Book: Firefox Hacks By Nigel McFarlane (ISBN: 0-596-00928-3)

This is not a book review or anything, but i am referring to the above book at oreilly.com. You can find a detailed review at slashdot. What i am posting about is one of the sample chapters. If you are a techie firefox user with an interest in XML, HTML, Firefox and related stuff then you may want to check out hack 69 - Make new tags and widgets with XBL.

XBL (Extensible Binding Language) is one of mozilla project which is being slowly adopted by W3C. For the interested one, you might also want to check out an introduction to XBL on XULPlanet.com.

Firefox plugin: Download them all!

Here's a cool plugin for Firefox (it can also be used with the mozilla browser) that lets you download everything or even selective links on your current web page. You can download it by clicking on the logo on the right side of this text. I, for example, use it quite often to download 'All the PDF and DOC files' on my web page. Comes in quite handy when you get tired of doing right click and "Save Links As ...". Here are some screenshots and a link on obtaining the source code.

However, one enhancement it could would be to show the download progresss in the firefox download window as against a seperate window that it shows currently. That way i can pause/resume or even cancel one or more of the downloads.

The Firemonger Project

Here's my bit to promote my favourite Firebox browser! For all of those who have CD writers - here's The Firemonger Project. Help spread firefox. Download this CD, burn it and give it to family and friends.

And here's the firefox slogan

The Internet is yours!

The Internet does not belong to writers of viruses, spyware, pop-up scripts, or anyone else that want to interfere with your surfing experience. The Internet does not belong to a state or a company, as no one has monopoly on innovation. The Internet belongs to you.

By implementing the latest technology to improve your security, productivity and to customize to your needs, Firefox empowers your freedom.

Firefox is made by non-profit Mozilla Foundation and free download is available at www.getfirefox.com

Linux system squishes into Ethernet connector

Tux squeezed into a really really small space - Linux system squishes into Ethernet connector.

Two Nifty Extensions for Firefox - Scribe and Spellbound.

Here's a nifty little plug-in for Firefox - Scribe. Its gives a much needed ability to save form fields (those boxes that you can type into on a web page, before you click the "Submit"). And the second one is spellbound which lets you check the same boxes for spellings.

For the IE users (argh!), there's a similar but free-for-personal-use types add-on called IESpell.

Java is 10 years old.

The Java programming language is 10 years old. Here's a timeline - History. And in case you havent seen it already, do check out the Java Showcase.

ajax: a new approach to web applications

Here's an extremely refreshing article from AdaptivePath about a new approach to web applications - ajax. If you have seen or used google suggest, google maps - then you've already experienced it. For more details, read on ..

New version of w.bloggar.

My favourite blogging tool - w.bloggar (yes! the spellings right) just moved into version 4.00. For those of you who havent used it before - its a windows based tool that can be used for posting blog entries to a variety of blogs (blogger, nucleus, typepad, etc - see list).

However, if you happen to be be behind a corporate firewall (especially behind a ISA server), then the tool is unable to work - throws up a HTTP 407 error (whats that?). I've been having this problem since v3 and have been posting on their forums reguarly.

However, if you are not behind a firewall (esp. ISA) - then w.bloggar is a cool tool to have :)

GoogleX - now you see it, now you dont!

There was a post on google blogs yesterday about a new entrant into google labs called GoogleX. Had some nice DHTML (of which i couldnt see the utility) - but had a nice feel. Anyway! I noticed - today, its gone! Whats up guys - i wanted a look at the script :-D

Basics - XML Web Services

Here's a brief article on microsoft on the basics of Web Services - Web Services Developer Center: Web Service Basics: XML Web Services Basics.

Google updates Blogger API.

Google announced an update to its Blogger API on its blog today. New additions include:

1. Basic HTTP Authentication over SSL (whats that?)
   
2. Internationalization Support
3. Documentation

See the post for more details.

101 things mozilla can do but IE cant.

Here's an interesting list of such things. Its a bit dated, but even since then - microsoft IE hasnt made much progress.

Mozilla foundation dropping mozilla in favor of firefox.

The Inquirer has reported today that Mozilla foundation (which for some insane reason the author calls Mozzarella foundation ?!!) has stopped the development on its Mozilla browser in favour of its latest hit version - Firefox.

