Run Firefox with More than One Profile at the Same Time

There may be various reasons why you might want to run multiple Firefox profiles at one time. You may want to test extensions without affecting your current setup, create a minimal profile for checking email, or you may just want to use a clean profile sometimes. There is a way you can run multiple instances of Firefox, each running a separate profile using specially-created Firefox shortcuts. We will show you how to create special shortcuts in Windows 7 and special launchers in Ubuntu 10.10. The procedures for each operating system should work the same way in earlier versions of the same operating system. First, you need to create a new profile, if you only have one. Our previous post, Speed Up the Start Time for Firefox by Creating a New Profile, shows you how to create a new profile, so we won’t cover that again here. However, we will show you how to open the Firefox Profile Manager in Ubuntu. Once open, the Profile Manager operates the same way in both Windows and Linux. IMPORTANT: In the post mentioned above, you are told to turn off the Don’t ask at startup check box on the Profile Manager. To run multiple Firefox profiles at once, make sure that check box is turned on (has a check mark in it). To access the Firefox Profile Manager in Ubuntu, press Alt + F2. Enter the following command in the edit box and click Run. /usr/bin/firefox -P NOTE: The icon automatically sets to the Firefox icon once you type the full path to the Firefox executable file. Once the Profile Manager is open, you can follow the steps in the post mentioned above to create a new profile in Ubuntu. The steps for creating a new profile in Ubuntu are the same as they are for creating a profile in Windows. The next step is to create another Firefox shortcut for each profile you want to open. First, we will create shortcuts in Windows 7. Right-click on an empty area of the desktop and select New | Shortcut from the popup menu. The Create Shortcut dialog box displays. Click the Browse button to select the location of the Firefox executable file for the shortcut. On the Browse for Files or Folders dialog box, navigate to the location of the Firefox executable file (generally found at C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox) and select the firefox.exe file. Click OK. You are returned to the Create Shortcut dialog box. The full path to the Firefox executable file is inserted in the Type the location of the item edit box. Put the cursor at the end of that path, and type a space followed by the following text. -P {Profile Name} -no-remote Replace {Profile Name} with the name of one of your Firefox profiles. NOTE: All the dashes are single dashes and there is one space on each side of the {Profile Name}. Click Next. Enter a descriptive name for the shortcut in the Type a name for this shortcut edit box and click Finish. The new shortcut is added to the desktop. Follow the same steps above to create other shortcuts for other profiles you have created in Firefox. NOTE: When you have multiple Firefox windows open in Windows 7 with different profiles, the icons on the Taskbar look the same. If you have a different web page open on the active tab in each Firefox window, you can tell the windows apart by moving your mouse over the Firefox icons on the Taskbar. The name of the currently open web page displays. If you want your shortcut available on the Start menu or the Taskbar, right-click the shortcut and select Pin to Start Menu or Pin to Taskbar, respectively, from the popup menu. Now, we will create Firefox launchers in Ubuntu. You can add launchers to the desktop, the panels, and the menu in Ubuntu. To add a launcher to the desktop, right-click on the Ubuntu desktop and select Create Launcher from the popup menu. The Create Launcher dialog box displays. Enter a name for the launcher in the Name edit box. Type the following command in the Command edit box. /usr/bin/firefox -P Lori -no-remote NOTES: The dashes and spaces in the command are the same as they are for Windows. Also, once you type “/usr/bin/firefox”, the icon automatically changes to the Firefox icon. Enter a comment for the launcher in the Comment edit box. Click OK. The new launcher is added to the desktop. Follow the same steps above to add launchers for other Firefox profiles you have created. You can also add launchers to different Firefox profiles to a panel if desired. To do this, right-click on a panel and select Add to Panel from the popup menu. The Add to Panel dialog box displays. Select Custom Application Launcher and click Add. Fill out the information on the Create Launcher dialog box the same way you did when creating a desktop launcher. Click OK. If you want to add more launchers to the panel for different Firefox profiles, leave the Add to Panel dialog box open, and select Custom Application Launcher and then click Add for each launcher you want to create. Fill out the Create Launcher dialog box using the appropriate Firefox profile name in the Command and entering a descriptive Name and Comment. When you are finished creating the desired launchers, click Close to the close the Add to Panel dialog box. Here’s an example of a Firefox launcher on the top panel for a specific profile. To add a launcher to the Applications menu, right-click on the menu bar and select Edit Menus from the popup menu. The Main Menu dialog box displays. Select the Internet submenu under the Applications menu in the list on the left. Click the New Item button. The Create Launcher dialog box displays again, just like when you added a launcher to the desktop and one to the panel. Fill it out as before. The launcher is added to the list of items on the Internet menu. If you want to move it from the default location, select the item and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons. Use the New Item button for every launcher you want to add to the menu. When you are finished adding your launchers to the menu, click Close on the Main Menu dialog box to close it. Any launchers you created are added to the Internet menu on the Applications menu. Using multiple profiles can help you organize your work, performing certain categories of tasks in each profile. This is similar to using multiple desktops in Windows and Ubuntu (see our posts, Organize the Windows Desktop Using a Virtual Desktop Manager – Part I, Organize the Windows Desktop Using a Virtual Desktop Manager – Part II, and Use Multiple Workspaces in Ubuntu). In fact, you can have a different profile to match the purpose of each virtual desktop you set up in Windows and the same for each workspace you set up in Ubuntu.

