Archive for May, 2005

Last month I discovered how many extensions are available for Mozilla Firefox. Today I went looking again and here is a list of some more that I found. Granted, there a A TON! But these are ones that I found useful for my processes, or could be useful for people I know.

The ones I couldn’t get working

Dictionary Search

This basically would give you a right click option to look up any word on a webpage that you don’t understand. I don’t think this works in the most recent releases of Firefox. It didn’t give me the options in my right click menu that the website said it would, demonstrated in the screenshot it gave. But at least it didn’t give me an error message in the extension installer box. So maybe I did something wrong.

miniT - Tab Organizer

For about a month now I have been periodically checking to for a newer release of the miniT extension. Today I found a more recent version, previously I was only able to find a version that worked with Firefox .8 and prior (Version 0.3). I did find a miniT version that should work with 1.0, but when I tired to install it, the extensions manager said it wasn’t compatible (Version 0.4).

Basically, the idea behind this extension is that you can drag and drop your open tabs into a certain order so when you are cycling back and forth through them with shortcuts, you can go back and forth between certain pages easily, no matter what order you opened them.

The ones I did get working, mostly.

Firefox Calendar

I knew about this extension for a long time, as it is developed by Mozilla directly I believe. But I didn’t really know how to install and work extensions until recently so I gave this another shot. It is a really useful calendar system very similar to the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. Adding a calendar to Firefox just streamlines your tasks that much more.

Rating : 8 of 10

Mostly because it seems cool, if I had a day to day use. Even though I probably don’t, that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.

Foxytunes

This is one of the top 15 extensions downloaded for Firefox, or so I read. It is basically a music controller you can use in your browser and puts all of the player controls in the footer bar in the lower right of the browser.

Rating : 3 of 10

If someone figures this extension out, let me know. I didn’t get it. I started my Windows Media Player and tried to control music through the browser, but all the extension seemed to do was slow my response time in my browsing, and the controls were even worse in response time. And the controls I tried, didn’t work. But that is five minutes of evaluation, and it seems to have a heavy following. So try it out for yourself. There seem to be shortcuts to hit without having to control your music with mouse clicks, so that is cool too.

Quicknote

The Quick note extension will give you the ability to leave yourself stickies through your browser. With a ton of customizable options, including number of stickies up to four, this is a cool little extension.

Rating : 6 of 10

This is another extension that seems cool, and even though I don’t have a use for it, I know people in the office that may, so it is good to try it out.

Duplicate Tab

Simple, and straight to the point, this little extension gives you the option to copy the address of your current window into a new browser tabbed window with one shortcut Ctrl + Shift + T

Rating : 10 of 10

We just kind of diffused last night.

We watched a movie, and CSI on tape (which seems to be a repeating trend, not being able to stay away past 10 on Monday to watch it anymore. What’s next, is my butt going to sag) and then kind of fell asleep to some regular programming.

But today is fresh start, as I posted another huge review of browser extensions for Firefox.

I had to go into work today for awhile to meet a deadline for Tuesday. The result, a brand new website, which I put in the portfolio over at Rothecreations.com

Sections Updated: M-O Movies, Browsers, Web Design

I gave this movie the rating I did largely because of how I remember it. I had seen this in the mid 90’s as a TV edited version, and I loved it then. But now looking at it, you see how the dated the movie is, and how far we’ve come in technology since then.

The movie is about Murphy, a cop that is viciously killed in the line of duty. His timing is just right that the police department of the future is looking for something less human and breakable in the form of a complete robot or a cyborg. The full monstrous robot Ed 209 is a disaster, killing everyone in sight, so Murphy because a cyborg robocop.

He then spends the rest of the movie in self discovery, reversing his brain washing, and killing off all of the bad guys that killed him first. Pretty simple.

