I had been using Minefield since Alpha 8 which was quite a long time ago. My Firefox profile has been used by Firefox 2 since I last reinstalled Windows on my computer and it had bee used by multiple Alpha and Beta builds (lots of nightlies) and during all the updates, my profile had become a mess and full of information from various versions of Firefox/Minefield. When Firefox 3 RC1 came out, I decided that it was time to start my profile again, except I will save my load of bookmarks I have collected over the years.

The process of backing up my Bookmarks was really simple. Using the new Places manager, exporting the database was simple. I needed a way of getting the saved passwords so I had them on record incase I didn’t know a password and didn’t want to get that information emailed to me. I managed to find a cunning way of backing up and accessing them if needed. After that, I went into the application data folder and renamed my profile. I didn’t delete it straight away in case something when horribly wrong and I wanted to turn back.

This is where the first problem arose. I couldn’t open Firefox because it kept telling me it was still open and in use. It clearly wasn’t due to it not showing in the process manager. I renamed the profile back to its original name and Firefox opened fine. I renamed it back and again Firefox had trouble. What I needed to do was open Firefox with the profile manager so I could create a new profile from scratch. Peppery found it and told me over IM how to do it. It was relatively simple.

With a new profile, I felt lost. This wasn’t my browser! My browser has extensions and acts differently to this. I first went and downloaded a couple of extensions that I needed. After all that, I then went and changed some of the setting in the add-ons and in the program options. Now all I needed was my bookmarks, and my tabs. Restoring my bookmarks was just as simple and fast as exporting them. In a click or two, my bookmarks were all back, and from there, I could restore all my tabs.

Logging into all my sites was going to be a challenge. Because all my passwords were gone, I had to rely on my memory, and my cheat sheet, to assist me with logging on to websites and saving the passwords so I no longer have to remember, not that I have to remember, all my passwords. From this, I am reminded about one of the best features of Firefox 3, the simple password remember bar. It is a godsend compared to the old save password dialog box.

The only real problem I had with this is the address bar. In my old profile, I had 90 days of history and that really made the new address bar work great. It still works good with only bookmarks, but the thing that makes it a wonder, is the addition of history. The feature is definitely not as rich without it, and having no history made it quite useless. Although after a few weeks, it started to become useful again.

I do believe that a clean out was good, and I noticed a significant amount of speed improvements, but that was more likely due to it not having 90 days of history holding it back, and many unused extensions disabled. Even though I did lose history which was slightly annoying, I am very happy I did it and would consider doing it with the released of Firefox 4. I really love Firefox 3 and a clean out did wonders!

A couple of days ago, Digg rolled out its new profile page on Digg. There are heaps of differences and everything has changed in a way that you can get a little confused when you first use it but quickly find your way around. The main goal to this is to make the site more social and not just a bookmarking/news finding site. Now let me talk about the new profiles as well as give my opinion on them.

As soon as you enter a person profile page, the changes become apparent. First off, up the top we see the 3 newest favoured stories from the user followed about ten of the users most recent activity, including stories dugg, commented on, submitted and even new friends added and shouts. Under that is the last ten shouts you have received. Down the right hand side is a little about section which includes a space for your bio as well as links to your other internet services, photos, friends, and the usual statistics about your digging habits.

The new profile page is really nice looking and smooth. Having more than just the most recent stories you have dugg and one favourite is really what your profile page should have had from the start. It is also nice to see all the types of activity that a person has recently done on the site, it really shows that there is more to Digg than just digging the stories. Shouts are not a feature I think is that great. It is very similar to Pownce, I wonder why. This feature is a little unneeded in my opinion and if they really wanted to do this, they probably could have integrated it with their Pownce service instead of making it individual to Digg. I don’t use the feature because I don’t see any reason to, it doesn’t add anything and is really not worth using.

Being able to see a little About section about a user is good. It gives you a little background information on who the person is and a little bit about their life outside of Digg. Links to peoples Pownce, Facebook, Flickr, Blog or whatever else they have signed up to is nice. It may be a bit creepy if you have a stalker but otherwise it is a nice feature so you are able to follow your fellow Diggers around other services, not only Digg. They also have the ability to upload pictures to the site for other people to see. This is another useful feature which I think should have been cut. They could have found a way to integrate with a popular service, like Flickr, that everyone already uses instead of making a cheap one themselves. It is also great to be able to see a few of the users friends on this page too.

The profile statistics are really interesting. They have added on the page a space where you can see the most dugg topics the person has dugg in the past 30 days. This is cool because it allows you to see which section and which types of stories the user likes to digg and can help with finding new friends on digg with similar tastes to your digging. It still has the same stats from the old profile page with total stories dugg, commented, submitted, the percentage of your stories that make the front page, friends referred and the number of profile views (that number should start to rise with it being more social and profiles more appealing to look at.)

With the profile pages done up, they haven’t gotten rid of your history page, as well as your friends history page. They are still there but the big difference is that there are now useful filters. You can now filter down to the thing you are looking for, whether it is stories dugg, submitted or even comments and shouts. These filters are on both of these pages and make it much easier to filter through the content. You can always view all activity if that is what you prefer.

With these new features, I have been noticing more people adding friends, including people adding me. They have email notifications for activities you select which has allowed me to follow who is adding me as a friend. It seems now that it is so easy to do and follow people, it is becoming more social and randoms are adding randoms, just like of other social networking sites. I personally won’t be adding randoms because I plan on using the site for what it was primarily set for, news and articles. I am only friending my friends and the few people that digg similar stores as I would.

I think it is nice that they are taking a step into trying to make the site more social but I personally could do without it. I think that they should be concentrating on the news side of things and strengthen there instead of moving in a different are, one which is being done so much that they can really succeed or grow because of it. I am going to stick to doing what I do best, digging, and they should do that too!