Backing up Thunderbird or Firefox profiles

The mantra of the Linux world is "Always backup important data!!!" This is usually instructed directly before installing Linux onto a system, or otherwise doing anything that could even remotely corrupt anything. Better to be safe than sorry.

Backing up a Thunderbird or Firefox profile is important, too. Especially if you're like me, and it would take hours to get Firefox just perfect again after having your profile wiped (if, for example, the drive it was sitting on were to fall to minor corruption). Hunting down that perfect theme (what was it called again?), rounding up all those can't-live-without extensions...

Under Windows

Under Windows XP (and presumably Vista as well), the default profile for Firefox is found under C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\XXXXXX.default, where that last XXXXX is a random string of numbers. Thunderbird's profile is located under C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\XXXXXX.default. If you've used "firefox -ProfileManager" or "thunderbird -ProfileManager" to change your profiles around, these will be different.

Under X/K/Ubuntu

Under Kubuntu (and presumably most or all flavors of linux), Firefox's default profile is under ~/.mozilla/firefox/XXXXXX.Default User. For Thunderbird, it's ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/XXXXXXX.Default User.

Methods of backup

A quick google search can turn up lots of methods of backup, including MozBackup. While I haven't used this extension myself, I've no doubt that it works to some extent (or else it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has). If you prefer GUI solutions, by all means, try it out.

My preferred method, however, is to make a .7z archive of my profile directory (make sure TBird or FireFox is shut down before you zip the archive, though!) This essentially takes a snapshot of the program (including extensions, skins, even open tabs and windows if the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" option is set!); if your profile ever gets corrupted, you can simply unzip the "saved profile" over the current profile, restoring it to the "last known good configuration", to quote windows.

Another advantage to the zip-it-up method is that you can create "holes" in the profile. For example, with the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" option set, Firefox will leave a sessionstore.js file inside the profile directory; the next time Firefox opens, it reads this file and re-opens all your tabs from last session. Deleting this file from the zip archive creates a profile hole that the more up-to-date sessionstore.js can fit into. Very handy at times.

Reclaiming Disk Space: Windows XP

Summary: Intro, Disclaimer, Apps, HowTo, Footnotes

If you have a computer with Windows XP, a hard drive less than 60 Gigabytes, and a tendency to use the system often, you may have wondered at one time or another, "What happened to my disk space?"

Granted, a quick google will give you hundreds of guides to freeing up disk space, but most of them either a) tell you to use the Disk Cleanup Utility, b) promote someone's software, or c) give no usable info. So, allow me to heap another little guide onto the pile.

DISCLAIMER: Unless you KNOW what you're doing, deleting files and folders is never 100% safe. Always search the web and ask those more knowledgeable than yourself if you're in doubt about something. That's what communities and forums are for, and the people there are (more often than not) ready and willing to give advice. Yes, even to computer-illiterate newbies.

Also, most (if not all) of the methods described here will require administrative privileges.

Alright, with that out of the way, prepare to get your hands dirty with the dark recesses of XP's filesystem.

First, an app to install that will be useful: WinDirStat. It's a nice little app that will analyze any drive attached to your computer, and show you, in a graphical format, the layout of your drive(s) in terms of filesize. To install, scroll past the Release Notes to the "Download and Install" portion of the webpage. You can download the installer package, but I prefer the standalone executable (go to the sourceforge page, dropdown the 1.1.2 section which contains all the zip files, and download "windirstat1_1_2-exe-unicode.zip". Extract this to a separate directory, and launch windirstat.exe).

We'll start with something simple: the Disk Cleanup Utility. Yes, there are a million and one guides out there on how to use this thing, but no XP cleanup guide would be complete without it*. We'll go through this quickly: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Select your main windows drive (C: in most cases; if in doubt, use the letter that is there by default). Click OK, let it scan the drive, which could take several minutes. When it's done, go through the list and check out what there is to get rid of. What's checked by default should be sufficient, but there may be more that you're comfortable doing. Your choice. When you're done with the list, click "OK" again, then "Yes", and let it do its thing.

Next is an easy one, too. Pull up the "Add/Remove Programs" utility from the Control Panel. Then, go through each item in the list (you may want to uncheck "show updates" in the top right, if you have it, before doing this, for sanity's sake). If you come across anything that you know you never use (that game you installed last year and haven't touched since, for example), remove it. If you're unsure about something or the name sounds weird, check google for it before uninstalling. This list can contain important hardware drivers, and you don't want to delete those. But if you know what it is and you know you don't use it, remove it. This alone can save a decent chunk of space.

