Monkey See, Monkey Do: A Game of Technological Follow the Leader

Since its founding in 2004, Mozilla released new versions of Firefox infrequently, often waiting until a list of features and UI (user interface) updates were completed. Bug fixes and security updates were released as needed between major updates.

Recently, that all changed. Firefox started to lose market share to Google's Chrome browser. Google has followed a policy of rapid version release to catchup with other browsers. They have done so and in fact many people predict that they will even surpass Microsoft's Internet Explorer very soon.

In an effort to stop their market loss or even to recapture lost ground, Firefox decided that their only option was to adopt the rapid release strategy. Within a year, they went from version 5 to version 12 (which was released today). This is a very stupid move in my opinion.

This is stupid for two major reasons: it hurts developers and destroys the mystery.

When a company released a new version every six weeks or so, it's hard for extension developers to keep up. Because of the rapid release, several of the extensions I use are disabled because they are not compatible with the newest version. Some of the better extensions are written by hobbyists who don't always have the time to write the two or three lines of code need to update the extension. And when they do. The get it updated a new version of Firefox is released. What a pain!

My favorite part about the early versions of Firefox was waiting expectantly to get the new versions to see what the new features were like. Between the first 3 or 4 versions, there were major interface changes. Each version had a different look and feel. Not so with the new versions, there is nothing to really differentiate them for each other.

In the end, there is really nothing that Mozilla can do to stop Chrome from taking their market share. Google has the biggest advertisement system in the world. Eventually they will convert the whole world to Chrome. It is inevitable.

TweetDeck, The Story of a Maligned App

In today's technology and communication heavy world, it is important to have a presence in a wide range of social networks, from Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr to FourSquare and so on. If you want to submit a single message across all of these different networks (or even across multiple accounts on the same network) it is nice to only have to do it once. That is were a social media manager or dashboard can come in handy. There are several applications out there that can do that for you, but I want to talk about one in particular: TweetDeck.

As part of my job I have to manage the company's social network presence. I tried several apps, web-based and Windows-based. I tried HootSuite, Seesmic and others, but my favorite was TweetDeck. To put it simply TweetDeck had everything I wanted. It had among other features:

• the ability to look at multiple accounts across multiple networks
• use Bit.ly to shorten links
• a neat feature called Deck.ly that allowed users to post messages longer than 140 characters to Twitter

TweetDeck had a web version, an Adobe AIR version (which would run on PC, Mac or Linux) and a iOS version. All in all, I was very happy with it.

And then, Twitter bought it...

At first, I had great hopes for the purchase by Twitter. I expected great new feature to be added. I was wrong.

Shortly after purchase, Twitter released a new version of TweetDeck that was no longer written for Adobe AIR, but was now OS specific.(I imagine that this makes it harder to write.) This new version looked much plainer. This new version dropped support for LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare and MySpace and killed the Deck.ly feature.

I have the uneasy feeling that eventually, TweetDeck is going to be renamed the Twitter Manager (or something else with Twitter in the title). It's already been changed to TweetDeck by Twitter.

Even the logo has been changed to look more like Twitter.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm very unhappy that Twitter bought a program I like and messed it up. I wished they would have kept the features and improved them. But I get the feeling that Twitter is trying to boost their own product line to the detriment of some customers.

In the end, I still use TweetDeck, albeit, the pre-acquisition Adobe AIR version. The only thing that does not work is Deck.ly, so I'll need to find something else for that.

On another topic (but one very similar), Twitter has recently purchased another product that I use: the blogging platform Posterous. Twitter says they are not going to do anything to Posterous at the moment, but rumors are flying that they just bought Posterous for the talent. Lifehacker even had a article on how to switch your blog from Posterous. We'll see what happens next.

