Watertown Dog Park, Firefox Memory Leaks, Google Chrome, Vista & HP

Congratulations to my niece and her husband for their new baby boy (and sympathy for the long hours of labor), named after my Dad.

Watertown Dog Park

A good example of why Jefferson County stays the same.  Some of the people of Watertown and Jefferson County were almost up in arms when a group of citizens wanted a dog park in Watertown.

I love this area; the land and landscape, the history, and most of the time the people.  But the ignorance and backwardness of some is disheartening, especially those who we rely on to govern and see further ahead then their own wallets.  

A moderator on a local webboard even closed the topic about the dog park at one point, after the city council refused to take it any further.  So further discussions were ended abruptly there on that webboard.

Fortunately there are those who are a bit more with the times and can see benefits beyond themselves.  Fort Drum now has a dog park for military people, as well as the SPCA (though only for members).

The old rednecks and staunch Old Guard/Good Old Boys of the local government always wonder why the young people leave here.  A dog park may be a small thing, but it's a reminder and maybe even a symbol of larger problems we have here.

Firefox Still Has Memory Leaks?  No!

What did you expect - they fixed Firefox up but third parties who make the addons that most of us use are under no obligation to do so.  Many of the addons hemorrhage memory like there's no limit, and sometimes the interactions between them are only making it worse.  If you find your memory consumption high in Firefox 3 try alternative addons.

Google Chrome

 

I've yet to be as impressed about Google Chrome as some people are.  It doesn't seem to be that significant in features or speed.  And Google's terms of use are scary at worse, questionable at best.  The German government even told people not to use it!  Not that that means a whole lot.

Sure, I know - the argument is that if you're not doing anything wrong with it why do you care if they know what you're surfing.  Same with their e-mail, online applications, etc.

Many down through history have thought similar.  And fervently regretted giving up their privacy.

Google is a bit scary in general.  They've far surpassed Microsoft in terms of the niggling feeling at the edge of my thoughts that whisper "World Domination" ;)

Vista and HP Computers

My new HP computer with Vista continues to perform well and impress me.  The occasional older program doesn't work in Vista of course, I guess I've run across four or five so far.

And some of the features they did away with is perplexing.  

Sound recorder is nearly useless.  I normally use Cool Edit for heavy duty sound projects but there's still a need for a simple sounded editor.  Fortunately you can just copy the old one out of XP and it works fine.  

You can do this with some other XP programs too, though if you are actually replacing a Windows Vista program instead of adding one, you will need administrator privileges.  Like for Notepad.

But the number-crunching ability of the computer, the 64-bit dual-core processor is impressive.  Rendering photorealistic objects is blazing and working with multiple graphics programs and websites is smooth and fun now. 

I ran into a bit of an issue yesterday.

One of the reasons I got this computer was the ability to make a recovery disk(s) from the recovery partition.  If the hard drive goes flooey two days after the year long warranty runs out I have an option; outside of buying a new copy of Vista or going back to XP.

So I went to the HP Recovery Disk Creator, only to find that it won't let me create a disk now.  It only allows one creation (easily hacked) but I hadn't even made one as yet!

Why?  Well, apparently you can't add a partition or mess around with the hard drive too much, as it detects size changes, etc.  And won't let you make the recovery copy.  I even tried setting the partitions back (overwriting my XP partition), no luck.  I tried hacking the config for it, making the sizes line up again.  No luck.

After doing some checking online it seems to be a common problem (a few years back HP got into some trouble for problems along these lines, if you remember).  

The only alternative is to back up everything, and use the recovery partition to set everything on the computer back to stock, build the recovery DVD's, and then restore everything again.  A huge PITA.  But I see no other way.  

Though I bet there's a way to hack the recovery disk creator to ignore the changes.  Ugh.

A few good links - if you miss the "Copy to" and "Move to" here's how to add them to Vista.

Miscellaneous, Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA, Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, Gimp, Jefferson County Wiki, Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

Miscellaneous

Ummmm! We decided it was time to break out the home-made applesauce from last summer! Nothing quite like it.

A little tweaking on the blog template. I've got it to expand to fill your browser screen, no matter what size it is - though if you're using 800X600 it may be a bit squashed. Some of the graphic background need re-sizing or re-positioning, but the one that overlaps this text is kinda cool where it is, I think.

