Rick Rolling On The Subway Floor With a Chicken

We'll start with technical stuff. I have patched the Firefox extension Timetracker 1.2.5 to work with Firefox 3.6 -- there was no work done to the code. I fixed the version check line and added a 1 to the version so it read 1.2.51 but it appears to work fine. So if you're waiting to upgrade to 3.6 now you don't have to. It's available for download here. This, like the original, is public domain but all I ask you link to this blog post and not directly to the file, this way if I make changes and the file name changes your link won't break. In an amusing note, after sitting dormant for a long, long time (years), after I made Googlebar work the original author suddenly came out of the woodwork and released a new version. I guess he didn't like someone else messing with his abandoned work. I'm glad. This really isn't my thing. I would encourage everyone to go get the real one and not the hacked one I made.

In more interesting news, a voice from the past contacted me looking to buy my Manatees practice jersey. Not decided on how that will pan out yet, but it was serendipitous because the next day I was looking for a file I had lost and thought I had backed up to a zip cartridge aeons ago. I found the file (yawn) and also found my original Miami Manatees WHA2 web page. I pulled it mid-season when Waronker, the arsemunch, showed his true colours because I had no desire to support someone who makes Michael Yormark look like a beloved saint. I've decided for posterity it should be reinstated, so that's what I've done. I am sure there are errors and omissions and I would encourage anyone who can add to this to e-mail me directly. The pages are here. They aren't in the Google index yet, but I suppose they might be at some point. (There's a photo with a much younger me, Karen, and Timmy which may have been the coolest surprise find.)

I also have a bunch of videos for your amusement:

• First, we have "We Didn't Start The Flame-War" which is a 3 minute video set to the tune of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire. If you're an Internet Geek you will absolutely love this video. I've watched it four times because it's so relevant. Sadly, I have experience in this sort of thing. No comment.
• Second, we have Nick Pitera's cover of Journey's legendary Don't Stop Believin' which is remarkable for one thing and one thing only. He recorded it twice -- singing both the male part and female part as done in the TV series Glee -- and then ran them together. The result is remarkable. Seriously.
• Lastly, I hate Rick-Rolling. Hate. Hate. Hate. Only when someone does it live, to a Evangelical Christian television station and the first guy doesn't get what's happening, then, well, it's pretty funny. Kudos to the host who did get it for handling it gracefully.

That should cheer the lot of you up. At least if you have an odd sense of humour like me. And by odd, I mean a story like this amuses me. "New York City's transit agency is investigating a video posted online that shows a man kissing and snuggling a live chicken aboard a subway." That link is to the story and not the video which I do not want to see.

And lastly, Delta sucks. I am getting really tired of the run-around. After over 10 years, I removed my recommendation of them from my personal page on my website. While I was there, I also updated it because it hasn't been touched in quite a long time. I am certain there are lots of typos.

Lastly, whenever you think my blog isn't subversive, sublime, or funny enough, I direct you to this URL which is a really, really funny blog entry. And oddly, you may wish to read it right after viewing the Flame-War video mentioned above. Allow some time because the comments are almost as funny as the original post. I'm sure this won't be appreciated by everyone because it's definitely a bit skewed toward geek humour, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing.

Firefox 3.6 and Googlebar 0.9.15.14

I upgraded to Firefox v3.6 today and so far am pleased, except Googlebar stopped working.
Googlebar is way, way, way better than the Official Googlebar put out by Google. Googlebar 0.9.15.14 stopped working way back with Firefox v3.1 but someone took it upon himself to patched it to work since the development team quit working on it after Firefox v3.0 came out. I was displeased to find that even though Googlebar 0.9.15.14 was supposed to work with Firefox v3.6, it didn't. Also, the person (or persons) who've updated it never changed the version number of Googlebar itself as they upgraded it, so there are a large number of different 0.9.15.14 versions floating about that work with varying versions of Firefox.

I couldn't abide not having Googlebar and waiting for someone else to figure out what was broken -- it's my most important extension except for Noia Extreme theme, so I deconstructed it and figured out what was busted (two whole lines of code) and have made it work. It's not fully tested and there may be glitches but this is as good as it gets and most of it seemed to work without problems. The version number has been changed to 0.9.15.15 so you can see that it's correctly installed and it should install right on top of the old version too.

