Thursday, July 27, 2006

I've Been A Bit Scarce Today

Sorry 'bout that. I've been working hard on the blog, though. It took me the better part of the day to find and implement two things:


A decent "recent comments" script that does what I want.

Smilies.

The recent comments script is working well. My only issue with it is that if you comment on a thread that's not on the front page, it doesn't register. There doesn't seem to be a good work-a-round for that.

The smilies seem to be working well...

In Firefox. Not IE. I'm not sure what the issue there is, but I'll look into it tomorrow.

That's all the news that's fit to print.

Kisses and goodnight.

:)


5 Eloquent Orations:

On 7/27/2006 11:38:00 PM, Blogger blipey waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

IE blows big, sweaty, donkey balls? Just a guess, of course, but I bet I can get a few supporting votes.

 

On 7/28/2006 12:18:00 AM, Blogger JanieBelle waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

How exactly did the donkey evolve big sweaty balls, anyway? Has anyone looked into this?

;)

Since Kate introduced me to Mr. Firefox, I gotta tell ya' blipey. You ain't lyin'.

Ya' just don't know how cool surfing can be 'til you're kickin' it with the fox!

Kisses,
JanieBelle

 

On 7/28/2006 03:31:00 AM, Blogger DaveScot waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

What is it that you like so much about Firefox?

 

On 7/28/2006 08:45:00 AM, Blogger JanieBelle waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Hi Dave!

this is Kate-mostly

Firefox is the coolest thing since Al Gore invented the interweb.

:)

Right out of the box, it comes with a kick ass ad blocker. I'm talking 0 pop-ups, and the list gets updated all the time, as ad companies come up with new domains and new tricks, FF evolves right along with them.

And you can add to the ad blocker. It can even block ads embedded in a webpage. When you right click on an image, you select "adblock this image" and you get a little pop up window with the full url of the image in a text box. Hack off the end of the url, add a wildcard, and you'll never see another image from that directory. Or hack off even more, and you'll never see another image from that whole domain.

That alone is worth the price of admission.

You can customize the crap out of it, too. Don't want your toolbar up top? Put it on the bottom. Or the left. Or the right. Or get rid of it. Want two toolbars to separate these tools from those tools? Easy. Don't like the look? Skin it. Tons of skins out there. Don't like the icons in the toolbar? Change 'em. Use someone else's, or make your own. The favorites that you use most often can go right in their own toolbar, too, so you don't have to go all the way to the menu.

But the very best thing about FF is that it's open source. Extensions is the feature that really makes the fox rock. Wish you could have a toolbar that gives you this weeks weather forcast? Make an extension that does that. It's like a plug-in. Of course, somebody already beat you to that one.

Annoyed by embedded flash objects? Make an extension that blocks them from playing unless you choose to play them. Oh, Somebody already did that, too!

There's one for removing any object or text at all from any web page.

There's one for putting the date and time in your toolbar.

There's one for adding scripts to your blog.

There's one for inserting ubb code buttons into a bulletin board to make your life easier when the board operator doesn't.

There's one for embedding your instant messenger right into your browser.

Whatever you don't like about your browsing, fix. Change. Adjust.

FF is about serving us, the browsing public, rather than serving Microsoft or advertisers.

Hell, if you don't like the way our site looks, you can download an extension that lets you change our page look in your browser to whatever you want. Or CNN's page, or even Little Billy Gate's site.

Wanna know why IE suddenly came out with tabs and an adblocker? Market share. Word was spreading about open source browsers like Firefox. Internet Explorer's grip is slipping. These browsers FORCED Microsoft to start giving a damn about the public instead of the ad companies. Up until that point, MS had pretty much dictated how the web worked.

They even deliberately broke things in their browser, so that it would not be standards compliant. Knowing that 90% of the world was using their browser, they realized that people would write their web pages to work in IE, rather than work in a browser that worked correctly. It worked for a long time.

I actually started using it for spite. I keep using it because it's head and shoulders above IE.

Janie still checks things in IE, just to make the blog works in IE, but she's adapted quickly. She's even tweaked Firefox better than I had it set up for her.

 

On 7/31/2006 08:30:00 AM, Blogger Lifewish waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

I actually started using it for spite. I keep using it because it's head and shoulders above IE.

You say it, sister. Firefox is pretty much the holy grail of browsing, and open source got there first.

And what with the whole OpenDocument kerfuffle, I reckon OpenOffice too is going to be getting a lot more popular in the future. My mildly-technophobic mum already uses it to produce PDFs. Maybe someday it'll have enough market share to actually force standards compliance on MS.

 

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