Websitetology

I love Firefox, it can be extended more than any other browser.

I love it’s security- it’s updates, I love everything about it- except when it breaks my favorite plugins. Firefox 3.5 broke Sage- my favorite “lightweight RSS” reader.

After trying the other options- I finally found that there is a “beta” version of Sage that works with 3.5- you can download it here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addons/versions/77#version-1.4.2

and, it warns you- that you must be careful. But, so far, it just works!

If you use a Macintosh or Linux, and run into a site that absolutely thinks you have to use Internet Explorer no matter what, this tip is for you.

First, we all know to use Firefox, the most up-to-date, modern, standards compliant, cross platform browser right?

Then we need to fool the site that is built by idiots- that think that you have to use IE (or Internet Exploder as most competent web developers call it) that you are using the inferior browser. The trick is a plugin for Firefox called a User agent switcher- the link is below.

Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.

via User Agent Switcher :: Firefox Change-arounds.

Install it through the automatic install, and then put the toolbar button in your toolbar by using the View>Toolbars>customize command- and then click the button before visiting an IE only site.

This will make Firefox tell the Explorer site that you are using their horrible browser- even though you aren’t. If the site uses the proprietary ActiveX technology- you’re hosed, but luckily- most don’t.

The plugin works by sending a message to the site that you are using IE- even if you aren’t. It makes Firefox pretend to be Internet Explorer just for that visit. Hope this helps.

There is no reason for any site to require a specific browser, ever. We have web standards created by the W3C to prevent this kind of nonsense. Please inform any webmaster that what they are doing is actually hurting their site and global harmony.

The browser war seems to be heating up again, and with each new release, new functions, ideas, handlers show up.

Firefox is by far, the largest installed Open Source browser out there, and so it has new tools being launched regularly. The latest cool tool is Taboo- a very cool extension- in their words:

If you keep tons of tabs open because you want to continue reading them later, Taboo is for you. Taboo lets you save a page for later taking a screenshot, and using the Session Saver code to remember scroll location and form fields.

via Taboo :: Firefox Add-ons.

I’m constantly wanting to look at pages later, but don’t get around to them. Bookmarks are too permanent, so Taboo solves that problem nicely.

How many times have you wanted to show someone the whole webpage- but can’t screen grab it? Problem solved with the Abduction plug in for FireFox.

Capture an entire web page or part of a web page and save it as an image.

For the sake of making this extension findable: This extension takes screenshots of websites.

Useful for showing people bugs in a website, creating snapshots of design progress, or perhaps even creating a gallery of websites.

Right click on any web page, frame or iframe, click “Save Page As Image…” and then drag a box around the piece you want to save.

Works with:

* Firefox: 3.0a1 – 3.0.*

Homepage http://pixelcarnage.com/projects/abduction/

Abduction! :: Firefox Add-ons to add it to your Firefox install or go to Tools>add-ons and do a search for “Abduction!”

Just one more reason not to use Microsoft’s horrible browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I’m used to having spell as you type provided by Firefox. It’s had it since Firefox 2.0- and because of that, I’ve never used the Spell Check built into Wordpress.

Well, I’ve noticed that while Firefox’s spell check works fine in Gmail and on other websites, it’s not working in Wordpress 2.5.1. I’m going to check it out on a few other machines, but on my MacBook running 10.5.3, I have to manually check spelling with the WordPress spell check when I’m posting.

This will take some getting used to.

If you are also having the same problem with Firefox 3 not spellchecking in WordPress- please leave a comment with your version of Wordpress and your operating system. It will help me gather info for a bug report.

Firefox 3 is here. Faster, stronger, safer- and they are shooting for a world record for downloads in a single day.

Jump over to the site and download it now. Other than some plugin’s not being updated, it’s a nice new set of features.

Spread Firefox | Download Day 2008
Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do to help us set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is get Firefox 3 now – it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

Please download Firefox 3 by 17:00 UTC on June 18, 2008. That’s 10:00 a.m. in Mountain View, 1:00 p.m. in Toronto, 2:00 p.m. in Rio de Janeiro, 7:00 p.m. in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Warsaw, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow, and June 19, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. in Beijing and 2:00 a.m. in Tokyo.

Download Firefox 3

Note- the servers may time out- but, give it a shot. Especially if you are still using Internet Exploder from Microsoft. Time to experience the real internet.