I can't even promise this it'll work with anything past v3.6.x but if you want to try it, you can download it here for free (186k). This, like the original, is public domain but all I ask you link to this blog post and not directly to the file, this way when I make changes and the file name changes your link won't break.

There's an email circulating rapidly that says you can tell where something is made by looking at the first few digits of the UPC code. It's partially correct, but you can be very mislead. Please read this article at Snopes.com. Knowing country of origin is important, especially on foodstuffs and medicines, but make sure you know what you're looking at. Always, and I mean always, check out mass e-mails before sharing and commenting. Even I've been burnt. Check your facts.

Any of you car nuts (preferably local) have any experience installing this? I want to buy one for my car and give it a shot. (SEZW or SOEMBO) but I've never done this before. Comments, emails, etcetera all welcome.

765th post

According to Blogger we're at 765 posts and counting, this one included. It includes all posts whether or not consequential so if I made two posts in one day that are short, they're still two posts. But you don't care about that, and neither do. I'm waiting on 1,000 :) 

I'm at 247,000 hits and counting. That's more interesting to me. My income from this site is well under $300 since inception over 5 years ago 24 October 2009, so it's good I never intended this as a source of income.

Xmarks. It's still awesome. I've figured out how to keep my personal items (financial) off my work machine and vice versa. You have to do it from your account on their website by clicking share, and selecting which computers see which folders. Then, you have to remove the offending folder from the machines in question. They answered my email and said they do take donations at this URL, so I immediately sent one.

For all you security-minded people who are into biometric scanning as a way to prevent people from scamming your payroll or homeland security systems, I direct you to this article in which a Chinese woman managed to enter Japan illegally by having plastic surgery to alter her fingerprints, thus fooling immigration controls, police claim. So, that means our multi-billion dollar system of fingerprinting everyone who comes into the USA who isn't a citizen is worth how much? Zero. Yes, fantastically secure, isn't it? So much for stopping terrorists.

This article will expire in a few days, becoming paid instead of free. Read it while you can. Many of you will have bought from this company called Oriental Trading. It's where many of the members of the Umbrella Hat Society got their hats. (You should join -- it's free.) Anyway, the owner of the company is bankrupt and facing felony fraud charges after losing $127 million ($127,000,000) in a casino chain -- accounting for 5.5% of their earnings -- and defaulting on most of that debt. In Nevada defaulting on a gaming debt is a very, very serious crime. In many other states, gambling debts are not even legally enforceable. It's a great read if you have time. If the casino has to write that off, it'll be a significant downtick on next year's earnings. I find it interesting that Wynn Casinos stopped the guy from gambling there because he had a problem. Casinos are required by law to stop inebriated persons and persons with clear gambling problems from playing. Wow. Drunk people gambling in Vegas. Never seen it. Ever. As if. Half the people who play are three sheets to the wind, so if you get stopped you're truly toasted. Thanks to Paul for sharing this.

I've been on many tube trips in London over the years. Hundreds. I've seen dogs, pigeons, mice, rats, and flies in the trains, tunnels, and stations over the years. One station has a resident station cat. What I have never seen is a fox on an escalator. That's just silly. Foxes don't ride escalators in tube stations. Apparently this fox did not get the memo. The photos alone are worth clicking through.


Oh, and I broke 900,000 Work Units on Seti@Home. Steve has over 1.8 million. Rat Bastard. Susie has over 400,000 and Adrian over 700,000.

Another Day Poorer

As I said yesterday, my air conditioner was about to die. I came home to a very hot house, so it was lucky today was the scheduled day. It took two guys 3-1/2 hours to replace the compressor and evaporator coil unit. I am keeping my old thermostat because it's expensive and awesome. This unit is theoretically quieter but it blows a lot harder so it makes more noise. When they first turned it on, it blew all sorts of crap out all of the vents. Odd since not that long ago I had all-new ducts put in. Oh well. Anyway, I am much, much poorer.

Tomorrow is skating, breakfast, and then a game. Sunday is Art Miami (part of Art Basel) with Karen. Am looking forward to a busy weekend. And tonight, the series finale of Monk.

Today at work they went to Palacio De Los Jugos which is legendary for their fresh fruit juice. I have a passion for watermelon juice, but outside of the Bellagio's weekend buffet in Las Vegas or a trip to China, I rarely have it. Earlier this year, someone brought me one from here and it was awesome. Today, they planned to go, I gave them money and for $6 I got a half gallon of it. It's almost gone and I am mightily satisfied with it.

