Firefox Frustrations

I hate to say it, but I'm just about to move over to Chrome. Firefox just has too many bugs. I constantly get script errors, and it's always gobbling too much CPU. I'm writing this on Chrome, which will take some getting used to, but may be better in the end.

What browser do you use?

Updated...

I finally updated my Firefox to the most current version, and my Thunderbird. I had resisted updating for quite some time... I was on a virtually obsolete version of Thunderbird, and my Firefox was fairly old. Both updates required multiple updates to reach the current versions. By that, I mean I would update, then the software would completely update again, then again.

I think I've got Firefox almost to where I want it. I had to download an add-on that made my status bar reappear, since I was not happy with the new garbage the developers decided to put in. I have some issues with the general layout as well, it just seems slightly wrong somehow. I think I was on that previous version a few years too long.

Thunderbird is going to take some getting used to. I don't like the tabs at all. I suppose I'll adjust, but I'm a grumpy old techie. I like neat stuff, but I don't like dramatic changes to stuff I use regularly.

I also want to write up a review of the new $79 Kindle I got. I really want to compare it to my old Kindle, which I still love. I think I shall do a full report, with pictures, soon. If I can get the time.

Coffee in the Morning

Those of you who know me know that I don't drink coffee. I'm one of those rare people who can't even stand the smell of the stuff. So it may come as a surprise that I like my Morning Coffee. Of course, I'm referring to a Firefox Add-on!

Morning Coffee is a really simple tool that allows you to add pages to a list, and each morning when you get on your browser you just hit the Morning Coffee button on your toolbar and it loads up all the pages set for that day. It's very simple, sweet, and does what it says on the tin.

I've been using it for a week now with no problems on the latest version of Firefox, so if you have certain pages you want to check out on certain days and are running the best browser, I recommend trying out this coffee to see if it works for you, too.

Linkdump for a Holiday

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #194: Heinlein, Cap Meets Duke, and Superman by Morrison/Miller/Waid/Peyer.

Star Wars Yoga.

Microsoft Malware. Seriously, what business does Microsoft have making an extension for Firefox that is secretly installed and can't be deleted?

An example of Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

Oo De Lally.

Giant Spider Attacks Liverpool! Be sure to check out the pictures.

The classic game Oregon Trail coming soon to an iPhone near you.

The Seattle Sketcher sketches the Sounders Football Club Billboard. I'm pretty excited about real football coming to Seattle, and almost wish I could go to a game. Maybe if I still lived in the Seattle area. *sigh*

Ten Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know About, and which everyone who is concerned about professional appearances should have activated.

A good soldier who did her job with honor is spit on by the military and stripped of her benefits because of a vindictive moron who hated her because she is gay. She did NOTHING wrong in her job at all, but she was still punished because of her private life. This is sick injustice, and needs to stop. What makes people so perverted that they concern themselves with what other people do in bed? (via)

And, to calm me down after that last outburst, here's a Pug for the in-Laws.

Thursday Links

If I ever have money again, I'm getting me some Owly bookmarks from the ALA. I love ALA bookmarks. And posters. And New Stuff. I just wish the ALA website was more user-friendly.

Everyone is on Facebook. I had to limit my Facebook time with Leechblock. What about you?

I love this entry in strange maps, which shows the motto of each state within the state's borders. I'm not too upset that Washington's motto is the translation of Alki.

I doubt I'll ever get this good at it, but I'd like a ukulele. I could try to play Eleanor Rigby for my hubby.

Mars rover takes weekend off, doesn't call home. Scientists are puzzled.

Threats to children online are overblown says the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. However, there are lots of bullies out there.

Boing Boing has a picture of Edison's Price-fixing EULA.

Don't have a bike lane to ride in? Make your own.

Lovely. New malware phishes for bank info without you having to be on a fake page.

Ok, what? A strip-search for ibuprofen???? I guess I was a druggie in high school, because I always had painkiller on me. This girl was innocent though. Insane.

More LOLCat Theology. And a little more.

Firefox 3

So. I downloaded it. Updated my add-ons, some manually (had to go into the xpi file with a zip archiver, find the index.rdf, and change the max version from 2.0 something to 3.0 something... and in one case it didn't work until I changed it to 4.0 something!). All the stuff I need to work is working.

Playing with it now. It's faster. Has a slightly different look. I haven't noticed many changes in my usual browsing. Haven't seen any cool features that would've made me desperate to upgrade today (although I did anyway, hmm).

I'm told the URL bar is now an "Awesome Bar", and I admit the search functions there are... well, staggering. But I don't usually type my URLs, I tend to browse via links and bookmarks, so at the moment that hasn't impacted me much. I'll probably get more impressed as I go along.

Did I mention that it's faster? The more I play with it, the faster it seems to be.

Friday Night... I'm Home and Blogging

Yay! More on Doctor Who: The Forgotten.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #150: Green Arrow, Grendel, and Nextwave.

Babymen and Brave and the Bold.

Firefox Logo found in deep space.

Eco-friendly toys.

Washington State bees are dying.

Leonardo da Vinci's mother was a slave.

More about my eighth cousin.

