April 30th, 2008
I moved to using Firefox 3 nightlies as my primary web-browser a few months ago, a move that was painful not because of the volatile nature of pre-release software, but because of the patchy support for the Minefield builds amongst the most popular Firefox plugins. Slowly but surely, I got all my essential add-ons functional with the glaring exception of the Del.icio.us plugin. I eventually resorted to using an-invasive add-on (Shareaholic) just to have access to simple Del.icio.us functionality.
Well, my worries are finally over, as today Yahoo! released a Firefox 3-friendly Del.icio.us plugin.
The first thing I noticed when I installed the update was how all-encompassing it is; by default it adds:
- 3 navigation-bar buttons
- 3 status-bar icons
- A toolbar
- A sidebar
- A main-menu entry
- An options-menu entry
- Integration with the location-bar bookmark icon
- An ‘imported’ column in the bookmarks library
- And possibly more to be discovered
It sounds a bit much at first, especially when you take into account the massive overlap of functionality between all UI additions, but it is immensely customisable so you can get rid of as much or little of the fluff as you like. If, like me, you’re bookmarking needs are relatively simple you’ll likely get rid of everything barring the navigation-bar buttons.
Anyway, you can download the extension here; as always be careful as this is still technically beta software.
April 24th, 2008
It occurs to me that a major shortcoming of the user-generated content side, Digg,com, is the inability to submit content that is specific to certain locals. More than once I’ve come across news or media that would appeal only to Irish digg users; there was no sense submitting it because it would been lost almost immediately in the noise. If it were possible to bind Irish content to a certain local (they could even be stacked, for example some content may be suited to Irish, British of Europe localisation) this wouldn’t happen.
Surely I’m not the only one who thinks this is a good idea?
April 24th, 2008
Two fine updates have been launched today; Ubuntu 8.04 ‘Hardy Heron’, and AVG Anti-Virus 8.0.
Ubuntu 8.04 is the latest LTS (long-term support) distribution, which is designed to appeal primarily to Enterprise users. There’s no shortage of new features, however:
- Virtualization built into the kernel
- Firefox 3 is the default web browser
- Updated Linux kernel
- Windows installer (Wubi)
- New version of Gnome
- New BitTorrent Client
- New VNC client
- Long-term support (5 years vs. the regular 18 months)
I’ve been using the pre-release version of this for a while now, and it’s a solid release. But the real update to look out for is 8.10, which promises a raft of significant new features, and a completely overhauled interface (the current Human theme is getting a bit old; hopefully the don’t go overboard on the brown this time, there’s only so much you can take).
AVG 8.0 is a really nice update, both functionally and visually (AVG had a pretty terrible interface before; now, I’ll go ahead and say that 8.0 is the best looking Anti-Virus software on Windows Vista today).
There’s a table over at grisoft.com that highlights the differences between the various editions (AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, AVG Anti-Virus, AVG Internet Security). You can check it out here.
April 15th, 2008
I’ll say it again: Google needs to buy Remember the Milk.
Remember the Milk is a task-management web-application. This may not sound like much, and rightly so, task-management applications are beyond ubiquitous, but it really is an exciting product that blows away many of the conventions associated with your average productivity application.
In particular, the RTM folks have spend a lot of time integrating their product with others, including three from Google (Gmail, Google Calendar and iGoogle; it also uses Google Gears for offline access and Google Maps for geo-tagging tasks). So, is Remember the Milk an obvious target for a Google acquisition? Clearly not, or they surely would have indicated something by now.
Nevertheless, this is an application that they should firmly set their sights on, particularly as they take the company into more corporate territory with Google Apps, where Remember the Milk could be really useful. The Gmail integration (achieved with the use of a GreaseMonkey-style Firefox plugin) should be enough to convince anyone; if RTM was available to everyone in Gmail’s sidebar I have no doubt the vast majority of users would find it useful. It’s a uniquely suitable place to locate such functionality: everyone views their email every day, a lot (like me) keep Gmail open for hours on end.
Come on Google, this is an easy one.
April 13th, 2008
An intrepid coder over at nihilogic.dk has developed a Super Mario clone with just 14kb of Javascript.
This is a really interesting proof of concept; the size is particularly astounding (although it’s nowhere near a complete implementation).
You can check out for yourself 14kb Javascript Super Mario.
