July Foxkeh Desktop !

A bright beautiful blue desktop is out for July from the very creative Firefox supporters in Japan at Foxkeh,

http://www.foxkeh.com/downloads/wallpapers/

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)
Michael Chabon
432 p.

-library “express collection”

Yiddish Detective Landsman romps through the mythical land of Sitka trying to figure why the man living in his same hotel is dead. Sitka is an insular community of several million located in Alaska, Jewish people who were located there after a revisionist history at the end of WWII. While everyone waits for the imminent disaster of the Sista reverting back to the USA after its 60 year temporary independence, the powerful “black hat” mob who live on two of the islands have their own idea about what should happen next.

The writing in the book is some of the most elegant language I have read in a long time, and the pacing and turns of plot exquisite. The tone is steady throughout, always forcing a balance between staying on the beautiful expressions and compelling you to know what the character will do next.

It is a curious balance though between getting to know and feel for the characters and the format of the novel as detective novel. Others have commented on this feeling. Chabon himself says aimed the book to be a class detective mystery along the lines of his favourites, Chandler and Ross MacDonald(1) and that is obvious. Landsman is indeed the usual depressed, sarcastic, and alcoholic detective. The other people in the book are likewise stereotypes, little sketches of humour and pathos rather than full persons. In a way, you want to get to know them better. It would not serve the story though nor the framework as a classic detective novel, although an extremely literary one and one that also has any number of other “stories”. These other “stories” have to do with the Jewish nature of the book and have been described many other places. As others have also said, you wish to hear the stories from the perspective of other characters such as the gansta “black hats” or the “boundary maven” or a lesser character. There is simply so much of interest to tell that it could not possibly all be included in the 400 or more pages of this one book. Yet other people will say that is not the point, that the book is about “higher issues” not the actual events; still others will say it is only about the character of Landsman. I certainly learned a few things I never knew before by reading this book, such as the boundary maven concept in the Jewish faith, and the history of how the US government almost did transport Jewish refugees to Alaska.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=809

New York Times Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Rafferty-t.html

The Quarterly Conversation

http://www.quarterlyconversation.com/TQC_8/chabon.html

Amazon

Firefox 3: 24 million downloads and still counting

24 million downloads and still counting

Firefox 3 reached 8 million downloads in 24 hours in the effort to get in the Guinness World Records, and has over 24 million downloads since June 17th. Cowabunga!

Congratulations to the many developers and workers who worked on Firefox 3 and who organized Download Day! People sat down at their computers in almost every country in the world all timed to the special day, across time zones, and joined in the effort. A nifty map shows downloads by country, here are some examples,



Australia	399,042
Bangladesh	16,316
Belgium	169,076
Canada	668,739
China	604,107
Ethiopia	1,077
France	823,187
Germany	2,084,595
Italy	655,218
Hong Kong	137,654
Iran	522,499
Jordon	7,055
Kyrgyzstan	591
Latvia	34,962
New Zealand	65,069
Nigeria	14,119
Peru	59,715
Philippines	149,680
Qatar	9,699
Russia	298,003
Saint Lucia	843
Saudi Arabia	39,247
Somalia	47
South Korea	130,636
Sweden	206,019
The Gambia	203
Trinidad & Tobago	7770

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

How popular is Firefox? It now has about a 15% share of the internet market, which is quite amazing as almost every home computer in the world comes with Internet Explorer, other than Macintosh computers. Firefox as with other competitors to Internet Explorer faces enormous challenges in competing with Microsoft, with its monopoly and giga-billion resources.

On the other hand, Firefox has great advantages over IE such as built on proper “HTML” coding, which makes websites appear properly on your screen and act as they should. It is much easier to use and doesn’t have a lot of extra “stuff”, hidden or visible, that tends to make your programs or computer crash. Instead, you can just quickly add on “little extras” to make your Firefox do or look as you would like through the Add On’s section. It is also open source, following a philosophy that its community of users help develop the program and which also means that everything is at no cost to the user. There are lots of other good reasons to use Firefox.

Popularity varies by country. Fewer people as a percent of the total population use it in the US, about 15%, where Microsoft is so dominate, but a third of Canadian home computer users have it. The top users are,

Germany (27.23%)
Australia (24.65%)
Belgium (22.29%)
Canada (20.61%)
Italy (19.32%). (1)

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox57-firefox-mozilla-ie-browser-market-share.html

Firefox is the main project of Mozilla, a non-profit Foundation that also sponsors projects such as Thunderbird (email), Camino (Macintosh), Sunbird and Lightening (calendars).

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/

Firefox 3 Frolic

Firefox 3 Frolic

Someone has written a wonderful explanation of the new features in Firefox 3 and so I give you the link to Deb Richardson’s

“Field Guide to Firefox 3″:
http://www.dria.org/wordpress/archives/2008/06/12/655

Koroush Ghazi’s Tweaks for Firefox 3 also gives some helpful information about using Firefox 3,
http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Mozilla does not have a good guide, only a brief overview of some features,
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/

Firefox is already recognized for its security features and Firefox 3 developers have come up with quite a few more improvements, some that you see and some that you do not see.