Graphic in many senses even by today’s standards, I don’t think I would recommend many people to see this movie. There was one part that scared me so bad the first time I saw it, and that was TV edited version, that I had to fast forward through this time again. But the idea is pretty cool and the Robocop design is really awesome. This is kind of a classic in a sense, so maybe check it out for the whole campy futuristic ideal is portrays in the movie.

Old but funny, this movie may be dated, but if you are a fan of Michael Keaton, he comes out in full swing in this movie.

Along with Shelley Long(Cheers) and Henry Winkler(Happy Days), this movie is about two guys who turn their night shift at the morgue into a prostitution ring. Now, that may sound really bad, but the movie stays on the surface of the dirtiness of the whole thing. Winkler lives next to Long, who is a hooker, and her pimp was just murdered. She and the rest of her friends are without a pimp, and Winkler is smitten with Long, so he offers to help them out.

Keaton is the brains behind the whole thing, and the driving force of the movie, as Winkler is a push over. Keaton is the jittery funny man who is throwing parties in the morgue, driving kids to their proms in a hurst, and slew of other really bizarre things.

Not exactly a family movie, but if you like Keaton this is a must. And of course, if you can overlook some of the content of the movie. I am a fan, and I hate old movies.

It’s funny, when you have less to do, you can set smaller goals for more productive nights.

But back to Tuesday. Sarah and I went to Cracker Barrel for our little celebration and we were going to a movie afterwards. We got there later than we wanted to, which is always how it works, so we ate our food in record time. I ate three huge pancakes, two strips of bacon, a sausage patty, a pile of hashbrowns, two eggs, and a bowl of strawberries in seven minutes. That was the first time since I ate chocolate chip pancakes with whip cream and drove around a windy mountain in California that I have ever felt sick like that.

But we made it to the movie on time.

Wednesday night Sarah helped with the lawn again, I took the front and she did the back before she had a planning meeting for next year. Later, we relaxed and watched Robocop for awhile.

Last night, I didn’t get home until really late, work has, and doesn’t seem to be letting up on the crazy levels. I had a church related call to make and a couple other things, but we did take time to watch Joey together.

Sections Updated: P-R Movies, M-O Movies, Browsers, Photo

I heard at work about the Grand Re-opening of the IMA, that admission for the weekend was free and that there was some extraordinary exhibit with robots that worked.

Sarah heard about it also so we took a day to go.

The Musuem, like I mentioned earlier in the blog, is really awesome. It is funny that after I am out of school, then I am interested a little more for my own knowledge in the history of art. As you see, there is a photo of the Norman Rockwell, and then just one sculpture. Most of the other photos I took were of my own personal interest.

The rest of the photos are of the gorgeous Lilly Estate that we visited second. I just can’t describe in words this place, you really got a sense of their wealth, giving, and just what it would have been like to live such a well treated life. I personally liked it for the history of Indy and how that fit into the puzzle, but there was so much there to be enjoyed. From the great views from the windows, to the ornate design inside the house and wide open rooms, I was really enamored.

The Row of trees you see in the one photo really is like all of the movies from the south on the plantations, with rows of trees and one long drive up to the house sitting on the back center of the property.

Last week two large security holes were exposed in Firefox 1.0.3 publicly. Who knows how long they had been there.

But like always, the mozilla team responded quickly with a new version to fix those problems in version 1.0.4.

The Microsoft loyalists have used this opportunity to point out how IE is better than Firefox because now it is “unsafe”, or was briefly. But the fact of the matter is, the new release came out within a matter of weeks, not months or years. The browser is so much better for those creative personalities who like to be able to customize everything and make it their own, and the fact of the matter is, more people are getting it for this reason.

I have seen usage statistics at somewhere around 25%. Now, granted, there have been other browsers that had a largely following and crashed. Time will tell if Firefox will do the same. But there would not be so many security flaws being discovered if hackers didn’t think that the browser was widespread enough to spend their time trying to find holes.

Face it. Firefox is going to be around for at least another year, if not forever.

