Well, I finally did it. The Firesomething Firefox extension hasn’t been updated for Firefox 1.5, and I was tired of my browser not being named something funny… especially since one of my friends on campus always says he uses Firemonkey to browse the web.
It’s for you Alan!
Install it here, and see what funny name your browser becomes! Firesomething for Firefox 1.5
I wrote a little program called Exch that simplfies currency exchange and the retrieval of up to date exchange rates.
If you are already using Firefox 1.5 extensively it integrates well as a sidebar.
More:
Other extensions I have been involved with.
Exch project on Mozdev.
I just uploaded Exch for Linux. It was excitingly difficult to make a tar.gz file off of the command line because Ark wasn’t playing nice on Kanotix.
For those who would like to make a tar.gz file of an entire directory, here’s how:
tar -cvf filename.tar directoryName
And then issue this command:
gzip filename.tarVoila, you should have:
filename.tar.gz
If you use the Internet, and want a better life, look in the mirror, and repeat this mantra 3 times daily:
“Stop using Internet Explorer.”
Even the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team has said, “Use a different web browser” in reference to Internet Explorer. With as many flaws that this browser contains, it is no doubt the best decision you could make in regards to your browsing habits.
Think bugs, spyware, popups, viruses, trojans, fraud, identity theft and all of the other bad words that are related to Internet use. Yeah, that may go a bit overboard, but you get the idea… Internet Explorer does not adequately protect the user from the invasion of cyber-theives on the prowl. And yes there are others that do. For example, Opera and Firefox.
So… after saying all of that, read this: Internet Explorer currently has a flaw in it, that Microsoft has known about for some time that has no fix for it yet. Even in fully patched Windows XP SP2 systems. All you have to do is browse to a specially crafted website, and hackers can launch what ever program on your computer they feel like.
I will say that again… all you have to do when using Internet Explorer is click a link, and you could be infected. There are no known sites currently implementing this hack, but as in the past, it could only be a matter of days.
eWeek has an article on it: Zero-Day Exploit Targets IE.
Email on the internet has been both fun and exciting while at the same time a bit frustrating. Often times I wonder how I could make the process a little bit easier. Without discussing spam at great lengths, what other ways can I make it more enjoyable? Many websites on the net have email links on them. They are called mailto links… and in the html code they typically look like this:
<a href=”mailto://username@domain.com”>Click here to email</a>
In the early days of my internet-ting I would just click on the link and my favorite email program of the time would load up. The email address would conveniently be placed inside of the “to:” text area. I would select a subject and away I would type my email.
This ease of use was typical of a pop3 email account. I received mine free with the web service I had while at Mason High School. Shortly after the powers that be, deemed it not the schools business to be a community isp, my pop3 account was lost. I was forever “doomed” to webmail.
Or at least I thought I was doomed. For the longest time when I clicked on an email link, eudora, netscape mail, or outlook express would pop up asking me to set up an account… I thought to myself “ahhhhh! I don’t have pop3 anymore!” So for years I haven’t clicked on an email address. I would copy the link, and paste the, “mailto://username@domain.com” into my Yahoo! webmail account, then delete the “mailto://” nonsense.
Now there is a better way. Recently I have discovered a Firefox extension called WebmailCompose, that allows me to just click the email link, log into my Yahoo email account (this works for Hotmail, Gmail, and a host of others) notice the email address conveniently in the “to:” text area, and start typing away. Moments later I am sending the email.
Convenience is back, with a browser named Mozilla Firefox.
Okay… I have hammered this subject a lot lately, but I thought I would throw out an interesting article. Microsoft’s online magazine Slate has published an article praising Mozilla Firefox as a step forward in web browsing, security, and usability.
View the article, then install Firefox, then add a few extensions to the browser.
Yes, I know it sounds -EXTREMELY- scary to install a new program… but your online security depends on it. If you don’t trust me, then trust Microsoft (via Slate magazine) and the US Government. They recommend a switch too.
What’s even better is you can use the same browser on Windows, Linux and Macintosh! It’s available on all three!
Oh, and if you are into Macromedia Flash, Java games, or other plugin trickery, you will want to read this little document on how to get those functionalities into Firefox. No, it really isn’t a big deal.
I’m not sure how many times it has to be said, but I will say it again. Stop using Internet Explorer. Download a different browser, increase your security, and browse more peacefully.
Here are a few warnings. There have been tons before, there will be tons after. It will take thousands of people’s identities stolen, credit card numbers taken, and the complete distrust of Microsoft before people will actually switch web browsers.
If you want more security as well as a better product… for free, download Mozilla Firefox.