A visible one is the new “site identification” button for secure sites, which is also called “Instant Web Site ID”. These sites have the little padlock icon and are the ones you send or receive money on or do other things that need special security. The padlock icon (and the s after http, “https”) do not always given you enough information though to be sure that the website is secure. With the new Firefox 3 feature, you also see green, blue or green icons and can get more information about the security of the site.
http://www.dria.org/wordpress/archives/2008/05/06/635/

Changes to Software

Any new major change in software will bring a few frustrations while getting used to the changes. Some things work a bit differently and some of the Add On’s do not work anymore. Soon these are overcome and forgotten. You get used to new ways or find a way to work around something you don’t like. Firefox is a creation of constant development. Its many teams don’t stop at a release and in fact nightly builds are available for anyone who would like to be part of the never ending testing and development process. Firefox is always alive with input from users.

I supposed it is boring to talk about the two main complaints people have about the new Firefox 3 as so much as been written already. It also takes away from the real shine of the many improvements and the hard won accomplishments of the developers, who work so hard.

Still, these two areas flashed at me also when I tried Firefox 3 and it is hard to think that they will just disappear as issues.

One area is the location bar, and the other is bookmarks.

Location Bar

The “location bar” is just where you type or paste in the website you want to visit.

Firefox 2 has a little arrow at the right side of the location bar which you can click and see a drop down list of a few websites that you have recently visited. It can be handy as a quick way to get back to somewhere when you have recently closed the tab (page). Simple.

Firefox 3 is very different.

As soon as you start typing, letters start appearing ahead of what you type, part of a new “guessing game” of where you what to go. A large box appears underneath which starts expanding and flashing with the addresses of different websites, each hoping to be the one that you are looking for. These links are pulled from your recent history, bookmarks and bookmark “tags”. With each letter you type in, the suggestions change. This feature somehow trains itself so that after some use, it is supposed to get better at coming up more quickly with the site you want.

It could be a quick way of getting to websites if you frequently use ones that are already in your bookmarks and you do not clear your “history” often. It is called “Awesome Bar” or “Smart Bar”.

Many people though, do not regularly or often go to bookmarked or tagged sites when they are surfing the web. The same people, or different people, may frequently clear their “history” for privacy reasons or just as party of keeping their computer. The links that turn up in the “Awesome Bar” may not be very helpful to them.

The difficulty is that there is no built in way to turn the behaviour “off”. You cannot just have your ordinary location bar.

Bookmarks

A yellow star at the very right end of the Awesome Bar (location bar) is new. Click on it and it will automatically bookmark your site. If you open your sidebar panel of Bookmarks, you will not see what you have just bookmarked though. Instead, you must open your Bookmark Manager. It has three panels now instead of two, and the bottom right panel is for “Unsorted Bookmarks”. Anything you bookmark with the yellow star goes there. Double clicking the yellow star should open a dialogue box so you can pick where to file the bookmark, but I was not able to get that to work.

Firefox 3 is aimed at those who like to file by “tags“. You must give each bookmark a one or two word description for this system to work. Then, when you want to find something on a topic, you type in a “tag” in the search. Instead of filing things under two or more folders, or just forgetting which folder you have filed something under, you just use your “tag” search to find everything under the topic, such as “hardware”. You can also make a folder with a “smart tag” so that next time you save something with that tag, it saves automatically to that folder.

In Firefox 2, the left panel shows my alphabetical list of folders. The right panel is blank, but if I wanted, I could type keywords or notes for each bookmark and have them show up there, or have the link address show up. I like things plain and easy so don’t do anything extra. I just keep my unfiled bookmarks in a folder called that at the bottom of my a-z list.

In Firefox 3, there are three panels, with the bottom right side panel being the “Unsorted Bookmarks” if you use the yellow star. I was not able to figure out why things were in the left or right panel, or how to move something from the Unsorted panel into a folder. I am sure if I spent longer at it things would become clearer. Still, I would rather have a simple way to just swish things up and down than having to stop and figure out something complicated every time I go to my Bookmark Manager. Other people are also finding it harder to keep their bookmarks organized with Firefox 3, rather than easier.

Since the beginning of time, Firefox users have wanted to search their bookmarks and learn what folder something is filed under. One reason for the wish is the human problem of misfiling things. I know I have the Billings Museum bookmarked, and when I search “Museum”, it will turn up. But I want to know what folder it is in, so I can move it to the correct folder. I don’t want to have my Bookmarks full of misfiled links.

This feature still has not been included in Firefox 3. You cannot find out what folder something is filed under in Firefox. An “Add On” called “Locate” will give you a list of other things filed in the same folder, which may help you find the right folder, but takes time and is not always helpful.

Why the different reactions?

Different reactions to the location bar and bookmarks, which Firefox 3 calls the “Library” are mostly just part of the normal getting used to changes in any new major software changes. I think Firefox has an especially active fan base of technical users, some who like to just bite on anything to show they don’t know very much. Some of the discussion in forums and newsgroups has been very rude indeed to some people simply looking for help or expressing their feelings about some of the changes. Never be discouraged if you encounter one of them, they are like rubbish everywhere on the internet.