Change the Default Margins Used in New Word Documents Posted: 16 Nov 2010 09:35 PM PST If you use the same margins in most of your Word documents, you can set default margins once to be used for every new Word document you create. This post shows you how to set your default margins for Word 2003, Word 2007, and Word 2010. Word 2003 To set default margins in Word 2003, select Page Setup from the File menu. The Page Setup dialog box displays. Make sure the Margins tab is active. Enter the margins you want to use as the default margins in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right edit boxes in the Margins section. Click the Default button. A confirmation dialog box displays making sure you want to change the default settings for Page Setup. Click Yes to accept your changes. NOTE: When you click Yes on confirmation dialog box, the Page Setup dialog box is also closed. If you need to temporarily change the margins to values other than the default values for a specific document, open the Page Setup dialog box as described earlier and enter the desired values in the Margins section. Click OK to accept the different values, rather than the Default button. Word 2007 and Word 2010 The procedure for setting the default margins in Word 2007 and Word 2010 are the same, except for one button name we will point out. We used Word 2007 for our example. To set the default margins, click the Page Layout tab. Click the Margins button and select Custom Margins from the drop-down menu. The Page Setup dialog box displays. Make sure the Margins tab is active. Enter the margins you want to use as the default margins in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right edit boxes in the Margins section. Click the Default button. NOTE: In Word 2010, the Default button is called Set As Default. A confirmation dialog box displays making sure you want to change the default settings for Page Setup. Click Yes to accept your changes. NOTE: When you click Yes on confirmation dialog box, the Page Setup dialog box is also closed. If you need to temporarily change the margins to values other than the default values for a specific document in Word 2007 or Word 2010, click the Page Layout tab and either select a set of pre-defined margin values from the drop-down menu. You can also select Custom Margins from the drop-down menu on the Margins button and enter the desired custom values in the Margins section on the Page Setup dialog box. Click OK to accept the different values, rather than the Default (or Set As Default) button.

Change the Panels in Ubuntu to Look and Act Like the Windows Taskbar Posted: 16 Nov 2010 09:23 PM PST Ubuntu 10.04 includes a top panel and a bottom panel by default. If you prefer one panel at the bottom like the Windows Taskbar, this post shows you how to accomplish that. To begin, delete the bottom panel. Right-click on the bottom panel and select Delete This Panel from the popup menu. A confirmation dialog box displays to make sure you want to delete the panel. Click Delete. Now, we need to move the top panel to the bottom. Right-click on the top panel and select Properties from the popup menu. On the Panel Properties dialog box, select Bottom from the Orientation drop-down list. Click Close. We will now add the Window List buttons to the bottom panel that will act like the program buttons on the Windows Taskbar. Right-click on the bottom panel and select Add to Panel from the popup menu. On the Add to Panel dialog box, scroll until you find Window List. Select it and click Add. Click Close. We will replace the Menu Bar on the bottom panel with the Main Menu to make it look and act more like the Start menu in Windows. Right-click anywhere on the Menu Bar and select Remove From Panel from the popup menu. To add the Main Menu to the bottom panel, right-click on the bottom panel and select Add to Panel from the popup menu. On the Add to Panel dialog box, scroll until you find Main Menu. Select it and click Add. Click Close. To make the panel look like the Windows Taskbar, we need to move the Main Menu we just added to the far left. To do this, we must move the icons that are currently on the left, which are generally the Firefox icon and the Help icon. Right-click the Firefox icon and select Lock To Panel from the popup menu to remove the check mark. Do the same for the Help icon and for any other icons that may be there (except for the Main Menu icon). Now that we have unlocked the icons on the far left, we can move the Main Menu into the far left corner. Right-click on the Main Menu icon and select Move from the popup menu. The cursor turns into a hand and you can immediately move the Main Menu icon just by moving the mouse all the way to the left. NOTE: DO NOT click again until you have moved the icon to where you want it. Clicking after selecting Move sets the position of the icon. Now we want to lock the Main Menu and the other icons to the panel so we can move the Window List buttons all the way over next to the icons. Right-click on the Main Menu icon and select Lock To Panel from the popup menu. Do the same for the Firefox icon, the Help icon and any other icons that may be there. We can now move the Window List buttons to the left right next to the Firefox icon, the Help icon and any other icons that are there. This provides as much room as possible for Window List buttons on the bottom panel. Right-click on the left side of the Window List bar and select Move from the popup list. Again, the cursor turns into a hand. Move the mouse as far to the left as the Windows List buttons will go and click to set the position. NOTE: It can be hard to see the three bars that make up the left side of the Window List bar. The easiest way to see the left edge of the Window List buttons is to start a program and minimize it. To lock the Window List buttons in place, right-click on the left side of the Window List buttons and select Lock To Panel. The bottom panel now should look and act like the Windows Taskbar. If you want to restore the panels to their original configuration, open a Terminal window. Enter the following commands at the command line. $ sudo gconftool-2 –shutdown $ sudo rm –rf .gconf/apps/panel $ sudo pkill gnome-panel NOTE: There are two dashes before shutdown in the first command, one dash before rf in the second command, and one dash between gnome and panel in the third command. After entering the commands, enter Exit to close the Terminal window and restart your system. These are just basic changes. The panels in Ubuntu are much more flexible than the Windows Taskbar. Many items can be easily added to the panels, removed from the panels and configured on the panels.

