[PortableFirefox] a couple of questions

[Matthew Weymar]

Hi,

I'm curious about running FF - and possibly Thunderbird, and even Sunbird - 
from a USB drive.

I'm working primarily on a Mac now, however, and so Portable Firefox isn't 
going to do it for me, at least today - unless I can help you get an OSX 
version working, which may be possible.

In any case, I have a couple of questions:

1. I'm trying to figure out how big a deal drive wear is on a (4GB) USB 
drive.

I understand that one of your objectives with Portable Firefox is to reduce 
drive wear. Can I ask you to elaborate on your concern re drive wear? and/or 
suggest ways I can think about this issue, and/or resources that will help 
me understand this (much!) better?...

I've got a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 4GB USB drive. I have looked for the their 
MTBF, but it is not in their
brochure<http://www.sandisk.com/pdf/retail/Cruzer_Mini_Brochure.pdf>.
(FWIW, they provide a 2 year warranty on the drive - "so I got that goin' 
for me!" - And I've e-mailed them requesting the MTBF.)

If I had the MTBF, at least I could make some assumptions and calculate the 
expected life of the drive - that would be as good / BAD! as my assumptions 
- but still ...

a) You are addressing the software issue - "designing" - or better: 
configuring the software to minimize use of the hardware; but what sort of 
relative use are we talking about, one installation to another? How much 
drive use are you saving?... and

b) I guess it would be helpful not only to know the MTBF of one's drive, but 
also to have it in the context of similar devices' MTBFs, i.e., regular 
HDDs, for example. Do you happen to have this data?...

2. I'm a big fan of GreaseMonkey. Do you know why Portable Firefox breaks 
GM?...

Here, btw, is a thread on which some of the GM folk were discussing this:
http://www.mozdev.org/pipermail/greasemonkey/2005-May/002374.html

Many tks for your thoughts,
Matthew
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