Archive for April, 2006

It looks as if Firefox Places will be disabled for Firefox 2.0. This is a disappointing turn of events, but the developers apparently feel it needs more polish before it can be let loose on the public. I’ve only briefly played with the latest implementation in recent trunk builds (it has since been disabled), and what I saw seemed pretty good. Live bookmarks need work, and accessing the Places window is still a little clunky. The feature set for 2.0 is still fairly interesting. Hopefully, 2.0 will be an exciting release.

So, apparently, the Nintendo Revolution has been renamed to Nintendo Wii. Let the jokes commence.

This is the primary problem with using “code names” in the wild. When an official name comes along, replacing said code name, early adopters are thrown for a loop. It happened with the Firefox web browser not too long ago. Early builds of Firefox were known as Phoenix and later Firebird. I actually happen to prefer the Firebird name; it keeps some semblance of continuity with their Thunderbird product (plus, it just sounds cool). At first, the Firefox name seemed really stupid. But as time has passed, it has become ingrained in our culture, and has lost that silly feel to it.

Can Nintendo’s new console do the same? I don’t really think so. The name they’ve chosen is so incredibly stupid, that it will be an uphill battle to win back the respect they had earned. We’ll see how they fare in the long run with this decision. I have a bad feeling that they won’t do as well.

Googlebar Lite 4.1 is currently waiting for four translations to come in. After they arrive, it will be made available for download. When that will be, I cannot say (hopefully soon). There are, as of this writing, a total of 10 bug fixes going in to this next release, several of which are fairly major. For the curious, here is the list of fixes as they appear in my change log:

• The search modifier keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Enter, Shift+Enter, Ctrl+Shift+Enter) were not working.
• The “Remember last combined menu search type” option was not being correctly applied to searches performed from the search box using the keyboard.
• The “Use custom Google News domain” option was not working properly.
• The search box in the Noia theme did not render correctly.
• Toggling the combined search or up buttons caused the toolbar’s height to change in some cases.
• The search box now uses a reasonable height when placed on a toolbar with large icons.
• When Googlebar Lite was dragged to the customize toolbars dialog, the resulting widget was improperly sized. The new widget now also makes use of a new icon.
• The customize widget became invisible when dragged into the customize toolbar using the Noia theme.
• Corrected some translation errors in the Catalan (ca-ES) translation.
• Corrected some corrupt strings in the French (fr-FR) translation.

The first three in the list seem pretty major to me. Almost all of the skinning bugs were found tonight, and their resolved status should please some people. With any luck, version 4.1 will be a much more stable release.

Social networking websites are all the rage, and they’re appearing more and more in the daily news, particularly in regards to people’s privacy. But I truly don’t understand the mentality of those who use such services. Granted, the majority of users are undoubtedly teenagers who “hang out” with their friends online. But can’t you just do that using something like instant messenger, or IRC? Or is the concept of IRC so ancient now that the kids today don’t even know what it is? I just don’t see the glamour of posting a web page where I place all of my personal information out there for all to see.

“Hey, check out these scandalous photos of me,” or “check out a map of where I live,” or even better yet “here’s my social security and credit card numbers!”

I mean, do people even think through putting stuff like that on the web? Today’s web is forever. With Google cache and sites like the Internet Wayback, things you post can live on for eternity. Did you really want that photo of your drunken prom night broadcast for all to see, even potential employers who may Google you when considering whether or not to hire you?

Perhaps I’m simply too “high brow” for these websites. Or perhaps I’m just a freak who isn’t “with it.” Or perhaps the millions of people using such networking websites are just idiots.

I am of the latter opinion.

I know I’ve mentioned this a number of times already, and I’ll do my best to make this the final post on the topic, but Oblivion is so incredibly fun. After 73.5 hours of gameplay, my level 34 Wanderer (a character class I created) has finally completed the main quest line. I’ve rid the world of Tamriel of those pesky Oblivion gates, and generally saved the entire populace from annihilation. Fortunately, the game doesn’t end there. I’ve completed 81 quests so far, and still have a total of 15 active quests under my belt. There’s no telling how many I have yet to start. My character has risen to the top of the Thieves guild, is nearly to the top of the Mages guild, and is on the way up in the Fighters guild (I haven’t even started the Dark Brotherhood line of quests). To say that this game is packed with stuff to do is an understatement.

Unfortunately, I’ve run into a number of crashes recently. I occasionally get dumped to the desktop when performing a quick-load, and my graphics card has conked out a time or two (I’ve got to build a new machine). But thankfully, the sheer joy I get from playing this game overshadows these annoying problems. And the upcoming game patch that Bethesda announced will hopefully solve these issues. If you still haven’t purchased this game, I highly recommend it. Oblivion is a purchase you won’t regret.

Googlebar Lite still has problems. Read all about it at Born Geek.

I’ve been under the weather recently, hence the somewhat slower posting (although not being able to think of anything to post about hasn’t helped). I’m very busy at work, and I’m still very busy with Oblivion (best game of the year!), so posting time has also been cut. If I could ever get rid of this damn cough, as well as these aches and pains, things might get back to normal.

There are a few points that need to be mentioned in regards to Googlebar Lite 4.0. The first one is incredibly important.

1. The Save information I enter in forms and the Search Bar option in the Privacy section of Firefox’s options dialog must be enabled in order for Googlebar Lite 4.0’s search history to work. If you’ve turned that feature off, you don’t get any search history. There is no workaround.
2. There is a problem with the German translation of Googlebar Lite 4.0. Version 4.0.1 should fix this.
3. I am looking at posting GBL at BabelZilla, in the hopes of adding additional translations.

Look for version 4.0.1 sometime this week.