I need to thank Jose for pulling my ass out of the phpBB disaster. He started over from scratch and did a diff from my style to the new one. He sent it to me, and I installed it and couldn't get it to work. Now I've been using phpBB a long, long time, and have installed styles, emoticons, and everything else. I've done custom phpBB mods and my point is I'm not dumb with this. And Jose is way better at it than I'll ever be. I even installed one of the official themes and that wouldn't work either. As it turns out, if you have an old theme installed it won't let you use the new theme. It shows, it's marked in use, and even flagged as default but it keeps giving you the old theme. No matter what. If you're running a board, you need to tell your users to clear their browser cache. While testing, Jose gave me this very useful Firefox extension called CookiePie. It lets you keep two sets of cookies so you can test things without using two separate browsers, which is what I was doing.  So, a special thank you to Jose. I have rewarded him with a surprise from his Amazon wish list. And a shout out to the guy at phpBB3styles.net for additional assistance in getting to the right place. Come on over to our boards. Join up, post, have fun; while it's primarily for hockey fans, there are areas on other subjects too.

In today's bizarre news, Oakland International Airport (OAK) has issued a directive that passengers with under 8oz of cannabis (marijuana) are to be allowed through security as long as it appears they have legitimate need for it. Read more in the San Jose Mercury News. Please note, if you smoke it at the airport, you will still be arrested: federal rules apply. This just means you can carry it.

I mentioned rhe Xmarks browser plug-in (Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer) in a previous blog post. I must tell you it's amazingly awesome. You need this if you have more than one computer. I want to pay for it, but it's free.

Sue sent me some Tiger jokes and this one deserves to go in the blog: What does Tiger Woods have in common with baby seals? They both get clubbed by Norwegians. That is brutal. Awesomely brutal.

Here's a great article I got from someone at work. The positive power of activism is what it's called and also about. It's proof you can make a change. Every now and then I need a happy item. This is it.

TfL have posted more on their 2010 fares. Damn, it's getting expensive.

The UK's Ministry of Defence has closed its UFO investigation division after 50 years saying In a statement, the MoD said it had "no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial life. In over 50 years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom." So, what they're saying is they've determined that the UFO reports have not indicated any threat but they're not going to admit those UFOs that aren't a threat exist. It's coming. You'll see.

Burning Dinner

Let's start with an admission. I can't cook many things, but a few things I can cook and cook them well: Steak, Burgers, Chicken and Rice, and Spaghetti with various sauces (marinara, garlic and butter). So it pains me to say I bought over the weekend a $16 one pound filet mignon. I've cooked a lot of steaks in my time, some in the broiler, some in the pan, and some on a grill. Anyway, I heated the pan, threw the steak in, and ran up stairs to boot my computer, and ditch my work clothes. And then I got distracted and suddenly, *sniff* *sniff*, what's that smell? What's burning? OH! SHIT! It's dinner. So, I had blackened steak for dinner. It wasn't very good. I'm an idiot and figured I'd man-up and share that so you could laugh at me.

A special shout out to WJM who right now needs one more than anyone I know. Hang in there, guy.

I'm working on updating my will and am not pleased with the progress of collecting contact information. I suppose I will have to get more motivated. Blech.

Work was boring today though I spent some quality time with Xmarks.  Xmarks is a plug-in for Firefox, Safari, and even the lowly Internet Explorer. I didn't mention it in yesterday's post because I was skeptical of the performance and usefulness of it. Right. I first installed it on my Mac Pro (home) and PC Desktop (work). I set it up on my Mac and ran it, and it was intriguing. I did some tinkering with settings and such, and finally gave up on it for the night. The next morning (that's today) I was a bit bored at work and decided to slack off. I installed it at work, clicked 'synchronise' and let it do its work. A word to the wise, take all your bookmarks on the second machine and move them to a sub-folder called "machine two" because my sole complaint is that it put stuff all over and it took me forever to find it all and re-organize it. But damn, it worked well. I made some changes, came home and my machine at home was updated. (On Firefox you can synch passwords too but if you do, you make DAMN sure you set Firefox's master password on all machines.) I then installed it on the work laptop MacBook Pro (my user account) and it worked great. You have the option of storing the synch data on your server instead of theirs, which I fully intend to do this weekend.

