Cameron's Thoughts

Just a note to anyone out there that reads this, I have made a decision to take a six month break from drinking alcohol. This doesn't mean that I won't be wanting to go out and hang out at bars or parties or anything like that. I just won't be consuming alcohol at those places. I may explain the reasoning for this at another time. I also need to make some more general postings on here as theres been a fair amount going on lately that I haven't been writing about.

I used to think Firefox used too much memory. I posted about this before. I got home from the bar tonight, and this was just out of control. WTF is it using 3GB of memory for? I only had 25 tabs open. Since this software is open source, you'd think there would be someone checking for memory leaks. I think the whole extension system needs an overhaul cause even Internet Explorer ain't this bad. When Internet Explorer is beating you with stability issues, you should be ashamed.

I've just had the pleasure of installing Firefox 2 for the fourth time. Nothing wrong with the program, this was just the fourth computer I've had to set it up on. Each time, I end up going through and changing some config settings to make the program work more like I want it to. Things such as turning off the tab scrolling, removing the tabs list dropdown, putting the close button to the right like FF1.5. I never remember the config settings, so I end up googling until I find all the settings. mozilla links has all the config settings I have to keep tracking down, so I wanted to pass this along as it's nice to have all this info in one place.
UPDATE (12-07-2006):
I noticed that the auto image resizing option is not only on by default like it was in Firefox 1, but there is now no option to turn it off through the GUI. Here is a fix to disable that:
http://www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2006/10/firefox-2-tip-stop-automatic-image-resizing/

I was just mentioning my Firefox memory trouble, and it looks like there is a nice list of extensions with known leaks.
Reducing Your Memory Usage In Firefox.
Since I use Forecast Fox and Session Saver at home and IE Tab at work, at least I know where some of the trouble lies. Hopefully this stuff gets fixed soon.

I love Firefox, easily the program I use most on the computer. I probably spend 12-15 hours a day using it. But, it really needs to chill the fuck out on it's RAM usage. I mean, what is it doing. I had seven tabs open. Of course, a simple restart of the program makes everything better, but they need to fix the memory leaks, because like to run this non-stop.

A while back I went through and listed all the extensions I was running at that time. At one point, I was up to over 60 extensions running in Firefox. I just love these things. Since I got a new computer a couple months ago, I re-evaluated which ones I was actually using, and I thought it was time to once again list the ones I am now using. These are all things that I believe add useful features to Firefox.

• About This Site
• Add Bookmark Here
• All-in-One Gestures
• Bloglines Toolkit
• Console²
• DOM Inspector
• Download Statusbar
• EditCSS
• FireBug
• ForecastFox
• GMail Chat Alert
• Gmail Notifier
• Google Pagerank
• Greasemonkey
• HTML Validator
• JustBlogIt
• LiveHTTPHeaders
• LiveLines
• Local Install
• Open link in...
• SessionSaver
• Talkback
• Unread Tabs
• Web Developer
• Adblock Plus
• wmlbrowser
• View Cookies
• UI Tweaker

I had previously posted about the Mozilla search plugin I created for this site. That will work in any Mozilla based browser such as Netscape or Firefox. Now, if you check the plugin page, I also have a search plugin that works in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7. I didn't have to actually 'create' this as Microsoft actually did something really smart and their search box supports OpenSearch. As this site is already has OpenSearch 1.1 setup, I just have to create a link for IE to see the OpenSearch description document. For more info on how to point IE to this, check out the IE7 search provider directory.

One good thing about the redesign of this site that I released back in June, I used IE conditional comments to separate the IE CSS hacks needed to render the site properly. That seemed like a good idea then, and now the IE team working on IE7 is saying that this is the way these hacks need to be done. This is because IE7 will fix most of these, so many of the old hacking techniques will actually break sites in IE7.

I think this is for today only, but in celebration of their 10-year anniversary, you can get a free copy of Opera. If you haven't already registered this program, I would take advantage of this.

