manually or you can schedulle it at a time that it’s more probable that you have your home computer on.

So, all my data from my home computer, and wife’s laptop are backup into the NSLU2 external hard disk. This is just like the Picasa backup, but with the possibility of backing up other files also.

For protecting data corruption and inadvertent change on files, the NSLU2 is also running internally the rsnapshot program. This is in practice like Apple Time Machine or Linux Time vault, without the fancy interface.

So now I have a full history of all my files and associated changes, and if by any chance I do find a corrupted file or change that I want to revert, I can go to the snapshot folders and retrieve the file until a year ago if necessary.

Finally, because the NSLU2 can’t run inside a fire proof vault, I do an off-site backup by using rsync over ssh from my Kubuntu laptop located in my work. Ideally it should be another NSLU2 on the datacenter, but let’s keep this simple…

Because this is personal data, my work computer has an external hardisk for this. To avoid, if stolen, any access to my files all the backups are done into a TrueCrypt volume.

So at around two o’clock in the morning, my work computer connects through ssh to my home NSLU2 and rsync’s all changes into the truecrypt volume.

If the laptop is stolen and/or the hard disk is stolen, nobody will know what’s the data inside it.

Hope that this can give some ideas to how a complete set of instructions to backing up your photographs can be done.

Xwindows applications on Windows OS (including VISTA)

There is a Xwindows server application that allows Windows XP, 2003 and Vista to display XWindows applications. This XWindows server is http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming.

I’ve haven’t try it yet, but it’s noted.

Portuguese Wines

Portugal produces a lot of excelent quality wine, which some of them even won international award in blind contests against wine super powers like France and Italy.

Because they are so unknow from the majority of the world some of them come quite as a shock (in positive terms) when some one visits our country and tastes them.

Most people only knows Port Wine which is a fortified wine to be drank as an aperitif and Mateus Rose that is a light rose wine good for fish and shellfish.

But these wines are mearly a drop of the ocean. If you like strong wines in terms of taste try the DAO region but make sure that you let the wine breathe before serving at least 10m at room temperature. Meat and cheese are the perfect companies for these wines.

On the other hand the ALENTEJO region wines are softer more delicate but an excelent quality wines, easier to drink and taste, but all depends on what you are looking for.

[K]Ubuntu and Netbeans 6.1 with Firefox 3.0

One annoying things that took some time to solve was that on the Start page of Netbeans there are URL’s to several articles, blog posts and so one, but every time I’ve pressed one of the it say’s that it could not execute Firefox.

I’ve checked the path, permissions, and so on but with no solution.

Well the issue is quite simple:

Goto Netbeans Tools menu and select the last option Options. It should start on the general tab where you select the browser you which to use.

Select Edit and on the arguments for Firefox remove whats there: -remote “openURL({URL})” and just keep the {URL} nothing else.

Save, close and it should work.

Now back to work…

Máquina de fazer pão Clatronic

Pão rápido para esta máquina:

Comprar as farinhas do Lidl. Todas elas servem.

Colocar 500g no recipiente da máquina mais 350ml de água morna/quente. As quantidades têm de ser certas!!!!

Meia colher de chá de sal, e opcional um pouco de azeite. Nada de açúcar que só faz mal!

Programa 1, quantidade de massa I e tostadura em médio.

Se for da farinha de pão integral o programa tem de ser o três!

Com estas farinhas, cada pacote custa 1.99€ e dá para dois pães, mais o custo de produção (electricidade), deve ficar cada pão por volta da 1.30€, 1.50€.

FireFox 3.0 is here!

Get it here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

So far only the Switchproxy addon didn’t work, but a solution is here

And also it seems that the Portuguese dictionary is not (yet) compatible.