Month: April 2007

Categories
Firefox Tips Mozilla

Firefox Tips

I decided to do a little series of posts I’ll call “Firefox Tips”. The goal isn’t to entertain or educate technical users. The goal is to be (mostly) quick little things that common users likely just overlook or never bother to explore. This will last “about a month” because I haven’t decided exactly how many will make the cut. Most will only be a few sentences to not bore and get to technical, they will vary in “difficulty” (though pretty basic stuff) and be focused on getting the most out of your browser without being a geek.

So without further delay, I bring you “Firefox Tips”… Creative eh?

They will be in the Mozilla category as well as a new Firefox Tips category for those who want to link just to them. Feel free to leave comments on other uses/suggestions regarding a tip. If it’s a really good comment I may update the post accordingly.

Categories
Mozilla

FishEyeTabs

FishEyeTabs is an interesting way to make the situation of having many tabs open more usable. It’s not without it’s flaws (gets rid of the red “X” for example). I wonder if this would be beneficial or just annoying to users. I think personally the effect would be better on a longer delay so that it wasn’t so instant. You could just mouseover and see the title via a tooltip, but that’s not always intuitive especially for a casual user.

It’s always great to see innovative extensions like this.

[Via Lifehacker]

Categories
Blog

More Tweaks

Just made a few tweaks/upgrades that should improve performance around here. Let me know if anything is acting strange or broken. Every so often I tend to do these, most are very minor.

Categories
Apple Mozilla

mozPod 0.2a1

mozPod 0.2a1 is available. It’s alpha because it hasn’t been as well tested as of yet. I wanted to get it out before Thunderbird 2.0 ships, and I’ve been getting a fair number of requests for it lately.

I’ve released MozPod 0.2a1 as an interim release for Thunderbird 2.0 users who want to use mozPod and see some new features. I decided to not support mozPod 0.1 on Thunderbird 2.0 to keep things easier to manage.

This is an alpha release and likely has some bugs. I wanted to get it out for those who want to start testing. This would be an ideal time as people want to move to Thunderbird 2.0.

Here’s the changes that matter:

  • Feature – Preliminary support for Lightning (if installed).
  • Enhancement – Thunderbird 2.0 support.
  • Enhancement – Some performance tweaks.
  • Fix – Sync all available AB’s.
  • Fix – Correctly handle notes that are more than one line.
  • Fix – Skip over LDAP servers in Address Book without failing.
  • Fix – Try to not hold lock on disks.

As usual, if you like it and want to encourage me to spend a little more time on it, feel free to do so. I do request some feedback. Let me know how it works for you.

I’ve got more extension goodness on the way. I’m planning to get to a real mozPod 0.2 release in the next few weeks. There may be a new extension on the way as well…

You download it from this link: mozPod 0.2

Categories
In The News Tech (General)

Yahoo Goes Green

Yahoo is going carbon neutral. I’m curious how much is offset, and how much is reduction. Yahoo has a fairly large infrastructure. I wonder if they are using alternative power sources, or if they are going to plant a million trees. They do mention:

These projects could include a wind farm in India or a small-scale run of the river hydroelectric project in Brazil. We’re also looking to invest in emerging clean technologies.

Interesting. I wonder if we will see things like carbon neutral VoIP, carbon neutral bandwidth, carbon neutral data centers / colocation / hosting?

Categories
Mozilla Web Development

New Windows Media Plugin For Firefox

As some have noticed, Windows Media doesn’t really work in Firefox when using Windows Vista. I’ve been to busy to try it just yet, but Microsoft has released a plugin. While disappointed at the lag, I’m thrilled to see support added. I wonder if they would be able to deploy with Microsoft Update to those with Firefox installed? I think it would help some less technical users. Not sure if Mozilla’s update system could do it (assuming licensing would work out), though I don’t know the system very well.

I’ll be taking it through it’s paces over the next few days as I see what it can/can’t do. I discussed Windows Media Player 11 and Firefox not to long ago.

In case it’s ever a trivia question, Microsoft supported Photosynth on Firefox from very early on (if not right away).

Great for Web Developers, great for users.

Categories
Personal

Wet

Damn you wet weather. Closing roads and making things a mess. 8 inches of rain in Central Park. The irony will be drought restrictions being posted later this summer.

Categories
Blog SafePasswd.com Security

SafePasswd Secure Edition + Blog

As of yesterday SafePasswd.com is now suggesting passwords over SSL for better security. Seems like a good idea right?

In other news, there is now a SafePasswd.com blog. The focus is quite simple. Bring better security to the masses.

Check it out, add the feed to your favorite rss reader, bookmark it.

Categories
Google

Google Bouncing Checks?

On Friday I saw one of the more memorable Seinfeld Episodes “The Little Jerry“. The episode is most memorable for Kramer wanting a chicken and ending up with a rooster he names [Little] Jerry. It’s also known as the episode in which George dates a woman in prison, considering it the ideal girlfriend. Slightly less memorable is that in the beginning of the episode Jerry found out his check bounced and is hanging at Marcelino’s bodega. Little Jerry was to be in a cockfight with a victory resulting in the check being taken down.

Ironically I deposited my last Google check Saturday. Today I ironically saw that Google checks are bouncing. I’m curious if I’m going to hear from the bank in a day or two regarding that check. Sounds like accounts payable had a little goof up. I’m not sure how large this problem is, but I’m pretty sure it will be corrected ASAP.