When you're done in the realm of apps, open Windows Explorer (or your preferred file manager). Navigate to "C:\Documents and Settings\". This is where the data for each user account is stored. On my computer, with one admin account and one limited user account, this directory contains seven subdirectories: 3 hidden "users" (Default User, LocalService, and NetworkService), an "All Users" directory, an "Owner" directory, and two other directories for my two accounts. We'll only be touching the users' accounts.
One by one, enter each user's home directory (referred to as "C:\Docs\User\"), and go to their Local Settings (C:\Docs\User\Local Settings\). This is a hidden directory, so make sure you can see it. Under local settings, go to the Temp directory, and delete EVERYTHING. This is where programs store files for temporary usage, and, as a general rule, neither windows apps nor the OS they run on are very good at cleaning themselves up. Once done there, head up and over to Temporary Internet Files (another hidden directory). This is the browsers' (plural, for those with more than one) cache and, normally, it's safe to delete everything here. The only reason you would want these files would be to work offline. The same is true of its sibling, the History directory, and C:\Docs\User\Cookies (though you may not be able to delete the index.dat file in the Cookies folder).

Once you've done that for every user, head to each user's Application Data directory (C:\Docs\User\Application Data\). This part is tricky. The directory you're now in is where applications hold their "permanent" data. Unfortunately, this data can be a little too permanent, since it even hangs around after you uninstall the corresponding program -- and it's found under every user's directory, whether the contents be unique or identical. Basically, you can go through this directory and delete any folder that relates to any program you've uninstalled. Programs which download or archive data (especially Google Earth and Google Desktop) seem to take a very large chunk of space in this area. Again, if you're unsure, google it. Once you've finished this directory, do the same for C:\Docs\User\Local Settings\Application Data. Fortunately, this second directory seems to be a less popular data-storage spot.

If, in your forray of deletions, you get an error saying "Cannot delete <foldername>: Access is denied", first make sure you're admin. Then, right-click the offending folder and select Properties. If the "Read-only" box is checked (or semi-checked, as the case may be), uncheck it and try again.

Once you've deleted all you want, make sure to empty all Recycle bins. Each user account has its own Recycle bin. They are all accessible at C:\Recycler (sometimes C:\Recycled). With admin privileges, enter into each subdirectory of C:\Recycler and delete all files (after checking in with the corresponding owners, of course!)

I've found the Application Data directories to be the more space-hungry directories. It depends on what kind of usage the system receives, of course. Altogether, using this method of cleanup, I saved about 2.7GB. That may not be too much in terms of today's hard drives, but it's 2.7 gigabytes I'd rather not have holding useless data ;)

As a last note, also run a defragmentation program once you've cleaned house. This can save a few more megabytes of space, as well as tidy up all your data. One program that I've found to be very good at this is JkDefrag. The downside is it doesn't have much configurability (automatically runs through all attached drives, last I checked), but it definitely compacts the data nicely.

* Unless, of course, that guide leads you to manually deleting everything that the DCU would do automatically.

Blogs, Blogger, and Blogrolls

You may have noticed my slight change in layout: I've added a blogroll to the right-hand sidebar. According to Wikipedia's list of blogging terms, a Blogroll is "A list of blogs. A blogger features a list of their favorite blogs in the sidebar of their blog." And, according to the latest Google Reader Blog Post, Steve Lacey of the Google Reader dev team decided to implement a blogroll generator for the aggregator. Adding a blogroll to your blogger blog is a cinch:

Head over to the "Tags" section on the settings page, make one of the tags you use for subscriptions public, and click on "add a blogroll to your site."

The resulting window gives you three options: look-n-feel (including title, and with a snazzy preview, but not very customizable), Add To Blogger, and C&P javascript code. The Add to Blogger button brings a new window which lets you choose which blog to add the blogroll to (assuming, of course, that you actually have a blogger blog), verify your blogroll's title, "Edit Content" (JS tags) and "Edit Template" (blogger template XML). Not exactly sure of the usefulness of those last two, but whatever ^_^ the feature is still in the Google Labs phase, after all. Clicking the Add Widget button takes you to the Edit Template page in Blogger (I believe you have to verify, via Blogger, that you are adding content from Google the first time you do this), where a new widget has been added to your layout. As with all the other page elements, it can be dragged about and configured as normal. However, unlike Google Ads, for example, the colors are not yet customizable via javascript variables. The specific tag that I've added here is "tech blogs." You may have also noticed, at one time or another, a Google Tech News RSS feed at the bottom of my pages. Regrettably, I don't really keep up with Google tech news as much as I keep up with the RSS feeds in my blogroll. Ugh. I believe I've reached a point of Blogorrhea, "meaning excessive and/or incoherent talkativeness in a weblog." So I'll just stop now and proofread tomorrow XD

Running .msc files with runas

According to Google Analytics, I've gotten quite a few search hits regarding running .msc files (such as services.msc) under a Windows Limited User account using runas. I mentioned in a previous post that there was no way to do this without using a workaround. I'm sorry. I was wrong.

