Month: November 2003

Categories
Mozilla

Firebird Download Manager

If you haven’t downloaded a Firebird nightly, this is the one to get. The new download manager is stunning. It’s sleek, real professional, and really nifty. I like being able to clean out with the click of a button. UI is very responsive, and pause/resume seems to work on click, rather than on delay.

Absolutely amazing work by Ben Goodger.

My suggestion for improvement would be the following:

  • Option to limit size of download manager to X downloads. That way, download manager doesn’t get to big. Many like myself can get quite large. I’ve had thousands in mine. I’d like it to self clean itself. Limit to 100, a nice number. Some may want higher or lower. Ideally, it would allow you to select a predefined number, or “clear on exit” where it would clear it when you close Firebird.
    Self cleaning ovens are loved, so are self cleaning refrigerators. Mozilla is getting a Kitchen Sink (or so the joke goes). Why not a self cleaning Kitchen Sink?
  • Ability to Optimize display. It’s pretty, but not as much on screen as the old one. For those with smaller monitors, I think the ability to go to a more compact version (similar to the old version) would be nice. Same simplicity, just utilize the horizontal structure more. That way, your download manager doesn’t need to be a giant window to view all your downloads.

No bugs on these just yet. A tad short on time. Feel free if you like them to file a bug, just CC me on them, so I can track them.

Again, cheers to Ben on his great work, I love the design, I think with a few tweaks, it can prove to be the best download manager available. Previously, I thought Camino sported the best.

Categories
Personal

Happy Thanksgiving

As I normally don’t work on Thanksgiving, let me say now HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

For those non-Americans, Thanksgiving is when the US invades Turkey, and kills Turkeys that weight several pounds (babies if you will), and eat them. It’s a proud tradition. Some more progressive Americans feel it’s discrimination, so they eat meat from several ethnic backgrounds and countries, as to not offend.

Categories
Hardware

IBM Sales Stink

[rant]
Just FYI, never expect anything you order from IBM to ship in a timely manner. Thursday morning aprox. 8:00 AM, I placed an order. 24 hours of Credit card processing, and it ships right? Well, it’s Monday, and they hope to ship today, or “at the latest” tomorrow. Then 3-5 day shipping.

Thankfully I didn’t waste money speeding up shipping, would still take forever.

My laptop was the same way, took forever just to get through credit card processing. It’s like they have 1 15 year old “cash intake engineer” sitting there doing all the billing.

You would think a computer company could get this done FAST?
[/rant]

Categories
Hardware

Still Waiting

Still waiting for a new drive. Should arrive tomorrow, should be home to install it Wednesday Evening. Won’t have the IBM Adapter so I can get my data over for another few days though (perhaps Friday). So we shall see.

Let the silence begin again… warning, it may be harmful to your hearing.

Categories
Software

I’ll be doing Linux soon.. help me

In the ongoing laptop saga…

Windows XP is trashed. No networking at all. So I need to backup. My best solution has been to move up the plans I had for a summer upgrade to a Thanksgiving upgrade (who says only your tummy gets full on the holiday?)

Here’s the plan:
Get a much faster HD. Specs include 7200 RPM Drive, and 60 GB. Fastest 2.5″ drive on the market. By far.

Put current drive in UltraBay, with 2nd Hard Drive Adapter for Thinkpad, Take new Drive, and put in HD bay.

Copy my data over, with a fresh install of XP.

Use Rapid Restore as backup software (included with Thinkpad).

Format old 40 GB Drive, and install Linux.

Now my question for all is:

What distro?

Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, Debinan, SuSe, SlackWare

I’m looking to use it as an alternative desktop. I’m an OS X Lover, so you want to impress me 😆 Want it all, the absolute best. Some UNIX experience, and want more. So tell me what you like/don’t like. Your opinions are more than welcome, feel free to email, or use comments. Make your case.

I’ll tell what I choose, why, and the status as I go. Should be fun.

Categories
Software

I blew up Windows

I seem to have blown up Windows… here’s my tale:

Got a message this morning, that my USB Hub had a short or overload (no reason to believe that). All devices hooked to that hub, stopped responding (bad news).

Later today, had several programs just crash on me. Typical of Windows. So I reboot.

No network connection. Most startup programs no longer startup. Lots of screwy things. Tried system restore… no success. No difference, no matter how far back I go.

Can’t restore until at least Thanksgiving, as that’s the first time I can afford to spend the time (as I said earlier, I’m strapped for time this week).

So here I am in Knoppix, with my USB Keychain Drive (512MB) as my HD. My XP drive is using NTFS, hence it’s good as dead in Knoppix. This is a laptop, so no 2nd drive.

I’m considering a 2nd HD. That new Hitachi 7200 RPM drive looks great (60GB). I wanted to get one of those… but wanted to wait a while. So now I’m debating when to upgrade (do it now, or just use my old one for now, and do it later)?

So my XP installation is useless (even worse than when it “worked”). Knoppix is dead slow off the CD ROM. It’s not good around here as far as computing goes.

Thank you Bill Gates. Your technology is just wonderful.

Everyone help make the new MacVillage.net relaunch a success, that way I can afford to have an Apple laptop next to this PC junk.

I’m pissed.

Categories
Personal

Why must my ass get kicked?

School is starting to kick my ass. I’ve got lots of studying this week, meaning much less outside work (read: anything visible online) will be done in the next few days. Unfortunately, MacVillage is coming along, and is becoming very standards compliant. I’m thrilled to be working with standards more than ever. So much so, I’m becoming addicted to it (yikes).

But cool stuff will follow the silence.

Categories
In The News

First Chewable Oral Contraceptive

All I can say is yikes. Checkout what the FDA Approved.

I’m not sure what market they are targeting here? In any case, it’s a bit humorous, yet creepy. Is teen (and possibly earlier) sex really that out of hand creating a market for this?

I’m really quite curious as to the actual market this product has been designed for? Is it for juveniles as it implies? Or is there another group? Will this promote unprotected teen sex? Could this be a good thing (less teens with kids), or a bad thing (AIDS, et. al.). I’m not so thrilled about what this may encourage, among a potentially very young age group.

I could think of several jokes about being unable to swallow, sex, and the need for the Pill (or lack of). But I won’t go there, for the sake of keeping this blog PG 😆

Just wait until fast food chains start giving sex toys in the children’s meals. 😉

I’m curious about what others think… BUT watch those comments (should you choose to comment). I hate moderating, but will if necessary. Keep it clean and friendly.

Categories
Mozilla

The journey to fix 219162

What has been a really annoying issue apparently has a better patch. Bug 21962 has been fixed.

Thankfully. Hopefully this time, all these errors will go away. Not as often as before the first fix, but still happens sometimes.

Categories
Apple

Apple launches iPod site

It’s been noted that Apple launched an iPod site, around the web.

Yes, it is an Apple Website:

Uses Apple DNS
Resolves to Apple IP Address (Powered by OS X)
Apple tagline on bottom

What more proof is needed?

I’m going to venture a guess, and say it’s going to be part of a marketing push for the Christmas season. Here’s my basis:

Created right in time for the holidays.

Record last updated on:..2003-10-02 13:21:19.783
Record expires on:…….2004-10-02 00:00:00.0
Record created on:…….2003-10-02 13:21:19.163

Apple is planning a big marketing surge on iTunes in January, with promo’s left and right this means, get iPods in peoples hands NOW, and push content on them in a month or two.

I’m going to guess that we will start seeing new iPod commercials, that mention the website in a week or two.