Social bookmarking

Some reaction just partly reflects different kinds of users. Millions of computer users are not all kind to like the same thing. Some of us are more plain potatoes users than others, and a growing group of those “others” are part of what some call the “social web” and others talk about as “Web 2″. Some talk as “social web” as just part of “Web 2″ with Web 2 having to do with the more technical parts, but since I do not understand the differences entirely, I won’t debate.

Beyond just linking gadgets together, this movement likes to link everyone with everyone else together and all their “stuff” together with everyone else’s “stuff” in new ways using computer programs in new ways. It goes way beyond the old idea of discussion groups like Yahoogroups, “boards”, chat groups and newsgroups. Facebook and Youtube are well know parts of this new sharing and connecting, but only the bare skim of the complexity of what has developed. Words, pictures, videos, colours, articles, icons, animations, comments, small programs, voices, all combine and recombine in a sometimes giddy form of communication.

It may be that with the changes in the location bar and the bookmarks, Firefox 3 developers intend to partly accommodate this new type of social web user, especially the “social bookmarking” enthusiasts.

Social bookmarking is a popular part of the action. Sometimes you will see a row of bright, tiny icons at the end of an article. These icons link to social bookmarking websites.

Thousands of people save hundreds to thousands of bookmarks and share them on any number of these websites such as Blink, del.icio.us, Twitter and Stumpleupon. Each of these sites has their own purpose although many are very similar. From these websites, people then bookmark the bookmarks that other’s have left, link them to their blogs and websites and pass them on in any number of other ways.

Bookmarks swirl and whirl around the internet through the use of “tags”. Tags are one or two word short descriptions of the contents of the bookmarked website. “Videos”, “Bush”, Books”, Madonna” are examples of tags. Tags allow easy searching for topics that interest you. On the front page of social bookmarking websites, there is usually a “tag cloud”. It shows which tags are most popular by the size of the text of the name. The larger the text, the more popular is the topic. It can become a competition to have the most bookmarks on one of these websites, and to have your “blog” articles bookmarked the most times on the most number of social bookmarking websites. Firefox also has many “Add On’s” that help you quickly get to many of these websites.

Competition

Changes like the location bar and the bookmarks also may reflect a need Mozilla feels to do more things differently than Internet Explorer. For many years, Netscape and then Firefox exploded in popularity because of their tab feature, the ability to open many web pages without leaving the same window. IE has now added that feature, and although theirs does not work very well and is hard to use, it shows one way that IE has been trying to copy Firefox. IE has also been trying to catch up on security improvements and even some of its coding. Mozilla may feel a need to move ahead with some very visible changes that are more than the already strong internal and user-friendly features that were available.

Staying Simple

It is a balance to remain plain and fast, which was the original intention and yet be competitive in wider markets. Mozilla formed partly out of a protest at the “bloating” as is called of Microsoft and other products where any many features are included that most people did not use or want. It creates software that is confusing to use, slows down computers, conflicts with other programs, crashes and can be just annoying. When I had to reinstall software for my Hewlett Packard scanner, as example, I had to download a program that included a photo organizer and all kinds of complicated messes. All I wanted was a button to open a scanner dialogue.

Mozilla Firefox does not include what some consider as basic features because, it says, they do not want to bloat the software. There is not as example, a button you can program to open your own email program. Instead, people have a very wide range of Add On’s that are quick and simple to include for whatever extra they may wish. In that way, you just have what you want.

It becomes curious then as to why something like the “Awesome Bar” was included without any way to turn it off. It is certainly very intrusive and distracting if you do not like or want it. I am not sure either why the Bookmarks became so very complicated. Perhaps they would be more sensible with use.

Work Arounds

In the meanwhile, several methods have been developed to work around the Awesome Bar behaviour, although they do not get your location bar to be just as it was in Firefox 3. People are developing other ways to stop Firefox 3 doing things they do not like.

Some of them are quite technical though and not suggested you try unless you are sure what you are doing and have all your backups. The methods are however often technical and not suggested you try unless sure what you are doing. What’s need for the location bar is simply an option in the Preferences to give a choice of using it or the Firefox 2 version.

Mozilla solutions

http://support.mozilla.com/lt/kb/How+to+disable+the+Smart+Location+Bar

Bo Bayles

http://bbayles.googlepages.com/disable_slb.html

Add On – Hide Unvisited
(from showing in Location Bar)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7429

Add On – Old Bar

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227

and also,

Removing Bookmark Star

http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com//2008/05/10/fx-3-removing-bookmark-star-button/

Look around Mozilla and google for other ideas.

A Few Places for Help and Support:

Firefox Support, including Mozilla Knowledge Base

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+Support+Home+Page

MozillaZine Forums

http://forums.mozillazine.org/

MozilleZine Knowledge Base

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Knowledge_Base

Field Guide to Firefox 3

http://www.dria.org/wordpress/archives/2008/06/12/655

Koroush Ghazi’s Tweaks for Firefox 3

http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Firefox Add On’s : Firebug, Fireshot, Flagfox


Firebug
by Joe Hewitt, Firebug Working Group

“Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.”

I can’t think of anything more helpful than to have a simple button to click which will open up a well- designed menu with many tools to use in viewing and editing codes. It’s a great learning tool for those of us trying to figure the mysteries of coding as well as working help for designers. An active discussion group is maintained and it is Firefox 3 ready.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

Fireshot
by jimm samsung

“Adds the ability to take a screenshot of web page (entire of visible part), edit it, add annotations and upload to server, save (PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP), copy to clipboard, send to external editor or e-mail it.”