Acer Drivers Extracting, WGA

I continue to get feedback from people wanting help installing drivers for their Acer 5520-5334. Remember - if the install program for the driver doesn't work (like if it says it's for Vista and won't run) you can sometimes load up your trusty Winzip (or clone) and drag'n'drop the driver install program right into Winzip. If it's a compressed install file (I believe the ones I listed in previous blog entries are; the video one is for sure) you will see all of the raw parts of the drivers. So if nothing else works do the above, then extract all the files to a temporary directory, after that go into your Device Manager and DELETE or UNINSTALL the devices in error. Then click ACTION on Device Manager and "Scan for Hardware Changes". When a Windows' dialog box pops up click "Install from a list or specific location" and browse to where you extracted the files from the installer.

You might have to go through this process a couple times until you find the right errored device but likely it will work if you can't install it any other way.

We got it good though (relatively), compared to some of the cheaper models of Acer laptop. No having to mess with BIOS or harddrive settings.

If you're looking for a good fan/CPU temp monitoring program check out Notebook Hardware Control. It works pretty good, and I like it better then Speedfan and some others I've tried, I think. Shows remaining battery, lets you do power management better then the E-power program from Acer. Very configurable. Check it out.

And, of course, occasionally you may have problems with Windows Genuine Advantage and it's gang of programs - even if you have a legitimate copy. MuBlinder is the answer in that case, or if you just don't want all those WGA programs and quasi-spyware running.

Number one problem with installing MuBlinder on a brand new legitimate copy of XP? Not having .Net framework installed; at least version 2.0. (link here)

There seems to be some problems with the newer versions even with even with the .Net 2.0 installed. Sometimes it can be solved be using the .Net install program's repair function, sometimes you need to uninstall it completely and re-install it, sometimes you need to delete MuBlinder and it's corresponding KRX directory in \Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data to get it to work. Or you may need to do a re-install of Windows even (usually it repairs whatever is wrong by just re-installing XP right over top of your old installation, thus negating you having to set everything up again).
Flock Blog Editor, Firefox Beta, GIMP 2.4.4 Install Problem

I really like this blog editor built into the Flock browser. The browser itself doesn't overmuch thrill me (being just Firefox in a wrapper), though if you're looking for a social networking-oriented browser it's probably for you. But the editor is nice, lets you save drafts even when offline, and uses the spell-checking of the browser. I think I like it better then the ScribeFire addon for Firefox.

"Share the wealth." Well, when it comes to my money I'm not sharing it with anyone; especially the crooked government. But I will share this with you - the new Firefox V3 Beta is looking pretty good. When I say "looking", well, it's not like MS's bells and whistles when a new browser or piece of software comes out. It's more under the hood. The Mozilla guys have really done some good stuff with resource- and leak-management, it seems. And comparing it to resources that V2 uses on the same computer gives you a real good idea of some of the changes they've made. Though a few of the options slowed it down, like the automatic scanning of your bookmarks when entering a website URL.

Sure, there's going to be some people disappointed when the new Firefox doesn't look like a Ipod or something, but those who use it everyday are going to notice a difference.

I have to say I didn't do any extensive testing, just some preliminary tests. I did hack some of the addons that wouldn't work with the newest Beta version .

But if you are playing around with V3 betas then you can try making the extension work, like I did. I won't go into it here as there are many sites on the Internet to tell you how to do it. Basically, you need to extract the XPI file and crank up the highest version number the RDF file will tell the addon it can run on (but that's not any guarantee that the addon will work past that point, of course. Tab Mix Plus didn't work at all, even though it installed).

Weird problem with the new version of GIMP. (need link). After installing the newest version (2.4.4) I found that a bunch of the stock plugins and scripts as well as some I installed and modded didn't show up. Lots of installing, un-installing, and hacking around in the registry didn't help. A few quick checks online and I was starting to get an idea of the problem - apparently some of the earlier installs kept things in the GIMP sub-dir in Program Files while later ones kept them in an entry under Documents and Settings. I tried a few different ways; like doing a fresh install, installing an older one then a newer one, and going into GIMP and changing the preference settings that points to the scrip and plugins directory (they were correct but still wouldn't work right). So I moved the scripts and plugins to the location in Documents and Settings and out of their location in the GIMP dir in Program Files.

This doesn't seem to happen with very many people, but if you have this problem this is the solution that worked for me. At least until they fix this particular not-very-common bug.

