15 posts tagged “firefox”

 I've been meaning to do this entry for a long time. I've just never gotten around to it. You know all of those little things that Windodws comes bundled with? You know, things like Paint, Windows Media Player, IE, Notepad and Windows Messenger that you never think to use on a day to day basis? Well thanks to some notable notable people including Myke, I've come across some freeware that will help you improve those little apps.

1. Firefox- This is a no brainer. By default Windows come bundled with either IE 6 or 7. IE 6 is a pain to use while IE7  is much better. However, being very much the anti-microsoft person that I am, I'm a Firefox user. Or an Opera user. I like both but I use Firefox for day to day browsing. My advice from one user to another:get Firefox or Opera. They're so much better than IE in so many ways. It's just not worth it to have to deal with all of the bad stuff that's out on the internet that exploits holes in IE.
   
2. Thunderbird-Using Outlook Express? Tired of it doing odd things with your mail. Get Firefox's  feathery  cousin Thunderbird. Supports POP3 and IMAP, gives you the ability to set a static web page when you open and even functions as an RSS reader! It also allows you to create rules for your mail with up to 5 colors for mail that you frequently get. In the next version of Thunderbird (v. 2.0) you'll be able to use as many colours as you want. If you have a POP3 account and are tired of Outlook Express acting weird, go with Thunderbird.
   
3. Gaim- Using MSN? AIM? ICQ? Jabber? GAIM is another Open source alternative to MSN or the other generic clients people often use for IM. It supports most of the protocols and allows for a level of customization that I am never seen before, at least in MSN. It allows you to skin it, install plugins and have mulitple accounts for multiple protocols.
   
4. Paint.NET- A bit more creative than what Paint has to offer but can't afford Photoshop? Paint.NET is a great alternative. It's now in v. 3.0 RC1 and it's chalk full of features including multiple effects, powerful tools, layering, support for PNG transparency and much more.
5. Notepad2- Let's face it. You either use notepad or you don't. I use it to copy down messages for phone calls and other meninal tasks like that. More importantly, I also use it to code things like HTML and CSS. Why you use such a stripped down program? It's simple and it works. But there is something out that can make it a lot easier to code. Notepad2 is freeware that combines the best of notepad with some really cool new features. If your an amatur coder like me, you make a lot of mistakes. So Notepad2 has synptax highlighting, helping you to find and correct your mistakes. More into other kinds of languages like Perl, Python and others? Its supports many of the standard program languages. The coolest feature in my opinion? Tranparency mode.  Hit Alt-U and the windows goes transparent allowing you to read code off of another document and write at the same time, without the hasstle of switching back and forth.
   

    That's my list! Any suggestions? Alternative apps? Comments? Leave a comment or PM me!

     So that's the math project done and presented. The presentation went okay, I guess. I had to do it a bunch of times, and I talk a million miles an hour when I get nervous, but it could have been worse. The noise didn't help either. But that's not

what this post is about. I haven't praised any websites lately and I should be. First off is one that I tried using for my Math Project. Spresent is Powerpoint in Flash. It's really simple to use and has some pretty cool transition effects. Some of the limitations are that the only web images that you can drop into your presentations are jpg. This isn't that big of a deal, but for someone like me who prefers the .png format, is it somewhat of an annoyance. Other defencies are that you need to type in the URL exactly (www.spresent.com) as opposed to just spresent.com or the security certificates will screw with the log in process and will not allow you to login. Again, a minor bug, but worth mentioning. It's a nice little web app and it's a wonder why Google hasn't bought them yet. Google already has a spreadsheet program and a word processor, why not a powerpoint like program? With Google you never know though. They could go out and buy it in the next few months.  We'll see
     The other thing I wanted to mention is something I found today while randomly browsing around. It's called EveryStockPhoto and it's like iStockphoto. The major difference is that instead of paying to use the images outside of my Vox blog, the images are licensed under Creative Commons and therefore, are free. Now don't get me wrong, I love iStockphoto, it's great service. But if you want high quality images or a different size you have to pay for it. Not much mind you, just one or two dollars, but it's the Penguin inside of me talking. I like Open Source FREE software. I use Open Office, not Word, I use Firefox not IE (for other reasons) I use GAIM not MSN. I use Thunderbird, not Outlook.  I do use some closed source stuff like Paint.NET, because I can't figure out the GIMP. And Creative Commons is consumer friendly which is better then Copyright, which screws you over even if you just want to promote the person who holds the copyright. But I ramble. 
    I'm off to party tonight, then to a meeting. Have two tests and a small assigment due on Monday, but it's no big deal. See you guys later.  