When you're done, on one machine, go through all your bookmarks using CheckPlaces 1.6.3 which I mentioned yesterday, and you'll find more duplicates and errors than you thought you had. Together, these two utilities are awesome. CheckPlaces only needs to be run on ONE machine because when you do, all the others update when you start the browser (or click synch). Both are free, but I'm sending Xmark a donation since they ask. After one day, I've already decided they deserve it. By this weekend it'll be done unless something blows up. (The first few times you synch, you may find it slow as it has so many changes to make, but that went away after a while. Also moving bookmarks around moves a bit slower, but since I've got over 400 that may be the problem.)

I have a small quibble. It would be really, really nice if it could have on each machine an 'excluded' folder. I don't, for instance, really want my personal finance folder on my work machine. That's something I do only at home. And on my home machine, I really don't need the link to my customer and vendor websites, and I'm terribly uncomfortable with having my work's bank URL on my home machine. For some people this may be a deal killer.

Some updates on my private blog for those keeping track.  Rumours of the GooglePhone continue to swirl. I may or may not care. I like the G1 and keep thinking I might buy it, but this intrigues me. I still dislike the iPhone because of the keyboard issue.

The Fantastic Mister Fox is, well, Fantastic

Before I get to the review I had referred a number of you to a Facebook Dislike button add-on. It's been causing people lots of problems and has also started serving advertising. I had to remove it and the complaints are mounting. But, here's another one that is more popular and seems to be more reliable. I'll have more on Add-Ons for Firefox later in this post.

The Fantastic Mister Fox is great. No, ifs, ands, or buts. Voiced by an all-star cast, but it would have been just as good with a cast of nobodies. Based on Dahl's book, this would appear on the surface to be a children's movie. It's not but it's kid safe. There are so many adult subtexts to this from the marital stress between Mr Fox and his wife to the sibling rivalry between Ash and Kristofferson. There's lots of smoking but it adds a bit of grit. There's some language but they just say "cuss" instead of the real word. "That's a cussing big dog" (as an example). I would think it could develop into a catchphrase, though I fear with a $7M opening, it'll be gone from theatres before you know it. And that's a shame. The animation (stop motion) is fantastic and the details down the fox's fur is great. I liked this way more than I thought I would. We saw it with a large group of people (13) and everyone liked it as well. The plot is strong, the main characters are well-fleshed out (and flawed), the action is engrossing, and not once did I look at my watch. See this film. I'll buy it when it comes out on Blu-Ray.

Last night I had some insomnia so I watched the Forbidden Kingdom, a martial arts movie with pretty much damn near everyone in China in it starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan. This movie tells the tale of the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord wrapped inside a secondary story that is, to be honest, silly. The martial arts, as would be expected are great. The visual scenery is beyond belief. I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. Jet Li and Jackie Chan both play two roles in the film so pay attention if you can.

And, because I enjoy pointing out things like this -- thanks Sue -- some fact checking on Sarah Palin's Bus Tour. Which, despite what it may appear, doesn't involve much bus and does involve lots of plane. And certain groups paying for it. Check out the video and story at crooksandliars.com.

Breakfast was at OPH and we had a party of twelve and they actually did a decent job of seating us. Sadly the waiter was borderline. We lost John and his parents before the movie and they were replaced with Karen (party of three), and my Mom. After that Liz and I went ice skating (by way of ColdStone) but we were reminded of why we don't skate afternoon sessions. It was crowded and we were knocked about several times. Not fun at all but I had fun with her because I got the telenovela update followed by lots of interesting people and travel discussions.

As promised, here's the list of Firefox Add-Ons I use and like. I have various codec plug-ins installed but they are machine specific so I won't list them. The add-ons below are Mac and PC compatible and work with FireFox 3.5 -- most work with earlier versions as well.

• CheckPlaces 1.6.3 -- validates your bookmarks to see if they're still valid and gives you a chance to fix them, delete them, etc. (Just started using this so maybe you want to wait for my opinions)
• Download Helper 4.6.5 -- Lets you grab video content of YouTube and other sites and save it easily without a kludge.
• FaceMod Dislike Button 0.7 -- See above. Adds a dislike button to Facebook
• Favicon Picker 3 0.5 -- Lets you add/change Favicons in your bookmark menu
  
• Firebug 1.4.5 -- This is a geek tool that Jose taught me to use so I can futz around with my webpages while they're live. Most of you won't want this one.
  