If you need a nice (but slightly complex) graphics editor this is the one for you. Don't support Photoshop and it's evil familial spawns. ;)
Jefferson County Wiki

The Jefferson County Wiki is back up ! Yea, crappy, crappy server that we tried it on originally - cost me many weeks of (unpaid) work - fortunately I'm good at multi-tasking other things at the same time. But we went back to Wikispaces.com, and I found a bunch of hacks and codes for sprucing it up a lot. Looks quite nice. But I miss the Tikiwiki software. Gradually pages are being added to the wiki and we're all doing a little publicizing here and there. I also set up a photo album on the server to cover some of the features we lost by having to go to a hosted wiki. Oh well.

We still have a lot of hope that this will become THE resource for Jefferson County. A lot of people have been working on it, but we hope many more will get involved.
Snow and the "Billy Bob Contractor"

I'm a weather spotter for NOAA weather (no, not one of those geeks that go out an stick their finger in the snow for the local radio stations - I take it a bit more serious then that).

The last few months we've actually gotten a bit more snow then the last few Global Warming years. Remember - with Global Warming weather's going to be pretty random, as most of us probably know by now.

Anyway, I was out checking the snow and looking at the roofs. It's interesting how the wind patterns affect how much snow builds up. We live on top of a hill with lots of wind, almost always, blowing across the valley and open fields around us.

Your local "Billy Bob Contractor" is probably going to tell you that you need a certain pitch of roof for this area and while that's the case for most conditions; for people like us a flatter slope is much, much better. In fact, it's pretty easy to see how the snow usually builds up more against the roofs that have a higher pitch then our addition that has a much lower one. The wind sweeps it right off the lower pitch but packs it up, over, and on top of the roof with a more conventional pitch that's common for this area.

Just goes to show - it doesn't matter how much of a professional someone tells you they are, or how much they have told you they have done or learned or how much experience they may brag about - it doesn't mean they know everything there is about a particular field, especially when it comes to your own stuff.

Kinda like what I mentioned previously; there's always someone who thinks they're more of an "expert" on your pets, kids, house, finances, etc and you-name-it; then you are yourself.

No substitute for using your own head, even when someone who thinks they're "in the know" or is an "Expert" tells you the complete opposite. More people should live by this.

Tweaking Vista, TV Converter Box Program, Bricked WT54G, Minifox for Firefox

Tweaking Vista

Vista. Yea, you've all heard of the problems or more then likely ran into them yourself if you got it on a new computer system or installed it.

I've been helping people with it, usually to get rid of it in most cases or live with it and learn it in others. But really I haven't had the opportunity to sit down with it and figure the in's and out's of it, on a deeper level.

My new laptop came with it. Of course, my first thought was to dump Vista and install XP. I'd dealt with so many headaches concerning Vista, and read about many more.

Well, no, I guess my first thought wasn't exactly to dump Vista - my first thought was to dump the incredibly slow and resource-munching Norton. I did that; which is pretty much mandatory with me. Norton, in any of it's present forms is a hulk of bloatware. It does it's job, especially for those who really need it, but there's many better alternatives.

So after that I set out to really get into the 'innards' of Vista and see if I could make it usable for a super power user like me, and maybe go a bit further for some of my customers then just making sure they know how to use it and turn off the standard crap that they don't need and slugs everything down.

After a week of tinkering I've sped Vista up tremendously; I've gotten rid of the idiotic pop-up messages that ask you questions all the time (like from the "User Account Control" [first thing I disabled] and the built-in firewall), turned off the useless sidebar (installed Rocketdock instead) and hungry real-time indexing, unselected some start up services that were totally unnecessary, put on a compatible firewall and anti-virus, and am delving into the other services that can be disabled. Black Viper, who you'll know if if you're a tech or a tweaking junkie, has some great stuff out. Absolutely required reading.

I eventually partitioned the harddrive and stuck XP on another partition, then repaired the freaky boot stuff that Vista uses (and the XP boot loader destroyed) as well as the MBR. The whole thing took a couple hours of playing around, though it's not that complicated once you use some of the various software made to make it easier. I wanted to figure it out myself though.

Now I have XP on it also, with a nice menu for dual-booting. Maybe Linux next.

But you know what? With the tweaks and such I don't mind Vista. It's not great, but it's not real bad.

