Tragedy in the Big Easy

I'm sitting here watching the video and images from Hurricane Katrina on the Weather Channel, and I just can't believe what I'm seeing and hearing. The cities of New Orleans and Gulfport are basically gone. I've been to both cities, and I just can't believe the magnitude and power of this storm. I feel for everyone affected by this, and hope everyone will be able to bounce back. I mean, 80% of New Orleans is underwater-- I just don't see how they will be able to come back from this.

Katrina was one powerful storm-- powerful enough to affect us here in Memphis. It was still a tropical storm when it passed through here knocking out power to 74,000 customers, including me. Thankfully, the utility company seemed to be prepared, as we got back power yesterday evening, about 18 hours after we lost it.

I'm on vacation this week, and I've spent most of my time on the internet and working on editing my video from my Disney vacation. I was inspired into video editing by Robb and Elissa Alvey over at Theme Park Review, who turn out some great theme park videos, many of which you can download from their website or buy on DVD. If you're a theme park junkie like me, their DVDs are well worth the money.

I'm going out grocery shopping tomorrow, so I will probably hit up a couple of Targets and whatnot on a lookout for bargain games. I'll report back here if I find anything good.

All Firefox, All the Time

Lots of Firefox stuff to cover tonight. Firefox 1.5 beta 1 is now officially scheduled for a Sept. 9 release. Lockdown on the code will be at midnight on the 7th. Fx developers have also decided to add a second beta before 1.5 is finalized, pushing that release back somewhat. If you've been testing Deer Park, you know why. There have been some major bugs in the new Gecko branch, and it will definitely take some time to iron them all flat. In the end, all the extra testing and feedback will be worth it, though.

Lockergnome's web developers RSS channel started adding a daily Firefox item about a week ago. Nothing earth-shattering has appeared so far, but there have been a couple of interesting posts.

First, there's BackupFox, a small app that will make a backup of all your extensions, bookmarks, preferences, history, etc., in .zip format. It works with Firefox as well as Thunderbird. Should be useful if a nightly build should happen to irreparably corrupt your userChrome files.

Lockergnome also mentioned an article on I-Hacked.com called Firefox Browser Hacking. While there are some good ideas here, and links to some useful extensions, there's very little hacking going on. It's sort of a quick 'n dirty guide to customizing Fx for hackers, which doesn't make a lot of sense, as most of them have been using it for a year now.

Finally, according to this Slashdot post, there's a "plug-in" available now that attempts to turn Internet Explorer into Firefox by adding tabs, a search box, and a small firewall that should cover most of the IE security holes plugged by the Gecko rendering engine. Right now I don't know if this is actual software or wishful thinking, as the site referred to, getfoxie.com, appears to have been slashdotted and is unavailable. I suppose I could troll the comments, but I don't do that. It's always more aggravating than enlightening. But I will quote the first-poster, fembots: "What I need is a Firefox-plugin that looks exactly like IE (including the lack of tabs and search box) while still providing the same level of security."

Opera Almost Figures It Out

Something very unusual to going on today. Opera is finally offering free registration for their browser. Problem is, it's just for today. In case anyone's interested, go to this page and submit an email address and you'll be given a registration code. Then you can download the browser, register it, and those ad banners go "poof." Thanks to Nitin for pointing this out.

This is celebration of Opera's ten-year anniversary, and I think it's a great idea. Adware sucks and everyone hates it, so most people don't even give Opera a chance. Unfortunately, the ones who do generally decide that it just ain't worth forty bucks. But we all love free stuff, so don't be surprised if Opera hits a record for new users today. Maybe it'll finally wake them up to a simple fact that's been staring them in the face for years: Netscape was crushed by Microsoft in part because they started charging for Communicator Gold. The free, stripped down Netscape browser was the most dominant piece of software the internet had yet seen, but bloating it up and slapping on a price tag neatly killed it.

As soon as Opera figures this out, the better off they'll be. I don't know what their business model is, but making the product free would push their market share back up (it's been declining for months), meaning a bigger audience, and leading to improvements in the software. Suddenly Mozilla is looking back over their shoulder, and all the browsers get better.

But this won't happen. Opera is still too pricey, and the UI is still way to cluttered and confusing. Right now, your best bet remains Firefox, but I figure if it's free and the ads are gone, I'll give Opera another shot.