Change the Time Stamps on Files and Folders in Windows Posted: 16 Nov 2010 09:22 PM PST Every file in Windows has three dates associated with it, the date the file was created, the date the file was last modified, and the date the file was last accessed. You cannot manually change these dates in Windows, but there may be some occasions, such as when developing or testing software, where you do need to change one or more of these dates to a specific date. We found a free, portable tool, called FileTouch, that allows you to do this. Download FileTouch from http://www.wintestgear.com/products/FileTouch/FileTouch.html. NOTE: .NET Framework 3.5 must be installed to run FileTouch. Download it from Download details: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. FileTouch does not need to be installed. Simply double-click the .exe file you downloaded to run it. On the FileTouch main window, click the Add button to add files for which you want to change the dates and times. On the dialog box that displays, click the Browse button to the right of the Folder edit box. The Browse For Folder dialog box displays. Navigate to the folder containing the files you want to change. Click OK. The files are added to the list of files on the Specific Files tab. NOTE: You can add all files in the selected folder (All Files), files with a specific extension (Common Extensions), or specific files using a Custom Filter on the Wildcard Specification tab. Click Add when you have selected the files to change. The following help dialog box displays how to add a Custom Filter to select files. Once you have selected the files to change, you need to select the new date and time to apply to the files. To select a date, click the arrow button next to the date edit box to display a calendar. Use the right and left arrow keys to navigate among the months. Click on a date to select it. You can also select the current date by clicking the Calendar button to the right of the arrow button. To select a time, click on the portion of the time you want to change and click the up arrow button or the down arrow button to change it. You can also select the current time by clicking the Clock button to the right of the up arrow and down arrow buttons. You can choose to change any or all of the date types associated with files. All the date types in the Select date types box are selected by default. To unselect any of the date types, select the desired check box so there is no check mark in the box. If you change your mind about a file and want to remove it from the list, select the file and click the Remove button. To change the dates on the selected files to the date and time you specified, click the Touch Dates button. A confirmation dialog box displays telling you the dates and times were successfully changed. Click OK. If you right-click on a file you changed and select Properties, you will see that the dates and times on the General tab have been changed. You can use command line arguments to automate the changing of the dates and times on files using batch files. To see how to do this, select Command Line Arguments from the Help menu. A help dialog box displays the way to usage, options, and examples for using the command line arguments. Click OK to close the dialog box. You can easily view help about any part of FileTouch. Simply move the mouse over a part of the dialog box and then click the question mark button that displays. A help dialog box displays information about that part of the dialog box. To close the dialog box, click OK. To close FileTouch, select Exit from the File menu. Remember that once you change the dates and times on a file, you cannot go back to the original dates that were on the file. However, once you access or modify a file for which you changed the dates, the Accessed and Modified dates do change again.

Open the Nautilus File Browser as Root in Ubuntu Posted: 16 Nov 2010 08:40 PM PST Do you need to access files as root often in Ubuntu, but prefer to work in a graphical file browser? There are ways to open the Nautilus File Browser with root access. One way is to press Alt + F2 to open the Run Application dialog box. Enter the following into the edit box and click Run. gksu nautilus The File Browser opens into the root home directory. You can navigate to your own home directory by clicking on File System under Places. Then, click the home folder icon and then the folder icon with your user name. Another method of accessing the Nautilus File Browser as root, is to add an item to the Applications | System Tools menu to open Nautilus as root. To do this, open a Terminal window by selecting Accessories | Terminal from the Applications menu. Enter the following line at the prompt and press Enter. gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/Nautilus-root.desktop Gedit opens with the Nautilus-root.desktop file active. Enter the following lines into the file and click Save. [Desktop Entry] Name=File Browser (Root) Comment=Browse the filesystem with the file manager Exec=gksudo “nautilus –browser %U” Icon=file-manager Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Application;System; Close gedit by selecting Quit from the File menu. Close the Terminal window by typing “exit” (without the quotes) at the prompt and pressing Enter. You should now have a File Browser (Root) option on the Applications | System Tools menu. This new option allows you to enter a session of Nautilus with full write permissions.