There's a bunch of stuff it won't run, especially some of the higher level stuff. Things that you guys who maybe stick to using browsers and e-mail and Office might not run into. But I bet sometime you'll find something it won't run, at least until software is updated from each manufacturer/programming house.

Even with the tweaks the normal use of the GUI interface is slightly slower then XP on the same machine. Aero may be the culprit, but it's too damned pretty to get rid of (at least until I get sick of it - and then likely I'll turn off themes altogether; a great savings in speed and resources). And some programs seem to run slower, especially their interfaces which, again; may have something to do with the Aero theme.

On the other hand some things blaze while they go somewhat slower on XP. Math-oriented, those with high levels of processing for example. Celestia is a good demo - the 64 bit architecture of the machine as well as Vista makes the smooth rendering even smoother on this machine.

So, I plan on keeping it on my laptop - running alongside XP, but more then likely the primary OS on that particular computer. Why, oh why, did MS make such a crappy system out of the box with so many nonsense and wasteful and plain idiotic parts that could; easily be turned off to make it run better and easier and more user friendly.

My conclusions are fairly simple.

It's a crappy operating system in it's stock form. For those who don't do a whole lot with their computers they may not notice it much, or it may be a minor annoyance. More then likely a good percentage will really not want to switch at this point or may want to go back to XP (like so many already have and will continue to for awhile).

If you're into tweaking or have someone like me to do it for you; Vista can be hyped up, streamlined, and made much much more usable and faster. You really won't mind it as long as your favorite programs run on it in that case. Otherwise, avoid it for now.

TV Converter Box Program

We don't live too far from a good-sized city. Unfortunately the area is serviced by a somewhat disreputable and money-hungry conglomerate. You've probably heard of them if you live in this part of the country, and if you have you've probably heard the same problems with them.

We've only about six hundred feet from a cable line but the company refuses to run it to us. Scratch that - they'd run it for us; for thousands and thousands of dollars. We've tried for years to get them to.

On an earlier blog entry you'll see the set up I put into place using two of my hacked routers to span the distance between a neighbor and us, so as to allow us to share his broadband. But after awhile, though we had the system in place, we lost the interest in giving the money-grubbers a cent of our money - either for Internet or TV.

So we get our TV off the satellite (DishNetwork) which works tremendously well and has been digital for years. HD channels are also available but we've never gotten around to go with it as it costs a bit more.

But for local channels we need to receive them off-the-air. Our TV doesn't have an HD converter box nor integral tuner for it, even though it's compatible, and our local stations are simulcasting in both analog and HD right now, and have been for quite some time.

As most of you probably know eventually those receiving over-the-air broadcasts will have to be receiving it in HD as the analog signals will end next year.

What a pisser, huh? We have all this high quality TV equipment with a high quality digital signal but to receive a couple local channels we have to get them in a crappy analog signal, and will be out in the cold next year when they stop broadcasting in analog.

Like many areas, our local TV stations aren't carried by the satellite company as yet, otherwise it wouldn't be a problem.

So at midnight on January 1st I logged onto The Government's TV Converter Program Website and applied for a couple vouchers for converters boxes. Yes, they turned the site on at exactly midnight ;)

Unfortunately it seems that the general idea is for the government to supply these vouchers for the cheaper or moderately cheap boxes. In other words most will only take the digital HD signal and down-convert them to analog - at least it's looking that way.

What we want is a converter that takes the digital HD signal and outputs it into an equally good signal via any number of ways so that our TV can access that high quality signal. We'll have to wait and see what the boxes will really be capable of doing. My guess is they will at least have RCA cables and maybe S-video; better then analog.

This whole process though... Sure, the analog range is kinda splotchy and wasteful because our transmitters are much more precise now then when TV first went on the air. And the bandwidth being wasted can be used for bigger and better things. But I can't help but wonder about this whole thing. The explanations the FCC gives, well, I think a group of politicians are getting their hands royally greased in this whole deal by certain large manufacturers and services, while we; the taxpayer, take up the slack by helping to provide the vouchers and paying for converters our of our own pockets as a stopgap measure for those who receive off-the-air signals. What a boondoggle.

Bricked WT54G.

Ugh, out of the blue my WT54G V5 bricked on me. I'm going to try all the usual methods first, but I'm afraid that I am going to have to take it apart and do a manual restart. Great. Risky.

