has an undiagnosed addiction to steamed pork buns
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posts tagged with “mozilla”

Startup Authenticator

Startup Authenticator

As you probably know, many places that offer wireless require you to login to an account as soon as you open your browser (such as LSU, OLOL, apartment complexes, etc.). This is slightly annoying, but has been tolerable. With the upcoming release of Firefox 2 and its new session restore feature, a more serious problem occurs. When restoring a previous session, all of my tabs will open up with that login page instead of the page it should be.

I’ve made a quick extension that will fix this problem. Every time you start your browser, it will attempt to log you into the designated sites (with your username and password saved in Firefox) before any pages load. You can also activate this by pressing F2 when the browser is already open (useful if you suspend your computer instead of turning it off). You can get the LSU version here. (It also includes Sterling University Apartments because I’m too lazy to make 2 separate extensions and I made this for me – but it doesn’t matter because if you don’t have a password saved for a site, it won’t try to login to it)

Note that as stated above, this requires that you have your login info saved in Firefox’s password manager for the login sites. I don’t really have time to expand the extension much right now, but if people like it, I will add some functionality in the future, such as visible signs that you are being logged in and support for XML imports/exports so if Person A lives at SuperApartments, he can easily integrate his own login requirements and share it with Person B.

Also, this was a quick extension that I put together and tested the basic functionality. If your password has been changed, the extension will obviously not work until you update the password stored in Firefox (which should be easy since you’ll be presented with the login screen). Also, security notices will still appear if you don’t have a certificate installed or if there’s a domain mismatch (there’s an extension available to “fix” that).

Firefox 2 Summit

I’ll be going to Mountain View, California for 5 days next month for the Firefox 2 Summit. I’m really excited about meeting all the people I’ve been working with on IRC and getting a firsthand look at all the planning going into Firefox 3, and of course the celebration of Firefox 2 and other fun outings planned in Silicon Valley.

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth

I’m still sick

I became sick last Tuesday and missed class Wed-Fri last week. That sucked, but it doesn’t look like it will be too hard to catch up. At least until I miss school this week (see below). My throat problems are mostly cleared up now… nose is still a little messy, and ear infection is in full swing. Since childhood, every time I get sick I get an ear infection.

Firefox Tabling

I’m thinking about setting up a table at Free Speech Alley or inside CEBA or somewhere for a day to encourage Firefox use. Before I talk to Mozilla and Computing Services about it, I wanted to see if any of you would be interested in helping. This won’t be the level of activism at Oregon State University (who hosts the mozilla server farm, helps with firefox weather balloons, sidewalk paintings, and crop circles) or Seneca College (who has an Open Source major and a class devoted to Mozilla), but it’s a start.

What I’m thinking is getting a few laptops from OCS and putting Firefox 2.0RC1 (or RC2 or actual 2.0 depending on when this happens). Hopefully Moz can send some free stuff like stickers and pens and maybe some display thing, and people can test out Firefox (or the new features in Firefox 2). So anyway, let me know if you’d be willing to sit at the table or something.

Surgical Procedures

I will be out of town Wednesday night – Friday or Saturday. I am going to Houston for 2 surgical procedures. My left elbow and right ankle have always had problems, and in 1994 and 1999, I had arthroscopic synovectomies that sucked out the bad stuff in my synovial lining. Those were week-long trips to Atlanta and required a good bit of recovery time and PT. The new method is a radionuclide synovectomy which involves injecting a radioactive isotope (P32) into the joints and letting it eat away the bad stuff. It should be outpatient and require no recovery, assuming it doesn’t spread anywhere it’s not supposed to.

Blog Localization

As if anyone will use this, I was playing with rewrites the other day and you can now get my blog translated into various languages by typing the 2 letter locale code. For example, http://fligtar.com/fr or es or de or it.

Firefox, as usual

Did you know that a firefox is actually a type of panda? Take a look, they are extremely cute.

Business Week is running an article about Firefox marketing: Mozilla Goes Mainstream. It’s fairly interesting. You may also be interested to see concept art of the Firefox logo here.

If you ever want to get really mad, read some of the reasons people are uninstalling Firefox. Sigh. Most of them can be answered with one of the following:

  • Firefox loads slower than IE because much of IE is built into Windows because… they are both made by Microsoft
  • One of the things that makes Firefox great is it’s uncluttered. If you want a feature, there is probably an extension for it. But it’s not likely to be added to the browser itself. If you want a browser that you get lost in, try SeaMonkey.
  • That has absolutely nothing to do with Firefox.
  • You’re retarded.

I have been working on AMO/Remora in most of my free time, but unfortunately I haven’t had much free time this week. Tomorrow is my last day of work, so after that I should have more time to finally make some substantial progress on the Developer Control Panel.

For more info on Remora development, check out Mike Morgan’s blog post. And contrary to what is stated there, as the author of that logo I can confidently tell you that the fish is not giving birth to those add-ons, it is something else.

Remora

Yesterday, Mike Shaver asked me if I wanted to code the Developer/Reviewer/Admin panels for Remora. Right now, the public face of addons.mozilla.org is in version 2.0 and the developer pages are in 1.0. Remora is 3.0 of everything and is going to be launched with Firefox 2 with a design and image makeover to get people more interested in Firefox Add-Ons. It will feature more user feedback, such as Amazon-style reviews and forums, as well as localization for Mozilla’s large international base.

The Remora team has been coming up with the database and plans for the public pages for awhile and a design firm (the same that revamped Firefox’s default skin for 2.0) is doing the new layouts. But no work has been done on the developer/reviewer/admin pages. Today I accepted the task, as I cannot continue to fix 1.0 and 2.0 bugs knowing that 3.0 will replace them anyway.

Remora is to utilize CakePHP, which I have heard of but knew nothing about. I have since been reading the manual and preparing for how I’m going to tackle this project, scheduled to be released in late September.