Thirteen Essential Firefox Extensions

So here's the comprehensive list of Firefox extensions I use that I've been wanting to post for months. You can download these extensions from the links provided. A couple of these have been updated from the version noted, but I'm only listing the versions I'm using as of this evening. This way you know that I've tested them in Fx 1.0.6, under Win XP Pro. I'm going in alphabetical order.

• AdBlock Plus 0.5.9 - One of my favorite browser enhancements ever, it inspired native ad blocking in a number of browsers, including Avant, the best IE shell.


• Delicious Delicacies 0.4.1 - The definition of a useless extension, it simply replaces the definition of "cookie" in the advanced prefwindow pane with the jokey temporary one that lived there for several months before Firefox became a household name. I love it.


• Download Manager Tweak 0.6.6 - Most useful feature is moving the download manager into its own tab, Opera-style. This view gives you info you normally wouldn't have in Fx, including file URL and target location.


• FlatStyle 0.9.1.3 - Creates MS Office-style context menus and, more importantly, lets you drop the dropdown arrows on the back/forward buttons (right-click for menus). This looks great but makes a number of custom themes jumpy, so I disable it from time to time.


• Image Zoom 0.1.7.1 - Gives you a bunch of context menu-based options for zooming into and out of images. Should really be a standard Fx feature. Highly customizable.


• LiveBookmarkThis 0.2 - Another feature that should be standard, lets you add RSS or Atom feeds to your LiveBookmarks with a right-click.


• MenuX 0.2.2.15 - Adds no less than thirty additional toolbar buttons to pick and choose from, including buttons for the extension and theme managers. Also allows you to hide the menubar. Highly recommended.


• Save Image in Folder 0.5.1 - Adds a customizable option to the context menu that shows up when you right click an image. You can quickly drop a bmp, png, gif, or jpg into any folder that you add to the list. Convenient as hell.


• Save Text Area 0.2 - Right-click in a text area to get the option of loading a text file's contents into it. Very useful if you're worried about writing a lengthy post, only to have a remote server crap out and lose your data. I'm using it to write this post.


• Show Image 0.3 - An old IE feature, lets you right-click on an image placeholder for a graphic that didn't load (or if you hit Stop before the images loaded) to force it to load. I use it every day.


• Tab Mix Plus 0.2.4 - Unquestionably the best tab extension for Fx. Gives you every option you could need, including tab focusing and appearance tweaks like putting a close button on every tab (Opera's best feature). Can be buggy on install, but absolutely worth the trouble.


• WellRounded 0.41 - An aesthetic extension, it creates rounded ends for the URL bar, search bar, and history and bookmarks sidebar searches. Doesn't work with a lot of custom themes, but makes many, including the default theme and Qute, look fantastic.


• Wizz RSS News Reader 1.1.2 - Easily the best RSS reader/aggregator I've come across so far. Integrates fairly well into Fx, though the interface isn't particularly intuitive. But given a chance, it becomes addictive. It has to compete with Fx's native LiveBookmarks, and I think which one is better is a matter of personal preference, but if you want to sort through a couple dozen or more feeds daily, like I do, Wizz RSS wins out.

If there's a Fx extension that you can't live without that I haven't listed here, post it in the comments. I already know that Garrett has a BugMeNot extension that I haven't been able to find, so I'm waiting for that link. I've put off listing my Thunderbird extensions until I have more than four installed. I just don't get that much email, I'm afraid.

The GIMP is Ugly

Slashdot is reporting today that open-source graphic app The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) signed up with OpenUsability to help improve its UI. And it's about goddamn time. I love the GIMP, but it's just a huge pain in the ass to get anything done with it, especially if you're a non-*nix guy who cut his IMP teeth with Photoshop (Photoshop 3 for Win 3.1, actually).

In even better news, G4, the mess that morphed out of TechTV, is bringing back Call for Help, and Leo Laporte is back to host (no Cat Schwartz, though). I'd be a bit happier if AOTS brought back Patrick Norton and Megan Morrone, but I'll take what I can get.

Last week Yahoo News published three articles to introduce the average user to open-source software. Is Open Source for You? is your standard encyclopedia-esque intro to OSS and OS web projects. Open-Source for All is basically a FAQ for anyone who still doesn't get it, and The Open-Source PC is a rundown of a few of the major OSS options you have (Firefox, Thunderbird, Celestia, OpenOffice, etc.). No mention of musikCube, though.

And lastly I'll mention that FireTune 1.0.6 is out. This is a standalone app (no installer) that is, essentially, a wizard for making a few performance tweaks to Firefox's about:config. I've used it before, but only once. I wouldn't bother with it.

