Merric Reese

The final version of Firefox 4.0 is scheduled for release on March 22nd so I upgraded to the latest Firefox 4.0 Release Candidate last night and so far so good.  I like the new look and the speed of the new version.  It also has some great new features such as:

• New Tab Location
• Tabs for applications
• Easy switch to tab
• Synchronizing Settings
• Managing Add-ons made easy
• Panorama
• HTML 5 support
• Full Hardware Acceleration
• Organizing tabs made easy
• Firefox button for easy access and reduced clutter.

Extensions usually take a little while to be updated but I was able to install all the ones that I use regularly including Delicious.

I’ve also outlined below a couple of tips I used to get everything working.

1) Tab width

It used to be possible to change the Tab width in the about:config setup however the current Firefox 4 release candidate appears to now ignore this.  Fortunately someone has created an add-on that will fix this for you and allow you to update the tab widths.  Here’s the link https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/custom-tab-width/.

2) Delicious Bookmark Add-on

The Delicious bookmark add-on works with Firefox 4.0b3pre but currently doesn’t install on Firefox 4.0 RC however it is possible to force it to install and so far it’s working fine for me.

SOLUTION:

First goto the addon site and choose install anyway.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/delicious-bookmarks/

The browser will complain that it can’t be installed.

Within FireFox 4 goto “Help” in the Menu, then “Troubleshooting Information”

Click on the button “Open Containing Folder” (within the box “Application Basics” on top of the page)

Close Firefox

Goto into directory “extensions\{2fa4ed95-0317-4c6a-a74c-5f3e3912c1f9}”

Within the file install.rdf change

em:maxVersion=”4.0b3pre” />

to

em:maxVersion=”4.0″ />

Restart Firefox

The above worked perfectly for me and once Firefox was restarted the extension was enabled.  I then manually added the tag and bookmark buttons to the toolbar.

Thanks to the users on the delicious support forum http://support.delicious.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=5168

I’m always looking to improve Firefox so please share your tips or favourite add-ons in the comments section below.

Has anyone else noticed that when Windows 7 or Vista recovers from automatically going into screen saver mode  – there is a split second where it shows what was previously on your desktop.   I also noticed this with NoMachine remote desktop when connected to remote linux machines.

For me it’s not a big deal – only a flash – but for the security concious – minimise all apps, blank your screen and secure it before you walk away.

Having said that I think the OS and RDP/VNC vendors could do more to secure the desktop – for example even though the connection is open why show it until you have verified the users identity.

Have you also noticed this and what are your thoughts?

Lately I’ve been looking for a bit more bandwidth in my home network to be able to stream HD video over wireless and moving to N seemed like the logical choice.

For the last 3 years I’ve run a Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT firmware and it has been solid as a rock – best wireless I’ve ever had and will be a very hard act to follow.

My “new” work laptop supports Wireless-N and I get about 150MB/s at the office (which is faster than my wired lan at home) so I thought it could be a potential solution to my bandwidth problem.

So needing a bit more wireless bandwidth – the search was on for a new DD-WRT compatible wireless solution.

I’m currently considering the ASUS RT-N16 – seeems to have excellent specs – plenty of grunt, 2 USB ports and supports either DD-WRT or Tomato firmware.  From what I’ve read the ASUS firmware is flaky and results in wireless dropouts but those on Whirlpool that have upgraded to either Tomato or DD-WRT are reporting good performance.  In addition the RT-N16 has a fast processor (480MHz stock + ability to overclock), 32 MB Flash (which is huge – even the biggest installs of DD-WRT are only just over 8MB) – to me this seems like a really fast piece of kit capable of running DD-WRT.  The 2 USB ports bring into play usage as a torrent box plus a printer hub.

The ASUS RT-N16 seems to have a hugh amount of potential – I think I’m going to have to get one and see how far I can stretch it.

Anyone else have experience with this model? Other thoughts?

Each year Western Digital come out with a new WDTV player – this year it’s the WDTV Live Hub with a 1TB internal 2.5″drive and a new interface.

I usually treat myself to an upgrade around Christmas and flow the older models down the line retiring the oldest but I’m still um’ing and ar’ing this year.

