Date: 09/11/05     Keywords: software, browser, css, html, asp, java

Recently Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols published on eweek.com his first views pertaining to Firefox 1.5 Beta. The title of his article, hints his impressions on the recently announced software; "1.5 Beta Looks Better than Ever".

However there are some initial problems. One of the main problems with Beta 1, is the incompatibility with the vast majority of existing extensions programs. Extension developers are aware of this problem, so new, 1.5-compatible extensions should be in place well before the final version of 1.5 hits the street some time in November or December. Mozilla will be releasing a list of 1.5-compatible extensions within the week.

Improvements Made to Beta 1:
a) Taking a leaf from Opera browser, works much faster at rendering pages that you have already read.
b) The overall performance of the browser is better. Gecko, the layout and rendering machine behind the browser, has been tightened up and made faster.
c) Easy to get rid of private information with the new Tools/Clear Private Data Command.
d) It is very open-standard friendly. The program comes with support for SV (Scalable Vector Graphics), CSS (Cascade Style Sheets) 2 and 3, (DHTML (Dynamic HTML) and JavaScript 1.6.

As a beta, without any technical support, without support for 1.0x extensions, it should not be used as a replacement for Firefox 1.0x or any other browser. Come December and its final release, it will be a different story.

If you are interested in reading the whole article, kindly click the following link: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1857423,00.asp

Regards,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/318058.html

Date: 09/11/05     Keywords: no keywords

Noob alert. (:

Downloaded, installed and used Port Fox for a day at work - where I copied over the profile from the local machine to the thumbdrive and Port Fox tested ok. Went home, erased that profile and loaded the one from my home computer onto the thumb drive. Port Fox was still working ok. Actually it worked great. Am now at work and Port Fox, well. It's not working anymore. Screenshot shows what Port Fox looks like right now.




How can I make it work again? Thanks in advance for all input.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/317705.html

Date: 09/11/05     Keywords: google

Hello,

I am using Mozilla 1.7.11 and was wondering if there was a hack, extention, or config that I could do to show more information in the new mail alert. It would be nice if I knew who it was from, what account it was addressed to, subject, and possibly (more importantly) the first line or two of the message.

I have checked out the faqs on moz and google searched it out, and also searched a bit in about:config with no luck.

Thank you for your help!

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/317625.html

Date: 09/10/05     Keywords: browser

I've been using Firefox for a while as my default browser. Lately, however, the text fields do not properly display what I'm typing. This makes it incredibly difficult to send emails, etc. Can someone tell me what's going on and how to fix it? Thanks much!

~Samantha

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/317351.html

Date: 09/09/05     Keywords: rss, xml, google

Talk about circular thinking...

In the ever-burgeoning world of the Internet, the word "aggregation" is of the utmost importance, as everything else basically revolves around it. The provision of the content for it, the networkings by which such is provided to the end user, the needed improvements of the aforementioned: all 3 of those everlasting issues play a key role in the continuing expansion of the Internet, especially when it comes to periodically-updated content, as in news, editorials, and so forth.

Which is why I'm eyeing the continual developments of "news feeds", particularly of the RSS, Atom, and Podcast type.

For some odd reason, it seems as if those three formats are only residing within the reserve of bloggers (mostly in the English-speaking world), a few newspapers, a few email groups (provided by Google Groups for its classic Usenet newsgroups....which begs the question: does *anybody* use Usenet or newsgroups anymore?!), and not much else.

I mean, yes, the Internet public is beginning to switch from the old newsgroups, from which some of today's best and brightest stars in the IT industry claim some of their personal roots, to the idea of viewing posts without having to fill up their own inboxes. Furthermore, the feed formats in question are beginning to expand as well: hopefully, they'll have Photo/Image and Email-List RSS feeds in the very near future, as they also have Media RSS (predominately audio, and most recently video) and so forth.

Thus, to bring it home, Mozilla Firefox (here here!), in order to keep up with the development and expansion of RSS (which has basically become a synonym for "news feeds"), has to keep on its toes in this wise. What I'm hoping this time around (with Firefox 1.5 beta) is that they (at Mozilla), or some third-party XUL aficionado, will come up with a brand new feed aggregation extension which will be both simplified (unlike WizzRSS), declutsified (unlike InfoRSS), and unlimited in both functionality and feed access (unlike Sage, which is the only one doing much of anything for me at present). Same goes (probably more) for Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Sunbird/Calendar.