• Flagfox 3.3.18 -- This is one of the most useful extensions ever. It shows a flag representing the country the server presenting the webpage you're on. So if you're at BankAmerica and see a Chinese flag, you know something's wrong. Also installed on all our work machines as a security feature.
  
• Googlebar 0.9.15.14 -- Way better than the real Google bar. You will need to edit the version code to work with Firefox 3.5; Someone's posted the hacked version if you don't know how to edit XPI files.
• Open Bookmarks In New Tab 0.1.2009100801 -- Duh. Very useful.
  
• Password Exporter 1.2 -- Do not export your passwords. I don't recommend it. However, if you forget one this also lets you view them from the preferences area. Set a master password if you use this. 
• Print Image 0.4 -- Selects and prints images from websites (not Flash content but static images)
• SearchPreview 4.0 -- Shows thumbnail images of sites as part of Google/Yahoo/Bing searches
• StumbleUpon 3.52 -- You will waste more time with this than I can ever explain. But I love it. I'm 'darsys' if you want to follow me.
• TimeTracker 1.2.5 -- You can keep track of how long a window, session, or whatever has been open. Or from time installed forever. 
• WOT 20091028 -- (Web of Trust) Installed here and on all work machines. Sites show Green, Yellow, or Red warnings and if a site is Red it will ask if you're sure you want to proceed. This is the best extension you can install on your machine for safety reasons. You can also add and rate sites if you make a free account, all from within Firefox.
• Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) 3.69 -- This is the theme I use. I rather like it and you might too.

I'm doing laundry and getting ready to cook dinner as soon as I decide what to cook.

Dear Tech Support (Firefox Woe)

Who is good at mystery issues. I run Firefox at both work and home. We have three PCs running Firefox at work. They all appear to be set the same except for font size. The one in my office has stopped saving history -- the "awesome bar" as it's called, has the same search stuff in it from MONTHS ago but nothing new. My HISTORY sidebar only has the current session, so if I quit and re-start it's empty. So it shows the dohs.gov page I went to months ago, but doesn't show alibaba.com which I have visited every day for a year. That's just really, really, really weird. I have no explanation. Does anyone have an idea what's gone wonky?

Today, I'm lonely but since I'm at work, I'm at least occupied. Blech.

Nom nom tonight anyone?

Firefox Continues To Cause Grief at Microsoft 2.0

Firefox 3 has become the first non-Microsoft web browser to overtake IE6 in market share. (Note this doesn't even include lumping in FF2 so it's a straight up comparison). The open source browser climbed to 24 percent of users in February while IE6 dipped to just over 22.6 percent, making Firefox the second most popular browser by individual version. Although Internet Explorer 7 still leads with 40.8 percent, the Firefox increase narrows the gap as Microsoft's browser has remained largely flat since at least July. Microsoft's client is also limited to Windows while Firefox is also available on Mac and Linux platforms.

In news related to Billy Elliot, it's hard to believe the miner's strike which is what the whole story revolves around is now 25 years old. Makes an Anglophile feel old.

I saw a hat today that made me think of some of my geek friends. Programmer (N) -- An organism that turns caffeine into software.

I am coughing. Uh oh.

I am packing. Yay. And in a little bit I'll check in for my flight. I am excited. I am going to be laptop free so you will not see me online until, likely, Monday. I might sign on Sunday night if I'm not too tired. I will have my cel but will be unlikely to turn it on except around lunch on Friday just to check in at the office.

I got lots of bills in today's mail.

Randomness Part Huit

I found a bug in Firefox version 3, which I reported at Bugzilla. Really muffs up the visuals when you try to change text size on one page and it changes the text size on ALL pages. Horrific planning to implement a "new feature" at the expense of useability. Sad because it worked fine.

Adrian was sick today so we did not go skating or eat breakfast or any of the stuff. Instead, I was bored all day. That boy has more excuses than a politician in an election campaign. Still, I hope he feels better.

I went to Pep Boys and bought a steering wheel cover for my BMW X5 and also a registration and insurance card holder. Did I mention iDrive is from hell? I suppose, soon, I'll write a detailed missive as to why.