Hulk Smash

If you're looking for a great action game, one of the best I've played in a long, long time, go out right now and pick up The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for the PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. Yes, I know-- licensed games are usually crap, the last Hulk game sucked, I don't care about the Hulk, yadda yadda yadda-- if you enjoy action games, at least give this one a rent. I've been playing it nonstop for almost two days, and it's damn fun. If you're still not convinced, read this review at Gamespy. This game just came out of nowhere, and has to be one of the biggest surprises of the year.

Other than that I've picked up more cheapass games at Target. I love Target for their red-sticker clearance sales, where you can find games for 5 bucks, or sometimes even less. The best internet reasource for cheap games is Cheap Ass Gamer. I visit their message board almost every day to get the latest on great game deals. This site is how I acquire so many games-- most of them I pad less that 20 bucks for, and a lot of those, less than ten bucks.

Puppies and Hedgehogs

I write about how I haven't bought a new Gamecube game in months, then I turn around and buy one a few days later. I picked up Sonic Gems Collection a couple of days ago. My verdict: unless you're a diehard Sonic fan like myself, it's not really worth your $29.99. Sonic CD is the highlight of the collection, and even then I think it's overrated-- it's a good game, but gameplay-wise it's easily topped by both Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic the Fighters is nice to have in a collection, as it never saw a home release, but it's pretty much a dummied down version of Virtua Fighter. And despite what many critics have said, I actually enjoy Sonic R, but it hasn't held up very well. (Except for the fabulously cheesy soundtrack.) The six Game Gear games in the collection are worthless; why the hell would I want to play a Game Gear game blown up to huge proportions on my television? It looks awful. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 round out the collection, and are actually two of the better games on the disc. What pisses me off the most about Sonic Gems Collection is that Sega of America actually removed three of the games from the Japanese version (Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3), supposedly so the game wouldn't get a Teen rating. What utter bull.

Faring better in my new game purchases is Nintendogs, which, despite being mind-numbingly cute, is actually a pretty neat use of the Nintendo DS's capabilities. So far I have a chocolate lab puppy named Mario, and I've taught him how to sit, lie down, roll over, and shake. I'm trying to teach him to chase his tail next. Yes, this sounds utterly goofy, and it is, but it's pretty fun all the same.

In my earlier rant about EA and Madden, I forgot to say something about Blitz: The League. I might consider picking this one up. Basically, Midway, having lost the NFL license, decided to make Blitz into the most over-the-top football game imaginable. Apparently, they hired the writer for Playmakers (the ESPN football drama forced off the air by the NFL) to write the storyline. I'm intrigued, and the Blitz games have always been pretty fun. I'll be waiting to see how this turns out.

Oh yeah, and I'm officially on vacation now. I have two weeks left to take before the end of October, and next week will be the first one. Of course, I'm not going anywhere... but if someone walked up to me and handed me a thousand bucks, I'd be off to Walt Disney World in a heartbeat. However, I don't see that happening, so I'm basically going to sit around for a week, watch movies, and play video games. On second thought, that's a vacation enough for me.

Site Search is Live

And it actually works. I ditched the Google SiteSearch and put up a modified Yahoo! search form I found on another site. I suppose eventually this blog will get indexed by Google, but we're already on Yahoo, so the hell with it. While I was looking for the code, I found out that Yahoo does still make a small search form available as a part of their "media relations," but apparently you just have to hack it to limit the search to one indexed URL. So anyway, it works, and it's freakin' sweet.

Site Update

I just added a search form to this blog's sidebar (index only). I wanted an easy way to search through all the previous posts. Unfortunately, it isn't working. I think it's because we haven't been added to the Google index yet. I did hack it just the slightest bit, but only in appearance and layout. The web search works, anyway. If I still can't search this blog with it in a couple weeks, I'll just take it back off.

Update, 9:40 PM: Well, Google may not have us indexed, but Yahoo does. So the question is, how do I add a Yahoo search form to the template? I can remember being able to add a Yahoo web search form to any site way back when Yahoo was just an upstart directory listing, but if they still offer this (and the ability to wild-card it within a particular domain), I can't find any mention of it at Yahoo Help. Any ideas?

Mississippi is Boring

Back from Greenville. There can't possibly be a more uninteresting drive in the US than the one down hwy 61 through the Mississippi River floodplain. "Oh look, its another cotton field. Where's the camera?" At least I got away from the 96 degree Memphis heat for a few days; in Greenville it was 99, and more humid.

