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Since I have my work and regular documents properly synced across all my machines it was time to sync the rest of my work flows. I run all my email through various Google App accounts and I check them on my main computers using Thunderbird. For web browsing I use Firefox exclusively unless I’m forced to use something else.

I have a basic set of add-ons  that I use, such as Minimize to Tray, Faviconize Tab, All-in-One Gestures, Delicious, and Copy Link Text. I had installed these separately but various settings like my bookmarks toolbar and icon arrangement get changed. The way to fix this was to move my Thunderbird and Firefox profiles to the Dropbox so they stay in sync.

It’s quite simple:

1. Create two folders in your Dropbox for both profiles. I just called mine “Firefox” and “Thunderbird”.
2. Locate your current default profiles and copy their contents to the respective ones you just made.
3. Mozilla.org says to find them like this:
   • Firefox:
     • On Windows Vista/XP/2000 the path is usually %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\
     • On Linux the path is usually ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/
     • On Mac OS X the path is usually ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/
     • More details here
   • Thunderbird:
     • On Windows Vista/XP/2000 the path is usually %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ or just browse to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\ on Windows XP/2000 or C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ on Windows Vista, and the rest should be obvious.
     • On Windows 95/98/Me the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\
     • On Linux the path is usually ~/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/
     • On Mac OS X the path is usually ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/
     • More details here
4. Once you’ve copied the contents of your default folders over you need to delete them.
5. Now run the profile manager for each program by running each one with the -p flag enabled. It’s easiest to type “firefox.exe -p” and “thunderbird.exe -p” from the run command in the Start menu.
6. You now need to create new profiles for each
   

   Create a new profile

   

   Select the new destination folders in your Dropbox

7. Once you’ve create a new profile you can delete the old default one from the list. The new one will become the default option.
   

   The new folders with your profiles

8. That’s it! You’ve now moved your Firefox/Thunderbird profiles to your Dropbox. On subsequent computers simply create a new  profile and point it at your Dropbox profile folders, you shouldn’t copy the old profiles over. Make sure you delete the default profile and then start up Firefox/Thunderbird and your settings will be the same (once Dropbox syncs).

The only problem I’ve had is that some existing plugins needed to be reinstalled after the first copy, however, before you reinstall anything that claims to be incompatible you should simply try searching for updates and restarting Firefox/Thunderbird.

Leave a comment if you’ve managed to do this or something similar with success.

—-Update—-

Ok, so for the record the above “does work”. However, I quickly realized that all my email takes up a crapload of space in the Dropbox and Thunderbird doesn’t necessarily change for me that often, so I undid my profile changes.

Also, for the sake of speed, and proper caching, you should definitely move your Firefox cache by typing “about:config” in the address bar. Find (or create by right-click > New > String) the entry “browser.cache.disk.parent_directory”. Set it to the absolute location of when you want the cache to be. I set mine to “C:\Documents and Settings\Eric\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\eric\cache” which is pretty much where it used to be, but you can put it anywhere. Then go back and delete your old cache out of the Dropbox for good measure.

Hope that help!

Anyway, again, I’m still here. Midterms are done so I guess there goes my excuse for not posting. The cafe is still hanging in there and the Free WiFi Project is slowly growing. I need to really pound the streets in order to get some more nodes out there but finding the actual time during regular business hours is pretty tricky.

In other news I started yet another company, this one is named Campus Cards. We specialize in business cards for students. Cool idea, eh? That’s what I thought. I think that student business cards is a pretty untapped market segment so we’ve got a pretty good chance of doing well. The cool thing, in my opinion, about Campus Cards is how I set the site up to use fillable PDFs embedded in the page. Students fill these out and then pay through PayPal and I get a nice email with a PDF attached which is all ready to hit the printing press.