I printed out some pictures for Grandma from Flickr. I bought an Ecko shirt at the mall for a whopping $9.95 on sale. Disney Character Premier has jerseys on sale again -- Pluto IceHounds and Mickeys Marauders hockey jerseys and Stitch Invaders football jerseys all at $24.99 each but I didn't buy them. I might get the MM jersey because they had one in XL and XXL (both of which fit me in a hockey jersey) but the IceHounds were all size "M" and "L" -- didn't really pay much attention to the football jersey, though I do love Stitch.

I bought Maury a cool Wall*E present today. She doesn't like the movie, or even much animation. No accounting for taste, but since her nickname is "Mo" there was no choice but to acquire the Mo Robot Toy for her. Everyone should have a toy named after them. Even if they won't appreciate it.

I did laundry today. Walked around Office Depot where I bought one box of paper clips (vinyl coated) for my office.

If you're into Seti@Home or astronomy, please help save the Arecibo Observatory. If you enter your details you'll get a PDF with a letter all ready to sign and mail. Do it. I did.

Scooter didn't eat much yesterday or today. And she's having more trouble walking. I will keep a close eye on her. Poor kitty.

One thing I've always hated is DVD drives that adhere to the "region" code. You know where you can only play certain DVDs. Why do I care? I have a large collection of subway geek videos from the UK. I bought 'em and I want to watch them on my computer as opposed to my old LaserDisc player which doesn't check region codes. I've always flashed the firmware on my DVD drives on previous computers. Never was able to figure out on the Intel Mac. Until today. On this thread, you can read all about it. I want to give a special shout-out to Puma and the other great folks at RPC1.org who helped me figure out why I was not able to do it. Now it's done.

Various Stuff

1. No news on fraud.
2. iDrive sucks. It's the one thing about my new car that sucks ass. I really hate it more with each passing day. I like my car but not the iDrive disaster.
3. Chiropractor visit today was helpful.
4. StateFarm appears to be paying doctor's bills through July so need for lawyer is shrinking. Though someone ought to sue Progressive just 'cause they're lying assholes.
5. The "all business class" airline concept is dead. SilverJet, MaxJet, and Eos have all folded. The last one L'Avion was bought today by British Airways.
6. Continental Airlines and two employees are facing criminal charges in the fatal crash of Concorde in the year 2000. The French claim that a chunk of a Continental DC-10 hit the tyre, which burst and sent shrapnel into the Olympic engines causing the fire that brought the plane down. I really like Continental, but I'm not seeing how they'll be found innocent here. Another article is here in the NY Times (thanks Mr. Rice).
7. Fox News has done something that many other REPUTABLE organizations have fired people for. It has digitally altered photos of people who do not support their views and passed them off as otherwise. The full story on Media Matters. It was done on the decidedly un-fair and un-balanced "Fox and Friends" show. Fox News has sunk to a new low. On Wednesday, the network displayed photos that its editors had doctored of two New York Times employees -- reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Radcliffe. You can see the before-and-after evidence showing that Fox purposefully yellowed Steinberg's teeth, widened his nose and chin, and photo-shopped his ears stick out further.
8. I am going to switch to FF3 later today because the Noia Theme is finally available. I will, sadly, have to switch from Googlebar to Google Toolbar. And, worse, I will lose PrintImage but I am pleased that I can finally make the switch. Beta versions of Googlebar and Favicon Picker were found making me even happier.
9. I'm really hungry. I am no longer hungry, though what I ate was shite.
10. Good luck to Mom who had an especially bad day.
11. I went to Publix and Walgreens today because they'll be closed today.
12. I will take Grandma to breakfast tomorrow.

(EDIT: Edited 8 and added 10+)

Firefox and Politics

Virtually all Windows PCs ship with IE, giving it a 72% share of the browser market. Firefox, which is typically downloaded rather than factory installed, has a 17% market share, followed by Apple's Safari at 5%. This is a nice improvement over the old days when IE was well into the 90%. Firefox is slowly eating away at IE and that's a good thing.

Today Firefox are going to overthrow the world by trying to be the most downloaded software ever. You can get Firefox3 at http://www.getfirefox.com and installing it. I had many false starts and stops when the servers crashed under the load placed on them when it rolled out just past 10am PST -- the clock ending 24 hours later at 10am PST tomorrow.

