It’s just so much better than IE.

October 16th, 2003

But, of course, that’s not the only reason to use Mozilla Firebird.

Yes, a new version of the best browser has been released. Version 0.7 has all sorts of new stuff and is a lot more polished than before.

Download the official release here.

As usual, those seeking an automatic installer can head over to seb’s site, or just snag it right here.

By the way, don’t forget to check out all the nifty extensions available for Firebird.

My favorites are:

  • All-in-One Gestures - Firebird comes with Auto-Scroll and wheel scrolling, but this enhances those features and adds all new ones. It allows you to do gestures with the mouse to control the browser. You can also use mouse rocker navigation, which might be familiar to Opera users.
  • Tab Browser Extensions - This extension is a for the nit picky users like myself who must have complete control over every aspect of the browser’s tab behaviour. It adds so many features I’m not even gonna attempt to list them.
  • Web Developer Toolbar - This extension will most likely appeal to web developers, hence the name, but it’s got some features that anyone might appreciate. You can disable JavaScript on any site, hide all the images, view cookie inofrmation or the site’s CSS and so on.

I’m using Firebird right now and it’s making me tingly all over. Don’t you want to be tingly too?

Saw Radiohead play last night.

October 5th, 2003

Seeing the lead singer dancin around like an elf on crack (why are so many things described as being on crack?) was just beyond weird. Dude is wacky.

But the show was great. It was very cool seeing them perform Just, Paranoid Android and Street Spirit live! I can’t say I’ve really listened to their latest album a lot, but I think I’ll give it another try. Oh, and I liked how the screens surrounding the stage had big Winamp-like graphical visualizations on them during the songs from Kid A.

Thanks go to my friends for getting me a ticket too. I love music, but I always have to be dragged kicking and screaming to concerts. I should go more often, it’s definitely worth it (especially when you have just the right amount of alcohol in your system).

Week finally over.

August 27th, 2003

Man, I thought that three day school week would never end!

Okay, through some strange accident of scheduling, I have a mere three day school week. Yes, that is a good thing in certain ways. For example, this weekend I’m going up to St. Pete to see Jodie and the extra time off during this holiday weekend will make things slightly easier. Also, since most of my classes this semester seem to involve copious amounts of writing, the extra days off will be put to much good use.

Then there are the possibly unwelcome side effects of such a short week. In recent years I have developed a notoriously short attention span (curse you, Internet!) and unless I make a very good effort to organize my free time, I will likely squander it all away. Most people, I imagine, have experienced that. You find you have an extra day off with some project deadline looming and suddenly you feel as if you won the temporal lottery.

The things you will be able to do with all that extra time! And just as soon as you play through a couple more stages in that new game you bought, you’ll get right to it… Yes, of course, as soon as you get off the phone with your friend you’ll get right on it. Right, no problem, as soon as you finish watching that documentary on modern plumbing on The History Channel, you’ll be all over that project. Okay, fine, you just need a short nap to recover from all that frantic activity and you’ll get to work.

So many free days lost in similar fashion…

Update: Oh, yeah, happy blog anniversary.

Getting back to life as usual.

August 18th, 2003

My traveling for the summer is done and classes start in a week. Hm…and after writing that last sentence I realized that that would make this blog nearly a year old now.

Anyway, this past Saturday I was not looking forward to classes at all. Partly, I believe, because I don’t really like my school all that much. It’s not the classes themselves, really, or the professors. I’ve had some very good and helpful professors. Also, now that I’m actually into classes, unlike during my first time around at college, I’m enjoying the whole process so much more.

I suppose, then, that it’s not so much that I dislike my school as I dislike school life. FIU just feels too much like a commuter school. Whenever I’m there just a bit late in the day, everything takes on an eerie air. It’s almost as if everyone learned what they needed for the day and then drove home as fast as possible.

I myself am guilty of doing this, though. As soon as my classes are over, I walk with frightening determination to my car and peel the hell out of there. After experiencing just a few days of life at Jodie’s school, though, I am beginning to wonder about what I missed, and am still missing, from college life. I know very few people at my school and those that I do know I barely have contact with outside of class.

How did I miss this huge aspect of college life? I know I am a bit anti-social at times (or so my friends say) but it’s shocking to me, at least now, to realize that I have made none of those “life-long friendships” that they always talk about during those boring speeches to the incoming freshmen. Also, never having lived at the dorms due to my family’s close proximity to the school, I wasn’t able to tap into that liberated vibe that is common to those living far away from everything they knew. Whatever the reason for my alienation from my fellow students, something has to be done.

I hereby resolve to not be such an unfriendly bastard at school this year.

It’s the surreal moments that make life so interesting.

August 14th, 2003

I am sitting here somewhat amazed that tomorrow, at about 1PM, I will be picking Jodie up at the airport to drive her up north to where she will be attending college.

I should get to bed.

And the list of worthwhile tv shows gets even shorter…

August 10th, 2003

The last new episode of Futurama aired tonight. I thought it was a good episode; worthy of a series finale.

Now I’m just wondering what I’ll watch on Sundays at 7PM. Oh wait, I’ll be watching the same thing as always: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Tonight was the first time I’ve actually been able to watch Futurama during it’s usual time slot in months. I still don’t understand why they condemned such a great show to such a horrible time slot? On the rare occasion that I did remember to watch it, it was most likely being preempted by football or something else. Of course, it’s easy enough to find the episodes online, but I’m pretty sure the networks don’t use BitTorrent statistics when they are planning what shows to renew for the coming season.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go have a drink to 5 great seasons.

Really fast food.

August 8th, 2003

During the week that I was away it seems that an entirely new KFC was built and opened for business. Just how fast can these people put one of these damn things up?!

For some reason, I find that a little scary. Well, maybe it’s because I dislike KFC. Why couldn’t they have opened a place that I’d actually consider visiting?

Post Firebird 0.6.1 Nightlies

August 7th, 2003

I am very pleased with the latest Mozilla Firebird nightlies.

  • They are polishing up a lot of things that have been left messy for a long time.
  • The downloading abilities are being made more user friendly.
  • The developers finally got over a certain hangup they had over adding an Advanced Options
    window.
  • You can now set any bookmark to open as a sidebar.
  • Firebird finally has its own application icon.

Of course, if you’re boring and like to stay away from nightlies there is always the latest stable milestone release: 0.6.1. Either way, go try it!

Update: For you freaks who dislike unzipping things, here’s the installer for 0.6.1.

CGI problems fixed.

August 7th, 2003

I fixed some CGI issues I was having with my blog during the week I was away. Not sure how it happened, but my Movable Type directory no longer had permission to run scripts. No idea how that happened because my friend who has her MT site on the same host had no such problems.

Anyway, it’s fixed. In case anyone had problems trying to post a comment in the past few days, it should be working now.

Back from Scapercon!

August 7th, 2003

Much to say about con.

Still too tired to make sense of it all for you right now. I did take plenty of pictures, though! Maybe I’ll get them developed one of these days. I seriously need to get a digital camera already. *growl*

I will just say that the whole trip was a huge amount of fun and that I would certainly do it again if given the chance.

Oh, and Jodie looked really hot on the dance floor at con. That is all.