Finally got to install Firefox version 3, but got a scare when I realized all my bookmarks were gone!

But I remembered that Google is my friend and a quick search for “missing bookmarks after firefox 3 upgrade” led me to a few sites that taught me how to get my bookmarks back on this Windows XP laptop.

1. Find your Firefox profile. On Windows, click on Start > Run.

2. Type in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ then click OK. Windows Explorer opens a folder containing your profiles. If you are the only user on your machine chances are you will only find one folder there.

3. Go into that folder and find the file “places.sqlite” You will need to rename this file to “places.sqlite.bak“. It may not work while you have Firefox open, so close Firefox and try again if you get the “file is in use” message.

4. In the same folder find the file “signons3.txt“. This is the file that stores your passwords when you hit “Remember Password” when you are prompted in Firefox. Rename this file to “signons3.txt.bak“.

5. Restart Firefox. Your bookmarks should be back in all its organized beauty.

These same instructions can be found HERE.

One caveat everyone should know is that if you’re a plugin junkie like me, some of your plugins may not work on Firefox 3, so get ready for some withdrawal symptoms if you’re using some that are not compatible with the latest version.

Another thing that bugged me for a few minutes while gazing at the new and really spiffy Firefox 3 is the disappearance of the Back and Next buttons. But since I am always one for tweaking settings and all that, I tried this fix and it worked.

1. On Firefox click on View > Toolbars > Customize.

2. In the window that appears click on the “Restore Default Set” button. Since my only customization at this time was to use small icons this action made the “missing” Back and Next buttons miraculously appear on my toolbar. Click on the Done button to make that window go away.

Results? A faster, spiffier, cleaner Firefox. Now I’m off to find upgrades for my plugins and dell memory for a laptop I’m trying to resurrect. Happy surfing!

Just to make sure no one thinks I’m promising this will work with ANY WordPress installation, please read the next couple of paragraphs at least twice. This customization technique will work only and ONLY IF:

1. You have a WordPress installation on a “paid” hosting service on a Apache/Unix Server. This means this will not work on a free WordPress hosting service that does NOT allow you to FTP files into the root directory of your WordPress installation. (Never mind the techie terminology, these will all be explained in the succeeding steps.)

AND

2. You know how to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program to upload files into your WordPress root directory, and how to use your FTP program to change permissions (CHMOD) on a file.

Rationale:

Why would we even want to wrestle with FTP and WordPress options to begin with? Much of this has to do with vanity. Why else would they call it “pretty permalinks”? With vanity-permalinks you also get easier indexing by search engines, but that also depends on whether you’ve created your sitemaps and submitted your WordPress blog to the proper directories and search engines. So let’s just stick to vanity for the meantime.

The default WordPress url looks something like this:

In a few steps that “ugly” URL can become

Sexy, yes?

What you will need:

1. A computer with an internet connection.
2. Your WordPress installation on a server that you can access via FTP.
3. A simple FTP Program. I use and recommend FileZilla because it’s free and pretty straightforward to use.
4. A text editor. For this purpose, Notepad will do.

How to do it:

1. Open Notepad.

2. Without writing/typing anything into the new document, click on File > Save As. Name the file htaccess.txt

3. Start your FTP program and go into the root folder of your WordPress installation.

4. Locate the htaccess.txt file you created and upload it into the root folder of your WordPress installation. In FileZilla, you do this by right-clicking on the file htaccess.txt and selecting Upload from the fly-out menu.

5. When the htaccess.txt file has been uploaded, select it on the server pane by clicking on it once.

6. Right click on the file and select Rename. Rename the file to .htaccess

7. When the file has been renamed, right click on it again. This time select File Attributes.

8. Change the numeric value entry to 755, thus enabling WordPress to “write to” the file. (If the later steps do not produce the desired result come back to this point and change the File Attributes to 666 instead of 755.)

9. Click on OK. Close your FTP program.

10. Login to your WordPress administration backend.

11. On the Menu, select Options > Permalinks. You will see the Customize Permalink Structure Screen.

12. Selecting an option other than default will cause an entry on the “Custom Structure” text box. For our purpose, first select “Date and name based” so that the Custom Structure text box reads

13. Click on the radio button beside “Custom, specify below” and then edit the entry in the “Custom Structure” box to read

14. Click on the “Update Permalink Structure” button.

15. NOW, to play it safe, without closing the administrator screen on your blog, open a new browser window or tab to the homepage of your blog. If on the off chance you can’t see your blog anymore, or if clicking on a post or category link gives you an error, click back to the administrator screen and select the default permalink structure again, then click “Update Permalink Structure” again. If you did all the steps outlined above correctly, you should be seeing your new permalink structure when you mouse over your post titles: