Finally! Firefox 7 delivers!

From using it for about 20 minutes, I can say the memory usage is down and the memory holes appear to be fixed. I can actually read articles at The Economist without crashing my computer (previously it would just keep chewing up more and more memory). My Chrome temptations are now purged (though Smooth Gestures turning out to be spyware was a prohibitive impediment; no other mouse gestures extension for Chrome works right).

OpenOffice.org to be handed over to Apache

I suspect this will lead to option number 2 of my predictions of OpenOffice's future being the case. Assuming the two projects don't find a way to run in parallel (with improvements of one being implemented in the other and vice-versa) or compete with each other until both flounder. The latter seems unlikely, because I have a hard time seeing anything else taking OpenOffice/LibreOffice's particular niche. Commercial software certainly can't, and I don't think Google Docs really fits in that space either. Aside from change-tracking and collaboration (which are phenomenal), Google Docs is too primative currently and doesn't work offline anymore (though that's expected to change sometime in the future).

Wow. An episode of FLOSS Weekly that's interesting!

Usually they just talk about some random incredibly-niche open source project that almost no one even in the open source world is interested in with someone involved in the project. This time they don't have a guest and so (glory of glories!) they're actually just chatting about current events in the open source world, including products I use or am actually interested in using. Amazing.

Ubuntu aims for 200m users. Good luck with that

If tablet PCs take off, then they might be decently positioned to do that since that's what Unity seems designed for (as many Slashdotters have pointed out). That's incredibly unlikely to happen. Tablet PCs have been around for a long, long time and went nowhere. The iPad is successful because it isn't a tablet PC; it's a tablet, period, in other words a giant smart phone running a modified smart phone OS on an ARM chip. Does anyone really want to run Ubuntu, a desktop OS, on an ARM-based tablet? Doubtful.

The death of GNOME 2 and the move to Unity is really making me really resent KDE's permanent obtuseness when it comes to drag 'n' drop (i.e., forcing the user to choose what to do with a file every blasted time instead of moving it if its within a filesystem like all sane UIs do). I guess I'll give XFCE a try when I'm forced for upgrade my current system.

New Links

I've added a bevy of new links to the sidebar (if you can't see it, click on Home in the top bar). They are mainly various Open Source resources, including the unofficial LibreOffice web forums, which considering The Document Foundations unwillingness to provide a web forum itself, is something that the LibreOffice community should support. Mozilla (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.) users had to create their own web forums too in the form of mozillaZine.

Whither OpenOffice?

Now that Oracle has (after the introduction of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation) decided to make OpenOffice a community-based project, what will happen in the world free StarOffice derivatives? I can see three possibilities:

1. OpenOffice successfully transfers to The Document Foundation and LibreOffice is merged back into OpenOffice under the OpenOffice name. I strongly suspect that The Document Foundation would undergo major changes in that case.


2. OpenOffice becomes its own successful project. In that case, LibreOffice and The Document Foundation die on the vine. Not only would the advantage of the OpenOffice name be nearly insurmountable, the LibreOffice community is mired in excessive open source zeal and geek elitism (the bitter opposition by a large segment of said community to the introduction of web forums--because "mailing lists are better"--is only one example of that). Reading the LibreOffice lists, one would never guess that the overwhelming majority of OpenOffice downloads are for Windows. Linux comes in third behind Mac OS X and far, far, far behind Windows. And if you think that's just because Linux users have all gone to LibreOffice, think again (web snapshot for June of last year, pre-LibreOffice).


3. Oracle manages to hamstring community-driven OpenOffice somehow. In that case LibreOffice either gets its act together, or it doesn't. If it does, it could supplant OpenOffice. Otherwise, free Star Office-derivatives will languish.

Options 1 and 2 seem the most likely. A fourth possibility is that The Document Foundation receives the OpenOffice brand and decides to kill it. That is too stupid to consider.

