Recently in Firefox Category
I know from talking to web designers and developers that Internet Explorer 6 gives them lots of headaches. While it may not be the only cause of heartache it's a clear and tangible one.
Of course there have been plenty of "upgrade to firefox" type campaigns in the past, but most seemed to ignore a simple fact. Many corporate users can't simply upgrade browsers without their IT department's "ok".
Be that as it may if you can get more people away from Internet Explorer 6, then your web designers and developers might thank you.
Have a look at the campaign over on Save The Developers (via)
Of course there have been plenty of "upgrade to firefox" type campaigns in the past, but most seemed to ignore a simple fact. Many corporate users can't simply upgrade browsers without their IT department's "ok".
Be that as it may if you can get more people away from Internet Explorer 6, then your web designers and developers might thank you.
Have a look at the campaign over on Save The Developers (via)
Image via Wikipedia
Why?
Practicalities.
Several web applications I use on a regular basis break badly in Firefox 3, which renders them unusable (typo3) or not as usable as I would like (Movable Type).
I know the guys in Movable Type will fix the issues, though they were waiting on a stable Firefox release before they made any crazy changes.
I've no idea how long it will be before the Typo3 team fix the UI issues on their end.
Unfortunately in both cases the issues arise from Javascript rendering issues ie. the browser engine has changed how it handles it
Ah well!
Image via Wikipedia
Ubuntu users seem to have been granted the privilege of downloading the new release since this morning for some odd reason!
The guys behind Firefox are also trying for a Guinness record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period.
Inevitably their web servers have crashed under the load and are now displaying an error message:
Http/1.1 Service Unavailable
I guess that was to be expected, however their FTP servers are still working fine!
If you want to grab the new version of Firefox via FTP you can get it here
Image by N'ayez pas peur!! La Fabrique de Blogs via Flickr
The concept behind Zemanta is intriguing. It's a browser plugin that integrates with serveral of the more popular blogging platforms via your browser. Once you've composed a blog post of 300 characters or more it will make suggestions for images, links and other content.
As they describe it themselves:
The images are pulled from a variety of sources, but they assure users that they are all copyright cleared ie. you won't be getting any nastygrams from people's legal teams asking you to remove them!
Have your browser understand what you are blogging about and suggest pictures, links, articles and tags to make your posts more vibrant. We are making blogging fun again.
Although the people at Zemanta only officially support Firefox I'm working away quite happily using the plugin on Swiftweasel, which is a derivative.
I upgraded my home desktop's Ubuntu install earlier today.
It was a relatively painless exercise, though I was trying to do it unattended, which naturally enough didn't work due to a few custom configs I had.
I'm used to Ubuntu upgrades wreaking havoc on my graphics settings, but this time everything seems to be working as before.
It's interesting to see that the Ubuntu developers opted for the beta release of Firefox rather than a stable one.
Of course I've only had the new install up and running for a couple of hours so far, so there maybe issues and new features that I haven't spotted yet. No news is good news!
It was a relatively painless exercise, though I was trying to do it unattended, which naturally enough didn't work due to a few custom configs I had.
I'm used to Ubuntu upgrades wreaking havoc on my graphics settings, but this time everything seems to be working as before.
It's interesting to see that the Ubuntu developers opted for the beta release of Firefox rather than a stable one.
Of course I've only had the new install up and running for a couple of hours so far, so there maybe issues and new features that I haven't spotted yet. No news is good news!
A new look and feel was unveiled for Dilbert.com
You'd think that people would be delighted, but the opposite is the case.
Why?
Well whoever is responsible for the screwup that is the new site seems to be living in the past.
The new Flash animations are simple Flash. There's no reason why they wouldn't work in most browsers on most platforms, but if you visit the animation section using Linux you get a lovely message:
Doh!
You'd think that people would be delighted, but the opposite is the case.
Why?
Well whoever is responsible for the screwup that is the new site seems to be living in the past.
The new Flash animations are simple Flash. There's no reason why they wouldn't work in most browsers on most platforms, but if you visit the animation section using Linux you get a lovely message:
So you grab yourself a copy of the UserAgent Switcher extension for Firefox and "spoof" a "supported" browser. And of course the entire thing then works fine.
