TW Blog :: Archives for October 2004
The word freedom has no meaningDenis Diderot
Firefox Extensions in PR1
Relates to Open Source and Firefox and Co
Back in April I posted an entry on the Firefox extensions I found most useful supplemented by instruction on safely installing new extensions. Since reaching Preview Release, the Extension Manager has made the later discussion redundant. At the same time, the new Extension Room and older repository has seen the number and variety of extensions for Firefox grow extensively. With my former post the top viewed page on this weblog, I decided it was time for a quick update.
Some of the extensions I recommended in April are no longer relevant while others can now be found under new project names. So here is my list:
- Web Developer Toolbar - always first extension I install with any new release, can't do without it!
- Mouse Gestures - slightly more lightweight than the AIO but the latest release offers superb customisation (with a little javascript knowledge).
- Sage - this project has merged the RSS Reader to become the essential RSS syndication sidebar and I still find myself turning to this more often than Live Bookmarks.
- Adblock - only started using this recently and couldn't believe what I was missing.
- Link Toolbar - essential site navigation toolbar, but disable the slightly over eager link guesser!
- Live HTTP Headers - very useful development utility.
- Quick Note - good data collation tool.
- Paste and Go - recent releases have developed intelligence to open paste URL or search in a new window if focused window is not blank.
- BBCode - simplifies BBCode entry and now includes XHTML. Just waiting for toolbar functionality to be included.
- GMail Notifier - only if you have it of course (see below)!
- ConQuery - combined with inbuilt smart search features and Mycroft makes most other search extensions redundant. Just write your own queries to access advanced searches, caches, archives and validation tools.
- Cookie Culler - quick access to cookie management with additional functionality.
- del.icio.us - quickpost toolbar button via nutr.itio.us, sidebar and context menu integration for bookmarks sharing.
- HTML Validator - enables quick access to page validation in the source viewer. Latest version offers accessibility checking but is currently a little limited, and it seems to crash the browser on a few complex form layouts.
- Toolbar Enhancements - brings back toolbar buttons and allows creation of custom toolbars.
- Tab Clicking Options - customise the behaviour for tab clicking.
- Undo Close Tab - does what it says by adding additional functionality to Tab Clicking Options and context menus!
- MiniT Drag with Indicator - reposition tabs in the tab bar.
- Blank Last - without this the last tab closed continues to be displayed and the tab bar is hidden.
The last four replace some of the functionality of the Tabbrowser Extension which I chose to avoid this time round due to its resource consumption.
Feel free to recommend any other extensions you may have found useful that I have not mentioned above. And since I recommended Gmail Notifier, if anyone is still after a Gmail invite leave your email address in the comment with your recommendations and I will send you one (so long as my invites continue to top up). Just counting down the days now to the final release…
Posted on Oct 16, 2004 at 21:46:04. [Comments for Firefox Extensions in PR1- 6]
Google Desktop Search
Relates to SEO and The Office
So, Google's Desktop Search Beta has launched. Danny Sullivan provides an extensive review of this latest application to join the Google suite, while screen shots can be viewed on the Google site.
I had high expectations in the light of Gmail, but this speculatively premature release leaves quite a bit to be desired. As with previous desktop search tools, the proprietary list of indexable file types makes the tool practically useless for users of open source tools like Open Office and the Mozilla Suite (bar Firefox Hacks). Over at the Register, Copernic CEO, David Burns, expands on privacy concerns in desktop search branding Google Desktop privacy unacceptable.
Google Desktop Search allows users to opt out of sending the company back detailed usage data, but it isn't possible to firewall it completely. David Burns, CEO Copernic
Integration with Gmail is also noticeably lacking!
The desktop search market is heating up with AOL snapping at Google's heels, putting pressure on well established smaller vendors like Copernic, dtSearch, X1 and others.
Personally, I am unable to test drive Google Desktop Search, not that I would want to - this platform is Win98, and GDS is compatible solely with 2000 and XP. Expecting more from the next release.
Posted on Oct 16, 2004 at 21:45:11. [Comments for Google Desktop Search- 0]
Critical IE Vulnerabilities
Relates to Exploder and Security
Take heed of the warnings and save yourself a lot of worry in the future. Spread Firefox!
If browser exploits aren't enough for you, the vulnerabilities in the operating system and office applications just keep coming.
Posted on Oct 13, 2004 at 14:06:35. [Comments for Critical IE Vulnerabilities- 0]
Parent Prototype Revisited
Relates to DOM Scripting
Further to my post regarding referencing the current object as an instance of its prototype (aka superclass) via super simulation, I have realised by maintaining the correct constructor property value in the object's prototype there is no need to pass the object constructor to the parent prototype method of Object.
Object.prototype.parent = function() {
var p = new Object();
for (x in this.constructor.prototype) {
if (x != "parent") {
p[x.toString()] = this[x.toString()];
}
}
return p;
}
function BoxContainer(param) {
Container.call(this, param);
var parent = this.parent();
[..snip..]
}
BoxContainer.prototype = new Container;
BoxContainer.prototype.constructor = BoxContainer;
Where the last line is critical, since the value of constructor is initially overriden with the assignment of the BoxContainer prototype to reference Container.
Posted on Oct 13, 2004 at 02:30:21. [Comments for Parent Prototype Revisited- 0]
Firefox Status: stopped
Relates to DOM Scripting and Firefox and Co
Sometimes when visiting a site in Firefox I have found the page suddenly stops loading, is replaced by a blank screen, and, the status bar displays the text stopped. More often than not this is supplemented by an error thrown in Javascript for an undeclared variable. Well, as frustrating as this is on other sites, the same problem started occurring in the latest build I am working in. After a little code debugging, the error comes down to the use of the document.write method during page loading. I was using this method to declare some inline styles dynamically only if scripts are enabled - following the same prinicples outlined in the article I wrote on Accessible DHTML.
The fix seems to be to create the inline styles with the DOM regardless of the document being served as application/xhtml+xml mime type (in this case it was not). Since the head element is already in place when the external script is called, the inline styles can safely be appended:
if (document.getElementById && document.createElementNS) {
var elem=document.createElementNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml","style");
elem.setAttribute("type","text/css");
var text=document.createTextNode(strCSS);
elem.appendChild(text);
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(elem);
} else {
strCSS = '<style type="text/css">' + strCSS + '</style>';
document.write(strCSS);
}
Posted on Oct 10, 2004 at 14:40:22. [Comments for Firefox Status: stopped- 0]