Update: A commenter made a good point below about the reliability of the usage statistic:

Your figure for how many people use OpenOffice is bogus. Linux users get their copy of OpenOffice bundled in their distro; they don't need to download it. So unless you throw in all the copies distributed via Linux distros, your figures mean nothing.

Okay, so the ~90% OpenOffice.org for Windows download figure doesn't reflect the overall share of Windows OpenOffice.org. It does still show that there are a huge number of OpenOffice.org Windows users even if we can't be sure how much of the OpenOffice.org install base they represent.

Never upgrade an Operating System

Always do a fresh install. Or so they say. I should have listened. Instead, I decided to upgrade Ubuntu 10.10 to 11.04 with the built-in tool and it's been a disaster. First, it crashed half-way through and wouldn't let me back into the GUI. That's okay, I said: I'll just run the command-line upgrade utility. That worked, but the install is totally messed up. Even in "Ubuntu Classic (with no effects)" I'm getting all kinds of graphical anomalies. I'll do a fresh install from scratch. My only question is whether I'll install 11.04 again or go back to 10.10.

Upgrading wasn't really necessary either. I already have LibreOffice and Firefox 4 via PPAs and I wouldn't want Unity even if my current machine wasn't too antiquate to run it.

Update: I'm reinstalling 10.10. 11.04 simply doesn't work right with my hardware. Actually, my modern Laptop won't even boot the CD, which coupled with the video problems on my very old IBM Pentium 4 tells me that Natty Narwhal simply isn't ready for prime time. Not surprising considering that they decided to foist Unity, a Desktop Environment they made from scratch and that has no following, on everyone in this release. Making the release actually work is apparently a secondary concern.

What is Mozilla thinking?

They seem to be planning to kill off the Profile Manager feature quite soon. Idiots. Hopefully Thunderbird won't face the same fate in the near future, as that is where I use Profile Manager more (due to my use of a backup profile). Maybe that'll be the silver lining to their sidelining of Thunderbird (another dubious decision).

 

Don't be nice about WordPress Theme Ratings

There's an enormous sea of WordPress themes, and most of them are (let's be honest) dreck. The rating system doesn't do nearly enough to navigate said ocean as it is. By all means, don't be afraid to give one and two star ratings when they're deserved.

One of the greatest things about WordPress.org...

is the enormous plug-in ecosystem. Latest example: I wanted a way to backup and reimport my linklist (which I just added). I figured out how, using a direct link to the OPML file and the default Blogroll importer plugin, but that plugin blows away the categories. Since WordPress doesn't enable you to even add categories to links in batches, that's a real problem. Enter Import Blogroll With Categories. It solves the problem perfectly, even adding said cryptic link to the OPML file to the Links category in the WordPress control panel's sidebar.

I finally shifted the menu buttons

As you no doubt know if you've ever used Ubuntu Linux, they have a weird setup by default where the close, minimize, and maximize buttons on every standard window are in the upper-left corner instead of the upper-right. By the time I found out how to change that, I had already gotten used to that button layout. But now that I'm using Windows occasionally I find switching between the button layouts to be confusing, so I made them standard.

Tip: p7zip/7za for Linux CAN extract multiple encrypted files

The trick is that the password entered on the command line cannot have a space in between it and the -p flag. So "7za x -p12345 filename.7z" will work, but "7za x -p 12345 filename.7z" won't. No need to bring Wine and zmud into it after all. My mistake.

Single HTML Archives: Firefox's Superiority

Internet Explorer has had the ability to save pages as .mht files for over a decade. Approximate functionality has yet to make its way into either Firefox or Chrome yet, unfortunately. Very fortunately, there are extensions that do the trick. On Firefox there is the fantastic Mozilla Archive Format extension that not only allows Firefox to seemlessly read and create .mht files, but also lets it use the open and far superior .maf file format (and allows the conversion between .mht, complete web saves with folder created by Firefox, IE, and Chrome, and .maf en masse). MAFF files are universally readable once unzipped (they, like ODF and Microsoft OpenXML, are really zip files with a different extension) and can contain multiple tabs saved at once (great for sites that use pagination, like most newspapers). Oh, and it also saves the originating address of the page and makes it easily accessable when viewing. That in itself is invaluable.