So I got h

ome from school today, and am checking around my usual tech news stuff, and I go to one of my favorite sites, Neowin.net and guess what? Firefox 2, which I've been waiting for since late June is finally here and it's here a day early no less. I've been using RC3 for the past little while, and it was a bit buggy. Namely some of the my extensions where not working and small things like that. Some of the new features in Firefox are:

1. New UI- There is now a new default theme that looks very Web 2.0ish. It's a nice theme and much better than the default theme that came with Firefox 1.x and 1.5.x.
   
2. Improved Search Engine Management- In Mozilla 1.x it was easy to add search engines, however it was a pain to delete them. You had to go into the program files and delete it and oh, m an it was a pain. It's been streamlined in the new browser. You just go to Manage search engines and click on what ones you want to delete. Much Improved
3. Easier Tab Management- For the past several months I've been using Tab Mixed Plus to save my sessions and things like that. It added a little close button to each tab so you could just click on the button to close the tab as opposed to having to go to the end of the tab bar and click the little close button and go back and, again it took you a while to clear up your tabs. With the new management system ,they've implemented a close button on each tab as well as a little drop down menu to find tabs easily. The second cool thing is, there's a little bar that shows up if you have a lot of tabs open. It allows you to shuffle tabs around. So say for example you are reading an article on Neowin,  on one end of the bar. On the other your composing an email to your buddy. You just Click on the little arrow and the bar slides down to your email. It's pretty cool. Bonus: If you have enough tabs open the little button disappears to look just like a  normal tab.  The tab management is much improved.
4.  Improved Extension Management- Following the management theme, they've condensed the extension and theme sections into one option on the tools menu, allowing for more efficient management. Your now able to see what extensions and theme's you have in the same Window. Clearly, this new release of Firefox is aimed at making the browser more efficient  in the way it manages all the components.
   

    Those are just a few of the features in the new browser. If your techno-savvy and you want to get Firefox 2 right now through Mozilla's FTP server click here. If you want to get it but you don't have any idea what FTP is, I'll give you a walk through. By default you should be in a directory that has several links. Click on the one that says win32. On the  next screen click on your language. Mine would be en-US. If your in the U.K. it would be en.-GB etc. Then just click on Firefox 2.0 .exe. If your on a Mac one the first screen click on Mac and follow the links again. Same deal with Linux. So there you go that's what I would call the IE7 killer. All the features that Microsoft is implementing are those of the last generation of Firefox. Looks like the poor IE team has been out Firefoxed again.

    Today Microsoft released the long awaited (at least for the Windows fan boys.) upgrade to Internet Explorer. It's the first upgrade in almost 5 years and, in contrast to the much hated IE 6, IE 7 has a bright new look and a bunch of new features. As a I mentioned last week, I have no intention of installing IE 7 as I am a devoted supporter of the Open Source Mo