How to Search Your PC Instantly

    Have you ever been in a hurry to find a file?  Ten minutes minutes before the meeting and you need to find the video clip you were going to show.  If you use Windows, you would pull up Windows search, type in the title, and wait for it to search through all the files on your computer.  Depending on how many files that you have, this may take quite a while. 
    There is a small, powerful alternative to Windows Search that will find what you are looking for in a matter of minutes.  It is called Everything.  This program is less than 400 kilobytes in size.  It installs quickly and indexes you computer in a matter on minutes.  Whenever you create an new file, the index is complete.  It works on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and 7.  (Since Vista and 7 have an improved search function build into the Start Menu, it is ideal for any pre-Vista Windows OS.
    One of the drawbacks of Everything is that it only searches the file and folder names, not their contents.  But if you remember a little bit of the title, you can probably find it.
    So, go ahead and use this tool.  You can download Everything here: http://www.voidtools.com/.

Does Open Source Security Make Sense?

    I have been thinking about open source software lately, especially security software, and I thought I would share my thoughts with you.

    First of all, let’s define what open source means.  Open source is the idea in technology, especially software, that says everyone should be able to see the source material used to create it.  This means that if a program is written and distributed as open source, anyone can get a hold of the source code that makes it run.  The idea behind this is that people can take this freely available source material and either build upon it to create their own program or merely improve the existing program.

    Okay, now let’s take a look at what open source means for your computer’s security, primarily anti-virus.  If the source code for an anti-virus program is available, it would be child’s play for a dedicated virus creator, who wants to create havoc, to acquire that code and use it to discover and exploit weaknesses in it.  To me, the whole idea seems seem akin to building a wall around your castle to protect you from an outside enemy and then posting the blueprints for that selfsame wall, complete with all the secret passages and weak points marked, where any invader can easily access them.

    I think the majority of people would and do agree with me on this.  Why?  Because almost all of the anti-virus programs on the market are close source, meaning only the company that created it has access to the code that makes it run.  Think about it.  The top anti-virus companies, Norton, McAfee, Panda, Trends Micro and Avira, all keep the source code for their programs under wraps, probably because they understand the risks.

      In fact, there are very few open source.  One of the best known is  ClamAV.  However, I’m not sure how long this will continue.  It appears that a company called Sourcefire has acquired the trademarks and copyrights to ClamAV, so that may change too.

    In closing, don’t trust the security of your computer to a company who posts the blueprint of your castle for all to see.  You might just get bit.

    Please feel free to comment.

Tutorial: Creating and Burning an Image File

    Creating an image file is the best way to copy and backup discs.  (I am talking about discs that you have legal right to copy.")  Here is a quick run through of how to create and burn an image file.

    The first thing you need to do is download a good disc burning software.  The best I know of it call ImgBurn.  You can find and download it here: http://www.imgburn.com/.

    Once you have downloaded and installed ImgBurn, open up the program either from the Start Menu or Desktop.  Once it comes up, it will look a little intimidating for a first timer, but after using it a little while you will get a handle on it.

 

    To start creating an image file, put the disc to be copied in you computer and click “Create image file from disc”.

 

    Once the new screen comes up, check the contents of the “Destination” section to make sure the image file will go where you want it.  (Ideally, you should put it on your C drive in a file names “image files.")  Be sure to check and make sure that you have enough space on your C drive to do this.  The size of the image file is on the right under “size”.

 

    Once you have made sure that you have enough space, click large button on the lower left of the top window.  The copy process will now start.

 

    When it is finished, it will play a tune to let you know.

 

    Now to burn the image file to a disc.  Click “OK”.  Now click “Mode” and select “Ez-Mode Picker”.  This will return you to the main screen.

 

    Now click “Write image to disc”.

 

    In the new window, select the image file by click the file under the “Source” section.

 

    Select and open the image.  Insert the appropriate disc (CD or DVD) and click the button in the lower left of the top screen.  (Make sure that “Verify” has been selected under “Destination”.  This will ensure that you copy is correct."  If it ejects that disc and pulls it back in, don’t worry.  It is verifying the disc.)