Apparently the mmc program accepts command line arguments. Typing "mmc services.msc" brings up...the services dialog! I tested it with a few other msc files in the C:\Windows\system32 folder; some of them work if you provide the name of the file only (such as services.msc), but all will work if you use the absolute path to the file (C:\windows\system32\services.msc).

And the best part...this method works with runas! Just be sure you put quotes around the mmc command:

runas /user:{admin} "mmc {path\to\msc_file}"

Enjoy!

Virtual Desktops - not just for *nix systems

Wikipedia:
In addition to what is provided by the computer's physical hardware display, virtual desktops provide a "virtual" space, in which the user can place their applications' windows. Each virtual desktop occupies a defined portion of the screen arranged in a matrix or grid. Application windows and icons can be moved between desktops, increasing a user's ability to organize their windowed applications that are currently running by reducing clutter.

According to Wikipedia (the biggest source for popular knowledge), Virtual Desktops were first introduced in 1985 by the Amiga operating system. I've never heard of Amiga, but Linux systems have had "native support" for virtual desktops since the GNOME and KDE environments introduced the idea (date unknown). Boot up almost any Linux Live CD, and you are guaranteed at least two virtual desktops to play around with. Apple recently integrated virtual desktops as "Spaces" in Mac OS X Leopard. Complete with a shiny interface for switching back and forth between spaces. Windows...has yet to catch up. Per usual. On the bright side, however, there are many third-party programs that allow the Windows user to have VDs. Most of these programs are free, many are GPL, and all have at least one problem. You can try out the entire list from Wikipedia until you find one that works for you, but my preference is Compass. Compass is "dead" since 2001, as the author puts it, but its code is available under GPL. This is very fortunate, since I believe it could still use some work. But before I go on, here's the feature list from the webpage:

• Themeing - 3 themes and a template included
• Multi-desktop support - Not limited to 1 pager
• Multi-quadrant support - Have as many virtual desktops as you want
• Want your pager to be always on-top? on-bottom?
• Move windows around using the pager window
• Mark sticky windows
• Hotkey support

Theming capabilities are always a plus (and the template is a PSD file, compatible with GIMP). I haven't tried the multi-desktop support, but it sounds like a nice feature for those with dual-monitor setups. As many desktops as I want? Nice. The always-on-top-or-bottom feature is nice, but this can cause problems. Move windows from desktop to desktop using the interface - very useful. Sticky windows; good for keeping WinAMP, various Yahoo! widgets, and RKLauncher on every desktop. Hotkey support; what keys do you switch with? Ctrl+Alt+Arrow? Win+Arrow? F? Spacebar? While the app still works under Windows XP (dunno about Vista), it is lacking in a few features that would make it near-perfect:

• Autohide: the always-on-top feature is nice, but without an autohide feature, it tends to get in the way at times.
• Any-desktop window moving: you can only move windows from the current desktop to another desktop; inactive desktops are automatically switched to when you click, there is no way to drag windows amongst inactive desktops.
• It touched my registry! While I don't mind a program storing settings in my registry if I've installed it, an app like this should be getting its settings from a file (which would also make it perfect as a portable app!). If you want more than the default of two virtual desktops, you have to merge a reg file.

In spite of these shortfalls, Compass is probably the best Windows VD manager I've come across. No fancy 3D cube effects, but it works. Better yet, my feature requests shouldn't be too hard to add, given that "the code is straightforward C and Win32". This'll probably be a good summer break project for me ;) So, do you use a VDM under Windows? If so, which one? And what do you want in a VDM that isn't offered by Compass? Leave a comment!

Surviving a Windows XP Limited User account

As I mentioned in my last post, it's a good idea to use a "Limited User" account under Windows XP (I haven't experienced Windows Wished'a -- erm, Vista -- so I can't speak for that OS, but chances are it's the same).

But it's so limiting!

You have to login as admin to install software, to install new hardware devices, to setup new internet connections (mostly referring to VPNs, here) -- even to install those bulky Windows Updates!

How do I deal with it?

With much exasperation, to be assured, but windows comes with tools to "make it easier". The main tool I use is "runas". This is a command line tool that takes a variety of options, and lets you run a program as a different user (including admin users). The catches: 1) you almost exclusively have to use it on executable files, and 2) you have to know the other user's password. Which isn't a problem if both user and admin accounts are yours. Also useful, right-clicking an executable file (and a few other file types) offers a "Run as..." option, which is similar but a bit more limited than the runas command line tool.