My WR54G V3 is still running strong on the Linux DD-WRT software (though I was writing a configuration and accidentally turned it off before it was finished. A simple reset fixed it, no problem.). But the non-Linux version seems to be pretty flaky on the V5, squished onto the smaller space as it is too.

Minifox for Firefox

For those who like to tweak Firefox and want as much screen real estate as possible check out the Minifox extension. It squeezes everything down, gaining you a few lines of space in your browser window, There's also a version for Thunderbird, though I haven't tried the Thunderbird one as yet.

Death Threats, The Gran Paradiso Firefox and Vista and Human Nature, Web 2.0 and My Concession - Rounded Corners

Death Threat

Hmmmm, this is a first for me. Yea, I've had people threaten me before. Both online and off. Yea, maybe some has said they'd kill me once or twice, but that's just people being dumb and usually isn't serious. But I've never had anyone e-mail me telling me that a friend hired someone to kill me, over some un-named offense I did to them.

Sure, it's spam or crap or something (though I didn't find any references to it anywhere as yet), probably fishing for people who reply (irately) so they can harvest the valid e-mail addresses.

But it still makes you stop and think, in general. Is there anyone in your life, present or past, who would actually pay someone to have you killed?

Nah, I don't think so. Me neither.

There's been a few fanatical religious nuts over the years that I've pissed off - those people are whackos. A few really bad fights, some physical (though I gave up that idiocy long, long ago when I was but a youn'in). And lots of people on the Internet who I've royally pissed off (usually people who don't realize the difference between real life and the Internet). But nothing anyone would hire someone to kill me for.

It would be nice to think that maybe I'm important enough, or pissed someone off enough, for someone to maybe hire someone else to kill me. Heh heh.

I sent it along to the abuse resolution of the e-mail service it came from, examined the header info for anything (not relayed), and put it out of my mind. Doesn't seem important enough to call the cops or FBI over. Though I do have my personal 'abuse resolution' method close at hand...

Adding Stuff to Blogger

Anyway...

Blogger.com is great. Sure; there's a lot of free blog sites, free webspace you can install your own blog software on, etc. But Blogger is probably the most popular and there's so many options and customizability to it that it's hard to beat. If you install your own blog software then you have to maintain it, add plugins yourself, submit it to search engines, etc. Other services might not be as popular and have less features.

I wanted to add a custom random quote to this blog (see above). I couldn't find a free addon or plugin that served up quotes in quite the right way to fit what I wanted. For example - no limit to the number of quotes I wanted to add, no ads or extraneous stuff like graphics. So I used a little script that I had that I had previously done a little mod to for using on local webboards. (Interesting side note - it's a little PHP script that converts text to graphics. Good for circumventing the stripping of more advanced HTML code when posting on a webboard. Makes you wonder what an enterprising hacker could do with the same method.)

There's any number of ways to add a script fragment to Blogger. Either use the layout editing function and add some HTML code or to add it directly into the template (which I settled on because I liked it better visually).

Works well, and it serves up a random quote every time a visitor accesses the blog or an entry on my blog (try reloading and you'll see).

Blogger's great, and gotta thank them and Google for providing this for free. And while I'm at it I'll thank Wikipedia - while there's some issues there it's still a tremendous resource.

Gran Paradiso, Vista, and Humankind

Trying the newest Firefox, version 3 Alpha Gran Paradiso (named after a group of mountains in Italy). Looks about the same visually, so far not seeing much in the way of speed increases in the faster rendering engine. And iffy on whether it's improving the memory leak problems. But I just started trying it, so I can't give you a real review as yet...

Firefox - a great idea. Make something fast, compliant with WC3 standards, open source (an amazing idea), customizable as hell, and let it compete with Microsoft's tired Internet Explorer. Netscape and Opera just never got the market share that Firefox is getting, for whatever reason; neither did the original Mozilla suite.

But unfortunately, as happens with so many human innovations, great ideas get out of whack.

Firefox has been heading toward the inevitable bloated, slow, leaky application. Same with Thunderbird.

They're hard to beat, though. But some people see problems right now. Though I think some of the memory leakage problems (at least from my testing) seem to be from bad addons (extensions for you old-school Firefox users, of course) or interactions between okay addons and Firefox or with other addons.

But it's bloating, and there's alternatives based on the same rendering engines. Like K-Meleon (somewhat scaled down, faster, and a more tweaker-oriented version).