Chrome's SingleFile produces a special single-archive html file. The good side is that its files are compatible with all major browsers without having to unzip. The bad side is that the whole thing is a horrible kluge. It's a mess all the way from the fact that the extension overloads a .html file with graphics and other non-html data to the need to download a second add-on to make it work to the ridiculous process you need to go through to save a file (read the instructions on the linked page; I can attest, it's even more of a pain in the ass than it seems). And Chrome still cannot read let alone write .mht files. If someone sends you one, you're out of luck.

Paul Thurrott on Firefox 4

It's not a bad write-up, though Thurrott still is a Chrome+IE9 (naturally) guy. I just don't get why the tech crowd is so into Chrome. Beyond some under the hood stuff (like a separate instance for each tab and installing extensions without restarting), speed is the only thing it has on Firefox 4 and Thurrott himself said the speed difference on modern browsers isn't dramatic. Firefox 4's interface is heavily Chrome-inspired (see this post in order to de-Chrome it). Okay, it lacks the ability to create standalone applications, but unlike Thurrott I much prefer pin-tabs anyway (a feature first available in the Chrome Browser, not just ChromeOS, which Firefox improved on by making links outside the pinned website's domain open in new windows--I love that since it makes the pinned website stickier). If you really want standalone apps, get Prism.

Here's what Firefox has that Chrome doesn't:

• A modern bookmarking system. Chrome's is pre-Netscape 4.0x and pre-IE5. In other words, it's a 20th century bookmarking system in 2011.


• A good history interface, including the ability to reopen recently closed tabs. I use this all the time (Chrome has that, at least you can reopen the last closed tab by either right-clicking the tab bar or doing Ctrl-Shift-Tab; you can keep doing it to open previous closed tabs in order of closure). Also, you can access your history without having to open a separate window/tab which is really nice. You can also search and delete items at the same time, something Chrome won't let you do.


• A full-screen mode that includes a compact hideaway tab and navigation bar. Finally they got rid of the grey line at the top when it's hidden so you have the best of both worlds: real fullscreen and full browser functionality when you need it. And with the bookmark sidebar you get access to your bookmarks when you need them with a simply Ctrl-b without having to leave fullscreen.


• A larger and richer extension ecosystem. Many people say this bogs down the browser because people have too many extensions. I say: use a little self-control and only keep the ones you really need active. Of course this would be a lot easier if, like Chrome, Firefox allowed extensions to be turned on and off without restarting.


• Mouse Gestures that don't screw up the right mouse button in OSX and Linux. Not an issue for the Windows-using majority, though.


• Customizability. My Firefox 4 is much different in appearance than the standard. restored the menu bar, added back the RSS icon in the address bar, restored the status bar, and removed the status bar-like functionality from the address bar. My Firefox basically looks like the old Firefox 3.6 with tabs on top and the new theme. This isn't something you can really do in Chrome. Paul Thurrott does list this as an advantage of Firefox.

As for the lack of search functionality in the location bar, I've used Smart Keywords on Firefox for years to search from the location bar. Actually, I used pretty much the same feature on IE4 (via QuickSearch.exe from IE PowerToys) way back when and missed it when I moved to Linux until I'd discovered that it had been implemented in Mozilla's browser (no doubt it had been there for a long time without my knowing about it).

Maybe it's the task manager. I have to admit that does make me drool (no, not literally).

Firefox 4 is finally released

I've been using it for quite some time, but it's good to see it finally out there officially. Maybe now Firefox can staunch the bleeding of users into Chrome-land. The way I see it, Chrome now only has the advantage in the areas of performance (which isn't as dramatic as before) and the way processes and extensions are handles (e.g., not having to restart when you enable or disable an extension). Everything else is Firefox's advantage, some things dramatically so (Chrome's bookmarking interface is still pre-IE5/Netscape4, i.e., 12-13 years out of date).