Furthermore, I'm hoping that newsgroups (of the classic news:// protocol) will convert to the .xml (the one responsible for RSS, OPML, Atom, and so forth) format in the future, insothat, again, people will be able to access the latest discussions and postings without filling up their inbox.

Speaking of which, I just came up with an idea within the midst of this writing:

Is there some sort of standalone RSS/newsgroup client which can handle feeds of all types?

Or, furthermore....would it make sense to relegate RSS feeds to the news:// (newsgroup) protocol, since RSS feeds are basically the same exact thing as news feeds?

Damn, I'm thinking in circles, lol.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/316970.html

Date: 09/09/05     Keywords: security, web

It seems that a new critical security vulnerability has been found in Firefox, unfortunately the day after 1.5 Beta 1 was released. It seems to affect all current versions (including 1.5 Beta 1), and can be used for arbitrary code execution and/or to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability has to do with a malformed URL, so the way to mitigate the problem is to not follow links to or from untrusted website. It sounds like disabling IDN support may mitigate it too, but I have no confirmation on that. Hopefully this will be patched quickly...I'll edit this post and/or post again once I hear of a patch becoming available.

Note that there are currently no known exploits for this vulnerability, so just exercise caution when following links.

For more information, see today's diary at the Internet Storm Center, or the Secunia advisory.

X-posted to firefoxusers.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/316744.html

Date: 09/09/05     Keywords: browser, web, linux

For those of you (and me), who are anxious to see what Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is like, we have good news. This afternoon, the Mozilla people finally announced the download site of said product. Their brief announcement said, "Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is now available for download. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is a beta release of our next generation Firefox browser and it is being made available to our early adopter community and our developer and testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x should not download or use Deer Park Alpha 2."

"Note: Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is not the final release of our Web browser, it has been made available for testing purposes only, with no end-user support. If that sounds scary, you'd probably be better off with the latest version of Firefox 1.0."

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is available for:

1. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 for Windows (English)
2. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 for Linux (English)
3. Deer Park Alpha 2 for Mac OS X (English)

I couldn't download web site for version in other languages. Perhaps tomorrow this problem will be fixed.

The download link is: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/

Enjoy,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/316525.html

Date: 09/07/05     Keywords: browser

I just bought this sexy beast of a mouse (the Logitech Mx1000) and am having trouble configuring the buttons to work with firefox. Well, to be precise it's only two buttons - the forward and back button, used obviously for going back or forwards in internet browsers/file browsers. The buttons work fine in IE, however do not in Firefox. I've looked through all the settings I can think of and cannot find the proper one - is it simply not supported?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/315959.html

Date: 09/06/05     Keywords: browser, spyware

Ever since about 1.0.5, FireFox has been acting badly on my computer, almost to the point where it is becoming unusable. Whenever a page is in the process of loading - that is, the status bar is reporting anything transferring, the entire application is frozen until the page finishes loading. This means that any tabs loading in the background will freeze the browser, something loading in another window will freeze the browser, etc. I have broadband so pages load quickly, but it's especially painful when a page is waiting to time out, or an image on a page is refusing to load, as the entire time it's waiting for the timeout, my entire browser is unusable.

I wiped the profile recently and started over, in an attempt to fix this, but it did not help. I am using very few extensions, pretty much the same ones I've been using for years without trouble (Session Saver, Deepest Sender, Image Zoom, etc). However, even disabling extensions doesn't fix the problem.

It's gotten so bad I'm having to surf using Opera now instead of FireFox because I'm in danger of destroying my keyboard in frustration when I've got to wait nearly a minute just to have my browser do ANYTHING. Sometimes it's so bad, when a page is taking an especially long time to load, that I end up having to kill firefox from task manager.

Does anyone know what might be causing this? My system IS SPYWARE FREE, so don't even THINK about suggesting that I check for spyware/virii. I have an Athlon64 3500+ with 2 GB ram, so system performance is not an issue.

Anybody ever have this problem before?

(EDIT: I'm suspecting network drivers are wierd at this moment... it may be a windows problem like that, because I see it *sometimes* in other programs it seems.... but ALL the time in FireFox. I would update network drivers, but the newest drivers from Windows Update have are very unstable for my system (cause crashes) so I had to roll back to what was on my motherboard CD...)

