I was bored today and I was looking through the Mathcaddy Statistics and I stumbled upon a super neato cool thing! I found the super searching phrase for downloading things. It is: parent directory mp3 (artists name) -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums. Just put that phrase into google and replace the (artists name) with which ever artist you are looking for (be sure to get rid of the parentheses and “google” it. Google then returns parent directorys chock full of all your favorite artists music which then download at super high speed rates! Either that or you get a mean message asking you for a password to get into the directory. Just remember to leave in the most important part of the phrase, which is the “-xxx.” That part keeps porn stars from singing your songs.

After talking with a good friend about anticipating the release of Half Life 2 I decided to check out some of the movies and stuff released to promote the game. Now as many of you may know looking for these kinds of files usually ends you up in outrageously long queue lines and even longer slow downloads. So before Bible study tonight I went ahead and jumped in line for some huge 700 MB trailer or something. I expected to come home to find myself still in line or just beginning an incredibly slow download. Instead, I found something entirely different.

When I got home I found the download manager open asking me how it should handle the incoming file. I was grateful that I had made it past the line and I told it to just save it to the desktop. As soon as I had clicked the ok button the download started at completely unbelievable speeds! It seemed to instantly download 150 MB of the file! It was super cool! So here’s the proof and just an overall neat picture to show my dialup friends.

Well, technically, neither do I. I’m actually in Daejeon right now, about 3 hours south of Seoul. I’m here for a research exchange program between Georgia Tech and KAIST that will last about 6 weeks. In this time I’ve met with a few…incidents that I feel are worthy of mention. Here’s a few tips for you to think about the next time you travel:

Tip 1. Assume that your AC adapter is a bomb

In most cases you’ll be right, and thankful. I made the mistake of thinking that Compaq’s “universe” implied by the use of the word “universal ac adapter” extended beyond the shores of Kansas, an error that could well have been my last. These units are black boxes of venomous death waiting to strike. White if you have a powerbook. Mine fortunately decided to go off while I was at the lab, and if it hadn’t been for a heroic LG Flatron monitor, I might have sustained some form of moderate injury. Instead, I found myself rationing battery life (2 hrs idle time over 5 days, less if you move your mouse) and searching for a US adapter through every Korean merchant that had a pulse. Needless to say I located a match, but don’t think I haven’t learned from this experience. Even now, as I type, I keep one unwavering eye fixed on my new unit in the corner … behind the stack of monitors.

Tip 2. Keep telling yourself, “I love being screwed!”

If you do this, you’ll save yourself from blood pressure trouble. I gave up trying to blend in long ago. Try 20 years (it’s hard passing as Norwegian with black hair). So it’s no surprise that they see me coming. Korea has many traditional markets that still operate on the bargain system. If you’re not prepared to challenge the price, you’d better be prepared to pay up to 3 times as much. What amuses me (bwahahah), are that some merchants don’t even try to hide their greed. They love knowing that you know that they are stringing you. For example, I was trying to get a pair of flip-flops for the rainy season (typhoon) and the gent in front of me gets a pair for 2000 won. But when it’s my turn, I’m asked for 5000! What gets me though, is that when I asked him about the price hike, he simply grins and nods! Bastard!

Tip 3. Tourist centers are where locals go to see tourists.

Makes sense, right? Lee and I wanted to make sure that we saw as much of S. Korea’s culture as possible during our stay. Last Saturday we decided to walk to the city Tourist Center, only ~5 miles away. Unfortunately we couldn’t take a bus because it’s quite difficult deciphering the route map, and we had never been there before. This was before we knew about the typhoon, and so we were quite soaked by the time we made it there. Once in the center, I found two English translators each commanding a vocabulary a goldfish would be ashamed of. Using a little persuasive reasoning (they had to pry me off them with a broom handle) I managed to get some complimentary postcards of the Korean countryside we would apparently never see. I guess I can superimpose us for the album.

Otherwise, we’re having a splendid time. Next weekend we’re going to hop a bus and ride it to the end (which should take us to the mountains). It’s just a matter of finding the right bus…

I love the new theme for Firefox. The back and forward arrows are beautiful. I’d put them up against any theme’s arrows. Same with the reload button.

Here are my thoughts on the rest of the buttons. Most of these thoughts have to do with scaling and amount of space taken up. The other issue here is sticking consistently to the theme of the beauty found in absolute simplicity.