Anyway, the Firemonger Project has been updated to CD version 1.04c. This updates to Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.6. Apparently the next version of the Firemonger CD will be 2.0, with a completely revamped interface and bug fixes, as well as new extensions.

And speaking of, a one-off version of Tab Mix called Tab Mix Plus showed up at Mozilla Update this week. I had no problems installing it on the bare-bones Fx 1.0.6 under my WinXP guest account (the only other extension installed there is AdBlock). But after uninstalling Tab Mix and installing Plus, then restarting Fx, the extensions window continually hung and crashed the browser. Same result with older versions of Tab Mix. I finally intalled Tabbrowser Preferences, which is nowhere near as good as Tab Mix, then disabled it (without uninstalling) and installed Tab Mix Plus. Now it works.

I'm not sure, but I think the problem might have been caused by the install method I was using: I downloaded the .jar file and dragged it onto the extensions window the first few tries. The last time, I just installed it directly from the web site. I don't know why this would be an issue, but there you are.

I think it's time to post a new list of the Firefox and Thunderbird extensions I'm using now, along with brief descriptions as well as links. I'm using over a dozen in Fx now and four or five in Tbird. Look for it in the next day or three.

Football Monopoly

This will be the first year in about 6 years that I probably won't buy any new football games. Why? If you follow these things, you already know the answer-- EA, EA, EA. I've been a fan of Sega/Visual Concepts' NFL 2K football series since its original incarnation on the Sega Dreamcast. I've given the Madden series a try, but, time and again, I keep returning to the 2K games. Unfortunately, as hard as Sega tried, they just couldn't cut into the sales numbers of the unstoppable Madden games. So, last year, they took a drastic step-- they released ESPN NFL 2K5 for the PS2 and Xbox at an unbelievably low $19.99 price point-- undercutting the price of the new Madden game by thirty dollars. This was further compunded by the fact that most gaming magazines and websites said that 2K5 was brilliant gaming-- on par with or even better than Madden.

Although 2K5 didn't cut into Madden's sales last year, Sega did sell millions and millions of copies of 2K5, enticing many die hard Madden fans to try the series due to the low price point. Many of these fans became believers in the 2K series due to this. Things were looking up for Sega.

Then, EA, running scared, took care of things in one fell swoop. Earlier this year, they persuaded the NFL to sign an exclusive licensing deal, eliminating any possibility of competition. Goodbye, 2K series. Goodbye, NFL Blitz. Goodbye, NFL Gameday (although, those games sucked.) EA couldn't outdo Sega fair and square, so they settled on using the power of their vast capital creating a monopoly.

Now, EA has the exclusive rights to both the NFL and the NCAA, as well as ESPN. This gives them free reign to do whatever they want, a bad thing for gamers. As we all learned in economics class, competition is good. EA was forced to push their dev teams to make Madden as great as possible because they had the looming threat of other football video games. Now that EA has the exclusive license, they can ease off and offer not much more than a few roster upgrades and rehash the same tired engine year after year. And, not surprisingly, it seems like that's exactly what they're doing. Then newly released Madden 06 is getting some of the lowest ratings I've seen for the series. The consensus being-- the game is good, but it hasn't advanced. Wonder why.

So this will be the first year for me without a new football game. I used to buy EA's NCAA Football game each year (a game I feel is superior to Madden) as well as Sega's 2K game. However, this year if I want a football fix, I'll just turn back to my copy of ESPN NFL 2K5 and be left to wonder what advances and gameplay innovations may have made in a 2K6 version-- if EA hadn't created a football monopoly.

Happy Birthday to 100hc

Believe it or not, today marks the first anniversary of AC's first post on 100hc. What started as an idle hobby has turned into a full-fledged blog, complete with a second contributer (me) and an actual focus on certain topics. It also represented an opportunity to reconnect with AC after being out of touch for a while. So that was pretty nice.

Since this blog was pretty much founded on Harry Potter, I have to disclose that I'm a huge HP fan myself. I work for a major mall-based book chain (guess which) and I've been present for the releases of the last three books. I devoured the latest book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, in about 10 hours, and now I really can't wait for the next book.