I use the runas command combined with shortcuts in my quicklaunch menus to launch Windows Explorer, Regedit, and Control Panel under my admin account. This allows me fairly convenient access to these things, though I still have to type my password, which delays access. But it's better than nothing.

To set these shortcuts up, you will need the "Secondary Logon" service to be running (the runas commands rely on this service). The Quicklaunch directory can usually be found at C:\Documents and Settings\{user}\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch , where {user} is the name of whichever account you will be using. Alternatively, you can right-click on an empty spot on your quicklaunch toolbar (best is between the last icon and the drop-down arrow that shows the rest of the shortcuts) and click the "Open Folder" option, upon which Explorer will present you with the mentioned directory.

Now, on to exactly which shortcuts I use. In all of the following, {admin} will refer to the name of the admin account you will be logging in under (not your normal user account). When you see (or don't see) the "/env" and "/noprofile" switches for the runas program, they are optional for the most part:

Windows Explorer: Create a new shortcut in your quicklaunch folder and point it to C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /env /user:{admin} "explorer.exe /e,\"%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\"" This will open a new Explorer window open to the current user's Desktop folder. You can also replace %USERPROFILE%\Desktop with another folder, or, to have My Computer selected, with ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}. The escaped quotes (\") are necessary. For your reference, I've listed some other system folders that you may find convenient to have shortcuts (runas-admin or otherwise) to.

Control Panel: Create a shortcut to C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /env /user:Root "explorer.exe /e,\"::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}\"" Again, you have to omit the /noprofile switch for it to work.

Registry Editor: Create a shortcut to C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /env /noprofile /user:Root regedit (If you don't understand the following paragraph, you may not even need this shortcut) The problem with using regedit through this method is that HKEY_CURRENT_USER is the admin user. You can still edit other users' accounts by finding their tree under the HKEY_USERS key. If I'm not mistaken (and on this point I very well could be), the trees (under HKEY_USERS) referring to actual users have long strings of numbers separated by dashes, the last number group being 100x (where x is a decimal [possibly hex] number).

Services, Device Manager, Event Viewer, and the like This part gets a little trickier. To pull up the system services, for example, under an admin account, I would normally use Start > Run..., then type "services.msc" and click OK. This works under limited accounts, but you can't start/stop/edit services. And, for some reason, you can't use runas with services.msc; it just won't work. There are two workarounds: 1) find the .msc or whatever file that refers to the administrative tool you want to use under the C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 folders, right-click, choose "Run as...", and enter your credentials, or 2) Use the Start > Run... option to run

runas /user:{admin} mmc

then, in the resulting window, File > Add/Remove Snap-in... > Add... and select/add whichever tools you want to work with. Not pretty, not easy, but it's there if you need it.

So, there you go. A few tools (derived from one tool) that I use to tweak my system as a Limited User. Hope you found it helpful, and feel free to ask questions or make suggestions (or boast of whatever tools you use) in the comments!

Also, as promised, some additional system folders:

• My Computer: ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• Recycle Bin: ::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
• Desktop: ::{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
• Printers: ::{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
• Dial-up networking: ::{A4D92740-67CD-11CF-96F2-00AA00A11DD9}
• Fonts: ::{BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}
• Internet Explorer: ::{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
• Microsoft Outlook: ::{00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
• Network Neighborhood: ::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
• Inbox: ::{00020D76-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
• Subscriptions: ::{F5175861-2688-11d0-9C5E-00AA00A45957}
• URL History Folder: ::{FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}
• Briefcase: ::{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}
• Internet Cache Folder: ::{7BD29E00-76C1-11CF-9DD0-00A0C9034933}
• ActiveX Cache Folder: ::{88C6C381-2E85-11D0-94DE-444553540000}
• Control Panel: ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

These were taken from the documentation file for KKMenu 2.8, whose author says:
"Please note, that I have taken the list above from the Aqua-Soft discussions (thanks to hydrostereo and fireball) and I have never tested if all of the items do really work. Please e-mail me in case of any inconveniences to: <email removed>."

Why use a "Limited User" account on Windows?

