A few months back something I did or probably the upgrade to Firefox 3.0 caused my navigation buttons to stop working. Also when I open tabs only the last updated URL is displayed in the URL box and it doesn’t change according to the current tab. Also saving bookmarks didn’t seem to work. Its quite a nagging issue when you cant stop, refresh or go back.  With bookmarks not working I couldn’t keep track of a lot of online resources I was stumbling upon daily.  I tried out various options to fix the issue. Nothing seemed to work. Finally today I stumbled upon the following steps which I tied out hopelessly to find out that it in fact worked. However as I couldn’t bookmark the site I cant guide you there. However these are the instructions that I followed.

1. step
Close all firefox windows (kill all ffox processes).

2. step
Rename mozilla hidden directory.
> mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.bak

3. step
Start firefox. (It’ll be starting with virgin state.)
> firefox

After step 3 everything returned to normal. But as the following three steps were also there I followed through and found that it returned to my former state ie without navigation. So I redid steps 1 to 3 and left it at that. The remaining steps 4-6 are to restore your orginal settings however it didnt help me out. You can either try 1-3 and leave it at that or proceed through the remaining 4-6.

4. step
Close firefox.

5. step
Delete genarated settings directory.
rm -r ~/.mozilla

6. step
Move back original settings dir.
> mv ~/.mozilla.bak ~/.mozilla

Before you think its some fancy form of greeting let me tell you its something I have my hands tied up with right now. I know Bill has a lot of money but then I still really don’t fancy the idea of continuing to steal from the world’s richest man! I have been trying and weighing the options of buying all legal software for my use. But I knew I couldn’t pull it off on the long shot I would have to compromise somewhere with Windows.

I was planning on using ReactOS. ReactOS in case you haven’t heard  is a new open source OS based on the XP and 2000 Kernel something like Linux being the offshoot of Unix. If it happens you can run all your windows software using it.  And if its going to take off the way Linux does you better check it out at the ReactOS website.

However its taking a lot of time to materialize and the beta too is a long way off. Thats too long a time to keep stealing from Bill though he is totally unawares. Thats when I started thinking of Linux and happened to stumble on Ubuntu. And it seemed to have quite a fan following. Anyway last week I scrapped Windows and shifted to Ubuntu. This being my first stint with Linux I did over a dozen installs  and finally I got it to work the way I want  it wireless, bluetooth, gprs et all . And now after a week I really have started liking this OS. It takes a lot of getting used too and reminds me of days when even the earlier windows too had problems with Plug and Play devices. But Iv really taken a liking to tinkering around with it. Will be some time before I use it like Windows but for now it has me floored! And by reading this if you are encouraged to do so please understand I always like tinkering around with cars, bikes, computers , pro audio equipment etc. So if you happen to wear the same shoes I do jump in else help Bill out he needs the money!