Essential Firefox Extensions
Well, at least more or less essential for me:
- Session saver – remembers loaded tabs when Firefox is closed, then restores the tabs when next started. This should be the default behaviour of any decent browser out there, anyway.
- Flash click to view – exactly what the name suggests. Great to get rid of annoying flash ads.
- Rss reader panel – rss reader residing in the side bar. I haven’t tried this one yet, but am looking forward to.
- Magpie – saves the content of all tabs following the currently selected. Just installed this for saving several open html pages at once. Could come in handy for
leeching pr0nsaving images and stuff as well. Shortcut suitable for one-hand usage, but beware: per default open tabs will be closed when you save them with magpie (take this warning serious, kiddies, when trying magpie out i already accidentally killed the first attempt to write this post).
Another moz extension highly recommended by many people is tabbrowser extensions. I already tried it in the past and don’t really think i need it as i’m quite happy with firefox’s default tab handling. I also plan to check out aggreg8, another rss reader extension, but afaik it’s a little rough around the edges.
Update: simon willison has two more recommendations. I’ll have to check these out soon.
Silly me
When i read the headline “Sony Electronics moves to SD” i first thought sony’ll abandon their memory stick format in favor of sd…
More new Symbian and Microsoft smartphones
After yesterdays announcement of a new nokia communicator and a new bizphone by motorola, there have been a couple more symbian and windows mobile smartphones announced, this time all by motorola: their new symbian offering is the a1000, the successor to the a920/a925 phones, based on uiq (like the p900). This could be the first decent 3g smartphone available in europe. Read more @infosync, @mobiletracker.
Motorola also announced a new windows mobile smartphone, the mpx100. Read more @infosync, @brighthand, @mobiletracker.
There’ve been rumors about both phones for quite some time, their announcement doesn’t come as much of a surprise. What came as a surprise to me is that all new phones motorola announced feature integrated digicams with 1 megapixel resolution. Nice to see those coming up outside asia.
New business phones
Two interesting new high-end smartphones for the corporate market: nokia announced a new model in its successful communicator line, the nokia 9500 communicator. The device supports both gprs/edge and wifi, features two displays, a keyboard and runs series40 outside and series80 on the inside. I’m not quite sure what to make of it: on one hand it’s great to see some commitment to wifi from nokia, on the other hand i’m somewhat disappointed that nokia sticks with series80 rather than going with series90 which would allow for touchscreen input. More info @infosync, @brighthand, @mobileburn.
The second biz-phone comes from motorola and runs windows mobile software. Infosync names it simply mpx, while brighthand thinks it’s called mpx 300 update: apparently the actual name is mpx, here’s the new article @brighthand. Mobileburn and mobiletracker also got some news. Most interesting imho is the novel form factor. This smartphone will also offer wifi.
Brighthand also got some rumors on two other motorola smartphones powered by windows mobile. I hate to admit it, but those ms smartphones slowly get more and more interesting.
First impressions: Apple in-ear headphones
I finally picked up a pair of apple in-ear headphones today. I had to phone three apple retailers in vienna (all three i know, that is), one hadn’t got them yet, the next was sold out and the last one had only one pair left which i immediately reserved (so if you live in vienna and can’t find them anywhere you know who’s the lucky bastard who got the last pair *eg*).
I already posted links to a couple of reviews and opinions about them here. I found those to vary considerably and was a little insecure wether i should buy them or not. The issues commonly raised were the following: lack of bass, tinny sound, bad grip and uncomfortable fit. I only listened to them for a few hours this evening, but here are my first impressions:
The packaging is quite nice as usual with apple, no surprise there. The earphones come with three different sized soft caps for various ear sizes and have to be deeply inserted in the ear canal (etymotic provides useful instructions, scroll down a bit to find them). I found the medium- and big-sized caps to fit my ears quite well, both offering solid grip. The medium sized are a little more comfortable whereas the big ones offer better isolation. As isolation is crucial for the sound quality of inear headphones and the apple earbuds indeed sounded better with the big caps i’ll settle for those, i guess. Overall i found the ergonomics of these headphones very pleasing. They fit comfortably in my ear offering solid grip and in contrast to all the earbuds i previously used they didn’t hurt even after several hours of listening.
The sound quality isn’t downright bad, but i’m rather disappointed nonetheless. I found them inferior to my sennheiser mx400 (which cost less than half of apples inear headphones), though i have to admit that my new headphones aren’t broken in yet, in contrast to the sennheiser earbuds. The bass is somewhat boomy and muddy and the highs sometimes sounded a little tinny. Overall i was less than impressed by the sound quality of these headphones. I hope they’ll sound better when they’re broken in, i’ll post a follow-up when i know definitely.
Another thing i’ll comment on later is sound isolation. I didn’t have annoying background noise immediately available this afternoon, i’ll save that test for my next shopping trip.
Interesting new articles @O’Reilly
Two interesting new articles @o’reilly, both part 1 of a series of upcoming articles.
First (and i know this has been linked heavily in the blogosphere, but i’ll put it up here as a personal reminder anyway) is an article about home automation with mac os x, though i’m certain that with some additional research it should be possible to make good use of this no matter what operating system one uses.
Second one is about creating web content for mobile phone browsers, an issue that i got quite interested in lately and that i still struggle to grasp.
Intercepted video surveillance prevents child abuse
Read the full story here. Also check out this slightly related article on warspying which mentions that “[t]his kind of snooping doesn’t violate federal wiretap laws, which generally protect audio communication, but not video”.
Of course it’s undeniably a good thing to prevent child abuse by a foster mother, but this could make a case for people demanding stricter surveillance, perhaps even intruding our homes. It’s always difficult to balance privacy/personal freedom and security. I think what makes me feel uncomfortable about this story is that i’m not so sure on which side of the line i stay in this case…
Another thing that just dawned on me after re-reading the security focus article quoted above is that as i understand this statement it would be perfectly legal for the police to intercept the signal of all those surveillance cameras (ianal, so take this with a grain of salt; anyone with more expertise willing to comment?). Even though this is unlikely i can imagine police officers or neighborhood watch-weirdos sitting in the basement in the evening, spying on their neighbors. (via smart mobs)
Win2k comment walkthrough
Back from vacation, feeling restored, massive catch-up due again.
Just read this comment walkthrough of the leaked win2k code @kuro5hin, good to know that ms coders apparently produce good, clean code. Even more delightful to know that though they produce good code they still have to rely on hacks now and then. (via tao of the mac; perhaps i should subscribe to kuro5hin, but then /. is enough of a timesucker already)
Give me a break…
I’ll go on vacation for the next few days, most likely no new posts till tuesday.
The one with Rob’s Ferrari
Do you know “the one with joey’s porsche“, a sixth-season friends episode, where joey pretends to own a porsche by wearing tons of ridiculous porsche merchandise (jacket, baseball cap, keychain,…)? I somehow had to think of this episode while reading rob enderles recent eweek-column, “my love affair with acer’s ferrari notebook“. He really likes the “vroom-vroom” sound when booting and the unique wallpaper design. Rather than focusing on the really interesting aspect, the cross branding, he keeps comparing this mid-range laptop with high-pricy luxury sports cars, absolutely hilarious. The whole column sounds like a (poor) ad for acer…