(Related google search) By default, any Windows XP user accounts that you create are given administrator privileges. Many people leave it this way (and some just use the built-in administrator account), allowing them to install software, modify settings, and otherwise tweak their system as their whims lead them to. Unfortunately, this also gives administrator privileges to ill-intentioned applications, malicious programs, and viruses. Operating under a Limited User account can limit the damage that an accidentally downloaded virus is able to do. Limited User accounts have limited access to the windows registry, read-only access to select system folders (C:\windows, C:\Program Files, and probably others), and non-use access to several system tools (disk defrag, scandisk, add/remove programs, add hardware, and most tools in the Control Panel). Under such lockdown conditions, viruses and bad programs can't really do much, which is good. If you need to install a program...well, you can't, but your admin account can, and you can access that account's privileges either through the runas command or through switching to your admin account. Or, if you're wanting to run an executable program (whose filename ends with .exe), there's the RunAs context menu option. If you're thinking, "Yikes...so, you basically can't do anything?" then you'd be partially correct. Unless you go through your admin account, you can't install programs, uninstall programs, or do anything short of web-browsing and document-editing. Which may be all you need, depending on your circumstances. If you need regular access to locked-down resources, but still want the added security of a Limited User account, you can do as I have and make two accounts on your machine, one for (limited) everyday use and one for admin use. And check out my post, Surviving a Windows XP Limited User account, on making this situation livable ;) As there are plenty of step-by-step guides on how to setup a new user account, I'll let Microsoft themselves guide you through the process.

The best laid plans...

While it appeared that I had found the social bookmarker for me...it appears that that site is dead and abandoned. After waiting 48 hours for my bookmarks to be imported, I sent an email to Spurl.net support asking if the site was, indeed, dead. I also found a post on their support forum in response to an importing delay complaint, which basically said "Spurl is apparently dead and abandoned. Try this site instead." I never got a reply to the email, and, better still, the entire site seems to have been taken down, meaning I couldn't find that post to quote here for you ;) So, back to square one. After searching some Digg and some Google, I stumbled upon Netvouz.com. Remember what my "desirables" were?

1. Hierarchy
2. Easy on the eyes
3. Privacy when I want it
4. Buttons!
5. Import/Export capabilities

Well, Netvous meets all of them satisfactorily. It supports hierarchy in the form of folders (and subfolders -- it only lacks the tree visual representation). It has a google-esque color scheme, which is much better than Del.icio.us's. It supports privacy, but not on a bookmark-by-bookmark basis (all your private stuff and all your public stuff go under completely unique Public and Private folders). Netvouz FireFox buttons are available, though I've not tested them yet. And the import function finished in a matter of seconds over my high-speed connection. So, providing Netvouz doesn't go down in smoke anytime soon, I'll settle here. Also, I found a good RSS Aggregator that I like. It may not meet the "social" aspect...but who cares? :) <<update>> Spurl.net seems to be back up...not sure why I was getting blank pages last time. Here is the post mentioning the death of Spurl. And, seeing that my 'marks still aren't imported, I would tend to agree. Too bad :(

Social Bookmarkers - which one do you use?

With the use of FireFox Portable comes the issue of syncing bookmarks. While there probably are apps and FireFox extensions that can sync your bookmarks, all of these (plus the bookmarks) take up more and more space on the flash drive. So I've decided to give "social bookmarking" a go. The thing is, all social bookmarking sites are not alike. Digg.com, while I do use it, is more of a popularity contest than a bookmarking site. Del.ico.us is a good option, but the colors and layout are harsh on the eyes. Since I've used my browser for bookmarks up until this point, I want my social bookmarker to have a few basic qualities:

1. Hierarchy. I want to be able to organize my bookmarks not only by tags, but also by folders and subfolders.
2. Easy on the eyes. Using a custom skin would be nice, but I'll settle for something that doesn't melt my eyeballs.
3. Privacy when I want it. There are bookmarks that I want to keep to myself. Mainly the syllabus pages for my college courses.
4. Buttons! If at all possible, I want an in-browser button that I can click to bookmark the current page.
5. Import/Export capabilities. I don't want to have to add my bookmarks manually. And, should I decide to change services, I don't want to transfer them manually.

Yes, I know, I'm picky. But you already knew that :P When I first thought "Hmm, I need a social bookmarking account," naturally the first place I looked was Del.ico.us. Importing the bookmarks was wonderfully quick and painless, I got some neat FireFox buttons during the setup process, and privacy comes standard. However, as I mentioned before, the color choice was painful. Light blue and gray on a white background? Ow! Worse yet, there was no hierarchy option. The next place I went was to digg to try to find a list of social bookmarking sites. From there I found a rather extensive list of bookmarking sites. Skimming through, the first name that caught my eye was Ma.gnolia.com (or maybe it was the pic). It had all of the Delicious pluses (though I had to search google for the buttons), but it had a nice color scheme and layout. Downsides: it took longer to import my 'marks and, still, no hierarchy feature. Skimming down the same list, the image for Spurl caught my eye. While I'm still waiting for my FireFox bookmarks to be imported (I'm supposed to allow 24 hours on this one), I've added this blog as a bookmark, and there appears to be a decent hierarchical feature. The colors and layout are nice (I like blue-black, and the layout is moderately spacious). A Spurl FireFox addon is available, and seems to work well. Privacy is an option, though the option isn't as obvious as I would like it to be after I've submitted a 'mark. Overall, (and if my 'marks ever get imported,) I think I'll be sticking with Spurl for now. Though, of course, I'll still use Delicious to boost my traffic ;) On a usability/design note: At the time of writing, Spurl's front page says "We are currently forced to offer reduced functionality due to heavy spam attacks." Actually, maybe they should keep this "clean" front page. I can imagine what the front page would normally look like, cluttered with 'mark feeds, but I like the near-emptiness that is currently "up". If I want to see the latest, hottest bookmarks, I'll try to find a page that offers them. So, what bookmark service do you use? If you're not satisfied with what you've found, what do you look for in social bookmarks? Also...anyone know a good RSS aggregator that respects my preferences?