I would eat it. If it was good, I'd never eat regular meat again.

Wednesday Links and Ranting

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #147: Daredevil Cartoon, Azrael, and Sgt. Rock.

It's no secret that I've lost 110 pounds by counting calories in the last couple of years. Which means I really want nutrition data to be available at restaurants for the rare times I get to go out. However, I've never been keen on King County's Plan, which requires that data to be put on the freakin' MENU. I want the data available, either on a website or a booklet I can take home. I don't want it on the menu.

The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales.

Happy Anniversary (belated) to Larry Young's AiT/Planet Lar.

More belated: The Uncanny X-Peeps.

Wait, Firefox 3 is NOT bloatware?!? Someone is actually listening to users? NO WAY!

Garrett links to stabilized footage of that near airplane crash.

Hmm. I tend to think that parents who reject vaccines ought to have that right... but we ought to have the right to completely quarantine their children away from properly vaccinated children. Those kids should have "I AM NOT VACCINATED" in big letters on all their clothing. If any parent complains that such a child is in their properly vaccinated child's class, the non-vaccinated kid should be rejected and forced to find a new class. Then those rare cases of people for whom the vaccine fails won't be put at risk by people for whom intelligence has failed.

Oooh, awesome 1934 Popular Science report about a planned Soviet amphibious monorail. Cool.

Clean up an environmental threat and make clean energy at the same time. That's the goal of converting algae blooms to biofuel.

The X Prize offers $10 Million for 100-mpg vehicle. I hope someone claims it soon.

Chocolate may save forests (Video Link).

LOL graphic: The Wizard of Oz from recent Doctor Who.

Arty pug helps kid to read. And these pugs don't look happy.

Linkdump

Heidi finds women in comics in 1982 from the con photos posted recently, and goes over the achievements of those women.

I'm even less impressed with Zuda, now.

I've been using the FoxIt PDF reader for a few years (WAY better than Acrobat). I've just learned about Sumatra PDF, which is supposed to be even faster and smaller. If you don't need extra crap, just want to read PDF files, try one of these.

Toronto 1977 vs 2007, a picture set that is really cool. Start here and keep clicking on "next day" once you've read each page.

Cyber-Eyes. Nice Design. Salad that Bites Back.

Oh dear. LOLcats, the story.

J. L. Bell on A Wrinkle in Time. I need to reread that book sometime.

Websites that block Firefox, and the people who don't care about such websites, because they suck.

Bonus Lunkdimp

Unshelved looks at Global Frequency.

Leonard Kirk Cartoons Again. He's got a sick sense of humor.

FilkerTom directs us to an on-line jukebox.

Safe for work Porn For Women. This one is for all the husbands out there. Be sure to follow the second set of links that disagree with the first.

Ah, the latest flap is the Bloggers Code of Conduct proposed by Tim O'Reilly. Scoble talks about it, and Boing Boing points to a response to the initial proposal. I have no problem with following a code of conduct, but I have issues with other folks telling me what that code ought to be.

Seattle Police found a recycler who was taking stolen copper to recycle. I think I mentioned the copper thieves before, well, hopefully this raid will stop some of it.

The theft of a webcomic. Stealing other people's work is NOT FINE ART.

Planet Karen reacts to the theft of a webcomic.

Are you on the list? Believe me, you really don't want to be. Speaking of lists, Korean War hero branded a terrorist for a speech critical of Bush.

Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Avoid. I figured I wouldn't have any, but they included a couple of very useful ones on the list. *sigh*

Michael Sensei posts a very informative report on the Yamato. I was a huge Starblazers fan as a kid, getting up early every morning to watch it.

Cute Link: The Bucket Saga. To really understand it, start at the end and work your way back to the most recent post.

Firefox Won't Load CSS Properly?

My sister's computer (Windows XP) was having trouble with IE6 since she got it. It would not load CSS files, so it wouldn't show webpages properly. She installed Firefox and it worked fine, so she started using Firefox.

Last night she visited and I noticed that she had a previous version of Firefox, so I suggested she use our cable internet to get upgraded to the latest. She thought that was a nifty idea, so she upgraded... only now Firefox wouldn't load CSS anymore and every website that used CSS looked bad.

So we started a marathon troubleshooting session with her friend A-- and later his uncle (both of whom work at Microsoft). Early in the troubleshooting we focused on the browsers, but eventually we figured out that it had to be something else. My sister installed Netscape and Opera, and both of them worked fine, just like the older version of Firefox.

After trying everything we could think of (firewall, anti-virus, possible spyware problem, maybe we need to get an exorcist) we started checking through the accessibility options. Eventually we found that in the control panel, under Accessibility Options, in the Display tab... my sister's computer had "Use High Contrast" selected. When we took that away, the CSS loaded on both IE6 and Firefox.

The difference in the computer itself was minor. It had apparently been set on High Contrast a long time ago, possibly by the vendor (she bought the computer new). I admit it was one of the strangest problems I'd ever seen on a computer. I figured I would blog about it so that we'd have a record of it in case anyone else runs across a strange "browser won't load CSS" or "websites don't look right" problem. I Googled the heck out of this last night and never ran across a solution.