This is a direct parallel with the Windows platforms and it's development over the years.

Someone had a great idea for a GUI operating system, and someone else took it (stole it some would say - I'll leave that discussion to others) and improved greatly on it. Then turned around and made it a bloated, skewed, generally messed it up..., uhm, mess..

We, as human beings, tend to take great ideas and improve on them, then at some point screw them up.

But going back to the original idea of someone taking someone else's good idea and improving on it - who's the biggest innovator? The guy who has the initial good idea but can't quite implement/distribute/boil it down/make it come together in the best way, or the guy who takes that person's great idea and makes it workable and practical? I don't know, probably both.

Personally, I've rarely been the original innovator of ideas; but I'm damn good at taking a good idea and making it better and improving on it. Usually in my case I then hand it off to someone else and they sin turn crew it up.

At some point Vista is going to be fixed and supported and accepted. But right now there's a lot of negativity. Could Firefox go this way for new versions?

I remember when Windows XP came out, some of the same concerns about it were voiced by experts and normal users alike that are being put out for Vista, but on a much smaller scale. Now XP is a very stable operating systems and well-supported, for the most part. Vista's getting there, yet with some major problems along the way and issues to resolve.

I still don't have one computer system in my home office with it installed and, for the most part, I'm still recommending customers stick with XP unless they are buying a new computer (and even then in some cases not...).

I certainly didn't wait impatiently for Vista like I did with XP.

Yea, maybe I'm kinda a geek but when your field of work is computers something like the release of XP tends to make a lot of changes in how things work in that particular field.

And, in an only-slightly related note and fairly tangential note- I've noticed that many of the ones who call me a geek are usually the very ones who can barely get away from their computers long enough to work or sleep because they have to get back on the local webboard to create gossip/read gossip, or whatever. Fill in the blank - you know the kind of people. People living in glass houses, etc.

I try to be a fairly well-rounded person with many, many interests. Usually the ones who tend to throw out the term "geek" are a "geek" themselves, maybe not in computers but in some narrow band of interest. Ah, human nature again.

Fog

A quick shot with the Canon. My first couple shots came out a weird textured pic, because the fog was so dense the flash reflected off them. I didn't want to turn off the flash completely so I used the option to back it down a percentage - another nice feature.

Web 2.0 and My Concession - Rounded Corners

Argh. The whole Web 2.0 concept. It's basically a name for some Internet-related ideas that have been evolving for many years (many of the basic ideas of which have been around since the beginning). Many of the so-called concepts behind it have been things that a lot of us have been trying to do for years. For example - making websites less static and more interactive with the visitor.

I think a good symbol for naming something that's just an natural evolution - is the Web 2.0 logo creator. This started out as a joke and a spoof of the whole thought behind Web 2.0, only to get used by a large number of people who actually are putting these logos on their websites (not that there's anything wrong with how they look).

Funny, and again - goes back to human nature... We're such strange and funny little pieces of meat, aren't we?

Back to the point of my posting - my newest little concession to the whole Web 2.0 idea is on my Old Abandoned Buildings of Northern New York site. I converted all of the picture thumbnails from square thumbnailed pics to ones with rounded corners and drop-shadows. Looks nice, no matter what you call it.

Box.net Bookmarks Synchronizer

Box.net Bookmarks Synchronizer

Brian, an intern at Box.net, e-mailed me after reading my blog entry about the Scribefire Blogging addon.

He wanted me to know about Box.net's new Bookmarks Synchronizer addon for Firefox - just in case I might want to write about it on my Blog.

The addono synchronizes your Firefox bookmarks between the website and your browser, or multiple Firefoxes on various machines. And provides a good online backup for them also. You can also access the bookmark file from anywhere, manually.

Firstly, I checked out Box.net. I vaguely remembering seeing some references to it in a few newsletters I'm a member of.

Basically, Box.net has both free as well as paid storage for your files. You can upload docs, photos, files of all types. Then you can access them from where ever you are, no matter what browser, and even from your mobile phone. And they give you 1 gig of space and no bandwidth limits.

Sure, there's a number of sites like this. Hundreds, thousands maybe.

But there's a few things that this seems to have that sets it apart from some of the others - though there are some which have hodgepodges of the same features.

