Category: Web/Tech

FlashBlock

Under the assumption that if I find something annoying, someone else has found it annoying, I went looking for a Firefox browser plugin to block the automatic playing of Flash animations, and found FlashBlock. It puts a small button on the page where the animation would have appeared, which you can view the animation if you desire. One note: after you install the plugin, choose FlashBlock from the Tools->Extensions menu, and enable the plugin using Options before restarting the browser. It does not automatically enable itself when installed.

The Browser, Reloaded

I have been rebuilding my desktop after a clean install of Linux using Fedora Core 3 Release Candidate 5, which gives me my twice a year opportunity to revisit what software I use on a regular basis. This time, I am trying to see if I can forego using Privoxy. Privoxy is a proxy for web browsing, which means it puts itself between your browser and the Internet. Proxies can be used for several purposes: Privoxy screens out advertisements (including popup boxes) before the content is passed to the browser. Privoxy works extremely well, and is not all that difficult to set up, but of course setting up any proxy is beyond the comfort level of 98% of Internet users. (Privoxy is not just for Linux users: there are versions for Windows and other operating systems as well.)

However, since Firefox 1.0 is now included as a standard with RC5, I decided to see if I forego using Privoxy since Firefox has a lot of options to block annoying ads and popups. In other words, could I train Firefox quickly enough before the ads drive me crazy. (I am always appalled when I use other people’s browsers, and I am assaulted from all side by things flashing and rotating on the edges of the screen. Do I have less innate tolerance for such things, or is it simply that I have not learned to screen them out?)

So far, I am cautiously hopeful that I won’t have to install Privoxy. A few Right-Clicks to block ads got rid of the most annoying ads. I chose the option to eliminate popups, so those are gone as well. (Firefox allows you to make exceptions for sites that use popups to present content.)

In a weak moment, I downloaded and installed the Macromedia Flash plugin. (This takes an extra step or two in Linux, since the security features make it a little harder to install software.) Now I am wondering why I bothered. Is Flash used for anything but annoying ads?

Gmail

This summer, when I first started using Gmail, I changed almost all of my email discussions lists to my gmail address. However, in the past few days I have changed them back, because I had stopped reading the discussion lists since the interface was too slow. I use Thunderbird under Linux as my email client, and it is much faster to press the “n” key for the next post than it is to click the newer link and wait for the conversation to load.
I set up mail forwarding on my account (a service provided by my Internet provider) and use this to forward my mail to my gmail address. This way, I still get the storage and retrieval benefits of gmail, while being able to read my email rapidly.

Postal Confirmation

I may have been the last to learn this, but I just found out that the confirmation site for the United States Postal Service allows you to request status email to three names when you put in your confirmation number. I sent something priority mail to Nevada on Monday, and I just received the notice that it was delivered this morning.

Firefox and Gmail Loading Page Icon

A few days ago, I noticed that when I looked at my gmail account, the icon indicating that the page is loading never stopped spinning, even when I clicked the “stop loading this page” icon. I wrote a bug report to Google, and then decided to do a little googling and see if perhaps it was a Firefox problem instead. (The problem may or may not have been related to my upgrade to Firefox 0.9.2 on September 3rd.)

I suspected I had a Javascript problem, and someone mentioned clearning the cache as solving a Javascript problem. I cleared both cache and cookies, and exited from Firefox completely. When I started Firefox again, the problem was fixed.

Although I think everyone who wants a gmail invite has one at this point, I have a few to give out. Send an email to en01 at stardel dot com and I will invite you.

Copper.net

Fortified with milk and cookies, I spent some time this afternoon setting up my mother’s Internet access. We are trying Copper.net, a low cost Internet provider. This provider has a three month trial period of $1/month, with a monthly fee of $10 after that. Unlike many of the low cost providers, there is no yearly contract required, nor do they push advertising. So far I am pleased: I didn’t have any trouble getting her PC to connect to the service, and when I left her email and web surfing were both working. Before I left, she walked through booting her PC and logging on to the Internet.

I used the TheOpenCD to load Mozilla on her machine to use for email and web surfing. This is the second copy I’ve burned and distributed, and I appreciate not having to download Mozilla over dialup connections.