Strangely, i did not notice anything in Mozilla announcements about this. Another funny thing about the inquirer article is also uses the word 'Open Sauce' community (so, i am not the one being funny). Nick, did u mean Mozilla Foundation and open source? Or is the article some kind of spoof?

Google adds new feature - News Customization.

There's good news for news buff such as myself. Google news is now cutomizable. I am in the habit of checking science and technology, India, UK, US and Business sections, in that particular order. This required me to bunny hop across google international versions. The new customization feature does away with that - its all on the same page -- cool! Check out Google news customization faq for more details.

Do let me know what you think :)

A new feature quietly appears in Gmail.

.Google quietely introduced quite a nice feature in gmail a few days back. A careful look at the screenshot above will show you a new little "Gmail View" link that allows the user to switch between the default javascript requiring and a new "vanilla" (good old days kind) view which is similiar to just about any webmail you will see out there today. According to google help, this basic HTML view is for just about any browser that can show HTML. However, warns the doc - some advanced features like filter creation, settings, spellchecker, keyboard shortcuts (my fav!) and address autocompletion are disabled in this view.

Writing eclipse plugins!

Eclipse is my favourite IDE. I have seen it go from 1.x to 3.0.1 today. I have also seen it move from being a IBM project to a open source giant with a consortium boasting of several industrial giants - and with great delight, i may add :)

However, until the recent past, i had falled behind on using it. Today, i came across an article on eclipse and it roused my desire to get my hands dirty with some java work again. Back then, i was trying to study eclipse's PDE (platform development environment). Today, i decided to catch up, and my! i must say - it has come a long way since then.

However, i have a few rants - eclipse's download size!! Its gone up to 85MB (groan)! Admitted its got those many features - but .. its gonna be a few days until my download finishes (i am still using a slowwwwwww connection). Secondly, i tried looking up tutorials on the subject of writing plugins for 3.0 (double groan!). I was a bit dissappointed to see that not a lot of them exist :-( Do u know of any (do drop me a link as a comment to this entry).
IBM still has 2.0 tutorials written as early as 2002! The eclipse article section isnt too updated as well. I mean, its got stuff that talks about 3.0, etc. But if i am someone who is using eclipse 3.0 and haven seen 2.0 (neither do i want to!) and want to write eclipse plugins - where am i supposed to start! Reading how it was in 2.0 and then 3.0! why? The closest i came to something that was as detailed as i would like it was PDE does plugin and that too was written in Sept 2003.

Well, i am not going to let that stop me. I have decided to start my study - from the start and come up with a tutorial myself. Thats gonna take time - but i am going to do it! The Eclipse wiki seems like a good place to start at.

See also: Writing Plugins for Firefox

Finetuning Adblocking with Adblock

Adblock has been *the* plugin for me from the day i started using Firefox. Since then blocking ads has been childs play for me and the people to whom i have introduced it to.

In the Adblock settings (Tools --> Adblock --> Preferences) i noticed that one can export the filters i have gathered so far. For those who havent used Adblock so far, a filter is like a rule that adblock can be taught to use while blocking ads. An example would be '*/banners/*' - this is like telling adblock to block all the images in the current page that fit the pattern /banner/. Simple right?

Anyway, i exported my settings into a text file on my disk and realized that it looks like this:

[Adblock]
*.bcst.yahoo.com/*
*.falkag.net/*
*.maxserving.com/*
*.pointroll.com
(and so on ....)

Wondering what filters others were implementing - i googled for it (keyword: filetype:txt [Adblock]). I found around 294 files. All i needed to do was download and add *all* of them to a single text file. I also weeded out some duplicates (copy-paste it into excel, sort it and remove the duplicates and copy-paste it back into your text file). Remember to make sure that you have only one [Adblock] on top of this file.

I fired up Adblock preferences, cleared my existing filters (Addblock options --> Remove all filters) and then imported my new set (Adblock options --> Import Filters --> Select our filters file). To test it, i visited some sites notorious for floating ads, popups, banners and what not.

The verdict? I found it was quite effective! Give it a shot and let me know if it worked for you as well ;)

See also: Adblock Plus

How empty are empty harddisks?

Formatting a harddisk is supposed to make it 'clean' right? Wrong! Here's a article that says otherwise.

The article talks about an experiment where harddisks where bought fom general sources like online auction sites like Ebay and analyzed for recoverable data. The results were quite interesting.