vement and thus, of Firefox. And guess what? Less than 24 hours after the release the is the first vulnerability of IE 7. Wow. That's gotta be a record. Less than 24 hours and the first vulnerability of IE 7 has been discovered. Microsoft has yet to patch it, and they say that they will take "appropriate steps" to fix the problem. Okay. Take those approriate steps soon. Even though I don't use IE, it still makes me nervous when you have a vulnerability in the OS. So with all the shiny new features and the new "security features" should you use IE? At this point, in my opinion (which probably won't matter in the large scheme of things.) I'm going to say that you should not go out and download it. Even with all the new technology and features it's still not as secure as either Firefox or Opera. And the UI is not all that it's cracked up to be. I hate the way they've designed the buttons and the link buttons and such. I still prefer my trusty copy of Firefox 2 RC3. The final version of Firefox 2, as far as I know will be out on October 24. That's the date I've been hearing for a while and unless I've missed that it's changed, it should be coming out in 5 days. If your tired of IE and you want a new browser try out either Firefox, Opera or if your adventurous, try the new browser, Flock.
     People, what's up with you? You want Apple to get out of the hardware business and license the Mac to Dell? Noooooo. Nonnononono. What's the thing that Apple does really well? Design. That's one of the main factors that makes the Mac so appealing. In comparison to the very industrial, dull design of Dell, the Mac is beautiful. And the main thing that makes up most of Apple's business is Hardware! Mac OS X, although that is a crucial component to the success equation Apple is now using. Going into the software business wouldn't do anything for Appple. In fact I think that it would cripple Apple as a company as the market share is so small for Macs. It's better for Apple to keep making beatiful Macs and for Dell to keep making it's design-deprived PC's

     Back a while ago, Mozilla annouced it was parterning with Real Networks and bundling the Firefox Web Browswer with it's Real Player. Okay fine. So I got this idea in my head that I needed to download Real player tonight to watch a bunch of video's off of the CBS website. Okay, fine. Except that it overwrote my  last install of Firefox that I did just the other day, which was the recently released Firefox 2 RC2 (now  RC3.) When I installed the Install and saw it say "Installing Firefox"  I said to myself, "okay that won't overwrite my latest install". How wrong could I be? Okay the thing is this, Mozilla, Why in the heck do you bundle your awesome browser with really crappy player like Real Player? I  can understand why you would bundle it with something like the GIMP or  GAIM, but why Real Player Why? This is like that thing that's going on between Debian Linux and Mozilla. Basically, Debian doesn't wasn't to use the Mozilla name and logo, I mean bundling it with something like Linux or  any other Open Source Software, but the thing for this...I'm kind of split. I mean I understand the need to protect your trademark. I don't think I agree with Debian on this. If you want to use a different logo and name, tough, use Konquoror or develop your own browser.  And the final peeve I have with Mozilla, is that they use a EULA as opposed to the GPL. It's open source software. It should be using the GPL. Anyway I  just needed to get that out of my head.

   I just downloaded Firefox 2 RC2 from the Mozilla website. One thing that immediately noticeable from the get go is the re-designed and Web 2.0ish UI. The icons have been redone and look real spiffy. A definite improvement over Firefox 1. Another feature is that they've added the ability to close tabs individually. In Firefox 1 you had to go to the End of the

task bar. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's a real improvement. If you wanted to close multiple tabs at once,  you have to click the tab and then go to the end of the Task bar go back. It may not sound time consuming but it is. It's minor improvement, but it's a good one. A major thing that I've been looking for for a while ago,  is the streamlining of adding and removing search engines. If you wanted to do this in Firefox 1, you had to find the physical file and delete and pray to the gods of Firefox that it didn't screw up the browser. Now all you have to do is click a few buttons and it's done. Another thing that is great is the inline spell checker that's great for things like writing this post and posting on forums and stuff like that. There are a bunch of under the hood features that I won't bore you with here but needless to say it's more stable than ever.
     Today IBM announced that it's cracked the 4 Ghz barrier, which hasn't been cracked by either AMD or Intel up to this point. While AMD and Intel have been focusing on putting more cores onto a single die, IBM has been focusing on increasing the clock speeds of it's POWER architecture. Since Apple dropped the POWER PC architecture earlier this year, that was the largest and one of the only companies using the POWER architecture. While development of the Power PC chips has been slow, and that's the reason why Apple switched, IBM makes a decent processor for things like Server and there putting it into both the Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3. I still prefer AMD and Intel as the architecture is the same on both chips (x86 and x64) It will be interesting to see how both AMD and Intel counter this. With the K8L coming from AMD and the Core 2 Quadro and Clovertown coming from Intel, computers will get faster and faster and 50 years from now I don't want  to know how fast computers are going to get. The next few years will interesting.

