Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 was released recently, so I decided to check it out. I’m mainly writing this for Trey, since I know he thinks I should blog more when I have shareable information! 
Anyway, here are my first impressions of the new beta:
- I hate the fact that most of my extensions don’t work when I install a beta. Thanks to the Nightly Tester Tools extension, though, everything is working fine.
- I really like the fact that the beta doesn’t overwrite my stable release’s program directory. They are in separate directories under Program Files (in Windows), but share the same profile information.
- The updated theme is nice, though I miss the old Home icon. I think the new one is barely noticeable and blends in too much with the background.
- I haven’t tested this yet, but I think the beta starts faster.
- The location of the list of extensions has changed. It is still under Tools, but now you have to click on Add-ons. From there you can access extensions AND themes.
- Session recovery looks nice - This looks like it will basically replace the Crash Recovery extension I just recently installed. If you start Firefox after a crash, it asks if you want to recover your session, or start a new one.
- Maybe it’s just the way I’ve laid things out, but I don’t like the way the quick search bar has gotten longer. It used to be so nice and compact, but is taking up more real estate now.
- I like the new spell check feature. Oh, look at that, I just misspelled spell check and misspelled! Haha!
- This is my biggest complaint, but I think I’ll have to live with it: The close tab button has been moved from the far right of the tab bar to a close button on each individual tab. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve moved my mouse to the far right to close a tab today! Trey brought up a good point about this. He liked the old way because he could close a bunch of tabs very quickly. Now, he’ll have to either close all but the current tab, or click on each tab’s close button. They’ve also changed the close function so that you go to the last tab you had open instead of the last tab in the list.
That’s all I have for now. If I find something mind blowing, then I’ll update this post.
September 11th, 2006
Every time I upgrade Wordpress, I always get a little treat. This might have been included in previous versions, but I just noticed it with my upgrade from 2.0.2 to 2.0.4 - the Backup plugin. All you do is activate it, go to Manage, click Backup, tell it where to go (I chose send by e-mail) and click Backup. 10 seconds later and I hate a fresh backup in my gmail inbox! That makes me smile! 
August 12th, 2006
I basically just wanted to post this for my own future reference so I can return Trey’s magazine back to him…
Spin Magazine published an article in their March 2006 issue called “The Next Big Things” that caught my attention. I’m always appriciative when I can find new music that sounds good, so I’ve been planning to check out some of these bands to see if they are worth a further listen. Problem is, I haven’t found the time yet and I still have my friend’s magazine! So, I’m going to try and list all the bands they have so I can use this post as a reference.
- Secret Machines
- Saigon
- The Dresden Dolls
- Matisyahu
- The Subways
- Autolux
- Giant Drag
- The Like
- The Vacation
- The 88
- 8-bit
- Cold War Kids
- Dengue Fever
- Devics
- The Good Listeners
- Inara George
- Silversun Pickups
- Richard Swift
- Vagenius
- Art Brut
- Motion City Soundtrack (already in the process of checking them out from their single “Everything is Alright”)
- Love Is All
- Black Mountain
- Mylo
- Torche
- Noisettes
- The Plastic Constellations
- The Rakes
- Mystery Jets
- Lavender Diamond
- Mystery Jets
- A Life Once Lost
- Vitalic
- The Nice Boys
- Nine Black Alps
- Editors
The doesn’t look like 52, but that’s enough for me.
August 11th, 2006
A friend of mine sent me this link today and I thought it sounded very interesting. I was suprised to see that nobody had put this on Digg.com yet.
Basically, from what I can tell, Phalanger will allow you to use and create PHP code in Visual Studio (currently only .NET 1.1), but will then compile it into a DLL which makes execution time faster. The benchmarks on the site speak for themselves.
From the feature list:
- Extends the .NET language family with PHP version 5
- Enables creation of ASP.NET applications made of existing PHP scripts
- Compiles PHP scripts to achieve a significant speed-up of application execution
- Provides .NET application developers with all the PHP libraries
- Integrates the PHP language into Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
read more | digg story | 
July 26th, 2006
My family and I are about to go on our annual lake house vacation. Every year on my way out of town, I think, “I really need to make a good summertime/lake house mix cd”. Well, this year, I’m on the ball and my wife is assisting me with the song selection. Those that know me may be thinking this will be a rock n’ roll or alternative mix, but this is not that case. When I’m at the lake, all I want to listen to is country music. So, we are using Tadalist to brainstorm our ideas for a mix cd. Here’s our list so far:
http://podious.tadalist.com/lists/public/342713
The rule for song selection is that it has to mention or be about summer, the beach, fishing, the lake, or growing up in the country. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments!