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/315505.html

Date: 09/06/05     Keywords: browser

I'm trying to set up a silent install of the Mozilla suite (to put on my Windows CD) and am wondering if anyone knows the values to change a couple of things for the install.

1. Does anyone know the pref values that can allow me to change the default theme to Modern?
2. Can I set Mozilla (using a pref value) to use a specific Profile instead of modifying the default profile?
3. Which values do I modify so that Mozilla sets itself as the default browser, and Mail client without a prompt?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/315246.html

Date: 09/05/05     Keywords: no keywords

Hey all.

roachfiend.com (aka roachfiend) has word count, but does anyone here know of a character count extension? I use Tbird to send 140-character sms to mobile phones. (:

EDIT: I found a greasemonkey script, but I'm not too sure about installing greasemonkey on any of the machines here. Still looking for a greasemonkey-less extension.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/315026.html

Date: 09/03/05     Keywords: database

I was just wondering whether it was possible to share a personal list of blocked sites in adblock? It'd be pretty interesting if it was possible to build up a database of advertising sites - you wouldn't even have to worry about adblocking to begin with, it would already be done for you.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/314495.html

Date: 08/31/05     Keywords: web

The Mozilla Developer News weblog has posted the schedule for Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta, with Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 scheduled for release on Thursday September 8th. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is also known as the 1.8 Beta 4 milestone, while Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 is also referred to as 1.8 Beta 5.

I think this is is the latest news available regarding next upgrade of Firefox 1.0.6.

Regards,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/313658.html

Date: 08/29/05     Keywords: software

Hello all, just wanted to post here about my idea for a Mozilla media platform.

I call it the "Windhorse/Media Project".

It, in the spirit of Mozilla trdition, will be Gecko-based, and will include a bookmark ability for your favourite online media. Plus, it will allow you the choice between streaming or saving-as (whether it be live or stationary).

Windhorse, by itself, will be a standalone platform, while Media, by itself, will come as an extension for both Firefox and Thunderbird, respectively (plus, just as in IE, it will be accessible through a drop-down media panel on the main navigation toolbar). The extension will provide for the toolbar panel and for a media sidebar (also like IE) which will (another choice) allow you to either view/listen to the clickable media in the toolbar or view/listen to it on Windhorse.

Preliminarilly, it will provide the directories for Shoutcast and Nullsoft Video, and will also (hopefully) provide other, online directories (like Vtuner [my fave] or whatnot).

Finally, while Windhorse/Media will depend upon WMP, RP, QT, and WA in order to view proprietorized content (so as to not have anything nasty upon Mozilla's conscience and legal bill - damn the proprietors), I can envision third-party, indy-made, open-source .xpi's for alternative codecs like Real Alternative, Quicktime Alternative, Winamp Alternative, and even that codec which allows you to play WM-copyrighted formats on other players without the need for WMP, all of which will allow to to play any media extension, no matter *how* proprietary, without the need for media-playing bigboys like the aforementioned.

(Also, if you want, you can add an in-the-future .xpi which will immediately convert proprietarized stationary content [like mp3s, wma, ra, qt, etc.] into open-source formats like .ogg and so forth)

So, that's my idea for a Mozilla media platform (more than just a player, dammit!). I *would* work on it, except for the fact that I'm but a lowly end-user and tinkerer of the 3rd or 4th degree (as listed in Wikipedia's "Open-source software" article). Plus, I'm in college without (at-least) a laptop right now, so I'm screwed, lol.

Harry

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/313503.html

Date: 08/29/05     Keywords: php, google

If you have already installed Google's Desktop in your hard disk and would like to search your desktop directly from Firefox, Google just came up with a useful plug-in developed by Bas Rokers for Windows XP.

If you are interested in more information about this plug-in kindly click the following link:
http://horopter.com/gds.php

Enjoy,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/312869.html

Date: 08/29/05     Keywords: software, browser, web

Firefox continues to make inroads in Europe. In a recent article written by Paula Demarzio and published by ABC Money in the United Kingdom, The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in London has awakened to the popularity of Mozilla's Firefox web browser and has vowed to make its websites "Firefox friendly." The DWP also said that it would try to make its sites compatible to as many browsers as possible.

DWP is not the only organization, which has had to work towards making sites more compatible to a variety of browsers including Firefox and Opera. With the increasing market share of browsers based on open source software, many organizations are being forced to upgrade their sites. Software Company AutoDesk announced on Thursday that it was working towards Firefox support for MapGuide, "We consider Firefox support to be essential and are working on it for the next version of MapGuide," an AutoDesk spokesman commented.