For one thing you can edit Word or Excel docs right online. You can also share your files with others and there's even a widget for your website or blog to allow others to download your files. You can e-mail files directly to your account, too. There's also an Open Office plugin, a Microsoft Office plugin, a file uploader, and a bunch of other stuff. I didn't check this out but they are there if I need them, and I'll probably check some of the former-mentioned options out at a later time.

Some pretty nice features, well-organized site, and easy to find everything.

Oh, and before I go any further - I'm not getting any benefits from reviewing their website or addon, just doing it for the fun of it.

Anyway, so I tried the Bookmarks Synchronizer - which you can get from the Firefox addon site here or direct from Box.net here.

It installs like any other addon (and is small - in case you; like me, have a bunch of addons and are always concerned about memory usage and browser speed).

After resetting Firefox and hitting TOOLS and ADDONS and clicking the OPTIONS for the synchronizer I get the following:

Not having an account at Box.net I clicked CANCEL, went back to the site, and signed up for a free 1 gig account (easily done). Once I was signed up I went back to the addon and entered my info in the above boxes. At that point I could either SAVE the bookmarks to the Box.net site or restore them to my Firefox, or Firefox on any computer (that has the addon installed).

After messing around with it for a few minutes I could see it worked exactly as advertised, fairly quickly (I have a LOT of bookmarks) and slickly (a little box pops up to let you know it's doing it's job, and what it's doing).

The next tab:


A few options here. Browse lets you browse for your bookmarks folder - just in case it's not in the standard place. I would guess that you could also use this to backup bookmarks from other Gecko-derived browsers, like K-Meleon - since they also use the same filename for bookmark files.

You can also have it automatically download your stored bookmarks from the Box.net website, and/or automatically upload your bookmarks when you close Firefox. It also will merge the bookmarks - good if you have the 'auto download' option on and don't want to overwrite any new bookmarks you have added.

The next tab (Help) gives you access to a button which you can click for online help. It takes you to their website for a quick little help page.

Here's a screenshot of their website, after I logged in and went to the folder holding the bookmarks (which is automatically created, of course):


Here you can access the bookmarks manually if you like, even download them directly; though it converts the bookmarks file to an .xml file instead of keeping it in the native .html form.

I guess my only quibble here would be that it would make the addon more useful if you could more easily access your bookmarks online without using the addon, if you wanted to. Say you're on someone else's computer or a public terminal and you just want look up a bookmark, without installing or using the addon or downloading the file - so you weren't putting any files on that particular computer. Maybe by not having the addon convert the bookmark file to a .xml or better yet - have both .xml and .html files available in the Box.net bookmarks older.

I guess the only other con is that I had a bit of long pause when I clicked the Help button in the last tab of the addon, but it worked after a few moments.

As mentioned - everything works as advertised. Nice addon.

Blogs, Friends, Clayton Car Show, the Environment, Indian River Conservancy trail, more Canon A570 IS, Scribefire Addon for Firefox

Blogs

I just can't see myself blogging and analyzing every strange bowel movement every single day of my life {SARCASM}.

I mean - I haven't actually seen the above chronicled but I'm sure multiple people have done so on numerous occasions. Gawk!

I've recently been enjoying using Flickr.com (as mentioned in an earlier entry) and some people do the same with pics. They have this 365 day thing. Kinda interesting, but along the same lines.

I guess to the student of psychology (or biology - if the above were the case); as well as the occasional odd stalker, delving that deeply into a stranger's (or a friend's) life would be of a certain fascination.

But I'm going to try to keep mine a bit more impersonal and more technically-oriented if possible. The entries won't be as often but I'd rather spare you the in-depth and likely excruciatingly boring details of any weird bodily function incongruities and such.


Friends/Clayton Auto Show/The Environment

The Clayton Car Show. Lots of cars, and people. BTW, the photo at left is just an amusing one I took - an Adirondack chair and table built on top of the bed cover of a classic truck.

Despite trying to be more environmentally conscious nowadays I still love the big musclecars and the old cars. They're part of our heritage, part of what made America great as well as a little piece of what still makes America great, as well as the human species.

I miss my hotrod (at right - '79 Olds Cutlass Salon, '77 403 Olds Rocket, etc etc - I won't bore you with the numerous details and money and work I put into it - great car, miss it every time I get into my Lumina), but on the other hand at this point in my life I'd rather have something more fuel efficient. Yet there are days I see a particularly nice older vehicle and yearn for something more then my Lumina Euro. A nice piece of engineering that's also fun and powerful is something that I can appreciate.