I've installed at work on the PC without incident. Sadly, I'm going to have to hold out a few days on the Mac version at home. I've downloaded it as a show of support but due to banking issues with my bank, it will be a few weeks before I can use it. Firefox3's default skin/theme is horrible beyond measure and I recommend AeroFox which is very nice (it's what I've installed until Noia is upgraded soon to work with FF3. Both are by the same guy.) And don't forgot to install your dictionary if you want automatic spell checking.

I have an RGA from WD and am working with CBL on my drive issues still. I will issue a full report when I can, and will add a glowing recommendation of CBL but I'm holding back because there's still stuff going on (but nothing bad against CBL if you're in need of recovery services).

And, lastly, from Razzie this awesome video "Why I'm voting republican."




And, for the record, as stated in an earlier post, barring a surprise entry by Colin Powell, I will be voting for Barack Obama. If you vote republican, you're buying for more years of hell for our country. It's time for a change.

Firefox Rolls On

Just a quick entry to note that Firefox has crossed the 500 million download mark. That's a half-billion downloads. Or to put it in numbers 500,000,000 downloads and counting. I hope Bill Gates sleeps well tonight.

Thanks to Jose for helping me with php includes. Soon my site will perform better and be easier to update. I am removing most tables from the site. The original index page had about a dozen nested tables -- yech. The new one has two tables: one that's two columns and one row (it includes the sidebar navigation in one column and the content in the second). The other table is in the sidebar. That's the Sponsor's box and it includes a border. I wasn't sure how to make that work. I'm sure I'll get to it.

Firefox Continues To Cause Grief at Microsoft

In an ongoing, amazing development, Firefox is clobbering Internet Explorer. It's far from the end, but there are signs all is not well in the browser department in Redmond.

Information Week's 7 April 2008 issue has the market share report for Internet Explorer.

Month	% Share
Jan 2007	88.7
March 2007	86.0
October 2007	80.1
December 2007	77.7

This just pleases me to no end. Granted, it's not just Firefox but other browsers such as Opera and Safari. But any dent in Microsoft's armour is a good thing. Every time Bill gates has stress, I lose a little of mine. When he has a bad day, I have a good one. Between Firefox and the EU, perhaps he's developing an ulcer.... :)

Oh and let's not forget Open Office. I have no idea why it won't hit critical mass: it does everything Office does and more and it can read/write Office documents just fine. We've installed it at work with no issues. Though I will admit we use Word/Excel type documents only and haven't tried the other modules except to play some Powerpoint training slides. Try it at your company. It comes in all flavours Mac, PC, UNIX, etc.

The article makes some special points "... IT departments are moving to support [Firefox] in the enterprise Web apps. That should be less than reassuring to Redmond."

The article also talks about how IE8, forthcoming soon, will break a number of web applications even though it is supposedly more standards friendly. Many non-commercial sites, such as mine, don't even test to IE specifications because they simply aren't standards. Web standards are just that: standards. IE is a collection of crap that makes writing a site to be compliant a pain. I've made sure my corporate site works with IE -- that is you can view it -- but it looks and works much better in Firefox. It makes me angry I have to do even that.

In other amusing news, Microsoft is already readying the replacement to Vista. So despite their claims, it's obviously not going as well as they'd like. No spin can fix that except to a true moron.

Firefox Fan Ruins Microsoft's Day

Any bad day for Microsoft is a good day for me. The worse the day they have, the better my day. I hate 'em -- and not just 'cause Windoze sucks more than a high-priced hooker.My dislike for Microsoft started before Windows*, I believe.

So some fan of Firefox knew Internet Explorer 7 was coming. Yes, they did. Microsoft has been trumpeting IE7 for quite some time. It's going to be out any day if not already. Yes, some intrepid fan has taken the domain name www.ie7.com and the results are beautiful. Just click on over to see. Have a nice day, Bill Gates. Have a nice day. I bet he's seething. The lawyers are sure to come, but will be powerless in this case. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.





* In fact, it's all about that product "QuickBasic" for the Macintosh (long since gone) in which they engaged in false advertising, admitted it, and then removed the product rather than fix it. I'm not sure I should take the credit for them withdrawing the product, and I won't but I'm sure my complain to the Washington state attorney general's office back then might have had something to do with it. But the real reason I hate them, is they promised to refund my money and they never did.