I’m FINALLY getting around to writing something for the blog that’s not about a road trip! It’s been so beautiful outside it’s hard to want to sit at a computer. But that’s all about to change – MWHAHAHA! (That’s my best evil laugh.)

I now possess a LAPTOP! Excuse me a minute while a do a little “happy dance”. All I need is to set up a wireless connection & tonight we take over the world! Whoops – I was channeling the Brain there for a minute. See what happens when you capriciously use the evil villain laugh?

I’m going to write about Superman today – which is just nuts because Superman does nothing for me. I get easily bored with stories that are nothing but “I’m very strong so I stopped a bad thing from happening.”

However there is one thing about Superman that I find endlessly interesting. Superman: Red Son is an entire book is devoted to the exploration of this certain idea, so it got all the synapses in my brain fired up. I just LOVE that! That’s still the best part of reading comics for me – when you find a story that makes you think.

So, what’s this notion to which I’ve alluded? I like stories when Superman struggles with the concept of being god, or even a Christ-like figure, if you prefer. In his heart he just wants to “save” people. The interesting part lies in the struggle to decide by what means you choose to achieve it.

You have all this strength & power, so do you help those you love more by a life of service? Or do you better protect them by using this power to control the best possible outcomes because you are clearly best suited for the task?

Red Son explores this idea in a “what if” tale. I know – don’t balk yet. I have also read some SUPREMELY sucky “what if” stories, but I really dug this one. Mark Millar provides us an interesting premise: What if Jor-L had launched his son at a slightly different time & the rocket crashed in Russia instead of the US-of-A?

So we take all that earnest desire to help mankind & bring it up in a Russian farming collective. Neat, huh?

This book juxtaposes our familiar heroes with real historical characters & events. It does a great job of showing how this change affects not only the fictional characters that populate the story, but also how it might have affected the world.

Everybody’s there too. Even though the characters take different paths – they are still true to the essence of the characters we’ve come to know.

Superman needs his foil – so a tragic loss in the life of a young boy in Russia leads to the creation of a Soviet version of Batman. Wonder Woman joins Superman for a while and then begins to wonder if the Batman was right to question his benevolent domination.

Metropolis still has its Daily Planet, but Jimmy Olson has moved on to other things. Lois is, OF COURSE, there (and so is the chemistry!), but this Lois is married to Lex Luthor. The Luthor in this world devotes his life to putting his not nearly so evil genius to work to find a way to bring down Superman.

However, this time it’s not so much for personal gain, power or vengeance but rather for the preservation of ideological principles. Lex & Superman serve as opposing answers to the question of “How do you go about saving the world”?

Jeff and I talked about this a little at lunch one day. He asked me what the big deal was. What difference could landing in Russia make? I think I had a moment of clarity on the matter so let’s see if I can recreate, eh?

Our American Superman is a product of a culture that prizes individuality. Any time Clark stops to consider the notion that maybe he should just take over – he remembers why he loves humanity so much. It’s in large part due to their free will & indomitable independence.

An American upbringing provides him with a context for understanding that if you kill free will you crush the thing you love. It’s worth preserving that even if you are forced to occasionally let others make bad choices.

Now take that same Boy Scout heartfelt desire to help, and then raise it in a society where control is the norm & collective thinking your daily bread.

The Man of Steele grew up in Stalin’s heyday in Red Son. He was reared in an environment where the government assured you they had everything under control & would take care of all the citizens.

It’s only natural that this cultivated feelings that the best way to protect the world was to “take care” of it. Unfortunately the cost of Superman’s Utopia is free will.

It’s this realization that allows Lex to finally defeat Superman in the end. The final standoff between this alternate reality pair and Lex’s delivery of the ultimate checkmate should not be missed.

I can only WISH that I was clever enough to come up with such an engaging tale. Thank God there are people out there providing thes great stories for us. Treat yourself to a copy of this book. Heck – you can borrow mine!

More half baked opinions coming soon…thanks for reading!!

Later!