I started Campus Cards when I, in my position as “Director of IT” (yes, that’s in quote because I really just look after the website) with the School of Business at the U of A, was asked to look into helping our students get business cards. Realistically there are no printers around that will give you less than 250 colour cards for less than $30. Even if you find someone who is willing to do meet that price point you are still going to get dinged with design fees when your print ready art isn’t perfect and also shipping if they aren’t local. At Campus Cards we are offering students across Canada 100 colour business cards for between $15 and $20, inclusive of all GST and fees, and shipping is free.

This is sort of a unique opportunity. Doing the cards manually is time consuming, but I’m doing my best to streamline the process. Outsourcing isn’t really an option because of shipping costs. That’s one thing you can count against globalization: small transactions won’t survive international shipping fees.

Anyway, back to work at my new “home office” in the condo I recently moved into.

First off, this thing was cheap. We shopped around and found a cutter from US Cutters on eBay (don’t buy from their website). After negotiating my own shipping the end price door to door was around $505. Not too shabby for a 36″ vinyl cutting monster.

The cutter itself is about 50″ long and it comes with a stand. Along with the tiny little cutting blades there is a pen plotting attachment that you can use to draw with.

We’ve cut a few things already, mostly stuff for Rob’s farm as you will see in the pictures.

Applying vinyl is pretty straight forward as long as you think things through in advance. It’s really sticky and once it’s on whatever surface you are using it’s not really coming off without being destroyed.

Anyway, with the amount we spent it’ll save us a fortune in sign making costs. Since cutting a few yards of vinyl ourselves will cost about $4/yard and having a shop do it would cost 10 times that.

This is a prime example of why I don’t care if a company has my demographic information. It’s not even that personal. Hell, there needs to be some sort of “OpenCookie” standard where I can plant a cookie in my browser that says I’m 23, male, and from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada so that the next time I search for coffee equipment I’m not being hit with bra advertisements that are completely irrelevant to me.

That’s really the goal that myself and Rob and going for, speed. We’re aiming to create inexpensive, customized, and well designed websites for small businesses and organizations. In order to keep prices down and profits up that means we need to be fast. I think that using a CSS framework will help me out.

I watched Yahoo’s YUI introduction video by Nate Koechley and it taught me a lot. Yes I have to submit to their div names and whatnot but I think it’ll speed things up.

The Hour

I made the “executive” decision to start calling each device a Community Router. Alternatively you could say Community HotSpot or Community Node, just throw Community in there because that’s what it’s all about

Whether you want to help out at home or work you can order a community router on our website for $60. We’ll send you a box in the mail with instructions and everything you need to get started.

Tell your friends and let’s get Edmonton connected!

It’s called Dropbox, and it’s amazing. Essentially Dropbox allows one to create a special folder on their hard drive which will sync anything in there with whatever computers you have your Dropbox account on. If you run a Mac, Windows and a Linux box you can have speedy up to date sharing of files. All of your files are also kept remotely on Dropbox’s servers where you can access them anywhere.

Your Dropbox web interface allows you to share folders and files with friends or even with the public. They also handle images really well with auto creation of galleries just by dropping photos, or folders with photos into the Photos folder in your Dropbox.

I used to play around with trying to sync my USB keys with my laptop but things kept screwing up. Dropbox is another slick example of how you can ditch your laptop.

I use the following services which I can essentially operate from anything with a web browser and an Internet connection:

• For my homepage I use Netvibes. It’s really awesome and displays my RSS feeds, Digg, email, and bookmarks in a great way.
• My main email address is hosted with Google Apps for your Domain. It’s basically a free and private GMail install that directly uses my ericwarnke.com domain instead of a gmail.com account. I would even pay for this if I had to.
• Along with Google Apps several of my friends and I use Google Docs to take notes together in class as well as collaborate on all the group assignments we need to do. Working on the same document at the same time kicks ass. We tried Microsoft Office Live for a bit as well but the versioning ended up sending us back to Docs.
• All my bookmarks are kept on Delicious. I’ve used this for a few years and their Firefox plugin is a life saver. I’ll never use any browser based bookmarks again.
• Now I use Dropbox

So my email, bookmarks, homepage, and now my files are all going to be available basically whenever I need them!