Fireshot is just like taking a snapshot with a little camera and even has that “snap” sound effect, then crop anyhow you like and save, bingo. That’s just the very basic way I most often use it but sometimes I will add notes and email right from the Add-On also. I love how you can include the whole page or just a tiny bit. Firefox 3 ready and detailed information on the author’s page.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5648

Flagfox
by Dave G.

“Displays a country flag in the status bar depicting the location of the current website’s server, and provides quick access to detailed location and webserver information.”

Flagfox is a great amusement, although also serves the important function of alerting you when a website is being transmitted from an unexpected location. I suppose if you travel the web in certain circles, that could be the most important function. I have become curious about the number of Canadian based organizations whose websites are hosted in the US, and the reverse, the number of US organizations whose web sites are hosted in Canada! If you click on the flag, you will be connected to a Geotool server that shows a map of where the site is being transmitted from along with a few technical facts about it and its geographical location. It’s a fun way to learn about places!

In fact you can type in an IP address anytime into the Geotool website to get the same information,
http://geotool.servehttp.com.

Look up your own IP address and then put it in Geotool and see what you get!
http://whatismyip.com/

It is Firefox 3 ready and there is a forum.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5791

Firefox 3 is Now Out

Giddy Gadgets

I will be posting a few of the free or open source programs that I enjoy. All of the websites are McAfee Site Advisor green, and the downloads I have made have been checked as safe through Avira. Always do your own checking first though before installing anything you have downloaded!

.
.
.

Aveiconifier2

Ever need to quickly change a .jpg, .gif or .ping to an .ico – or the other way around? Just slide your icon or small graphic into one end of Aveiconfier, also called Aveicon, and then slide your new one out the other half of the panel. Magic!

You can get it here,
http://www.vistaicons.com/software_collections.htm

ShirusuPad
By Daniel Crkvenic

The tiniest little tabbed notepad you ever saw and you would not believe the number of features it has. It’s not meant for editing but for keeping notes and sits in your taskbar beside the clock. It is so tiny that you need to take a bit of time to explore all the features and use them fully. You can jot one word notes to keeping long pages in tabs and as many as you want, you can even set reminders. It is incredible and a best kept secret. Sadly, it is not being updated but it really needs nothing more.

You can get it here,
http://hem.bredband.net/danielc/

Convert
By Josh Madison

As one who learned things the standard way, I am frequently flicking open Covert to translate the Celsius temperature into Fahrenheit and kilometers into miles. Weights and measures are other areas that confuse me in their metric. A handy feature of Convert is that you can set in Preferences to show only which types of measurements you want, hiding the others. Light and torque as example are ones that I do not use.

You can get it here,
http://joshmadison.com/article/convert-for-windows

Girls of Riyadh

Girls of Riyadh
Rajaa Alsanea
2007, Penguin Press,
Originally published in Arabic, by Dar al Saqi, Beirut, 2005
-”express loan” library shelf

In one sense, the book is the tales of four girls, friends, in the adventures of their lives as they cross the churning years between girlhood and womanhood.

Clothes, school, parents, boys, love and the painful struggles to gain a sense of self and understanding of the world and themselves in it fill their lives. Just like kids anywhere, they do things behind their parents back, are jealous, heartbroken, lonely, excited and thrilled with discovery, dreams, and disappointments. I felt drawn into their lives and immersed by their vibrancy.

Almost nothing though, was familiar about the actual setting and structure of their lives. They are Saudi Arabians, and the rules of comportment, interrelations and social structure are quite unfamiliar. When Sadeem is presented with a young man to marry, he may meet beforehand and we learn that the most dreaded question of all during such interviews is, “can you cook?”. We learn that written contracts are signed and although the marriage is then considered legal, the two may not meet again until the “white gown” party. In that way we are introduced to how much of social life takes place, and almost all of that between women and men before the party: the cell phone and text messaging on the cell phone. Hours of these girls lives are spent on their cell; men hound women by trying to slip their phone numbers written on slips of paper through car windows. I found this information intriguing, as an example of how new technology has changed social relations and even social structures; perhaps it struck me as I don’t have a cell phone myself and have never used one.

The friends have an enormous amount of freedom to do and go where they want, much more than I expected. This is a central aspect of the stories: these families are very wealthy and that affects everything. The parents are for the most part westernized and while still keeping firm hold on most traditions, they have a certain new outlook on what they want for their children. Some have second houses in England or elsewhere; they travel to Paris and the US; almost all have family who study in the U.S. and one girl’s mother is an American. The girls have drivers standing by in cars to take them anywhere, and they wear the latest fashions. At the same time, a black abaya and face scarf will be put on before getting off an airplane in Saudi after return from Europe or elsewhere. The grids of different cultures and cultures in transition that are walked clearly bring tensions and confusion.

The book though, is centrally about the various love life’s of the four girls. In that it is hilarious, buoyant, incredulous and other than one girl, heartbreaking. You can’t quite believe that the book has ended before you know what happens to the rest of their lives.