    Congratulations!  You have finished burning the disc.  To create another, click “OK”  and click the burn button again after putting in a new disc or you can set how many disc you want to make.

    If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

Safari Now Has Extensions!!!

    Yesterday at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs made several announcements, among them was Safari 5.  While this seems small to most in comparison to the release of the iPhone 4G and other stuff, it is a big deal because it heralds a feature that Safari has been lacking and lagging behind the rest of the browsers.  The big new feature is extensions.  You can download the new version of Safari for Windows here.

    Here is how to activate the extensions feature.  After you have downloaded and installed Safari, click on the gear button on the top far right and click Preferences.  Once the dialog box comes up, click the Advanced tab.  Select the “Show Develop menu in menu bar” checkbox.

    Close the Preference dialog box.  Click the page picture next to the gear.  For the menu click “Develop” and then “Enable Extensions”.

     You now have extensions available.  To see the extensions installed, go back to the preferences dialog box and there will be a tab for “Extensions”.  (The reason that the example shows an extension installed and yours probably does not is because I install it.)

        This extension feature is new and experimental, like I said, so Apple does not have a list of available extensions.  However, you can find a few here.  There are not many available because it is so new.  Let me know in the comments if how know of any other place that has extensions for Safari.  Have fun exploring.

Stupid Tech Supports Calls – Part 1

The following is just a few of the stupid tech support stories that I have found around the web.  There are a lot of them, all funny.  Enjoy!

Story 1

The place I work for charges about $100/issue for tech support.

• Tech Support: "So what can I do for you?"
• Customer: "I'm trying to run Live Update with Norton, and it came up to a screen with a list of updates, and it says 'Next.' What do I do?"
• Tech Support: "Did you hit 'Next'?"
• Customer: "Oh, it's working now."
• Tech Support: "Anything else I can do for you?"
• Customer: "No, that's it, thanks."

Story 2

• User: "I've just unplugged my monitor from the wall in order to clean it without getting shocked. How do I plug it back in?"

I had about ten different responses flash through my mind, but as this guy was fairly high up on the food chain of management, I had to control myself. I said, "Align the pins with the hole, and push it into the socket." Satisfied, the user hung up.

Story 3

• Customer: "I installed Windows 98 on my computer, and it doesn't work."
• Tech Support: "Ok, what happens when you turn on your computer?"
• Customer: "Boy, are you listening? I said it doesn't work."
• Tech Support: "Well, what happens when you TRY to turn it on?"
• Customer: "Look, I'm not a computer person. Talk regular English, not this computer talk, ok?"
• Tech Support: "Ok, let's assume your computer is turned off, and you just sat down in front of it, and want to use it. What do you do?"
• Customer: "Don't talk like I'm stupid, boy. I turn it on."
• Tech Support: "And then what happens?"
• Customer: "What do you mean?"
• Tech Support: "Does anything appear on your monitor? I mean, the TV part."
• Customer: "The same thing I saw last time I tried."
• Tech Support: "And that is what?"
• Customer: "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
• Tech Support: "Yes, sir. What is on your screen?"
• Customer: "A bunch of little pictures."
• Tech Support: "Ok, in the upper left corner, do you see 'My Computer'."
• Customer: "No, all I see is that little red circle thing with the chunk out of it."
• Tech Support: "You mean an apple?"
• Customer: "I guess it kind of looks like an apple."

Then it took me fifteen minutes to convince him that he had a Mac. Even after showing him "About this Macintosh." I spent another fifteen minutes trying to convince him that Windows 98 wouldn't work on his Mac. He said it should work because Windows 98 is for PCs, and he had a PowerPC. I think he's still trying to get it to read that CD, because I never could convince him.

Story 4

A member of getacoder.com posted and asked for someone to write an operating system for him. It had to have all the features of Windows XP Professional. In return, he would be willing to pay $20 to $100.