So. Anyway. In gaming news, Microsoft announced the pricing structure for the Xbox 360. My first reaction is that the only reason they're selling the $299 package (no hard drive, wired controller) is to that they can say they are launching at $299. Only a complete moron would buy it in favor of the $399 package (hard drive, wireless controller and headset, remote control) since the added value over the cheaper package is over $200.

Given these prices, along with the prospect of $60 games, it's looking more and more like I'm sitting the 360's launch out for now, and will probably take the next-gen plunge late next year. I've got too damn many Xbox, Ps2, and Cube games to play until then.

Gone

Later this morning I'm getting out of Memphis for a few days. I have one of those huge traditional weddings to attend in storied central Mississippi, and I won't be back until late Sunday. I'm actually taking a little DVD player with me, because I rented Sin City on Tuesday and I really feel like I need to watch it two or three more times. I think the perfect way to prepare for a wedding is to watch as much gratuitous violence and evisceration as possible. In any case, 100hc probably won't be totally inactive, now that we've got Garrett onboard.

I'll leave with an article from this week's The Onion that is either really funny or absolutely terrifying, I can't decide which. I give you "Intelligent Falling."

Zelda Delayed

News came yesterday that Nintendo is delaying The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Gamecube to around March 2006. This comes as a big blow to Nintendo fans, and it leaves Nintendo without a major release this year to combat Sony's large PS2 lineup and the launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The delay is unfortunate, and pretty unexpected, especially because rumors had been circulating for a few months that the game was basically done and Nintendo was sitting on it until the holidays. Obviously that's not true. I know, the usual applies-- the delay will give them time to make it even better, yadda yadda yadda-- the same thing all developers say when they delay their games.

It's pretty disappointing to me that the Gamecube has suffered the way it has-- I love the system, and it was my number two system as far as play time-- behind the Xbox and ahead of the PS2. However, due to the extreme lack of new Cube games (it's been months since I bought a new one), it has slipped to third, behind PS2. Nintendo really has an uphill battle to fight now. The only area which Nintendo isn't suffering is, predictably, the handhelds. The Nintendo DS continues to sell well (especially in Japan) and has a great lineup of games for the rest of this year. They're doing much better than Sony with the PSP, which everyone predicted was going to come in and crush Nintendo. That didn't happen-- the PSP launch was something of a disappointment, and the game lineup for the PSP looks pretty bleak.

Oh, and in completely unrelated news, I finally saw Kung Fu Hustle the other day. I was really looking forward to it, especially after enjoying Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer so much. I was a little let down. Sure, Kung Fu Hustle is pretty funny in spots, and has some good action sequences, but the storyline is completely incoherent. I'm in the minority here, but I greatly preferred Shaolin Soccer. Darn. Good thing is, I have Sin City arriving from Netflix today. Yay!

Oh well. I'm off to play my Xbox.

Of Mice and Market Share

This week has seen a lot of dire-sounding tech news postings proclaiming a drop in Firefox's overall share of the browser market. Most of them have titles like "Firefox suffers dip in marketshare" (see also "Fx Market Share Slips in July" and "Fx Share Slipped in July for the First Time.") So far, I've pretty much ignored the whole browser market thing. There are just too many sources and too many variables to put a ton of faith into any of the numbers. But just this once, let's have a look at 'em.

According to NetApplications.com, in July, usage of IE grew from 86.56% to 87.2%, while usage of Fx fell from 8.71% to 8.07%. Safari also jumped slightly, from 1.93% to 2.13%. So here's my question: Why the hell are we all talking about this? A drop in Firefox's share of 0.64% merits headline news? I can only assume it's because Fx usage has grown every single month since the official release of 1.0 last November, because the numbers are entirely unremarkable.

And you don't have to take my word for it. In fact, I wouldn't if I were you, because I'm clearly a fan of the software and the Mozilla Foundation (I'm writing this in Mozilla Suite). But Robert Accettura has posted a detailed look at the numbers and the probable reasons behind them. I think the main point is the impending (and late) release of Firefox 1.5, formerly known as Firefox 1.1. Incremental security updates of 1.0 just aren't sexy, and don't pull in the new users like major releases with mainstream press coverage. In any case, I just nodded off, and it's time to change the subject.

IBM is donating software to Mozilla to help create accessibility options in future versions of Firefox. Expected features include auto-narration and keystroke navigation (which can be done now through extensions). There's also a nice little surprise buried in this article:

IBM would also donate technology to enhance the DHTML capabilities of the browser. Big Blue said its moves are to support its work for the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, as well as strengthen its commitment to standards and open source.