Their stories are told from the inside, through the format of a series of emails sent to a group of subscribers. The host, the written of the emails, is unknown though suspected to be one of the girls, who recalls their lives over the past several years. When she starts, the friends are entering university; by the end, a couple are divorced and two have children. The narrator does get giddy at times over the stir that her emails are creating in the community, but I found that simply endearing.

Author’s Site

Amazon

The Dutch Blue Error

The Dutch Blue Error
William G. Tapply
1984
-a philatelic mystery
-interlibrary loan

A Philatelic delight!

Brady Coyne, the requisite detective, hunts for a unique missing stamp, called – the Dutch Blue Error. Dead bodies, interesting characters, twisting plot, and good writing keep you turning the pages of this book.

Most important, there is plenty of philatelic reference. The theme hinges on the Dutch Blue Error being unique, the only one of its kind, and plenty of dialogue occurs on why that should be so important when another Dutch Blue Error mysteriously appears. A stamp dealer gives a great explanation on differences amongst counterfeits, fakes, frauds and a scientist who does the authentication in his lab discovers something surprising. Some collectors of rare stamps do shady things. Compare this book with an earlier book I read which was supposed to have a philatelic theme, McNally’s Secret, in which there was no philatelic reference and the stamp involved could just as well have been a teapot.

A good read for those of us who collect stamps. I don’t think I would care for the rest of the Brady Coyne series which are general mysteries, but clearly a lot of people do like them as the 23rd one has been released.

Author’s Site

Amazon

Firefox Add On’s: ColourfulTabs, Canada English Dictionary, Get Mail

Following from the main June 4 post, just called Firefox Add On’s, I will be listing at least 22 Add On’s that I use myself and which you might also be interested in trying. The list is just alphabetical.

ColorfulTabs
By Varun

“The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. Flock version available at http://binaryturf.com/software/colorfultabs-for-flock/. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.”

I would not surf without these beautiful tabs, and there is even a “flock” version now available! It is Firefox 3 ready.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1368

Canada English Dictionary

Firefox has dozens of dictionaries available for your spellcheck, Afrikaans and Albanian, to Xhosa and Zulu.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3653

GetMail
by Webdesigns

It seems odd to me not having a button to open your mail program from your internet program, but Firefox doesn’t. Maybe it has something to do with Firefox’s determined effort to separate itself as a standalone browser, not a combined package as Netscape was with mail & internet combined; or as Microsoft is, with IE and Outlook. Still, it seems rather a ideological view, it’s only a button after all.

The developer of the GetMail button has taken it away from the Mozilla Add On department, as a number of developers have also done. Lucky for us, he still makes it freely available and even has a Firefox 3 version ready.

http://webdesigns.ms11.net/getmail.html

Ben Harper & Blind Boys of Alabama – Give a Man a Home

Ben Harper and the Boys of Alabama giving one of their most haunting and beautiful performances of “Give a Man a Home”.

Firefox – Foxkeh’s Incredibly Cool Desktops!

Every month Foxkeh has an incredibly cool desktop screen for you to download! All of them reflect the beautiful designs and colours of the Japanese group which promotes Firefox. Foxkeh also has some very nice buttons including all the beautiful buttons on this website which link to Firefox.

Get yours ! Foxken – http://www.foxkeh.com/.

Firefox Add On’s: Adblock Plus, Adblock Plus – Additional Filters, Brief

Following from the main June 4 post, just called Firefox Add On’s, I will be listing at least 22 Add On’s that I use myself and which you might also be interested in trying. The list is just alphabetical.

Adblock Plus
by Wladimir Palant

“Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.”

The description is really the truth. All the annoyances are truly gone. If you are not using it, you can hardly imagine how much cleaner and simpler the web is without all the rubbish. It’s had over 19 million downloads to give you an idea of how many users are now relieved. Wladimir also maintains a proper and active Forum. Firefox 3 ready.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

Adblock Plus Filters

Additional filters can be added to Adblock Plus to help screen out even more nasties of ads and trackers and so on. Adblock Plus provides a list of some available here,

http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions

and another list, some which are referred to in the above list,

http://easylist.adblockplus.org/

Both people caution not to use “Filterset.G Updater”. It is not kept updated properly, they have concerns about some of the scripts and there are some conflicts. They are described here,
http://adblockplus.org/en/faq_project#filterset.g
and by mister f on June 21, 2008 as a comment under the Filterset.G Updater Firefox Add,
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1136

It’s unfortunate that this Add On still appears in the list and usually right after the Addblock Plus as many people still think that they need to install it. I had installed until just recently and read the comments when writing about it for these notes. After I uninstalled it I did immediately notice improvement in my Firefox speed and handling.

Confusion exists also because an older Add On just called “Adblock” still exists in the Add On’s lists.
Brief
by Adam Kowalczyk

“Brief makes reading RSS feeds as easy as it gets. It is designed to have the right set of features to be both powerful and simple. Brief stores feeds on your disk and presents them on a seamless, interactive page.”
“Easily mark articles as read and star the interesting ones. Browse your feeds anyway you want – view the unread or starred entries, display a single feed or a whole folder, show full entries or only their headlines. Quickly find a piece of news using full text search. Be notified when feeds are updated in the background and track the number of new entries using the status bar. Customize the Brief’s look by creating your own styles. Use keyboard shortcuts to faster navigate through the pile of news.”