Yea, Human Ingenuity - both on a large scale (mass-invention and mass-production of the autos and auto evolution over a short period of human history) as well with the ability of individuals to improve on something that thousands have worked at creating. And despite environmental issues we all have to have the occasional thing that we enjoy in life.

That's one of the things that environmentalists and those with agendas forget - that we need to find a happy medium ground. That life is too short to live in mud huts and skimp and scrap for each erg of electricity. There needs to be a happy medium.

And of course; in the Clayton area - I saw a lot of another extreme. Lots of people with signs that say "No Wind Turbines" etc. I live near large power lines and a radio tower - I WISH for a nice big wind turbine. No EM fields, clean and productive, a good meshing of technology with the environment. And a nice comforting white noise sound. Unfortunately some birds and bats also blast themselves all over them. (Photo at right from the Maple Ridge Wind Farm, Lowville, NY - more of my photos of the wind farm at Flickr.)

I read somewhere that if we had taken all the money spent on the Iraq war we could have added some sort of alternative energy sources for every home in the US. What a waste that we have to put so much money into destruction.

I also saw an old friend there yesterday; a guy I'd been best friends with for many years when I was younger. We picked up girls together, wasted days, had fun, drove around a lot, etc. The type of thing when you do when you're younger and have less obligations.

Over the last decade I've seen him about as many times as I can count on one hand. Human relationships are funny - I still consider him a friend but if we now ended up spending time with each other every day we'd probably find that we are significantly different now. I noticed the differences in us right away, I'm sure he did too.

But it's one of the great things, as well as the sometimes-downfall of humankind - that we can still be friends despite our differences. I have friends and friendly acquaintances who have fundamental ideas so different then mine that it amazes me that we can even be civil. Yet I'm friends and on good terms with these people.

And then, the other and opposite hand, you have the people who were good friends but who turn on you for the smallest and most unreasonable thing. Whether it's hard feelings for imagined problems, drunkenness due to work and family pressures, or what-have-you. Oh, now I am getting personal...

Humans are funny creatures, that's for sure.

Indian River Conservancy trail
I stumbled across a couple interesting trails, off the seasonal Burns Road outside of the Redwood area (I sometimes wander on the way home after doing some work for clients).

Yes, I had my trusty GPS this time - 44'19.599N -75'44.450W (Still have to work on learning more functions of the GPS, so many and so much potential I haven't tapped yet).

These are apparently on state DEC land but the trails themselves (as well as the parking spaces) are created and maintained by the Indian River Conservancy. I couldn't find any website on them. But the trails look interesting, though some are very rough-looking. My trail page on it - click here.

I took a quick walk along one and at one point a cable of some sort was hanging across the trail just above head-height. After leaving and driving down the road I went by a house (with apparently no lines to National Grid ['National Greed' as my wife writes on the checks]). The cable seemed to go down and hill and into some solar panels. Wonder what the other end of the cables was powering at the top of the hill?

I also took a few shots of abandoned buildings on this road and the one leading to it. There was one old building far, far off the road and surrounded by high brush and woods. I would have loved to look at it closer, know the story behind it, etc. Fascinating stuff, and never enough time to do everything.

BTW, check out my Old Abandoned Buildings of Northern NY website if you like old buildings, I got lots of them!

More Canon A570 IS
Check out these two pics. I noticed this helicopter flying sideways nearby. Yea, it was windy but not THAT windy. It had some sort of device attached to it's side, which it seemed to be keeping pointed toward a large electric line that runs nearby. Camera, IR?

Anyway, I took a few shots at extreme zoom (full optical, full digital) not expecting a very good picture due to the above as well as the wind buffeting me back and forth and the overcast day, not to mention not wanting to mess with switching it off AUTO.

Surprisingly I got some pretty good pics, with a shutter speed good enough to capture the individual blades.

Scribefire Addon for Firefox
If you do a lot a lot of blogging, or even just occasionally, and you have the inkling and resources for yet another Firefox addon for Firefox check out Scribefire (formerly Performancing). It lets you blog from right inside a pane at the bottom of Firefox. Nice, though there are some idiosyncrasies that can be annoying. Overall real nice, though I do finishing up in Blogger itself (once I learn all the quirks I believe I will be comfortable enough with it to use it completely). Still working on figuring out how the API works for uploading.