In other words, IBM, who has already committed to using Fx in-house, has realized that it's in their own interest to help the browser pass Acid2 and become fully standards compliant (which only Safari has accomplished so far).

The free version of WindowBlinds has been updated to 4.6. As far as I can tell, the only significant feature change is a nice little glowy effect on some mouseovers. Whether that's worth a 9MB download is up to you.

And finally, about those mice. We got some here at the house. A few weeks ago I spotted one, and saw another a few days later. Cute little tiny brown mice. Well, in the last 48 hours sightings have increased to roughly one every ninety minutes, and they seem to be living somewhere inside the gas oven. The dogs haven't managed to catch any of 'em yet; Lucy, who's half terrier, has cornered a couple, but they slipped by her. I'm afraid I'll have to start poisoning the little fuckers. Oh, well.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

I'm Garrett, and I'll be your co-blogger this afternoon.

My old blog, Gaming is Life, basically sat for several months while I did nothing with it, so AC was nice enough to invite me onto his. I don't know exactly what I'll be writing about, but it'll mostly be about gaming, with occasional stuff on movies. I'll leave all the OSS stuff to AC... that's his area of expertise. I might write about some movie stuff, too. I really don't know where all of this will lead, but it'll be really interesting to find out.

So I'll start things off by talking about one of my obsessions lately. Beats of Rage is a game created as a tribute to Sega's classic Streets of Rage series for the Sega Genesis. BOR is available for may different platforms, including PC, Dreamcast, and Xbox, and it really brings back the feel of Streets of Rage 2, probably the best of the series. This would be great just in and of itself, but the developers, Senile Team, have developed the game so that modding would be possible. This has led to many, many different BOR mods, with beat-em up games inspired by Street Fighter, Final Fight, Mega Man, Mortal Kombat, and many other games. Some are better than others, but most of them are pretty entertaining.

Anyway, I'll post more later, and see where all this leads....

Best Blog Ever

100hc takes another step towards being the bestest blog in the civilized world this week as we've added Garrett to the staff. I noticed he hadn't done much with his own blog in a while, so I asked him to start putting up the occasional post here. He didn't want to do it, so I'm afraid I had to steal his cat lock it up in the garage with my rottweiler until he changed his mind. He didn't have to though, the cat's fine. Stupid cowardly rottweiler. Anyway, I don't care what Garrett writes about, because its gotta be better than what I've been doing. Seriously, I got nothing.

The Mozilla Store has been relaunched with a better interface and a few new items, with more coming soon. The Firefox and Thunderbird guidebooks have been combined, and you can order one with Fx and Tbird on CD-ROMs for $14. Nice gift for any friends or relatives that are still in the habit of clicking on any big blue E's they happen to see.

OhmyNews International (what?) has posted a pretty decent interview with Blake Ross. At one point Blake mentions that Firefox has been downloaded "nearly forty million times," so they've apparently been sitting on this for a while before publishing it, because Fx has been downloaded nearly eighty million times. I know this because my super nifty Firefox Download Counter Konfabulator widget tells me so. I've been playing around with Konfabulator lately, and I do like it better than ObjectDock, but it still isn't all that useful, at least for me. Except for the Battleship widget, of course. It's freakin' Battleship, man. How awesome is that?

Netscape Browser 8.0.3.3 has been released, in case anyone's interested. This is a security update incorporating fixes from "Mozilla 1.0.7," according to its FileForum entry. God only know what that means. Mozilla Suite is on 1.7.10, and 1.0.6 is the latest stable Fx build. If doesn't matter anyway. There's no reason for anyone to use Netscape Browser for anything ever.

Mozilla Turns a Profit

The Mozilla Foundation has created a wholly-owned, for-profit subsidiary called the Mozilla Corporation to aid in distributing and marketing Firefox and other software. There's been some confusion as to how exactly this will affect the future development of Firefox, Thunderbird, etc., so Daniel Glazman, and Mike Connor have posted some clarifications. Mozilla has also written up a MozCo FAQ. From an end-user standpoint, nothing should really change at all.

Yesterday IBM published on its developerWorks site a comprehensive article on migrating apps from IE to Mozilla browsers (via The Inquirer. Here's the summary:

Ever have trouble getting your Internet Explorer-specific Web applications to work with Mozilla? This article covers common issues associated with migrating applications to the open source Mozilla-based browser. You'll first learn basic cross-browser development techniques, and then develop strategies for overcoming the differences between Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

Score one for the good guys.