Note: because I always use small icons to maximize my browsing space, I am only describing my experience with the small icons, although some of this commentary would certainly apply to the larger icons. I do understand that with smaller icons, you’re far more limited in what you can do, but I’m going to express my opinion anyway.

Give me more space! - Ben Goodger’s “Why Firefox” article says, “We place a great deal of importance on space for web pages in Firefox. That’s why our browser has more space devoted to web pages than Internet Explorer, Opera, or Mozilla.” I for one am a big fan of tons of browser space. For this reason, I always put my address bar and my navigation tools on the top line with my menus. I want my toolbars small, which is why I use the small icon set. But here’s the trouble: the small icon set actually forces the menu bar to use much more space than it should.

– Here’s what the menu bar, no icons next to it: –

– Here’s what the menu bar looks like with the small icons: –

Especially note the menu section. Whoa, Nelly! Look how much space there is from top to bottom, as well as how much distance there is between the icons. It might help to get a look at how IE deals with its small icon set when adjusted in this way.

– Here’s what Internet Explorer looks like with a similar setup: –

The same setup in IE takes up less space both horizontally and vertically.

So what is the problem? I don’t know. I played around with this a bit in Photoshop, but it didn’t seem like there was much reason to make the icons so far apart, or for the height to jump so dramatically.

– Here’s what I think the small icon layout should look like in Firefox: –

Notice that this moves the back and forward detail buttons closer in, as well as pushing the icons closer together. It also cuts dramatically the space required at top and bottom of the icons. In the end it seems to produce a more attractive look in my opinion. There are two main things at issue here:

Icons need to be closer together - A lot of space is getting chewed up horizontally by the distance between these icons.

Icons don’t need as much headroom and legroom - This leads to the text menu getting an enormous amount of space.

If Firefox is striving to place browser space as a top priority, it seems this would be a valuable thing to look into taking care of before 1.0. I know I would love to see this (minor) adjustment made. Note: In all fairness to the theme, it must be said that adding anything other than text items to the top menu adjusts the height dimensions of the top toolbar, including the address and search bars (something I’d also like to see changed).

Is the “new tab” button a toaster? - I am still quite unsure what that big white thing is at the bottom of the “new tab” icon. My first guess is a toaster, but I just don’t know. In all seriousness, I would recommend an even simpler new tab icon. Perhaps just a tab with a large green “+” in front of it, much like the “new window” button.

“New tab” and “new window” buttons need a bigger “+” when made small - The inset white “+” in the green circle is not very intelligible. If, instead, there was a green “+” instead of a little green circle it might look better and be clearer what the button was trying to do.

“Page history” icon: less page, more history! - Sticking to the simple theme, and keeping consistency, it might look much better to have a round clock style history button about the dimensions of the beautiful stop and reload button without the picture of the web page behind it.

Well, that’s it! Hope this is constructive. I really like the new Firefox theme and I would love to see it get a little bit better before 1.0.

Thanks to Gmail I now have comments on my site!

Drop me a line.

Please?

Do it, or I will just keep talking to myself.

I swear.

Oh ya.

Once in a while, a peice of software comes along that changes the world. Mozilla Firefox is not that peice of software. But Firefox did sit next to a peice of software that changed the world and it studied him.

No, Firefox didn’t change the world. That was Netscape Navigator. But Firefox sure changed my world. I truly believe I’m a better person for having used Firefox. And I know I’m a better browser because of it.

Okay, I’m done being silly.

I’ve been using Firefox since, I think 0.4 (called Phoenix), back in October 2002. I have used it as my primary browser every single day since July last year. And now I want to tell you exactly every detail of why Firefox means the world to me. Or, uh, at least the world wide web.

Why write why I’m so high on the Fox? Especially when there’s Ben Goodger’s great “Why You Should Switch to Firefox” article sitting on the Mozilla Foundation’s server? I feel there is a great deal I can contribute to the ongoing dialogue regardin—never mind. I can’t add anything. Oh well. Here goes anyway!

Browsing Security Essentials Left Out of IE
These are the most obvious reasons to use Firefox. Intelligent pop-up blocking. Zero security risk. Zero adware / spyware / browser hijacking via ActiveX. Dang! If that was it, that would be good enough, wouldn’t it? But wait! There’s more!

Tabbed Browsing
From the first time I touched Opera many years ago, I was in love with tabbed browsing. There’s no going back once you’ve used it for any length of time. Especially if you are an attention deficit browser like me. Really, I wish more applications would use this feature. (Like Microsoft Office! And Photoshop! And Dreamweaver! And Pagemaker! And Windows Explorer! Pretty much any and every application could be enhanced in some way by tabbed document switching.)