ThunderBird: email accounts across Windows accounts

This may not apply to a lot of people out there, but, in case you're interested, I've figured out how to make your Thunderbird-accessed email accounts available to all Windows XP user accounts. Unfortunately, Google was not much help in my endeavors. Here's the background: our family computer has almost a one-to-one ratio of user accounts to users; unfortunately, when surfing the internet/checking email, my parents tend to just use whichever account happens to be active when they sit down. So, I had to find a way to make their email account available to every account without having to manually add the email to every single Windows account (Oh, the horror!). So, after a little file-browsing, I finally managed to do it. Best part is, if I want to add another email account to all Windows accounts, I only have to add it once. The worst part is that you can't have an email account on just one Windows account, unless that account works under its own profile, which defeats the purpose. Anyway, on to the how-tos: Prep the folder structure You will be pointing all Thunderbird client instances to the same mail directory on your hard drive, so you should *ahem* quarantine a specific folder for TBird to dump all its email in. I created a directory email under C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\ . Create a base profile First you want to create a new profile that you can work with as a base. Go to Start->Run... , type cmd, and press Enter. This will bring up a command line. Navigate to your TBird program folder and run thunderbird -profilemanager: > cd "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird" > thunderbird -profilemanager Once the little profile manager pops up, click "Create new profile...", click Next. Give your profile a name (I used my family's last name), then select "Choose Folder..." and select the folder you setup in step 1. Click finish. Optionally, you can delete your "default" profile and/or any profiles you won't be using from here out. Finally, select the new profile and click Start Thunderbird. At this point, you may want to setup an email account under the new profile to see if it carries over to the other Windows accounts. After that, exit TBird. Copy the profile settings to all users In the C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thunderbird directory, where [username] is the account name that you created the new profile under, there is a file called profiles.ini . You can open this file in notepad to see the contents. Under my configuration (using the email folder for all users), the contents look something like this:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=Rowls
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\email
Default=1

The IsRelative line tells TBird whether or not the Path line is using a relative (1) or absolute (0) path to the desired email folder. We want 0. Path should point to the folder from step 1. If you still have other profiles that are listed in profiles.ini, you will only want to copy the contents that refer to your global profile. Otherwise, you can copy the entire file over. Where you want to copy it is to the C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thunderbird directory of every other Windows user you want to share email accounts with. And you're done. Log into someone else's account (or have them do it for you), pull up TBird, and see if the email accounts carry over. Enjoy :)

Slimming down OpenOffice.org Portable

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that deleting any file from the OpenOffice.org Portable installation is not recommended by the portableapps.com website, as evidenced by their OOoP FAQ and support forum. By following the steps outlined in this article, in part or in whole, you agree that I am in no way responsible for messing anything up. But, as one Linux motto says, "Go for it. You can always reinstall."

OpenOffice.org Portable is a great little office suite, ideal for working with documents on the go. Unfortunately, while the download is only around 70MB, the full install is 181MB, which may be more than you want to give up -- or even more than you have available, after installing your other portable apps. Fortunately, the full install comes with some fairly large nonessential files that can be gotten rid of ;)

This guide assumes you've installed OOoP to the directory "\OOP".

Dictionary files
These files are used for spellchecking. Languages that come in the default installation (to the best of my knowledge), are: three variations of German (de_*), two variations of English (en_*), Hungarian (hu_*), Italian (it_*), Dutch (nl_*), Swahili (sw_*), and Thai (th_*). (language codes , two-letter codes are under the ISO639-1 list).
While all these languages are nice, I know that, unless I get a German penpal or something, I won't be needing anything other than English, and it's reasonably safe to delete the other dictionary files to save space.
The dictionary files can be found in the \OOP\App\openoffice\share\dict\ooo directory. Files you want to delete are in the following formats (the asterisk [*] is a wildcard, in most of the following cases indicating one of the two-letter language codes):

• *_*.aff
• *_*.dic
• hyph_*_*.dic
• README_*_*.txt
• th_*_*.dat
• th_*_*.idx

For my intallation (keeping only the US English dictionary), I kept only the files DictOOo.sxw, dictionary.lst, en_US.aff, en_US.dic, FontOOo.sxw, hyph_en_US.dic, and WordNet_license.txt. This cleared up about 52MB. You may also want to keep the files th_en_US_v2.dat and th_en_US_v2.idx, which seem to be either word definition or thesaurus files, but they will add an extra 20MB to your setup.