The listing:

I need someone to program me a new OS (Operasting System) that looks different than Ms Windows XP etc. but has the same style. It does not need to run on a mac but all the other PCs. It's supposed to have a stylish look with clear edges etc. And ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A REDESIGNED WINDOWS as I'm going to sell that operating system later on. These are some important points :

It should have ALL THE FEATURES that Windows Xp Professional has. ALL the files that run on Windows XP ust also run on the BlueOrb OS. It must have a very user-friendly interface (like MS WINDOWS XP) When it gets Installed, the user needs to insert a serial number. It HAS to be HACKER SAFE! It must be quick and good looking.

Here's the listing on getacoder.com.

Update on Chrome Bundling

In a previous post, I predicted that Google would give Microsoft a run for it’s money by making deals to have the Chrome browser bundled with new computers.  Today, news came out that Google is making some headway in that direction.  Google Chrome is now bundled with Real Player.  While this is a long way from being bundled with an operating system, it still shows a step in the right direction for Google.

Chrome vs. Everyone Else: The Long Haul

Google has a history of taking products that we have taken for granted and making them better. The latest example is Google's take on the browser, Chrome. With this new development, all the other browsers are going to have start praying.

First, lets take a history trip back to the beginning of the original browser wars. Netscape Navigator was the big browser. Microsoft released their Internet Explorer to compete with it. Before too long Internet Explorer was bundled with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft gained over 90% market share and Netscape faded into obscurity.

Out of the ashes of Netscape rose Firefox with the hope of challenging Microsoft's dominance. In a small way, they have been successful. Today Firefox controls about 20% of the market. However, Firefox is not bundled with any Windows based computers as far as I know. For most people, Internet Explorer come default on their computer and they don't use anything else.

Google may mix things up and change the way things are usually done. Not to long ago, it was announced that Google was making a deal with computer companies to get Chrome bundled as the default browser. This will probably take some money on Google's part, but they have enough do it. This would seriously threaten Internet Explorer's dominance.

Firefox also has reasons to fear Google. In 2008, Mozilla, creators of Firefox, reported income of $75 million. $66 million of that came from Google. Imagine what will happen when Google stops investing in Mozilla. This will cause Mozilla to fold up and die.

It looks as though Mozilla realizes what's going on. Recently, they made an announcement. The Russian localization of Firefox is switching from Google to a Russian search engine named Yandex. They say this search engine to better designed for Russian needs, but I think there is more to it than that.

Only time will tell, but I predict that Google will shut down Firefox and another browser war will erupt, this time between Microsoft and Google. I'm betting that Google, the younger company will win out.

VLC Christmas Suprise

I recently downloaded the newest version of the open-source multi-media player VLC. I was watching the Great Raid last night and I noticed something interesting. VLC's icon, the yellow road work cone, has a Santa hat in it. I had not noticed before. I think that it must have been built into the code for Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Digsby pulls ahead

As people spend more time on the web, they acquire new friends. The problem is that those friends are not connected by a single network. There are those who have MSN accounts, others use Yahoo, maybe some are limited to ICQ or Facebook. As a general rule, in order to communicate, you need to be part of each different system. At least, that used to be the case.

Recently, there have been some moves to unite the systems. Yahoo and MSN users can talk to each others. There have also been several attempts to write an open source program to connect. I have tried several of those programs and best one that I have seen so far is Digsby.

Digsby is a multiprotocol instant messaging application. It can connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat Accounts. Manage multiple conversations with tabbed conversation windows. You can drag tabs out into their own windows for important conversations. Rename contacts with an alias so you don't have to remember buddy names like 'giantsfan123'.

Digsby also helps with your email accounts. You can manage your Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts right from digsby. You can get popup notifications when new email arrives. It will also show a list of recently received emails.