Personally, if I didn't like Opera as much as Joe Clark does, I just simply wouldn't use it and move on. Or at least learn how to customize to the way I wanted.
He is actually more upset with the "fanboys" now, and not so much as the software itself. He posted back in March about the Opera 8 beta. I posted a comment on Joel's site and I still feel the same way. Almost everything that Joe mentioned is just the normal software behavior that can simply be ignored (calling tabs windows for instance), or can be customized (keyboard shortcuts). I haven't used Opera on a Mac, but if it's anything like the Windows or Linux versions, which I am almost certain it is, you can easily customize all the shortcut by simply going into the preferences. The only reason I really write this is because Joe really came off as some arrogant know-it-all who simply couldn't be wrong about anything. And, before I am called some Opera "fanboy", I don't even use Opera anymore. I loved it, but have since switched to Firefox. And not because of the price either, I have a registered copy of Opera, I just love Firefox's extensions to much. Ah, whatever. I love some of the comments over at 456 Berea St.

Back and Forward Now Blazingly Fast

Great news for anyone using Firefox. This caching feature being added to Firefox will make for a HUGE improvement in speed. Anyone who has used Opera will know what this is like as Opera has had this for as long as I know of. Instead of rerendering the page when using back and forward buttons, the page wil instantly display. Is just as fast as changing from tab to tab. I am excited about this as being a Opera user for a while, this was one of those minor things that always bug me about Firefox. If it wasn't for having to test webpage designs in Opera, I may no longer have a reason for having it installed anymore.

Possibly ironic, but today Firefox stopped cooperating with the extensions installed and now all is lost. I just got done posting about what I had installed, which is good as I now have a good source to go to reinstall them. But, I have actually been running most of these for a long time. It's been about six months since I have been soley using Firefox, and I quickly started to pile up all the useful extensions that it has.
Today, two of my extensions had updates, one was ForecastFox, I can't remember the other. I installed both as normal, but then later in the day I noticed more ads than I was used to. Some really annoying ones. As I went to go use the great Adblock extension to get rid of them, I noticed that it wasn't there. So, I check the extension list, and it was showing. Checked settings. Was enabled. Closed out of Firefox and restarted it to see if that did anything. One thing it did was instead of bringing up my previously loaded tabs, it brought up my homepage. So, Adblock was still not working, and it seems that Sessionsaver wasn't working either. At this point I was irritaed, so I tried to 'deinstall' the Adblock extension. (Most extensions you can just uninstall from the list, this one has a deinstall option, so I tried that). Needless to say, I could go on and on about how everything went downhill after that. But, now I hve the extension list working, none of the extension work now though, and I can't access any options. Fortunatly all my bookmarks are still there. When I get home, I will have to work at cleaning all the extensions out of my profile and try to reinstall. Sounds like a pain. I have long feared that all these extensions would eventually topple over, and it seems that it's possible for that to happen.

You might say I am an extension junkie. I didn't quite realize quite how many extensions for Firefox I had installed until just recently. It seems that I have a total of 48 running right now. Here are the ones I currently have installed:

• A's Currency Converter
• About site
• Adblock
• Add Bookmark Here
• All-in-One Gestures
• Allow Right-Click
• Bloglines Toolkit
• Calculator
• ChromEdit
• Download Embedded
• Download Statusbar
• EditCSS
• fireFTP
• FLST
• ForecastFox
• FoxyTunes
• Gcache
• Gmail Notifier
• Google Pagerank Status
• GooglePreview
• GreaseMonkey
• HiddenPrefs
• HTML Validator
• IEview
• JustBlogIt
• Live HTTP Headers
• Livelines
• MapIt!
• miniT
• Mozilla Calendar
• MR Tech's Local Install
• Next Image
• Open link in...
• Paste and Go
• Reload Every
• SessionSaver
• Slim Extension List
• SpellBound
• Stop/Reload
• Tabbrowser Preferences
• Translate
• Tweak Network
• Unread Tabs
• User Agent Switcher
• View Cookies
• Web Developer
• WMLbrowser
• xMirror

Good news for Opera fans, Opera 8 will have a new license. From Haavard on the Opera forums:

Add to this that the upgrade from Opera 7 to Opera 8 is actually completely free, and I think you will see that this was not a move to squeeze more money out of our customers. In fact, we've just given all Opera 7 customers a free upgrade, and added to this, we've changed our license terms so that there is only one license for all desktop platforms, which means that you can install Opera on any number of computers in your own home, regardless of the (desktop) operating system used. Yes, that's right. You can install the registered version of Opera as many times as you like with just a single license.