And I thought this was interesting. Microsoft is attempting to cash in on Google's perosnalized homepage idea by putting up a beta of a pretty shameless knock-off under its start.com domain. RSS feeds are displayed in non-popup popup windows, which is interesting and only a little annoying, but really, that's what tabbed browsers are for.

Finally, Ars Techica has reviewed that flashy new Apple mouse, which apparently really is called "Mighty Mouse." Turns out it's pretty much just another mouse.

Boycotting IE7

A tech journalist named Paul Thurrott (who, I'll admit, I don't think I've ever heard of), is calling for a boycott of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 after key developers admitted that IE7, in its final form, still won't pass the Acid2 CSS standards test put forward by the Web Standards Project. From his article:

My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It's a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn't secure and isn't standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators. Because of their user bases, however, Web developers are hamstrung into developing for IE at the expense of established standards that work well in all other browsers. You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.

BetaNews has also posted a detailed article on the matter, with a number of quotes from the IEBlog. Firefox and Opera have yet to pass Acid2, but Safari has, and the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software are dedicated to passing and are getting closer with each milestone release.

Personally, I don't think a widespread boycott of IE7 is remotely possible. Power users stopped using IE for daily browsing long ago, and aren't likely to switch after becoming so comfortable with Firefox or Opera or Netscape or whatever the hell they're using now. And the average surfer has no idea what CSS compliance standards are and couldn't care less. They just want to read their horoscopes and play some games and get on with their lives. They don't really even care about security. If most users did, IE6 wouldn't still control nearly 90% of the browser market.

So it's a nice idea, but ultimately it's litte more than holding up a big sign in a pitch black room. Microsoft just doesn't have to listen to anyone anymore.

Evil Firefox Extensions

Just a quick post about a couple of Firefox extensions I had some problems with. The first one is SessionSaver, which I mentioned just the other day. Don't use it. Twice in two days Firefox crashed on startup when trying to restore the previous session. To the author's credit, it can detect a crash and will give you the option of ignoring the last save point, letting the browser start normally. Still, it seems to make the extension pretty much useless, doesn't it?

I also want to warn you about trying to install the version of AdBlock stored at Mozilla Update. It won't work with Fx 1.0.6. It doesn't generate any errors, but after installing it and restarting Firefox, the extension just isn't there. You can, however, use AdBlock Plus 0.5.9 as found at the AdBlock Plus homepage. Even if you uninstalled AdBlock at some point, all of your blacklisted URLs should be restored after installing 0.5.9. And thank god, because I have well over 200 blocked, wild-carded addresses.

Alt Browser Updates and Fx Extensions

For those of us who use IE shells from time to time, Maxthon has been updated to 1.3.3, with a few feature and security updates. I haven't tried a Maxthon build since ver. 1.1.120, when I decided that Avant Browser was the best IE shell browser. I might try this new release, but I'm comfortable with Avant now, in terms of its UI (which is closer to K-Meleon than IE), and Avant has clearer security controls (easy toggling of ActivX, Java, etc.). Of course, Avant is currently on its seventeenth build of version 10.1. Just call it 10.2, already.

Also, Mozilla Suite 1.7.11 has been released. It fixes a couple of regressions (extensions that stopped working) introduced by 1.7.10. I have just three extensions installed in Moz 1.7.10, and they all work, so the hell with it.

And speaking of extensions, I plugged Wizz RSS News Reader and SessionSaver into Firefox 1.0.6 this weekend, and I highly recommend both. Wizz RSS is a simple sidebar-based feed aggregator that nicely supplements Fx's native LiveBookmarks. It isn't all that intuitive, but there's a good amount of documentation online, with links built into the extension's UI. SessionSaver does just what you'd expect it to do, and does it pretty well. Give it a try.

In other news, things have kind of sucked lately. There's this huge, gnarly old tree standing in the far northwest corner of the back yard, it must be over a hundred years old, and last night just before 1:00 AM an enormous limb, bigger than most trees around here, fell off it with a huge shuddering crash. It's bisected the yard, reaching all the way to the gate at the southeast corner, and when it fell it nearly crushed Maggie, our rottweiler. Scared the bejeezus out of her. Fortunately, a couple of branches impaled the roof of the garage and lodged there, and a few shingles were sheared off the corner, so the homeowners' insurance will cover the removal of the whole mess, as well as repairs to the garage. But it's still a pain in the ass.