Find as You Type
I’m thinking of something orange… Something orange… Wait! Maybe I should type “something orange” into my browser window and see if I can find it! Or would I rather go back to the old days of Ctrl-F? Hmm… nope. Then “Find as You Type” it is!

Keywords and Keyword Search
Keywords provide a great feature for anyone (like me) who has bookmarks and still types URLs for their regularly visited sites. And the ability to make a keyword for a search is pretty darn cool. But when I discovered that 0.9 added a feature that made it possible to get a context menu item called “Add a Keyword for this Search…” I drooled on my desk chair, mouth open in awe.

Built-in Customizable Search
If it’s not enough to go to the address bar and type your custom created search, you can add your preferred search engines to a built in search toolbar. Forget the Google Toolbar… or the hundred other search toolbars.

Fast, Period. And Getting Faster
Early on, Firefox (Phoenix / Firebird / Whatever) was on par with IE in the speed department. But every release since 0.6, I have noticed significant gains in speed. The latest release is no different. Who knows? By the time 1.0 is released, the browser may actually deliver content to your desktop without you having to do anything! Oh wait. That’s RSS. That gives me an idea. How about Mozilla Chinchilla: the Mozilla RSS Aggregator! Oh, nevermind. Already had that idea.

Creative Coders, Creative Community
Wouldn’t it be great if…? Oh? Firefox already does? Seriously, I have never used software that seems to spontaneously choose to cater to my every whim. Some of the greatest thinking comes through in the easy-to-install extensions. Some of my personal favorites include Bookmarks Synchronizer, BugMeNot, Download Sort, AdBlock, Edit CSS, and Web Developer. And now, thanks to the brand new Mozilla Update, Themes and Extensions have reached a new level of organization.

But beyond extensions, the always active Firefox sections of the Mozilla Forums provide a powerful resource for tweaking, personalizing, and perfecting your browser. And every now and then, you can catch some hot flame action! Okay, very rarely. (Unless themes are involved.)

Enough reasons for you?
Then get Firefox 0.9, just released late last night. Not enough reasons for you? Then do check out “Why You Should Switch to Firefox” for more reasons.

And if that’s still not enough reasons, go get Ad-Aware to get your imminent adware and spyware problem under control, the Google Toolbar for your pop-up blocking and integrated search, and visit McAfee.com for your ActiveX-based virus-scanning needs.

After having spent the past week enjoying the various builds toward Mozilla Firefox 0.9, I had a thought. There are many people who believe, to some degree, that the future of the web is RSS. Microsoft doesn’t have an RSS reader. In fact, there are no major names in the RSS ring. A little odd, if it is the future of the web, right?

There’s currently so many options when it comes to RSS. It’s great to have so many competing products, but it sure makes it frustrating when there is no single stand-out reader. I have a few favorites, but there isn’t a single RSS aggregator that I’ve used consistently because the features I like are spread around a variety of good programs, mostly developed by one or two people.

I have a very successful and creative friend and mentor who says regularly that ignorance is an asset. If you don’t know enough about something, you don’t know the million reasons why it can’t be done. If necessity is the mother of invention, ignorance is the father.

So, speaking completely in ignorance, I have a question.

Why doesn’t the Mozilla Foundation take a bold step into uncharted territory and develop the world’s best RSS Reader? Why not beat Microsoft to desktops everywhere?

Just an idea.

Update: I’m retarded. Mozilla Thunderbird’s roadmap has RSS integration listed as a new feature for the next release, 0.8. Please excuse me for not actually looking first at the one place it would be most intelligent to integrate news readers.

Sometimes I miss cable TV. (Um, very rarely.) But why miss it when I can check out highlights from the Daily Show or great documentary news articles from PBS Frontline? Or, if I’m feeling really saucy, I can dial up some Channel9.

Well Garfield’s crappy movie hasnt even come out yet and it allready sold out. That gluttonous feline is now using Goldfish to prmote himself and his new movie. I hate love America.

I found my digital camera under the seat of a car that I’m trying to sell because it blew into a million peices. (All it left was the seat and my camera apparently.) Well, being out of the habit of taking photographs, I decided to immediately celebrate my joy by taking pictures of my wonderful wife. Because she hates to have her picture taken. By me. Anyone else, she doesn’t seem to mind… but me? She runs. She hides. She yells, “I hate you!” No, I kid. But seriously, she hates me.