Templates
I know that some people out there use templates when creating new documents, but I'm not one of those people. I just create a new document, maybe set up its margins and stuff, and start typing. If you don't use templates, either, you can delete the entire \OOP\App\openoffice\share\template directory, to save almost 8MB.

Gallery
I really don't know what this directory would be used for in the OOoP program, but a quick look at the files inside indicates that it's not important for daily document-editing rituals. Delete \OOP\App\openoffice\share\gallery to save almost 5MB

READMEs
If you have no use for the README files, delete \OOP\App\openoffice\share\readme to save a whopping 76KB

Help Files
You may actually want to keep the help files, located in \OOP\App\openoffice\help , in case you ever need a quick how-to or what-is on something in the program. If not, delete the directory to save 22MB

Java "class" files
OOoP comes with the option to add java support, but I haven't yet seen the need to have this support. If you don't care for Java support, either, delete \OOP\App\openoffice\program\classes to save 8.5MB

Extraneous Icon Sets
OOoP comes with a few nice icon sets that you can customize your toolbars with, but the cost is 18MB in icon set files. Open Writer, Calc, or another OOoP program, look through the icon sets (Tools->Options..., then OpenOffice.org->view in the left pane, in Writer). Once you've found an icon set you like, go to \OOP\App\openoffice\share\config and delete the three images_*.zip files that you DON'T want. I chose to keep the Crystal icon set, images_crystal.zip. This saves around 13MB

And that's it! You should now have slimmed your OpenOffice.org Portable installation from 181MB to 70-75MB. Congratulations :)

Your Life on a Stick

College courses that involve essays, reports, presentations, and other communications-related assignments -- most of them, that is -- make flash drives essential, especially if you don't own your own computer/laptop. And even if you do have your own little workstation, a portable flash drive is very handy for accessing the campus printers.

But those little storage devices can store more than documents. Duh.

I'm working on getting a business running where I basically come to your computer and clean it. Take out the trash, clean up the spyware, spank the viruses, polish the CPU. Kinda like Geek Squad. Anyway. In this business there are a few essential programs that I will be using, but it'll get very old very quickly if I have to download each and every one to my client's computer to run it. Not to mention it'll take more of their disk space, which is NOT a good thing. One alternative is to lug my laptop around to each person, setup a local file sharing network (somehow) and work on their drive from my comp.

No, thank you.

My solution: portable apps on a 1-gig flash drive. There are LOTS of programs that work from a flash drive, many of them free.

However, in choosing programs for your flash drive, you have to keep a few things in mind.

Size: Programs, along with all their add-on dll files and lengthy EULAs, can take up a good chunk of drive space. And with flash drives, you are limited to the drive's capacity. So, obviously enough, the smaller the better.

Storage methods: How does the app store information? Most programs use files, but way too many programs use the Windows Registry. This is a BIG no-no for portable apps. On one hand your registry settings won't be available on another person's computer, and on the other hand you don't want to inadvertently edit your client's registry. As such, you want to make sure any program you bring won't make registry changes.

Relative path support: Life on a flash drive means never knowing what drive letter you'll be assigned. Therefore your programs have to be able to cope with changing letters, and they can't be using absolute paths.

So here's what my life-on-a-stick currently looks like:

Dock: With many programs come many directories. My file structure is pretty deep. As such, I don't want to go hunting for my apps with my client's Windows Explorer. So I downloaded RKLauncher. Yes, you could probably go with another dock program, or even a floating menu app, but I prefer RKL because 1) it's a dock, and I like docks, 2) it supports both ObjectDock and Yz Dock docklets (don't worry if that didn't make sense), 3) it's a standalone executable, 4) it supports relative paths, meaning it can find my programs even when my flash drive's letter changes, and 5) it's FREE!!! Free is very important to me.
Total size of RKLauncher + Dock Icons for all my apps + the following docklet: 3.24MB

Menu Docklet: When traveling, you can't be sure what resolution the computer you visit will be working with, and you don't often want to mess with the settings (if you can). As such, your traveling dock will ideally be as small as possible. Enter the menu docklet, KKMenu. It's not really a docklet anymore, it's a standalone executable, but as such it should work with any dock that supports shortcuts. The download includes a DOC subfolder with a file help.html that gives a rundown of how to use the program, along with a couple of menu skins. In my installation, I've deleted the DOC folder all but one skin (one INI file and one PNG file), and all extraneous files (everything in the root docklet folder other than kkmenu.exe and kkmenueditor.exe). My RKLauncher has 4 links to KKMenu, one for each category Internet, Utilities, Security, and Office. Put together with the two links to local copies of Windows Explorer and Task Manager, it's a very small dock.

