Firefox 3.2 Alpha now out!

Firefox 3.2 Alpha release is now available! Not sure yet what is new with this release but I'm sure to give it a try, might break a lot of extensions though.

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

Fastest browser on earth!

I do hope you've already switched to Firefox or something a lot better than IE. However there is something else faster than Firefox at the moment and I JUST can't wait for it to get out of alpha/beta!!! It's Firefox Minefield

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

They got the fastest javascript engine in the planet at the moment, if you go give it a try enable JIT by typing about:config in the url bar and then search for jit. Then set:

javascript.options.jit.chrome;true
javascript.options.jit.content;true

And there you have it, you'll be surfing faster than Google Chrome, but if you want to test your extensions make sure you try and install the nightly addon to override the compatibility settings.


Sunspider Javascript benchmark result

FF3.1b2
Total: 1270.6ms +/- 2.0%

Google Chrome
Total: 1970.0ms +/- 0.6%

FF3.0.3
Total: 2710.0ms +/- 1.1%

IE8 B2
Total: 7600.6ms +/- 0.3%

Can't watch the Olympics on Linux!!!

Went to nbcolympics.com to watch my favorite events on the olympics and it wouldn't let me, so finally had to grab my laptop and see what the requirements were.

I knew I had flash properly configured on my LinuxMint pc but it required something else!!! Microsoft Silverlight!

Damn, what a fine way to muscle your way into people's computers, "wanna watch it online gotta install our fucking Silverlight".



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Ubuntu Kiosk + Opera = FTW!

Recently I've been tasked by the company that I work with to create kiosk terminals. We had some old Dell's lying around, they have a 400mhz processor, 128mb ram, 10gb hard drive. They would basically just show the company website but prevent them from going anywhere else.

Now I thought this would be a good chance to show them Ubuntu and Firefox, I'm an evangelist for those two. However what happens next is a trip into the twilight zone, I ended up having to use Opera.

It seems there are no good firefox extension that turns it into a kiosk, I tried searching on its add-on database. While there are some, most of them only works in Windoze!!! WTF!!! Mozilla wtf!!!! Open Source, ever heard of it???

Damn I was so pissed off, add the fact that the wireless usb adapters are a pain to configure in Ubuntu. I started to think that maybe I'm going on the wrong path. After googling for a miracle I finally found one post in a forum suggesting why not try opera... I've used opera before, in fact before Firefox I was a huge opera fan.

Sure enough, damn it was so easy with Opera, opera -kioskmode -nomenu -nosysmenu etc.
http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/

Check that link for the full list of options, everything worked so sweet in opera and it was fast too. I finished all the kiosk stations in a day, and wasted 2-3 days trying to get firefox to work.

To sum it up, I installed Ubuntu using the server iso. Create a kiosk user with limited system access. Then installed xorg, xscreensaver, opera, msttcorefonts. Got the wireless adapters working using wpa_supplicant and ndiswrapper.

I created a script to start X and then when opera closes it will logout the user, this script is then called from .bashrc

kiosk.sh

#! /bin/bash
startx
clear
exit

.xinitrc

xscreensaver &
exec opera -kioskmode -noexit -nomenu -nosysmenu etc...

Removed the other terminals and left 2 running, didn't have any graphical login manager, and didn't need any window manager. They run fast and sweet on those old Dell suckers, I bet they are thankful that I saved them from the junkyard.

As for firefox, I'm so disappointed... really I am!

This post from ubuntuforums helped me install programs when the ubuntu servers were being leeched to death after the release of 8.04 it was posted by izut.

Re: How to Create Local Repository on Hard Disk

---

I'll describe a few steps I made to construct my personal repository. My current setup is:

- Ubuntu 'Warty' installed with Internet access (at work)
- Ubuntu 'Warty' installed without Internet access (at home)

Using the usual Ubuntu repositories, I updated the system and installed some packages I wanted (ruby, apache, mysql, etc). You don't need to install that on the host system, just use the apt-get's download only option. All files downloaded from repositories are in the /var/cache/apt/archives directory in the host system. I did these steps:

1. Created /opt/repo directory (could be the home directory)
2. Created the directory /opt/repo/binary (copied from Debian specs)
3. Copied all debs from my update from /var/cache/apt/archives to /opt/repo/binary
4. Executed dpkg-scanpackages like this:
# pwd
/opt/repo
# dpkg-scanpackages binary /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz
5. Burned a CD with its contents

For use that in my standalone host, I did this:
# apt-cdrom add
...

I think it's all.

Cya.

Firefox 3 Beta 5

Firefox web browser | International versions: Get Firefox in your language

Firefox 3 Beta 5, is now out, but you should probably wait before updating to the newest release. Cause this one breaks a lot of plugins and not even the lifehacker hack can enable them. Adblock appears on the toolbar but is completely worthless, it DOES NOT work!!!

Fix it!!!!Fix it!!!! Fix it!!!! Fix it!!!! Fix it!!!! Fix it!!!! NOW!!!

ImageHost Grabber

This nice and nifty firefox extension is perfect for leeching those image hosting sites.

ImageHost Grabber - ImageHost Grabber

What is ImageHost Grabber?
ImageHost Grabber is a firefox extension that will download all images on a page that are hosted on an image host. You find this often in web forums where people will use a free image host to post a gallery of pictures. This extension will allow you to download all the images on the current page.

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