robzand - Latest Comments

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

Telugu Movie — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:24:56 -0000

last 2 years i have used dropbox..it is very useful..

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

Windows Masochist — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:10:51 -0000

How can one overcome "file in use" errors on windoze?

to allow real-time sync with a dropbox [3rd party] sync utility?

assume master profile lives on a windoze box
slave profiles on ubuntu, windoze xp, windoze 7

Re: I am living the future with the BOA-Merrill team

analoguekate — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:27:29 -0000

live long and prosper.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

Ephestione — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:18:28 -0000

Having a dropbox account for work and hobby use and having grown fond of the service, I wold have loved to setup such a system, which is alas impossible to do in security.
There is no way to transparently encrypt profile data while upping to dropbox, and I'm not personally okay with having clear data about logins and sessions on a dropbox folder.
There is a fine extension though, called firefox sync, that lets you do exactly that.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

homburg — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:47:44 -0000

It's great to start firefox up on a newly installed machine and have all your addons installed :-)

The Dropfox addon works great for small adjustements between OS's and computers.

I added:

user_pref( "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory", "${HOME}/tmp" )

To my "shared" prefs file: dropfox.linux.js

This way the my firefox cache location depends on the environment of that particalur machine.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

Ollie Treend — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:00:04 -0000

I have to say, I did try this and it seemed a pretty clever idea. Everything seemed pretty hunky dory, so to speak.

But just now, while working on a pretty important project, I bookmarked about 35 tabs worth of web pages which I need to refer back to tomorrow when continuing with the project. I saved the bookmarks and closed Firefox. Within seconds, a popup appeared and it said "Dropbox has updated files that have changed on other computers"........ alarm bells started to ring (in my head, not literally :-P )

This seems pretty screwed to be honest. Dropbox for some reason, thought my other computer (which wasn't even turned on) had a newer copy of my Firefox profile, and decided to overwrite the newest copy with an old one.... For $@!*% sake!!! :-@

Now I've lost all my bookmarks, plus the history's been cleared. I'm not happy! :-\
I'll definitely be sticking to local profiles from now on.... no more of this syncing bollocks.

Re: getting down in the weeds so i can live in the cloud

ED — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:24:18 -0000

For spotlight indexing of delicious, I use delimport.
http://ianhenderson.org/del...

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

robzand — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:52:46 -0000

i haven't tried. sounds like a project for someone

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

l3utterfish — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:01:14 -0000

amacyng tip!

Is there anyway to do it on firefox portable on usb? I cannot locate profile.ini on Firefox portable.

If it is not possible... Which way should i sync the firefox in my pc with firefox portable in my usb (and keep it syncronized..)?

Re: iphone apps for 11/20/2008

robzand — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:15:29 -0000

i've been capturing this over time. the full progression is here: http://www.robzand.com/blog...

Re: iphone apps for 11/20/2008

jpriceless — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:05:11 -0000

four screens. nice. i did not know there was a delicious app. downloading now. BTW - the google voice thing is still a toy, not a tipping point. The recognition is pretty impressive though.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

kc79 — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:05:16 -0000

I found a Firefox extension for Dropbox.

Dropfox
https://addons.mozilla.org/...

Re: a lesson courtesy of amazon windowshop: you can’t control serendipity

robzand — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:54:26 -0000

i am fine with going beyond diagonal. just give me some type of "i'm feeling lucky" mechanism

Re: a lesson courtesy of amazon windowshop: you can’t control serendipity

Andrew Green — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:43:59 -0000

This is great, Rob. It highlights one essential characteristic of a serendipitous experience -'skim-ability' That is, creating an ultra-low ability for a user to browse content in a skimming fashion. I would argue that we even need to go beyond diagonal control... but it would be a nice start to get away from 'scientific discovery' and towards 'serendipitous discovery'.

Re: a lesson courtesy of amazon windowshop: you can’t control serendipity

stribs — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:47:02 -0000

Great post. It looks like you can beat the flaw you describe by clicking on the item you want to look at instead of using your arrow keys - however, that's not the model you're presented with upon coming to the site.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

Grant — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:47:00 -0000

Thank you for the very informative post! I just followed your instructions and they seem to be working perfectly. Until dropbox allows the ability to monitor any folder, this is a perfect workaround

Re: quickly, a few photos

Kathleen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:43:08 -0000

Great pictures. Loved every minute.
Aunt Kate

Re: quickly, a few photos

Cindy — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:40:12 -0000

Congratulations!!

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

robzand — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:51:43 -0000

weird things happen when you keep 2 browsers open simultaneously, which, i must admit, i do out of laziness. nonetheless, the quirks are outweighed by the syncrhonization that does occur. to me, this is "good enough software" at its finest

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

NikLP — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:35:35 -0000

Well, I'm assuming the issues are because of there being so many files open at once. We have a lot of SQLite files knocking about, and if these open and then changed, this can play nasty with Dropbox. Mostly it annoys me because the drive never looks synced for that very reason, so if you're waiting for a file to sync but can't close your browser for some reason, you'll never know if it's finished.

I might try again with FF3. I would also like to find a way to change the default directory that Google Gears stores its offline files in, so I could encrypt all of this stuff together on the local drive.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

robzand — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:45:59 -0000

i have been running ff3 though. maybe - for reasons beyond synchronization - you should upgrade?

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

robzand — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:43:51 -0000

i'll be the first to admit, this is a "good enough" solution. you will experience some "wonkiness" if you keep multiple browsers open simultaneously (which creates conflicts and prevents some config files from being written). if you want a 100% solution, you might try weave. i've been running like this for 6 months and feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. incidentally, the machines i run this across include 2 xp boxes, including my primary work machine, and i have not experienced the issues you list. good luck.

Re: firefox + dropbox = profile synchronization across machines

NikLP — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:27:13 -0000

I tried this out with FF2 across two XP machines, and it just didn't work. Menus vanished, dialog boxes were broken, all sorts of stuff. I had the same idea myself, and was sure it would work, but it seems something in the process just "disagrees" with the FF internals... :(

Re: playing with fireEagle

robzand — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:19:37 -0000

what you describe is what i called "wonky" - thanks for the response

Re: playing with fireEagle

adityac — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:31:06 -0000

yeah. we've been following up with yahoo on this, see this thread:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.co...

Basically, when someone changes their address, we geocode it and send it to fireeagle, when we ask fireeagle back for the same location, we use the 'name' of that location (in your case, 9th Ave, NY, NY) now when we geocode 9th Ave, NY, NY it becomes 32nd/9th.

It would be nice if they gave us back the original address you used to update but they're still thinking about that.

Centralized location brokerage has a little while to go, I think :-)

Thanks for the feedback though - much appreciated!