  Apperently according to the very respectful Dltv internet exploder explorer has a release date for XP SP2 next Wendsday, October 18th. Why am I mentioning this when  I have mentioned many times that I hate internet explorer. The reason I am mentioning this is so I can mock it. Let's have a look at features in Internet Explorer compared to Firefox and Opera.
1) Tabbed Browsing - There just now  gettiing around to putting this in Internet Explorer? Firefox has had it for the almost 3 years it's been out while Opera has had it even longer. Needless to say, the UI makes everything really had to find. But more on that later.
2) UI- The general UI of Internet explorer is horrid. In compairison to

the Firefox User Interface. It looks like the took all the buttons put them in an air cannon and fired them onto the Browser. There is absolutely no organization with the buttons. Instead of having things organized and easy to find, in true Microsoft fashion they have to bury everything and come up with something new to make everything as hard to find for the end user. The UI goes to Firefox
3) RSS- Another feature that most browsers have had for the past several years, this is one of the good features in IE 7. The RSS reader is more organized that that of Op era of Firefox. As I do use a lot of RSS, I have not experienced this first hand, however I have heard that that it is the most organized RSS reader for the PC.
4) CSS Compliance-Not really a feature that you'll see unless you compare the web page your viewing with another browser such as Opera, over the past several years, IE has been critisized for not compling with W3C standards. As well, IE has yet to pass the Acid2 test. The only browsers that have passed this test are Opera,Konquoror and Safari. Firefox comes closer than IE7.
These are just a few of the features. I don't have time to go through all of them right now. To get a full list of the features click here.
     Moving onto hardware, as I have mentioned quite a few times, I just purchased a computer a little over 2 weeks ago. I bought hardware that is of an older model, but it's more modern than the hardware that was in the old family Dell. Here's my advise on hardware:
   1) Buy from a Smaller Shop if Possible- Generally, smaller shops gets have a slighly better price for hardware than the larger stores. And you don't have to go through the hassle of rebates and crap.
   2) Wait Until after a Big annoucement- Last July, Intel released it's Core 2 Duo chips. In response AMD chips took a massive price cut to compete. That's what you should wait for. Buy your hardware after the fact as prices will drop. It's the same thing with mostly any compoenet. Video and Sound Cards, Hard Drives RAM, anything, prices will drop, sometimes hudreds of dollars after a company makes an annoucement. Wait until then.
3) Upgrading-Make sure the motherboard your getting is upgradeable. If possible get a PCI-E chipset so you can upgrade your video and sound cards at a later date. Also ask what the conditions for upgrading are. Does it void the warranty if you put in new Hardware? Is the processor sodered into the motherboard? that kind of thing.
3) Compare Prices- Some shops are cheaper than others. Don't just go to one shop and say "That's the best price, I'm getting that now". Look around, that's how I got a good deal on my computer. If I hadn't of done that I would have ended up spending a lot more money.
Just my two cents on Hardware and software.
Later,

    