Drag and Drop: the reason I will never use KDE

See this thread. For some bizarre reason, KDE has always taken the stance that it is somehow to the benefit of the user to harass them with a popup menu each and every time they try to drag and drop a file and provide no way to change that behavior (short of creating your own fork of KDE). That is insane. The KDE fans that, as in the linked thread, defend the practice always struck me as classic Stockholm Syndrome sufferers (see especially the lame argument about Windows supposedly being "unpredictable"; it would take a skilled user, which Linux users are almost by definition, less than a week to get down pat what Windows is going to do when you drag and drop in each type of situation without paying much attention. An unskilled user might take a month. Big deal). As one of the sane commenters points out:

Here are the facts:

• Windows Explorer, Mac OS X Finder, Linux Gnome, Linux LXDE, Linux Fluxbox, and Haiku Tracker default to move when files are dragged and dropped. They do not ask for confirmation.


• Thunar defaults to copy.


• Dolphin asks the user.


• Users very frequently move files into folders.


• Users hardly ever copy files into folders.

There is only one sane option:

Set the default to move and do not ask the user for confirmation.

Fortunately, there is such a thing as GNOME.

Mozilla Archive Format add-on rocks

I've long wished that Firefox would get compatibility with Microsoft's longstanding MHT format for saving complete webpages as single files. Not only does this extension do that, it also provides an open version that basically works by zipping up the product of the it's own version of the standard Save Webpage Complete feature of Firefox (though you can, as an option, make it use the browser's own version of said feature if you want to, or the Save Complete extension's). This makes the resulting files readable by anyone: all you have to do is unzip them and then open the html page inside like normal. The extension also has a useful conversion utility that will seek out all your Firefox webpage complete saves and turn them into .maff archives.

The only downside in Linux is that Gnome thinks that the resulting .maff file is a zipfile and tries to open it as such. I worked around this by adding Firefox as an option for opening zip files. It would be better if they could find a way to produce zip files that look like a distinct file format in Unix environments like OpenOffice does so you could cleanly associate the file format with Firefox. Still, it's a great extension. BTW, be sure to get the 1.0.0 preview version if you're using Firefox 4.

Update: It is possible to differentiate .maff files from .zip files in Gnome/Linux. This mailing list post has everything you need to know to figure it out. I might post detailed step-by-step instructions later.

Shifting the minimize, maximize, and close buttons in Ubuntu

As an added extra, here's an article on how to make the aforementioned buttons appear on the right, like in Windows, rather than the left. Note: make sure to run gconf-editor using your own user. If you run it as root using sudo or gksudo, it will affect where root's buttons are displayed, not yours. I learned that one the hard way.

Getting back the old Ubuntu 10.04 theme in 10.10

It caused me some consternation that I wasn't able to easily "downgrade" from the new Ubuntu desktop theme, which I loath, to the old one. Fortunately I finally figured it out. First download these two packaged. Then manually install them with "dpkg -i". Then open Synaptic and select the lock command from the menus on both of them to prevent them from "updating" to the new theme. Voila, problem solved.

WordPress Themes Lacking

WordPress needs a better system for bringing aesthetically high-quality themes to the top. Last night I spent quite some time wading through a huge ocean of stylistic catastrophes finding nothing that I liked.

I guess part of the problem is that WordPress lacks any kind of WYSIWYG theme editing (aside from placing widgets). If you're not proficient with CSS, you're screwed. I guess I'll have to load that CSS book onto my Kindle and brush up.

Update: Okay, there is a theme editor in the works, but it explicitly states that it's not ready for prime time yet. Unfortunately, it seems that development is currently stalled with the last updates being last Spring. There is always this really old webapp, but it seems very limited in the sort of themes it can generate.