Internet

Internet Browsing: Yes, chances are any computer I walk up to these days will have high-speed internet connected to a browser of the owner's choice -- but I'm not the owner, and their choice may not be mine. I prefer FireFox (along with my choice of skins and extensions), so I downloaded FireFox Portable. The owner has even kindly put up instructions for copying your current FireFox settings for use under the portable version. Must-have extensions I take with me include DownThemAll!, SearchBar Autosizer, Cooliris, and PDF Download for use with Foxit Reader (more later), but it doesn't yet support relative paths :(
Of course, since space is limited, you want to set some settings that prevent FFP from using more than it absolutely needs. Mainly this means turning off cookies, disk cache, and history.
Total file size of FFP, extensions, and one theme: 26.4MB Edit: I talked with the author of PDF Download, and we managed to get relative paths working ^_^ In order to do this, open the PDFD options. Under the "General", select "Open PDF". Under the "PDF Opening" tab, select "Use this viewer:". In the text field to the right, put the relative path to your PDF reader executable, starting at the directory where FFP starts. This method uses a lot of "dot-dot" directory specifications ("../", meaning "one directory up"), but it is also set-and-forget; once you find the right path, you don't have to modify it again (unless you're switching PDF viewers).

Email: While it's true that most email services have a web interface, I prefer a program that brings all my accounts to the same place. Enter ThunderBird Portable. Along with the Webmail Extension, it can bring just about any account type to the desktop. And, of course, you'll have to explore the settings to reduce disk writing to a bare minimum.
Total size of TBP and two extensions: 27.6MB

Utilities

Advanced Text Editing: A good program that works like Notepad and has a little extra kick is Notepad++, but for flash drives go with Notepad++ Portable.
Total size: 2.25MB

File Compression: Let's face it: the ZIP compression format stinks. For all the other formats, the best program out there is 7-Zip, with a portable version. Supports almost every compression format out there.
Total size: 2.08MB

SSH Client: My college career involves a lot of work on Linux computers through SSH clients. All I did here was copy over the SshClient.exe file from my local SSH installation, and it seems to work fine.
Total size: 3.07MB
There is also a portable PuTTY, if that's your app of choice.

Lightweight PDF Viewer: Down with bulky Adobe Reader, long live Foxit Reader! Download and extract the ZIP file from Foxit's site, and you have a standalone, lightweight PDF viewer!
Total size: 3.85MB

Other utilities: I have a few other small programs that might come in handy. These are Process Explorer (a bulked-up Task Manager), TightVNC Viewer (viewer executable only, along with a personalized build of UltraVNC Single Click, though I haven't tried the combo yet), FolderSize, and a small program that creates a System Restore Point (edits the registry, yes, but in this case you want it to ;) ).
Total size of all four apps: 4.91MB

Security

Antivirus: My app of choice for antivirus is actually AVG Free, but I haven't yet figured out how to run it from a flash drive. Until then, I will use ClamWin Portable.

Antispyware/malware: At the moment, my spyware apps include only files copied over from local installations of Ad-Aware SE and Spybot SD. I have NOT tested these for registry modification yet, however!

Office
My portable office suite is OpenOffice.org Portable. Unfortunately, the installation program doesn't let you choose which parts to install, and there's really not much you can remove to save space. I've managed to slim my install down to 76MB total, but it's still bigger than I like, when I'll only occasionally use Writer and Calc.
Total size: 76MB slimmed, 181MB full install

Last, but not least, I have two files on the root of my flash drive: an autorun.inf and an rklauncher.bat. The autorun.inf is setup to automatically run RKLauncher (setup with some help from lazycoder.com). The rklauncher.bat file is essentially a shortcut in the case that autorun doesn't autorun. With flash drives (and, therefore, changing drive letters), file shortcuts don't work, so simple windows batch scripts have to be used instead (setup with a template found on a fatwallet.com post -- be sure to use relative paths!).

Altogether, my 1GB flash drive shows 225MB used space, 747MB free space. Plenty of free space for any documents or relatively small downloads I may want to grab :)

Other sites for portable apps:
portableapps.com has a wide range of programs specifically built to be run from a flash drive.
That fatwallet.com post also has an exhaustive list of programs that can run from your flash drive.

Intro

Even geeks don't know everything about technology. I learn new things about the tech world at least weekly, if not daily. Web usability, the latest server-side techniques, iPod junk, all sorts of stuff. So stay tuned ;)