July 6th, 2006
Just wanted to share a recent find on the Net. If you are looking for a good mix of music, or to find music similar to an artist you already like, try Pandora or Last.fm. Pandora has one of the best Flash menus/navigation that I’ve ever seen. It is simple, yet very functional so that the most novice Internet user can find it easy to use. Panodra knows what to play based on the Music Genome Project. Last.fm takes a little getting used to and isn’t nearly as usable as Pandora, but provides more features and a history of what you listen to. It also provides recommendations (like Netflix). The more you listen, the better your recommendations get. Last.fm gets their data from other users tagging each song or artist and from Audioscrobbler data. I’ve been using Last.fm more lately because I like that I can more easily manipulate what I want to listen to. The only big drawback to Last.fm is the fact that you have to download and run a separate player to hear any music. You only need a Flash-enabled browser to use Pandora.
So obviously, as the post title says, these services really help you to find new music based on the tastes that you already have. This can be good and bad, in my opinion. These services will help you find music based on what you already like. However, some of the best music I’ve found was by accident or someone else telling me to listen to it and it was COMPLETELY different than what I was used to.
July 6th, 2006
I can’t believe this wasn’t dugg yet. I found this on del.icio.us this morning, and thought it looked really cool. The Wordpress forums have a tagging mechanism that can be helpful, but that limits the scope to Wordpress only. I’m sure there are other forums that are tag based, but this is the first I’ve seen.
From the blogoforum website:
Instead of fixed list of forums / subforums you are allowed to post - freely classify your message using keywords, or tags.
Collaborate. Categorize other’s messages. Found a message with misleading categories? Give it its place.
Say Goodbye to long threads. Any post can be a starting point for a discussion.
read more | digg story
June 27th, 2006
Ok, so it’s been 290 days since my last post - sorry if you’ve been waiting with bated breath. Anyway, I just upgraded to WordPress 2.0.2 and it seems to be much more polished and advanced than 1.5 and I wanted to get the word out. I showed it to Trey and it didn’t take long for him to upgrade as well. Something that came out of this, however, was that I had to sign up for a WordPress.com account to get an API key to enable the Akismet plugin so that I can could stop getting moderation e-mails from comment spam. A byproduct of registering with WP.com is that a blog is created. At first, I thought I would just leave it empty, but I started messing around with the “features” that come with it and I was truly impressed. So, I might start using my new blog for other purposes - stay tuned on that.
I have 4 old drafts on this blog that I want to get rid of because I know I’ll never finish them. Here they are in a nutshell:
- I upgraded my server from ClarkConnect 3.0 to 3.1 - it was a smooth upgrade with some good benefits, but I think I already need to upgrade again!
- I am using Vonage for my home phone service - it has its drawbacks, the quality isn’t the greatest, but I’ve cut my phone bill in half.
- 2 movie reviews - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is another great Miyazaki anime film. I gave it a 7/10. Saints and Soldiers, which is a fairly good WWII film that I gave a 7/10 as well.
That should just about cover it. I’ve seen a lot of movies since then and later I’ll post a quick list of what I’ve seen through Netflix that I think deserves to be mentioned.
April 26th, 2006
Pollock is, yet another, biopic about the 1950’s modern art painter, Jackson Pollock (Ed Harris), and how he came to fame through discovering the drip/splatter-paint method. The film also stars Marcia Gay Harden as Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife.
A film about a painter didn’t really appeal to me, but I remember seeing Harris nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, and it sparked my interest. Netflix told me I would like it and it got great reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, so I put it in my queue. When will I learn to trust my instincts? Don’t get me wrong, Harris and Harden were spectacular in this movie, but the movie itself was pretty boring to me. I didn’t feel anything but disgust for Pollock since he was portrayed as a selfish, egotistical drunk. An my feelings for his wife were no better because she chose to stay with him. Besides the good acting, I also thought the cinematography was wonderful. There were some great shots done with interesting color and some others of the New England countryside.
July 9th, 2005
Google has FINALLY gotten its act together and has released an official toolbar for Google. I’ve already installed it and it works wonderfully. Now I have form spell checking, form auto filling, autolink (street addresses to maps, and more), and all of the other usual features I’ve seen on the IE toolbar.
This was announced through the Google blog and you can go straight to the download here.
July 8th, 2005
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