My Surmise

The above flick was awarded the grand prize of $5000. All I could think to my self after reading Mozilla's announcement is why? When I first saw this commercial I was so confused (and I still am). First of all, how old is the girl in this flick. She sounds like she's 8 years old but then she says she started surfing when she was 12. My theory, shes 12 and a half. What really bothered me about this flick was the ending, "My other browser is a surf board" What the hell does that mean? Do you take IE into the ocean with you. If anyone can explain it to me please do. I think this was overall a well shot and directed flick, but by no means did it deserve to win. On a happier note, my favorite flick, Whee!, won second prize.

Labels: Firefox, Firefox Flix

I was looking at my taskbar the other day and I noticed, I really hate Microsoft. All of the programs I use on a regular basis, are open source, replacements for crappy Microsoft products. Firefox replaces IE, Thunderbird replaces Outlook, Open Office replaces Word and although not a Microsoft product, Gaim replaces AIM. One thing that pushed me over the edge today was the restart nag that appears after every automatic Microsoft update. If I didn't want to restart 10 minutes ago, do you think I want to restart now, huh? How about a "Don't ask me again" button? I could forgive Microsoft if it were shareware, but you know what its expensive and I deserve non invasive software. After a quick Google search, I found a solution, or so I thought. Apparently in Windows Pro, you can easily edit this setting to change the amount of time between nags or kill them completely. But luck for me I have Home Edition and the only solution for me is to "net stop wuauserv" into the Run dialogged every time Microsoft threatens to kill me. I also found some sort of a work arround for Home Users, I installed this registry value and I think it will remove the restart option from the dialog. This will keep me from accidentally restarting but (I think) the dialog box will still nag me every 10 minutes. My final words...GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER MICROSOFT! *Update* Since using the above hacks, my Automatic updates have not been working at all and although that is a way to get rid of the annoying update nag, it probably not the best method. Basically don't try them.

Labels: Firefox, Microsoft, Open Source

The image on the top is a screen shot from the shootout seen in this week's episode of 24 and the image on the bottom is a screen shot of the Bluth Company Stair Car (Arrested Development). I enjoyed the camio but this is not a good sign for us Arrested Development fans. Assuming this is the same car, the Bluth Company logo has been taken off, which may mean that fox (or anyone else for that matter) has any plans to restore the show.

Labels: 24, Arrested Development, Fox

For those of you who are not farmiliar with the FireFox Flix contest, basically, Mozilla was seeking volunteers to design a 30 second commercial for FireFox, the winner would recieve some trivial gifts and I am uncertain weather there are plans to release these ads on TV. Anyway, I have been pretty disappointed with the ads that have been posted so far. Many of them did not make any sense and others were poorly shot. The one I posted above, was my favorite so far, it may not be feature any of FireFox's features, but its funny and would probably convince people to check out www.getfirefox.com.

Labels: Firefox, Firefox Flix

Wow its been a while since my last post. Well I'm back. I recently received an invitation to try out the new Google Page Creator and as any dedicated (obsessed) google user would do, I registered. My feelings on their new product are mixed. First of all I thought it was really easy to use. The tool is perfect for a novice web designer. If you chose their WYSIWYG editor, you just need to chose a template and type. The WYSIWYG editor allows you to change the font, font face and font size, it also allows you to add links and images (image hosting included). The template is also pre-formated with a title, subtitle, body and footer. One important feature I found missing was a spell check, but I am sure that will be implemented in the future. In the end you are left with a clean professional editor Another plus was that there are no ads. I remember the first web host I used put these huge flashing, obtrusive ads on the top of the page, not with google! On the negative side, you get a subdomain that matches your google user ID (userID.googlepages.com). In most cases your google account is linked to a gmail account and I can see this leading to a lot of spam. This is the reason I chose not to publish a sample page and also the reason I will not be using this tool. Once Google works out the kinks I think this will be an excellent tool which will make web publishing much more accessible tot the general public.

Labels: Google