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center 2005, Mac OSX 10.3 or Mac OSX 10.4 is required to view this page
Doh!
I downloaded a copy of Firefox 3 (beta) for linux earlier this evening to see how it was. I've been having very annoying issues with Firefox 2 on Ubuntu locking up randomly, so I was hoping to see if the new version would help.
Unfortunately there isn't an official Ubuntu release as yet, but you can easily use the standard download for linux.
I'm trying desperately to be impressed and find something to "wow" about, but so far it's left me completely underwhelmed.
If anything its "enhancements" are simply annoying.
They're mostly aesthetic and may simply be a case of them being different to what I'm used to.
As you start typing in an address into the toolbar it tries to "suggest" addresses from your "history" but in so doing it takes up loads of screen estate and invariably gets it wrong.
Of course it's a beta release, so you'd have to be really dumb to expect it to work properly! Beta software is meant to have bugs. Ideally they should be squashed before the software is made available to the general public.
Whether I'll keep playing around with this version or revert to the older one is something I'm not 100% sure about just yet.. We'll see
Unfortunately there isn't an official Ubuntu release as yet, but you can easily use the standard download for linux.
I'm trying desperately to be impressed and find something to "wow" about, but so far it's left me completely underwhelmed.
If anything its "enhancements" are simply annoying.
They're mostly aesthetic and may simply be a case of them being different to what I'm used to.
As you start typing in an address into the toolbar it tries to "suggest" addresses from your "history" but in so doing it takes up loads of screen estate and invariably gets it wrong.
Of course it's a beta release, so you'd have to be really dumb to expect it to work properly! Beta software is meant to have bugs. Ideally they should be squashed before the software is made available to the general public.
Whether I'll keep playing around with this version or revert to the older one is something I'm not 100% sure about just yet.. We'll see
AIB finally upgraded our company account to use their new system which supports "real" Java and my choice of browser (Firefox).
It seems they have been migrating companies across to the new system over the last few months.
We now all have a little calculator sized "doda" called a "digipass" which basically generates a lot of random numbers.
Downsides
It seems they have been migrating companies across to the new system over the last few months.
We now all have a little calculator sized "doda" called a "digipass" which basically generates a lot of random numbers.
Downsides
- I had to change my password's format again!
- Passwords aren't case sensitive - huh?
- You have to have your digipass with you in order to login
- the digipass is battery powered - I'm betting that the batteries will die on payday
- It supports Firefox
- It uses Java as opposed to the Microsoft Virtual Machine which has been defunct for years
- It should be cross-platform (see above)
- Did I mention that it should be cross-platform?
It seems only yesterday that the guys behind SiteVista let me take a look at what they were cooking, but if you look at my original post it was over two years ago!
I gather that SiteVista was successful and I did see its name cropping up all over the place, but for whatever reasons they guys decided to revamp it and rename it - Litmus was born!
Paul gave me access to a beta account on the new system a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to write about my experiences with it (besides they needed time to iron out some of the bugs).
The new interface is very slick and incredibly fast.
They've increased the number of browsers they're testing against dramatically to include a number of weird and wonderful combinations, so you too can cater for the oddballs :)
(I wish whoever was looking after sites like the CRO would use services like this! )
One of the really nice features they've added is the option to share tests with the public via an easy option in the dashboard.
So, for example, you could go here to see the tests I ran on an MT4 install.
They've also added an email testing suite, so that you can iron out potential issues across a wide range of email clients. Want to know how your newsletter looks in AOL for example? Now you can.
If you haven't got an account I'd heartily recommend you signup for a free 30 day trial. You can then whine at your web designers and back it up with proof! :)
You can click on that "thing" to see what I can currently see in my browser when I try to use a public service website - namely the Irish Companies' office (CRO)
It was working fine not so long ago, but an "upgrade" has broken it completely.
Seemingly it still works in Internet Explorer, but I don't use Internet Explorer and have no intention of being forced to use it when I should have access to site like this.
How hard would it have been to write compliant HTML and test the site?
So who is to blame?
Was it a $random CRO employee or the website developers?
Answers on a postcard please ..........