This is a very smart move. At $39 a license, it seems pretty silly to pay for multiple copies for different machines around the house and for different OS's. Nothing technically prevented using the same key on another copy of the same OS, which is nice since I have gone through three computers since first buying Opera. But, now I can install it on other machines in my house, including my Linux machine. That is a pretty good deal. Too bad they specifically say desktop OS though, since it would really rock if my current license key could also work on my Series 60 smartphone.

Once again I am trying my traditional attempt to switch from Opera to Firefox. Why is this a tradition now? It seems every time there is an update to Firefox, everyone goes on and on about how great it is and I attempt to try it out, only to be disappointed in the end. I think the disappointment isn't all of Firefox's fault. Some of it is that it doesn't quite have the power of Opera at first test, and at the same time it just wasn't what I was familiar with. Some things have changed though. I now use Firefox daily at work. So, I am now pretty familiar with the subtle differences in Firefox. But there are still so many things that I take for granted in Opera that aren't found in the standard default Firefox install. In the past I have tried to supplement this with the many extensions that are available. I think I have now found the right combination. So far, I have installed the following extensions to get Opera-like functionality:

• Tabbrowser Extensions, this was absolutely necessary, provides endless customizations for the tab features, greatly surpassing anything Opera can do. The default tab features are Firefox are way too basic.
• All-in-One Gestures, gestures are one the the great features of Opera. I am a mouse guy, and gestures allow most features of browsing to be done with quick swipes of the mouse. This extension probably outdoes the Opera implementation.
• Translate Page, though not a built-in feature of Opera, Opera is very customizable through INI files, so I was able to add in this feature in myself. It's always nice to be able to translate foreign pages on the fly.
• Paste and Go, allows right-clicking in the address bar and pasting the address and opening it with one click.
• Allow Right-Click, doesn't allow Javascripts to take over the right-click context menu.
• WMLBrowser, to view WML (WAP) pages

I have also installed some other extensions to make my experience more enjoyable. I have the Gmail Notifier, EditCSS and AdBlock. Gmail Notifier is something that is not really needed since I am also using the offical notifier from Google that sits in the system tray, but I figured I would try this one out also since I might like it better. EditCSS is great for editting webpages. I still am pretty novice with CSS and make a lot of mistakes and it takes me a LOT of trial and error to get pages to look the way I want. Since EditCSS always realtime viewing of CSS changes, it speeds that process up a lot faster. On my other computer, this was the only reason I kept Firefox installed was for the EditCSS extension. AdBlock is a pretty interesting extension. Works pretty good too. I normally am not against advertising on webpages. (Well, expect for pop-ups/pop-unders, I have no problem blocking those) It's a necessity and the web wouldn't exist as it is today without ads. Pages have to make money somehow. But, I have always had trouble with Tribalfusion ads at 1SRC. They don't load properly too often and it's real annoying. And, recently they have been using a lot of Flash ads, and at 1SRC, the ads are placed right under the nav menu. But, of course, the menu goes behind the ad, so if there is a Flash ad on the page, you can't use the nav menu very easily. So, if ads are making a page unusable, I will be blocking them. At this point, I think I am pretty happy with how things are going. I figured out how to set it up with the Tabbrowser extensions to save the open tabs when closing Firefox and have them reopen next time. This was one of the things that I didn't want to lose from Opera as I normally have tons of tabs open and I never get to everything at one time, so I need to have the browser come back next time I open it up. Also, the Tabbrowser extensions have the ability to open previously closed tabs. This feature hasn't been in Opera for too long, I think it might have been introduced in version 7, but it's nice to have. Accidentally close a tab, and you can have it back with no trouble. I think this might be the final test and I may actually switch over this time. Opera is a great browser, but I think it's best days are past. Firefox will likely improve at a faster and faster rate, and it is quickly becoming a standard. I don't think Opera will be able to hold on to it's user base for the price that it charges for it's desktop app if there is a free app as good as Firefox.

