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I hate switching email addresses, so I’ve been avoiding gmail for a long time…The more I play with it, the more impressed I am though, and all my friends are on chat.
I’m sick enough of yahoo’s horrible search options (the refine options are great, but I can’t find any easy way to quickly search from:someone and with the subject:something else).
It’s also been occurring to me that the email I have on web based services has been the safest and most reliable of any email I’ve had; I’ve lost thousands and thousands from old dead hard drives.
I found this article on uploading ALL of your old mail to gmail, including old outlook PST files and yahoo accounts using IMAP, which makes me definitely want to try using it. (Where was that email I wrote my sister in 2001…damn you outlook search!)
I’m also looking for a way to sync my bookmarks between all browsers. Some people are using gmail for that as well. I’m sick of using Delicious. I’m looking into Google Browser Sync but it’s only for firefox — I use several browsers. I hear foxmarks is good too. I’m just sick of having bookmarks all over the place. I’ll post more as I find better solutions.

Updates:
Safari Bookmarks Exporter will supposedly sync all browsers with your safari bookmarks, and .Mac and iSync will sync safari bookmarks across multiple macs. Still looking for a FAST web based solution though.

The new ‘awesomebar’ in Firefox 3 beta 5 has been driving me nuts, to the point that I couldn’t use the browser, until I found this option:
browser.urlbar.autoFill
Now it’s truly awesome, and behaves like Safari and I.E. would (guesses the rest of the address as you type, and so you don’t have to hit the down arrow to choose a site).
Here’s how to turn this feature on:
type about:config in the address bar and hit enter
Click on the ‘ok, I’ll be careful’ button
Search for browser.urlbar.autoFill in the filter list
Double click on false to change the boolean to true

That’s it, now when you start typing in the address bar it autocompletes, you don’t even need to restart the browser.
This works in Firefox 2 through Firefox 3 beta 5, but works great with Firefox b5’s new awesomebar.
One tip - I didn’t think this was working at first because I would type di and hit enter and it would go to di.com (di.fm) instead of going to digg.com like I wanted.
The solution was to type in digg.com and hit enter to have autocomplete memorize it, (maybe you have to re-register the autocompletes) and then d-i-enter would go to digg.com.
Brilliant - I was typing ‘f’ to go to facebook, but the first autocomplete value was http://en-us.start2.mozilla.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official because of the keyword ‘firefox’. I just typed ‘facebook.com’ and enter a couple times, and now facebook.com is the default site for ‘f’. Awesome!

Um, WTF?

I installed the Leopard 10.5.2 update today and tonight my computer started wigging out. It happened when I was copying files from a USB thumb drive, but continued after I ejected it and quit all applications. I got a screen shot of it which tells me my graphics card is not on the fritz and my computer is not overheating (because it was software related). Today I installed the newest build of parallels (5584), the newest build of webkit, and the 10.5.2 Leopard update, so it’s hard to tell what caused it.

The apps I had running were:

Finale 2008
ITunes
Parallels
Safari
Webkit
Firefox
Textedit
MOTU Audio monitor
Google Desktop
Quicksilver
Slimserver
Logic Pro
LAMP

I have no idea what caused it. Anyone else experiencing this?

-edit

Immediately after you install the 10.5.2 update, if you run software update again, you get an option to install the Leopard Graphics Update 1.0. Whether or not this fixes this problem time will tell.

I’ve been getting this error more and more on my XP machines lately.

Runtime Error!
Program: C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Apple’s software in particular has been giving me this problem. I found this thread which simply states to update itunes with software update:
http://forums.techguy.org/multimedia/581031-itunes-runtime-error.html

That’s good for the constant itunes crash, which was happening every time I opened the application. One thing that sucks is that this FORCES you to upgrade iTunes, and ‘upgrades’ have been generally more and more restrictive downgrades with iTunes lately. (Wonder if this was partly intentional on Apple’s part.)

What this doesn’t solve though is why it keeps happening with other applications. What library is getting corrupted I wonder? Why does it happen sporadically with firefox and safari as well on two of my different XP machines?

I’ve had a variety of problems with version 2.0.0.4 of Firefox on a variety of computers, such as having no browser window open but if you try to launch Firefox it says “Firefox is already running but is not yet running”, meaning I have to use explorer or reboot the computer until it decides to respond.
Another problem I saw once was firefox’s popup blocker blocked a bunch of popups that I wanted to allow, and made a queue of them in the yellow bar, but even if I clicked “allow from…” or clicked on the individual windows, they wouldn’t come up. Restarting firefox though fixed that problem.
But the problem I’ve seen on multiple computers (not localized to one environment) is this: You enter in an address and hit enter and nothing happens. You click on the green “go” button and nothing happens. You switch windows or open a new window and enter an address and hit enter and nothing happens! Firefox is responsive to windows but not to the address bar.
I have mixed feelings about the way firefox forced updates on you - I’m sure you can turn this off, but it’s a little scary having the software download updates and update itself almost automatically. A little DNS spoofing and I think it would be pretty easy to trick firefox into installing malware. Also I like to wait a few days for people to talk about releases and if they’re buggy or not before installing them — in this case, the forced update seems pretty buggy.

-update-
Siamese below remarks on how to turn off automatic updates. Yet ironically they fixed the problems I was having above with Firefox 2.0.0.6.

Every once in a while Firefox starts on the wrong screen, and every new window I open also starts on the wrong screen, even when I quit and restart firefox. It drives me nuts.

I try using the ultramon button that switches the maximized window to the other screen, closing, and then restarting firefox, but new instances of the window still open on the new screen.

I figure out the solution to this every once in a while and then forget and it drives me nuts, so I’m writing it down here. You have to restore firefox to a resizable window, drag it over to the other screen, and then maximize from there. The problem is firefox doesn’t remember that you switched screens when you use the ultramon function, but does remember if you click and drag (which is handled by windows) the window over.

Ok now I think it’s flash that’s bogging down my system, still trying to figure it out…

I was wrong! Weeks after uninstalling Adblock Plus I was still getting system unresponsiveness and firefox at 50% CPU. I uninstalled google toolbar after reading a post elsewhere and my computer seems to bee snappy again. I reinstalled Adblock Plus and it’s working great.
Too bad I miss google toolbar. My firefox search box uses google for most things, but I miss pagerank and the single word buttons that appear generated by your searches for instant finds. Anyone have another plugin for that I can use?

I love Adblock Plus, and I miss it. There was such a feeling of power when I right clicked on an ad and blocked it forever. And the pre-installed list of hideous ads were great.
But my computer became unusable. Firefox was taking up 50% CPU any time I simply refocused a window or loaded a page. Other elements of Windows stopped responding. I could hardly get any work done.
I tried deleting my pluginreg.dat file, reinstalling firefox, all sorts of things. Sometimes when watching my memory watcher, StatusbarEx, the used memory would increase, meg by meg, by about one meg a second. Finally disabling Adblock Plus solved my woes.
RIP Adblock plus!