The Greater Dayton IT Alliance is announcing web 3.0. Which is great and dandy- considering so many businesses in Dayton still aren’t web 2.0 or even web 1.0.

Dr. Sheth got a great write up on semantic web research in Sunday’s Dayton Daily News. Regular readers of Websitetology- may recall us pointing to an interesting search engine called Kartoo – http://blogosopher.com/?p=62 a social network mapping tool- which does some of the same things that Dr. Sheth’s semantic search research is focused on.

While I’m sure Dr. Sheth is a bright guy- the reality is- most people who are the leaders in the search field are already working for Google. They have the money, they have the technology- and – most importantly- they have the users already contributing the intelligence of the masses to refine the data.

But- here is what the GDITA says about the luncheon:

Come see Web 3.0, the future of the web. Dr. Amit Sheth, the the LexisNexis Eminent Scholar for Advanced Data Management and Analysis at Wright State University, DaytaOhio, will be presenting his research on advanced web technology. The presentation will look at future technology and include how local companies (big and small) can partner with the excellent research being done at Wright State University.

This event is for people interested in how they can incorporate advanced web technologies into their business offerings.

Dr. Sheth has held research and development, management and faculty positions at Honeywell, Unisys, Bellcore and the University of Georgia, where he founded the Large Scale Distributed Information Systems Laboratory (LSDIS). Dr. Sheth has founded two start ups and published more than 200 papers and articles and authored/edited four books. He has organized eight international meetings and holds two patents. He earned his Ph.D. in computer and information science at The Ohio State University.

One note: The GDITA site breaks Firefox on the Mac. Good web developers test their site in all relevant environments- Window, Mac, Linux – with IE, Firefox, Safari etc.

A client asked what happened to the undo button in Wordpress 2.1- I thought it disapeared with the autosave- but with a little help from Google- I found an “Easter egg” function in Wordpress.

WordPress 2.1 – More Editor Options » Solo Technology
Recently upgraded to WordPress 2.1 and pondering the WYSIWYG editor? Did you know there are more options there than what you first see? Me neither! But, thanks to “codeispoetry” in this support thread, I do now.

Go from this:

Basic toolbars

to this:

Advanced toolbar

PC users just hit alt-shift-v (Firefox) or alt-v (IE) to toggle it. Mac users- use cntrl-v (Firefox)

(Not seeing either of those? Visit Users → Your Profile and make sure that “Use the visual editor when writing” is checked. Still having problems? Visit the WordPress support forums.)

Pasting from word processors just became a whole lot easier. Two of the new buttons are “Paste as Plain Text” and “Paste from Word.” Nice for those who use such things. I like the custom character thing too. Now I can easily add ∞ whenever I need it…

The first thing we tell people is to get the Firefox browser to replace Microsoft Internet Explorer- it’s free, and it can do everything IE can do- plus a whole lot more. With Firefox 2.0 you get spell check in web forms- great for WordPress (pre 2.1- since 2.1 will have spell check)- and of course, RSS.

I just installed the Cooliris extension- and it’s way cool:

Cooliris Previews – Discover More…
Cooliris Previews is software that lets you view links without having to click or leave the page you are on. Previews makes it easy to navigate through multiple links quickly and easily.

It gives you a way to look at links to sites- without actually loading the site- but, it also does a whole bunch of other things- like look up words you don’t know in the free dictionary, wikipedia, or google. It works in the same way Google maps work- by pre-caching the links you may click on. I’m not sure how this will affect performance yet- but, for right now- I think Cooliris previews is the cat’s pajamas.

WordPress released 2.0.6 yesterday- and it’s supposedly the last release before the much awaited 2.1

Apple users should be happy that Safari will now display quicktags- but, as always, Firefox is the browser of choice for WordPress users (and with Firefox 2.0 you get spell check!).

Development Blog › WordPress 2.0.6

Here’s what’s new:* The aforementioned security fixes.
* HTML quicktags now work in Safari browsers.
* Comments are filtered to prevent them from messing up your blog layout.
* Compatibility with PHP/FastCGI setups.

If you’d like Websitetology to upgrade your WordPress installation to 2.0.6. complete with back-up, and a review of your active plug-ins for latest versions, jump over to this link: http://blogosopher.com/?page_id=7