RSS was completely mystifying to me until I tried Brief. I only wanted something for simple needs and which was easy to understand and maintain. I am not a power user wanting a thousand feeds flowing and flashing on my screen all the time.

Brief is indeed as advertised, very simple to use and it has a very attractive and understandable interface. You simply make a folder in your Bookmarks and call it Brief or RSS or whatever you want, then make sure your Brief Settings are set to save your feeds in that same folder.

As you add new feeds you will likely want to sort them into folders within that main RSS folder. You just make those new sub folders in your Bookmarks same way you make any other folder, then slide your feeds into the folders. Then when you go to add new feeds, you can add them directly into those sub folders or create new sub folders as you go along – or delete as you want. Currently I have sub folders for Ebay & Related, Ebay Auctions, Books, GTD, Local, and Web.

You can update just a single folder or all of your feeds, and Brief asks you if you want to compact all your feeds when you go to empty your trash. This is very handy and means nothing is working in the background when you don’t know about it. I use the “star” feature a lot to keep around items that I don’t have time to read at the moment, and I like the option of opening feeds in a new tab.

A proper and active forum is maintained for this Add-On, and it is Firefox 3 ready.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4578

Firefox Add On’s

Firefox truly is a breeze to use with very sensible and flexible design. It is often described as “clean” meaning it’s not loaded with rubbish that you don’t want nor use. You won’t suffer toolbars and screens filled with puzzling icons and labels to confuse and make it annoying when you are trying to quickly find what you do want to use.

An exciting feature of Firefox is the incredibly interesting Add On’s that people have developed to make things faster or handier to do or find or even more safe or just more fun. Since you only add what you want, you are not stuck with things you don’t want, and they are all just a click to remove if you change your mind. They are just a click to add too and many can be even further set to your own liking and needs. Firefox being part of the Open Source Community, these Add On’s are also at no cost to the user. The greatest admiration and respect must go to these developers.

Sometimes you will find that one Add On will conflict with another one especially if you already have a lot. Sleuth work to find the offending partner can involve removing each of the others and testing and until you find which one is causing the other to be cranky. The very odd time this has happened to me, I found it a useful forced exercise in also removing one’s that I no longer used.

Everyone has their own favourites Firefox Add On’s according to their uses and personal tastes so you can not really go by just other people’s lists and recommendations. Still, it can be hard to find things in the Add On section of the Mozilla website so lists can be helpful in finding out about some that you might not come across. Some Add On’s are not even on the Mozilla site. With that in mind I am going to be talking a bit about the main Firefox Add On’s that I am currently using. To start, just the list:

1. Adblock Plus
2. Adblock Plus – Additional Filters
3. Brief
4. ColorfulTabs
5. Dictionaries – Canada
6. Get Mail
7. Firebug
8. Fireshot
9. Flagfox
10. Get Mail Plus
11. McAfee SiteAdvisor
12. MediaPlayer Connectivity
13. More Tools
14. Morning Coffee
15. OpenBook
16. QuickNote
17. QuickZoom
18. Reminderfox
19. ScrapBook
20. TinyUrl Creator
21. URL Link
22. Video Download Helper
23. Web Developer

Firefox 3 Download Day – Try for a Guinness Record

There is a push on to break the Guinness World Record for the most number of software downloads in a single day. Firefox 3 has no release date yet but it will be pretty soon in June. Why not sign yourself up and be part of the fun?

Infidel, Ayann Hirsi Ali

Infidel, Ayann Hirsi Ali
2007
-library “rapid” shelf

This one I couldn’t wait to read fast enough and yet I had to read slowly as each line, thought and part of the story was completely engrossing and beautiful. In the most miserable parts you could always feel her hope. As a westerner I felt I could identify with so much in her life and yet there was hardly anything of her actual life that was possibly familiar. When I read of her devouring books in Nairobi, one place where she could get them, and reading Nancy Drew, I had to reign in and sort out all kinds of emotions. Here was this girl, a refugee from savage and terrifying violence in Mogadishu and living in completely unfamiliar circumstances to me, reading Nancy Drew, just like I did as a kid, thrilling in the independence and adventures of a girl, just like I did. But her meaning of “independence of a girl” was nothing like I would have ever in any circumstances have understood. In fact I have never really understood anything about being in a family like hers until I read her story. I have talked with people, I have read books, I have read newspapers and internet articles, I have even studied anthropology. I have never really had the faintest idea because no one has ever just described it as a normal person who lived it would and without the politico or “academico” or especially, without the careful political correctness that plagues so much of our recent literature. She is not either from the elite classes as have been other writers I have come across of Middle Eastern and Muslim culture, though middle class of her particular community. Nor was this like the very horrible fiction book I recently read about women in similar culture written actually by a man. That book is getting all sorts of praise yet clearly coming from a sort of correctness to praise that sort of story not from the actual content of the book. The writer had no idea, as a Muslim man, what the experiences were like as a woman and couldn’t begin to get across any notion that he did.