The Live Hub seems to be the same WDTV Live with a new skin on the current Live platform, a new form factor and an internal drive.  From what I’ve been able to find out the Live Hub it also won’t be getting any of B-Rad’s love anytime soon either.  So I would be tied to WD updates.

Saying that – I must admit Read more…

I’m lov’n Google Wave lately and being a relatively early adopter, I can honestly say the Wave platform is much more stable now and the additional new features have really enhanced the Wave experience.

I’ve been spreading the potential benefits of Wave since I first saw the preview in July 2009.  Why? Well when was the last time you saw a real revolution in communication?

I see potential applications for Google Wave in a corporate environment many times per day – bring on federation and the ability to run Wave behind the firewall and the growth of Wave will be exponential – anyone that has ever used a forum or wiki will immediately gravitate towards wave.

Overall, the best way to think about Google Wave is in terms of a hosted conversations rather than Read more…

For the last 2 weeks my laptop has been complaining that the Window7 RC1 OS I currently have installed is about to expire and I should upgrade.  I have no problem with making the move to the Win7 RTM version (I’ve had the disk for about a month) it’s been a matter of finding the time to go through the process of a complete re-install of both the OS and all of my applications.  Then there is the usual 1 to 2 days of tuning to get the apps and system settings back to the way I like them.

As of today, I only have about 5 days left so I thought I better fix it.  I still don’t have time for a fresh install so I thought I would just perform an upgrade now and perform a fresh install when I have a bit more spare time.

After going through the options to get to the upgrade menu – I was bit frustrated to discover that Win7 RTM won’t let you perform an upgrade from RC1.  What the…? Read more…

Warning to all – this is a very long & somewhat technical post…

You know, I’m really not a programmer any more, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a piece of production code – and in my current role – believe me – that’s probably a good thing – I now leave that to the expert Java developers in my team.  But, I came across my first MythTV recording that was from CH10 (Aus) and like all commercial channels it had ads…Argh!!!

To be honest – I don’t watch that much commercial TV anymore – so to be honest, this is rare, but it was a show that we regularly watch so – it became a priority

Anyway, from my recent experience, MythTV does a really great job of recording anything you point it at and it’s also very good at finding and flagging most of the TV ads but it’s really not very good at finding the start & end of a show – and trust me if you record anything on CH10 unless you leave 5 mins before the scheduled start of the show and at  least and 15 mins after the scheduled finish – you are going to miss it.  To magnify issues somewhat – we were watching the show upstairs on a non MythTV player – SO THERE WAS NO AUTO AD SKIPPING – and at that point – it was game over – I needed to find something to fix the ad problem or next time… (you know the rest)…

Well, as always in IT, the answer is always more complicated that was originally envisioned… So there are two parts to this simple endeavor Read more…

I purchased the original WDTV (Western Digital HD Media Player) over 12 months ago – they are a fantastic little box that will play just about anything and have full 1080p HDMI output with 5.1 digital out – needless to say it has served me very well.

My only negative comment is that it required a lot of sneaker time (copying files from my torrent server onto USB drives and then plugging them into the WDTV player to view them on my HDTV).

Well, Western digital recently released a new version, the WDTV Live – the best new feature is that it includes is ethernet (on board) and wireless support (with selected adaptors).  I’ve upgraded to the WDTV Live and I have to admit – I think it’s worth it.

Not only is the new WDTV Live faster than the original version it also supports DTS decoding and I’ve also found it’s Read more…

I have a Blackberry 8310. It’s great to be connected to work email, calendar, tasks etc and I’m actually much more productive now than I was previously, however it also has to work for me. I’ve found a few tweaks to share that make my life a bit easier.

1) Auto Text can make your life easier – especially for your email signature
I noticed that with the Blackberry – every email I sent didn’t include my standard signature. I added a signature in email/options/Use Auto Signature – however I noticed it was always added at the end of the email rather than with my most recent text – the solution – create an Auto Text (in my case RM – then press return to expand) that is unique and automatically gets transposed by Auto Text into my full multi-line signature. This way it is always and only added where I want it to be.

2) Organising Email & Outlook Read more…