Yesssssss! *jumps for Joy* I finally got my hands on my new computer. It took me 2 months of working and a week of waiting, but it's here and set up. I was worried that I wouldn't have a display since my friend hasn't gotten her new computer yet, however I friend of mine had an extra monitor and he gave it to me. I brought it home last night and the bottom right colours where a bit wonky, but there all right now. All in all it's been a pretty smooth migration. I thought ahead and loaded the installers for Open Office and Firefox onto my Flash Drive so I wouldn't have to use *shudder* Internet Exploder Explorer. I've migrated my iTunes music to my new machine and backed up all my  purchased stuff onto a CD. I put Firefox, PAINT.Net, iTunes and a few other things onto the computer, but I haven't even used up 10 GB in my Hard Drive yet. The burning on this thing is really fast as well. When I went to burn my music to a CD, it took maybe two minutes. That's all. On the Old Dell, it would've taken a minimim of 5. I haven't tried out the new GPU yet, but I will in a few days. I also want to get Ubuntu running on this baby.
    The look of the computer is pure awsome. It's in kind of sucky local right now, but there is a Windows to the Interior and it has a bunch of LED's that are Green, blue and red on the inside. It looks awsome. There's also a logo on the front that glows. As well as the load light that glows read. (the logo glows blue). I'm wondering if I can change the colour of the Logo in BIOS? Probably not, but it was worth a thought. Overall, I'm very impressed with my new machines' performance, I wish that we some more space though..... Once I get a hold of my mom's camera, I'll shot a few pics of the box. It's a cool looking beast, and I think everyone should see it.
    It seems Netvibes has put a new release of it's webpage. It's defintitly more cool looking than  it was before, but it stil retains that classic Netvibes feel. If you want to check it out, give it a go at http://www.netvibes.com

    Over the past few weeks I've been trying to find a way to sync my bookmarks between multiple computers. See, in my house we have 3 computers. One is my sisters and two belong to my parents. I have Firefox on the main computer, but I also have it on a Flash Drive which allows for me to use on computers that don't have Firefox on them. So today I really started searching to try and find an extension that would sync my bookmarks between computers whever I added something. So I searched the extension site. And I found an extenstion called Bookmarks online. I allows me to sync multiple computers with my bookmarks. And whenever I add or delete something from the bookmarks list, it will add or delete that item to the other list when I either sign in or sign out of Firefox. It'll make my life so much eaier when I get my own computer.
    gahhh! I'm doing this paper for Sociology about how in the future people will be able to manipulate the genetics and the chor

DNA strands

omosones of the fetus to determine the gender, hair and eye colour and maybe even the IQ of the child. Personally the entire thing seems frigtening to me. Why would you want your child to be perfect? Where all human. Where not perfect. We never will be. We shouldn't pretend we can be. It's essentially impossible to be perfect. In the paper I liken the entire thing to George Orwell's 1984. In the book everyone is the same. And if where all perfect, we'd all be robots. That's why I'm against things like school uniforms and things that make us all the same. Our individually is what makes us different and I dispise any organization who thinks that we should all be the same people. That's why I hate Society. Kind of Ironic that I'm studing Sociology, huh? I can see why people whould want to get rid of things like the serious things like the serious genetic diseases, but I don't agree with modifying the way the IQ or the personality. Where all built differently for a reason and any tampering by anyone, your parents or otherwise is unethical.

Yeah, I know I should be doing my math assigment for Thursday right now, which I will do after I'm done this post. Anyway I was browsing through my favorites tonight on Firefox and I came across I bookmarked a while ago. It's called the Museum of Modern Beta's. It's quite an interesting link as there are litterally hundreds if not thousands of Beta's going around the web right now. Most of them are still in Public Beta, some you need an invite or a code to get into, however, a good numb

er of them are out into public beta and you are able to participate in beta's of some really cool Web 2.0 stuff. Most of the stuff looks pretty darn shiny as well.
And an interesting thing I found on /. apperently some people think that people who have older computers running Windows 98 or ME won't go to XP or wait for Vista, but go for the somewhat-better solution: Linux. And I tend to agree. Linux, although not as popular as Windows, is certainly much better in terms of security and the customization, if you know how to run it, is amazing. Here's a vid I found on YouTube a while ago, and featured back in August, about Ubuntu running Open XGL and Compiz . Needless to says, it looks amazing. And I don't think this so by-the-seat-of-the-pants trend. I think people who are tired of  buying an upgrade copy of Windows every 2-3 years will soon realize there is a free,  (or realitivly lost cost)  solution that is better in so many ways than Windows. Anyways, now that I'm finished this and watching NCIS , I'm going to do a bit of Math Homework and get to bed.