Why keep the default look in your web browser? Though you may not have known, you do have a choice to browse in style! Within the last 5 years or so, programs have adopted a technology called “skinning” or “theme changing.” Mozilla Firefox 0.9 supports this, and has a vibrant community of people making the web browser look fantastic.
Keep reading for a mini tutorial on how to change the look of your copy of Firefox 0.9.
(1) The First thing you will want to do is close any other websites before changing themes and save any info you have going on in your browser. Theme changing has more than once messed up my browsing session until I restarted my browser. Next you will want to browse to a site that contains themes. The first one is the easiest to find as it can be browsed to straight from the Firefox menus. To locate it, click on Tools > Themes > Get More Themes.
This should take you to the Mozilla Update site for Firefox Themes.
The other method would be to browse directly to another site that contains Firefox compatible themes. One such site is the Texturizer site. This used to be where Firefox users would go for themes and extensions. Why it changed, I don’t know… but they have some themes and extensions here that you can’t find on the Mozilla update site.
(2) Which ever site you go to, you will want to click on the theme that you want, and then locate an “Install” or “Install Now” link. Once you click this, you should get a dialog box similar to this:
(3) If you are okay with installing the theme, click the OK button. Otherwise, click the Cancel button. If you select the OK button, you should get a dialog similar to what you see below. The theme you have selected will appear and the progress bar will, well… progress… assuming everything is going okay.
(4) Once the download is complete, the “Use Theme” button should be clickable. Select the theme you want to use and then select this button. The theme should change and you should restart your browser… if you menus go funny or your close tabs button doesn’t work… don’t worry, just close the browser, restart it, and it should be all back to normal.
Below I show the default theme for Firefox:
And after trying out the PlastikFox theme:
Hopefully this tutorial has helped and by now you should be enjoying your browser’s new look.
With Mozilla.org‘s latest web browser, Firefox 0.9, comes loads of enhancements.
The upgrade from 0.8 seems minor but the changes couldn’t be stressed enough. Besides the default theme being changed, the browser acts more stable, extensions are easier to manage, and best of all… Windows’ download size has decreased by nearly a half!
Firefox users of the past will be delighted to see things are still relatively the same, and new users will come to enjoy the benefits this “alternative” web browser will have on there “browsing experience.”
One of the most influential features Firefox has on new users is it’s tabbed browsing interface. With tabs, you can have several web pages loaded into one window. This eliminates the extremely cluttered desktops that I have seen on other people’s computer screens. Navigating the seemingly impossible stack of windows is no longer necessary. With tabbed browsing, they are neatly organized for you right at the top of the window, ready and waiting to be clicked on… or conveniently closed by the [x] button on the right.
Besides tabbed browsing, Firefox revolutiones the browsing scene with it’s customizability. Click the extensions you want, find and click its install link, click the install button that pops up, restart your browser, and begin customizing. I suggest installing only one at a time and restarting after each extension is downloaded as I have found it easier on the browser (this seems to no longer hold true for 0.9.1). I tried installing 5 extensions at once, restarting, and the browser told me it was initializing all of the extensions and to wait a minute… the minute was more like —forever—. So I uninstalled the whole browser, reinstalled the whole browser, followed my advice above, (one extension at a time, restart, install another) and it worked great!
Here are two sites with LOADS of extensions you can add to Firefox:
(1) Mozilla Update
And Below are six extensions that I have installed on my browser that make my web experience that much more enjoyable. They are ordered by which I use most starting with RSS Reader Panel.
(1) Sage RSS Reader – Have a side panel in your browser with latest articles from websites that utilize the RSS format.
(2) Tab Browser Extensions – Extends the tabbed browsing interface, for example tabs can be reorderable by drag and drop, or right click and undo the last close tab.
(3) DictionarySearch 0.6 – Select text, right click on it, and perform a dictionary search on that text.
(4) Web Search Plus 0.1 – Similar to the dictionary search, except this takes you on a web search at Google rather than on a word definition search.
(5) Web Developer 0.8 – Allows you to resize your browser to a specified width, display information about pages, debug your websites.
(6) User Agent Switcher – If a website won’t allow you in because you don’t have a certain browser, with this, you can make Firefox look like another browser! How sneaky huh?
All of these hack attacks due to terrible programming in Internet Explorer. Browser incompatibilities, Windows only webpages, and a host of other nonsense should force a market economy to break free from being slaves to viruses, and a Windows dominated world. If you support capitalism and democracy download MozillaFirebird. Oh, by the way, it’s available for Windows too! How could you say no now? :-)