The main problems that I have with Digsby is that it loads an icon into the system tray for every system that you are connected to beside the Digsby icon. Another thing is that Digsby is still in beta, but they are publishing quite often.

If you have friends on many different systems, try Digsby. It has the widest amount of compatabillity and works the best of its competiors.

Download here...

VLC releases upgrade for media player

I apologize for not writing in a while. College has started up again and I am busy. Posts may come a little slower now.

VLC is widely known throughout geekdom as one of the best alternative to Windows Media Player. Today the VLC developers have done something momentous. They have released a new version. There is a whole slew of improvement including a redesign of the interface and many new codecs.

This release is also important becasue for the last year or more they have been working on one version, 0.8.6a to 0.8.6i.

In order to see the difference in the last two versions, I have provided pictures. Below is a picture of VLC 0.8.6 on Windows Vista Beta 1.

Below is picture of VLC 0.9.2 running on Windows XP.

I have only used this player a little bit before I wrote this post. One of the feature that I like is visible only when playing DVDs in fullscreen. When doing so, the controls appear in the bottom center of the screen when the mouse is moved.

The following is a list of new features directly from the VLC website.

Interface

A new interface module based on the Qt toolkit has been added to VLC.

This new interface module has a few improvements on the old one:
· Simplified settings and dialogs
· Media library integration
· Album art displaying and metadata editing
· Live activation of Video and audio filters
· Basic encoding profiles
· Multiple start modes (classic, enhanced and minimalist)
· System tray icon and minimizing
· Fullscreen controller

Playlist

The playlist has been improved in many ways, in addition to the new Media Library (very simple so far, but will be extended in the future):
· Live Searching in the playlist,
· Youtube, Dailymotion, Google Video and similar services URL can be scripted in VLC to play directly those URLs,
· last.fm submission support,
· Album art support,
· Better metadata tagging reading and writing support for audio files.

Playback

A lot of new decoders, demuxers, and protocols have been added.

There are new codecs support, like Flash video variants, camcorder codecs (M2TS ones), Dirac, Atrac3, H.264 PAFF, APE audio, RealVideo, VC-3, Fraps and others, but also better decoding and better performance.

There are improvements in the demuxers and new supports (subtitles format rework with many new formats, Tivo2, OMA, MIDI support...).

Tag supports of audio files have vastly been improved(fix of APE, AAC, OGG tags,...)

This version also supports DVB windows devices (BDA), iSight Webcams, v4l2 on Linux and many other ones.

Filters

Many new audio and video filters have been added:
· New video filters like puzzle game, color extracting, sharpen, logo erasing, blue-screen and more have been added.
· New audio filters have introduced Replay Gain support, Faster/Slower audio playback with pitch correction and a spatializer.

Most video filters can now be streamed.
Developers
· libVLC has been rewritten and split and supports externally built plugins
· VLCKit, a Mac OS X Framework, enables external developers to develop applications around VLC.
· New bindings can be found on the wiki and the forums

Misc

A new update system, more secured, was developed for this release.

New localizations in Finnish, Persian, Polish, Punjabi, Bulgarian have joined the old ones.

Free Comics!!!

I'm all into entertainment, tech, and old stuff. Thankfully, this blog post will bring all three things together.

I love comic books and I found a place to download comics for free. Golden Age Comics offers public domain comics for free download. When I say "public domain", I mean comics books on which the copyright has run out. Most of this comics were written and released in the thirties, forties, and some in the fifties.

There are many comic names that are now defunct like: Jo-Jo, Congo King, Blue Beetle, Cat-Man, Black Hood, Green Lama, Blue Bolt, Crime Clinic, the Flame, and Black Terror. There even some of the original Captain Marvel's that are copyright free.

Almost all of comic publishers are no longer around.

Here are a couple of tips about using the site. When you sign-up, you have to go to the forum to register. Your downloads are limited on how much you can download per day. You can download 1GB or 1,000 files, which ever comes first. The file size limit comes first because the files range from 5 to 50 mb.