Ayaan is a beautiful writer and she tells her story with all it’s emotions right open honestly and with wonderful detail and descriptions of the integration of herself within her family, clan and Somalian culture. When she moves out of this environment she hasn’t really left no more than any of us can leave who we are. In Holland she achieves the unthinkable, unimaginable for most Somali girls who are not married. She is independent, she works her way through university, she is employed, she is a volunteer, then a Member of Parliament. She is loved and respected by friends and the community. Not by her own communities, the Somalian or the Muslim of course. She is hated and harassed and eventually she must reconcile to living her life with armed guards.

She works her way back and forth across many issues as they develop and change during her life. Her family and her relationship to her Muslim religion are central. Her parents are very strong and unusual in themselves and despite often tenuous relations her respect and enormous love boundlessly shows throughout the book, her father in particular. They are a generation naturally bound more so than she to tradition and the boundaries they live with the modern world can be extremely mystifying and painful including with their own children. The children have their own painful boundaries with the an even more modern world and it is heartbreaking at times. Ayaan’s sister is of the strongest character and the most brutalized and abused of the children, she eventually flees also to Holland and it becomes clear to the reader – hindsight – that she has manic depression (perhaps schizophrenia, though I think not). Whether her past is related we can never know of course but we feel the very deepest sadness possible at what is happening to her and horror, and she soon returns home to an even worse situation and dies.

There are so many horrors in the lives and her life, yet they are described without the usual sensationalism and ideation we so often read and without any of the raging or prideful tones and words of victimization. She realizes that her purpose is simply to help create a place where Muslim women are and understand that they are like other women, free to make their own choices, be independent, and be safe. Being safe includes not submitting to beatings from their fathers, husbands and other men. Being free to make their own choices includes choosing their own husband and not being forced against their will into arranged marriages. Her aims are not abstract they are connected very much to real life. At the same time, the means to achieve them involve necessarily dialogue with Islam as the basis of Muslim life cannot be separated, rather it is entirely framed and governed by religion. Not just the dialogue but any infraction in the standards set by other Muslims is intolerable. Her parents will not speak to her, her clan and other send death threats, there are riots in the streets.

Dutch society is enmeshed in conflicts and opinions over the growing immigration and refugee influx. Like many other countries the situation of people who had been in the country for a very long time but had never integrated in any way but were living in segregated areas was becoming a particular concern to some. Ayaan describes the attitudes which created and encourage this situation and why she opposes it. It relates to the situation of Muslim women and therefore religion, and therefore one of the policies purposed by her party was the end to funding separate religious schools. Muslim girls and boys should start being fully integrated with other Dutch girls and boys in the schools, continued isolation in enclave Islamic madrasahs was not helping. Since the State had by tradition always funded any private school this was extremely controversial but there could not be a policy of not funding one yet funding the others without being discriminatory. She has great emphasis on the parents though as that is where the children learned. Eventually she made a short 10 minute film and the film maker was assassinated, a note to her then stuck in his throat with a knife. It eventually becomes impossible to continue in Holland safely and her goals as to how to achieve her aims broaden, and she accepts a job in the USA.

Some might wonder at the brutal openness and honestly she consistently kept throughout the book. It might seem naive at times. Most of us are not used to being so up front in our feelings and experiences to the public and are own natural but clear weaknesses and naivety as we develop through life. Her ability to do so encourages us to stand strong in ourselves though and not be discouraged by our own failings as we explore and maintain our own values. Some of the content might seem unusual if you are not familiar with refugees. Several times she had to make a point that yes, she lied on her refugee claim in Holland. It is to great respect and admiration not only that she just says this but that the Dutch people as a whole, understood. Whatever the details of applications, you hardly need a brain to understand that this was a genuine need and the world is tangled. Strength, questioning, needs informed her enormous determination to transform thinking and living situations so that people, clans, communities, countries with Muslim women can start to better lives.

When politicians work their policy dances, what is it that informs them? Ask them if they have read this book, and if they have not, you must question if they have any informed reason to be in their job. While Ayaan had only Western books to read as a child, our children also have this book, it is perfectly readable and appropriate to children in our world where so many cultures come together in our schools and communities. It is not too much to ask even that it be required high school reading.

You cannot but help feeling a icy dread after reading this book. The monstrosity of violence that threatens her for having an inquiring mind and being able to speak and write from her heart so simply is so real and immediate that you can almost feel the blades. It menaces and demands that each of us do something. It is not enough to comfortably read and remark. Each of us must find some way to be part of this.

More Information:

New York TImes Review

Amazon

See About Book Talk

The Anatomy of Deception, Lawrence Goldstone

The Anatomy of Deception, Lawrence Goldstone
2008
-library “rapid” shelf

Oh a literary mystery! It is always a treat to find a book written in wonderful language! The opening scene a bit off putting – an autopsy in bleak morgue, 1889 Philadelphia, but that is the book. Autopsies for scientific purposes as in training Doctors were not exactly legal and had to be done as can. Dr. Osler, the main character’s hero, and the very bad but very brilliant Dr. Halstead are both real historical characters though the story is fiction. Halstead was an opium addict and that did create some problems but I won’t give away the story. He is not directly involved anyway. Ephraim Carroll, the main character and the other lads and one lass working under Osler are all well developed and interesting as is Dr. Osler himself. Good read if ikky in parts.