Firefox Rocks Again

(This bit from 4-29-05)
Yeah, I've posted about Firefox before. However, today it reached an amazing milestone. 50 Million Downloads. Yeah, can you believe that?

For several years, IE has commanded in excess of 95% share of the web browser market despite the fact it sucks more than a nymphomaniac in heat (this applies across all platforms). All the other browsers combined shared the remaining 5%. Sad and paltry. The sole competition was Netscape which languished after AOL bought it. Mozilla was nice, but it was bloated to the point many people eschewed it.

Now Firefox, (version 1.0.4 is out now) in under a year of official release, is now over 8% of the market share alone and should be at 10% within a month or so. Their logo is "take back the web" and if you haven't at least tried it, do so. Not only will you be able to have a better browsing experience with far less security holes, but you will have the added side bonus of telling Microsoft to shove it up their collective arses.




The above image is a composite animated GIF I made using several of the better taglines. Steal it if you will.

Better yet (this edited bit added 5-12-05)
Microsoft's Share of Browser Market Slips: May 12, 2005 2:21 PM EDT

NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp.'s share of the U.S. browser market has slipped below 90 percent as the Firefox browser continues to grow in popularity, according to independent tracking by WebSideStory. Firefox had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October. Microsoft's Internet Explorer share was 89 percent, a drop from 95 percent in June.

The figures are for all operating systems combined. On computers running Microsoft's Windows, Internet Explorer has a 91 percent share, down from 97 percent in June. Outside the United States, Germany is among the leading adopters of Firefox, with a 23 percent share, compared with 69 percent for Internet Explorer. "They just seem to be averse to Microsoft products and really interested relatively in these open-source products," said Geoff Johnston, a WebSideStory analyst.

Also (this edited bit from Cnet added 5-13-05)
IBM is encouraging its employees to use Firefox, aiding the open-source Web browser's quest to chip away at Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Computer Things That Vex Me

1. Firefox got rid of my favourite Mozilla feature. Mozilla had many flaws that Firefox does not, but it could give me a pop-up window when my favourite sites were updated. Many go months without a change. I miss that feature. Any way to make it happen on Firefox Mac?

2. I use MacLink Plus to convert WordPerfect Mac (OS-9) to MS Word for OS-X. For many documents the printed results are, well, just wrong. It's no secret that MS Word blows chunks, but there's no other alternative. I know it's not the conversion process because MS Word in OS-9 could read WP files and it couldn't print them correctly either. (The bug occurs in documents with columns or mixed justifications on one line).

3. I still can't convert my Claris Resolve documents to any OS-X spreadsheet easily. I can load them one at a time, save them in a very, very old Excel format and then load them into the new Excel and re-save them. The resulting document does preserve my formulae, but the formatting is mostly lost. Claris Resolve rocks. The thing is, AppleWorks spreadsheet is a stripped down version of Resolve (which is actually Informix Wingz* in disguise). So it should be easy, but it isn't.

4. I couldn't print from OS-9 and my driver wouldn't install in OS-9 because you have to boot in OS-9 to install the OS-9 version. Well, I got pissed today and found that if you do a "get info" on the file hidden inside the package, there's a check-box to force the program to boot in OS-9. It intalled and I can print again.

I claim another victory in the "one person at a time campaign" -- my friend Jan is very happy with his new Mac and is dumping his last remaining PC. He has thanked me numerous times and is wondering why he didn't listen to me years ago. Now, he's just converted his parents to the world of the Mac. Make a difference: find some one, and convert them. Save another soul from the dark side.

Lastly, if anyone has solutions to any of the computer issues above that vex me, I'd appreciate them.

-- E


* And Informix Wingz is a version of a very, very old PC program called "Smart" and while we're at it, Excel is derived from an old Apple II program called Microsoft Multiplan. True fact. Little known.

Boogers, Blogs, and Browsers

Don't you just hate when my subject line in unrelated to the contents of the post? Should I stop? I'll take opinions on that. I'm back to Firefox. Happily, it now works with my bank's site. They didn't fix Firefox, so they must have fixed my bank's site. That was why I went back to Mozilla, in case you cared. I like Firefox so much better. You should all switch Right Now.

And, better yet, Firefox now has an add-on like the Google-bar. So that's fixed too. Life is good in the browser world. Firefox will work with all platforms: Mac, Linux, and PC. So you've got no excuse.

-- Eric