The administrators keep a close eye on the legal status of the comics. They keep a list of what comics are public domain and which are still copyrighted. So there is not legal danger.

Download and enjoy comics without any worries.

Golden Age comics Homepage


Now, of course, you'll need a way to view and read the comics because the files that you download are in .cbr, .rar. and .zip formats. There are several special programs that you can use to open these files.

The best one that I found was ComicRack. I won't go into detail now, but ComicRack allows you to open and catalog you e-comics. The website says, "It is an all-in-one solution to read and manage your eComic library. You can think of it as iTunes for eComics with much of the same functionality."

Again have fun reading free comics.

ComicRack Homepage

Another Mac Clone Rises

Apple's lawsuit against Mac clone maker Psystar has not discouraged others. It was recently announced that there is a new company named Open Tech will be producing Mac clones. However, their take is slightly different than that of Psystar. Instead of coming pre-loaded with Max OS, Open Tech will sell computers with Ubuntu Linux, but the system will be totally Mac OS compatible. That means customers can buy the computers and then install Mac OS themselves.

I checked out the Open Tech website and was not impressed. The products are not out yet and the website is obviously in its infancy. The site does not even have its own domain, but is hosted by freewebs.com. You can take a look at it if you want, but I would not buy.

Homepage

Where has All the Space Gone?

Have you every wondered where all you disk space has gone? Hey, I just had 20GB of free space, now I only have 15. Where did all the space go?

Now you find out everything you need to know about what sized files are where.

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows (all current variants). WinDirStat reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views: the directory list, which resembles the tree view of the Windows Explorer but is sorted by file/subtree size; the treemap, which shows the whole contents of the directory tree straight away; and the extension list, which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.

I like it because it is a great way what files I can delete to make more room on my drive. It is a must download. It's also nice because the program is smaller one megabyte.

Homepage

Download page

An Application Called Launchy

Don’t you just hate it when you have to search through hundred of folders to find one program or file? Would you rather use the keyboard instead of a mouse? Do you wish there was a way to easily find programs when your icons mysteriously disappear. There is a free program that easily allows you to do all of these things.

The program is called Launchy. Once installted, all you have to is press Ctrl+Space and type in the name of the program or file that you want. The program runs unobtrusively in the background. You can also use it to find and open documents. You can also get a number of skins and plug-ins to increase functionality. I’ll give you some tips and trick for extend the function later on. For now, download and enjoy it as you life gets easier.

Homepage - Download here

Firefox 3 is Final Here for Everyone

Firefox 3, the long awake update to the second most popular browser, has finally hit the web and its making a big splash.

"Firefox 3 is spreading fast, claiming more than 4 percent of the share of Web browser usage less than 24 hours after its release.

According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage at major Web sites, Firefox 3 rapidly ascended to what I'd call force-to-be-reckoned-with status, something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring. For comparison, Apple's Safari had 6.25 percent share in May, and Opera had 0.71 percent.

Undoubtedly, most Firefox 3 activity is from existing Firefox users, but it's still a notable achievement, given that software companies constantly struggle to get users to adopt the latest products.

Mozilla, which sponsors and oversees development of the open-source Web browser, released Firefox 3 for download on Tuesday. It primed the publicity pump with an effort to set a 24-hour download record, and interest by the abundant Firefox loyalists brought Mozilla's servers to their knees for nearly two hours Wednesday."

I've been using Firefox 3 since the first Release Candidate and I love it. The new design is great. Most people have been knocking the all new "Awesome Bar", but I think that is is just fine. In fact, it take less effort to type in URLs.

Another feature that I love is the fact that if asks you when you close if you want to save the tabs. This is something that was lacking in other browser or was buried within the option.

The updated Add-ons windows is also great since it allows you to search for and install new add-ons without having to open a new tabs.

Overall, I would give the new Firefox 3 5 out of 5 stars