Other Information:

Random House Publisher Review

Amazon

See About Book Talk

Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity

Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity, Michigan State University Museum
Raymond A. Silverman
1999
-interlibrary

I was a bit suspicious when I ordered this seeing as how universities and their African Study groups and the Museum were involved. Indeed Silverman’s introduction is boink, like he never heard of actually talking to real people before to ask them a question. However most of the sections were incredibly interesting and I learned a great deal about the various cultures. People who actually did know the various groups just went out and talked to people about what they were doing and how they understood what they were doing and how it fit in with everything else.

The approach taken was that “art” as westerners use and understand it is a constructed westerner value and we got to get over it. “We” being especially the hoity-toity in museums, galleries, universities and so on. There is a big problem in westerner construct of values such that the context is separated from the object in understanding the art. In this book, art is part of a context, the person who is making it, their community, their culture in order to create the meaning. None of this is anything new so it was a bit annoying to have all this presented like it was exciting news from Mars. Different people wrote the different sections. A few researchers were not with it but that did not distract and the photographs were just wonderful.

Other Information:

Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity Website

Amazon

See About Book Talk

The Brain That Changes, Norman Doide

The Brain That Changes, Norman Doide
2007
-library “rapid” shelf

It’s about how the brain can recover and make new pathways after trauma and damage. The writing is mediocre, it’s plastered with “oh wow!” types of expressions. I could only make myself skim this book and all of the information I came across was ancient history to me. Looks like he just pulled out old stuff and added “oh wow’s!!” and called it a book. Could be interesting to people new to the information, but I am sure that there are much better books on the subject.

Other Information:

Author Website

New York Times Review

Amazon

See About Book Talk

The K Handshape, Maureen Jennings

The K Handshape, Maureen Jennings
2008
-library “rapid” shelf

The story is set with a girl who had become deaf after birth who as a young adult picked out a congenitally deaf fellow to get her pregnant. She neglected to tell him though, she just wanted to make sure she had a deaf child so it too would be part of the Deaf Community. She’s found dead, and then the story gets going with the lead character Christine who has to find out what happened. She’s surrounded by the usual cast of detectives, friends and family, some quite interesting, but the most interesting character is the girl who had been looking after the child. Various points are made about Deaf Culture but the K Handshape sign is only slipped in a couple of times, not necessary or meaningful to the story. Makes a great title though.

I found Christine a shallow, self centred and arrogant character, I disliked her so much that it was difficult to keep reading the book. Along with that was the amount of flippant and oh-so contrived attitudes and language and descriptions which littered the book. These vexations are typical of Canadian books that attempt the mystery genre. It seems that every one of these authors must live or hang out with people from Toronto and caught that “attitude”. In fact this one did and you can see that by the front page being covered with all the government and quasi-government places that gave free money to write the book with. The same group and types of people give all the money and all the books end up sounding the same. There needs to be a way to stop giving away tax money to write these lousy books.

Other Information:

Review by Dundrum, the publisher

Amazon

See About Book Talk

McNally’s Secret, Lawrence Sanders

McNally’s Secret, Lawrence Sanders
1992
-library

I enjoy books with a “philatelic theme” as I collect stamps. This book was listed as one of those type of books on a website. A wealthy lady supposedly had her block of four invert Jenny’s stolen. However the McNally character was just too annoying to stand. He’s one of those smoking jacket hobby sleuths who lives in a mansion with rich daddy and just oh so terribly fond of himself. He and his father actually do put on smoking jackets and meet for their cocktails before supper. There was nothing to do with stamps anyway, could have been a teapot that was missing. Disappointing as there are several McNally books said to have “stamp themes” but this character is trash. The writing was formula and boring.

See About Book Talk

Eithiopian Stories, George Samuel Schuyler

Eithiopian Stories, George Samuel Schuyler
Introduction by Robert A Hill
1994
-interlibrary from Bishops

Totally awesome content, writing and style. Hill’s long introduction is more an essay informing of the history and tradition of black journalists in their 1920-1930′s settings. Part of this was the symbol of Ethiopia as black freedom and dignity in the emancipation within the US and within that the global politics of fascism and Mussolini’s intent to take over Ethiopia. Within the black community the “Harlem Renaissance” was taking place but many felt that the approach and symbols were wrong including Schuyler. Hill talks about various black literary traditions and sets the two stories in this book, which had been serialized in newspapers in their context with Schuyler. The stories are framed as mysteries and are a joy to read.

Other Information:

African American Literature: George S. Schuyler, Answers.com

George S. Schuyler and Black History Month

Amazon

See About Book Talk

A History of Ethiopia, Harold G. Marcus

A History of Ethiopia Harold G. Marcus
Updated Edition 2002
-interlibrary loan

Completely fascinating! An historical account from prehistory upwards, very thick reading, telling of names, dates, actions, movements, groups … like a hypersonic billiards table. I only got up to start of Haile Selassie when I had to return it, only one renewal allowed. Highly recommend regardless of your interests.

Other Information:

University of California Press Review

Amazon

See About Book Talk

enough for today

My first post, February 5, 2008.

This wobbly old lady determined to figure out how to get a blog to work.

Edited, June, 2008

It was an awful, terrible struggle to get this thing to work. To save readers annoyance, I have deleted all the posts recording that brawl. I continue to learn new things and correct mistakes.