If you are interested in reading the whole article, kindly click the following link:
http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/282005781.htm

Regards,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/312683.html

Date: 08/29/05     Keywords: web

Is there any sort of Firefox extension that allows me to use a hand tool, like the one available when viewing PDF files, while viewing webpages? Like, maybe something that I can toggle on and off? I don't have a scroll wheel on my trackball, and I've found that the way the hand tool scrolls through the pages seems more intuitive to me than using the standard scrollbar.

Thanks. :)

Edit: Someone pointed out Scrollbar Anywhere to me. I've installed it, edited the needed values in about:config, yet it still seems to be doing nothing. Haha. Any info on this?

(crossposted)

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/312406.html

Date: 08/28/05     Keywords: php

I was always confused with Thunderbird's way of showing when a message was received or sent. There was no date included. If a message was sent on a particular day, it would only show the time it was sent, but not the date. That information was included the following day. When I looked at that Date column, it looked incomplete. Today I found out that there is an extension that enables the configuration of the date information. The name of the extension is ConfigDate 0.3.0 written by Alexander Ihrig released on August 22, 2005.


Quick Description:

In Thunderbird many people are confused because of the missing date from today's messages in the date column. By using ConfigDate, you're able to choose out of five (5) different date formats. Note: - The five (5) date formats are given by Thunderbird itself. - The date formats are depending on your systems/regions setting, too (e.g.: "25.08.2005 15:54" in Germany or "2005/08/25 15:54" in US).

I just installed ConfigDate and it works flawlessly. I prefer the long date; i.e. Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 11:34 AM, but there are other options as well. If you were missing this feature, now you have it. The download link is:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=thunderbird&numpg=10&id=901

Enjoy,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/311892.html

Date: 08/27/05     Keywords: html, web

Hello all, I was thinking of downloading the MySpaceBar as I just got a new MS account. Anyway, my main question is: does the toolbar help you customize MySpace webpages, like entering html code easier and whatnot? The profile page was easy, but I'm having more difficulty customizing the blog page.

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/311624.html

Date: 08/27/05     Keywords: rss, browser, xml

A few days ago, I shared in this community, an article about the introduction of Firefox to several thousand students in France in an effort to promote open source computer applications. It was an excellent opportunity to expose Firefox to high school students and their parents. When they finally go to college, Firefox would be their most probable default browser.

Today, I ran across another interesting entry from The Hatchet, an independent student on-line newspaper from the University of Chicago. The students commented, that "while Thunderbird isn't anything new - it's been available for download in one form or another since December - it's now starting to get major attention. In April, Harvard University made a customized version available to students and faculty, and in May, New York University's Stern School of Business started using the program. This fall the University of Chicago will distribute Thunderbird to students."

Thunderbird is now being used by top notch U.S. Universities. Their students and faculty members are excited about:

* Management of multiple e-mail accounts
* Customization features like themes, plug-ins and extensions
* Live Bookmarks using RSS feeds

This is what they wrote about Live Bookmarks and RSS feeds:

"On the left side of the screen, along with a list of your e-mail folders, you can create a list of your favorite news sources along with their headlines. Today, most blogs and online news services, including The Hatchet, offer RSS feeds that allow you to subscribe to their news and receive news on your computer as soon as it's published or posted online. The benefit of such a system is that you get all your headlines in one place as opposed to jumping all over the Internet."

"In my Thunderbird client, I have a list of my news sources - the Houston Chronicle sports section, The Washington Post Metro section, and the blog Wonkette, to name a few, above a list of my e-mail folders. Each headline appears as a new message in a folder named for the news source - click on a headline and the story is opened in the message window."

To access your favorite news sources via Thunderbird, just go to a news site, find the orange button labeled RSS or XML, right click, and select "copy link location" or "copy shortcut," and paste it into your news management section."

The student's ended their on-line newspaper with these very encouraging words; " Mozilla Thunderbird can help simplify your life - there's no reason not to download this program." I feel so proud to see that Firefox and Thunderbird are surfacing in the educational community. Thunderbird is now in college.

If you want to see a beautiful Crystal Thunderbird picture, click the link below:

Enjoy,

Omar.-

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/mozilla/311370.html