Teknovis

I just discovered two great new ways of using the mouse wheel in Firefox besides scrolling!

• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a link opens the link in a new tab! That is great, because I normally right click on links, and then select Open Link in New Tab.
• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a tab will close that tab! This is very useful for me, because I changed the location of the close tab button as described in Browser.tabs.closeButtons.

For more Firefox mouse tips see Mouse tips!

Tags: Firefox

There will be local elections in Ireland in early June, so the candidates are currently trying to get as much publicity as possible. The Internet now forms a crucial part of most candidates’ campaigns. However, some candidates have more interesting online presences than others…

Emma Kiernan is an example of such a candidate. Her official web page contains the follow corporate looking photo:

Official Photo of Emma Kiernan

However, until recently Emma Kiernan also had a publicly accessible Facebook account. This contained some less formal photos, such as this one:

Facebook photo of Emma Kiernan

It is debatable which photo is more likely to gain votes for her, but I guess that it depends on which segment of voters she is trying to attract!

This story comes from Elections Thread. Alternatively, I could have posted this article as yet another story of people not realising the loss of privacy associated with Facebook. I expect more similar incidents in the future…

Tags: Facebook, Ireland

I installed OpenOffice (yes – I know it is officially called OpenOffice.org) on my main computer today. My main reason for wanting to try it is that it offers the potential of providing greater interoperability between my current Windows installation and my future Ubuntu installation. I also prefer the philosophy behind the OpenDocument format compared to the Office Open XML format.

The installation process was very straight-forward. However, there were two minor issues that annoyed me:

• The default dictionary in my installation was English (Eire). Unfortunately, this did not seem to suggest any corrections for my incorrectly spelt words :( Luckily English (UK) works perfectly :)
• A quick-launch module is loaded when the system is starting up by default. I hate these quick-launch applications that run permanently! Luckily, it can easily be disabled!

I will update my blog again after I have used it for a while!

Tags: OpenOffice, Ubuntu

One of the web sites that I visit most often using my PDA is Wikipedia.However, I only realised this week that there is an excellent version of the web site that is designed for mobile devices! The address is mobile.wikipedia.org.

m.wikipedia.org also works, but it gives an information rich web page that is more similar to the desktop version of the Wikipedia home page.

Tags: Mobile Phone, PDA, Wikipedia

I discovered some really great new ways to use new tabs and windows in Firefox this week!

I normally like to use a separate window for each web site or topic that I am viewing, and multiple tabs within each window. For example I might use one window for my web mail containing a tab for each web mail account, another window for my favourite news web site containing a tab for each story that I want to read, and another window for something that I am researching containing a tab for each relevant article.

However, sometimes I open tabs in the wrong window and I need to move them to another window. There are two ways of doing this depending on what is required:

• To copy an existing tab to a new window simply drag the tab to the New Window icon in the toolbar
• To copy an existing tab to an existing window drag the tab to the window’s Taskbar Button (without releasing the mouse), wait for the existing window to gain focus, and then drag the tab to the New Tab icon in the toolbar (or to the address bar to replace an existing tab)

I also came across a Firefox add-on called Tab To Window that allows users to move existing tabs to new windows. I think that the advantage of using the add-on is that the tab history is also transferred to the new window.

Tags: Firefox

I regularly use my PDA to access Vodafone‘s Irish website (www.vodafone.ie). I normally do this using a WiFi connection, and I often do it while I am abroad. The main reason I access the web site is to send free text messages.

However, accessing the website on my PDA is really awkward! Indeed, it is one of the worst web sites that I have ever experienced on my PDA! This is particularly surprising when you consider that Vodafone is in the mobile market!

My reasons for disliking the web site, and in particular the My Vodafone portal, are:

• The layout of the web pages is not suitable for narrow screens.
• Some of the web pages rely on JavaScript to provide the functionality.
• Images are used for navigation and functionality, and no alternatives are provided.
• Popups are used! Even on a desktop this is problematic since so many browsers now block popups!

Ideally, it would be nice if Vodafone developed a mobile version of its portal! This could be used as a value added service to drive data revenues!

Tags: Ireland, JavaScript, Vodafone, WiFi

I previously described how Google will photograph the streets of Dublin for Google Street View in Google Street View Comes to Ireland.

This morning I spotted one of the cars taking the photos in the north side of the city! I am hoping that I will be visible when the photos are eventually published online!

The car that was being used was a red hatch-back, and I think that it had Irish registration plates on it. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to take a photo of it using my PDA :(

Tags: Google, Ireland

WolframAlpha – view the demonstration, look at the examples, and try it! It looks very impressive!

I am currently trying to get two friends who might find it useful to try it! One of these friends uses a lot of mathematical tools and the other friend works with genetics.

Tags: WolframAlpha

I had to install Windows 2000 on some computers over the weekend. The last time that I installed this operating system was several years ago! My main concern was figuring out what service packs and hot fixes needed to be installed. This is what I installed:

1. Windows 2000 (from original CD)
2. Service Pack 4 (W2KSP4_EN.EXE – 129MB)
3. Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 (KB891861) (Windows2000-KB891861-v2-x86-ENU.EXE – 31MB)
4. Conficker Protection MS08-067 (KB958644) (Windows2000-KB958644-x86-ENU.EXE – 1MB)

These computers are operating on an isolated network that does not have Internet access. However, other laptops are regularly attached to the network.

Tags: Conficker, Windows 2000

The latest figures from the IEDR show that a total of 9,781 .ie domains were registered in the first quarter of 2009. Registrations in Q1 2009 were up by 28% compared to Q4 2008. The previous highest number of registrations was recorded in Q1 2008 with 9,092.

For the full story see Record number of new .ie domain registrations in Q1 2009.

I actually think that this is really impressive in the current economic climate!

Tags: Ireland