After reading Adam Kalsey's post about why he doesn't recommend Firefox, I can tell he really understands the general computer-using population. After working in ISP tech support at Corecomm, I really have to think like the average computer user to properly do my job. Within the first minute of a support call, not only do you learn what the issue the customer is having, but at the same time you are learning the experience level of the customer. This is important since this is how you know how to explain to these customers how to fix their issue over the phone. There is a large difference in the experience level of computer users, but the average user just knows enough to get to the certain thing they want to do.

Most Web users don't know what a browser is. That blue E they click on the desktop isn't a browser, it's "The Internet." Or maybe it's "Yahoo" if that's what their home page is set to.

This is so true, it's actually very sad. Some calls, it can be a bit tricky to figure out what browser and mail client a customer is using. If you ask how they view webpages, the response is "I click on the Internet", or "I open that thing and Yahoo comes up". But, what does this really have to do with anything? Most people are just so accustomed to doing things a certain way, they don't understand there is another way to do things. Many people have been using the Internet regularly for five years or more, and many of these same people have never changed the way they do things this whole time. For many people, this means Internet Explorer is "The Internet". But, I also deal with a lot of customers who still use Netscape version 4.7x. Why is this? Back in the late '90's, Corecomm and some of the other smaller ISP's it bought up would send out CD's to customers that would install Netscape as the default browser. These people are either still using those same computers, or they just used the same CD to set everything back up on their new computers and have never changed a single thing. For these people, Netscape is "The Internet". So, how are these people going to switch over to a new browser? For these people, that means a 'new Internet'. One might think that those people could just be discounted and ignored, but not only do they make up a good number of people using the Internet, but they are also the ones with the least knowledge about how to stay safe and could use the features offered in alternate browsers such as Firefox. So, would I recommend Firefox? Actually, I have on a couple of occasions. There are a few things to consider. It isn't a finished product. And it isn't quite ready for the nontechnically inclined. But, sometimes customers will call and inquire about alternate browsers. You can tell if they understand the differences and if someone is familiar with computers and software, Firefox is a fairly good piece of software. Of course I prefer to use Opera, Firefox is a good stepping stone away from IE. It's just not quite as polished in some aspects as Internet Explorer when it comes to new users and does quite have everything it takes to become "The Internet".

By order of the Deparment of Homeland Security, all vistors are hereby ordered to stop using Internet Explorer.
It's a strange request, but there are so many security holes that it probably is a good idea to stop using it. So, what everyone needs to do is start running an alternate browser. My favorite is Opera, but many prefer Mozilla or Firefox.
Either one you choose will work great, but everyone should seriously use one of these. Maybe I will ban Internet Explorer from my website.

The latest version of the Opera web browser came out today. I had been running the beta version, and it has some nice new features. But, as I have only been running it for less than an hour, I am sad to see that it has already suffered one crash. This is not as big of a deal as Internet Explorer crashing because even if you have twenty web pages open, Opera will continue from where you left off. Some of the new features I have noticed:

• RSS newsfeed reader built-in
• Limited IRC chat client built-in
• Improved mail interface
• Mail client now has learning folders, some folders can learn what messages show go where, such as a spam folder to reduce spam from showing up in the inbox. This can work like the message rules found in Microsoft's e-mail clients, but instead of definite rules, you move certain types of messages to certain folders, and the client learns. There is also a rules feature still present.
• Favicon's actually show up in the bookmarks menu like IE does.
• Spell check ability. Requires a free add-on program to use.
• Menus have been reorganized to be more similar to IE. Not really more useful, probably to make the IE-to-Opera transition easier for new users.
• Added smiles to messages in IRC and e-mail.
• Better way to organize contacts.
• Easier access to Hotlist (which is called something else now, I think it's just called the panel.
• Much easier way to customize toolbars.