Done With Firefox

I have used Firefox pretty much since it came out. I’m not sure why I didn’t like Chrome, but I tried it out and went back to Firefox. Lately I factory reset my laptop and I was able to use the Firefox sync feature to get the bookmarks from my desktop over to my laptop. Then I also synched over to my Transformer. It was pretty neat how it worked, by paring the computers using 12-digit codes that you enter on each machine. The problem is that they intend this to keep everything synched, not just bookmarks, and every time I would open a browser it would immediately ask for my master password in Firefox. So I turned off the sync, which was fine because I still had the bookmarks the way I wanted them on all three computers.

Then today my Transformer was acting up, not downloading Windows updates like it was supposed to for the last few weeks, with no apparent way of fixing it despite some built-in troubleshooting utility that was supposed to fix it. So I reinstalled Windows on the Transformer. Eventually I reinstalled Firefox and was hoping to try the Sync thing again. But this time it didn’t work at all and the instructions were no help. There was an option to pair a device, with the 12 digits, but I would enter it on the other device and it wouldn’t work. I had to set up some kind of account, but that wasn’t working either. I don’t know why Firefox would make it so hard to do something that seems so simple as transfer bookmarks. I found out how to save a file with bookmarks in it (hidden, the export option only shows up when you click “Show all bookmarks”) but this didn’t bring over the toolbar bookmarks. I was pretty frustrated with Firefox at this point, so I decided to just use Chrome, which I know will sync bookmarks pretty easily. So I’ve got Chrome installed on the laptop and Transformer now and it all seems to be working okay. Chrome was somehow even able to import the bookmarks and toolbar along with my saved passwords which should have only been available with a master password, which I never gave to Chrome.

Asus Transformer T100

I was looking for a replacement for my five year old notebook which has been acting up lately. I also wouldn’t mind replacing my desktop computer which is even older. After looking around I took a chance on a very small lightweight notebook that can be converted to a tablet, the Asus Transformer T100.

The T100 comes in a couple of different varieties. The more affordable option has 2 GB of RAM and a 32 GB of storage space in flash memory (no hard drive and no DVD). Unlike slate models, it comes with a full version of Windows 8, in fact this version also includes a home version of Microsoft Office which includes Word and Excel. This is kind of underpowered and undercapacity for me. The processor is an Intel Atom processor, which is also kind of underpowered, but it doesn’t use a lot of energy, and still is quadcore. The low power requirements give the battery approximately 11 hours of life whereas regular laptops run 3-6 hours, so there is an upside. I definitely wanted more storage capacity. Of the 32 GB of storage, there was only about 10 GB left after installing Firefox and Chrome and activating Microsoft Office. There is a hidden recovery drive that can be used to restore Windows, but it can’t be used for anything else. I bought a 32 GB Micro SD card at Fry’s to give myself more storage for documents and movies and then set up my My Documents folder to be on the SD card. I think this slows things down because the SD card isn’t as fast as the internal storage, but buying the 64 GB version of the T100 would have been $400 vs. $330 plus an $18 SD card. Still not a lot of storage though. There is cloud storage, but my home wifi is very slow and it is only available when I am home, not at work or on the go. So I could set up a home external drive on my network and have a local cloud, which I am kind of doing by storing stuff like music and other documents in shared folders on my desktop computer which is usually on.
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