iNode: Nota Bene

Not sure how best to control your USB missile launcher? http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006⁄07/06/usb_missile_launcher/

How about a proper Big Red Button? http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006⁄07/28/nuclear_war_usb_hut_heads_west/
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006⁄07/18/usb_nuclear_war_button_box/

That'll set you back around US$70 in total, but well worth every penny!

In The Lord of the Rings, it is “obvious” that Eowyn of Rohan killed the Lord of the Nazgul. But if you read carefully with a sideways eye, it can look like it was in fact Meriadoc Brandybuck who dealt the fatal blow …

See the longer article The Witch-King of Angmar for my dissenting hypothesis.

Then tell me to relax and get a life!

I've started a number of new Firefox installs lately, and keep on finding extensions I've forgotten to add. So I thought I'd list the few essential ones that I really miss when they're not there …

First comes the Google Browser Sync. In some ways it's a shame that all my data goes to Google, but given that I have at least three separate browsing locations in common usage, having at least bookmarks synched between them is very handy. And it doesn't do just bookmarks – it's also handling passwords, cookies and history. I didn't like window sessions, too spooky having windows I thought I'd left behind suddenly opening up!

Related to the Sync comes the Add Bookmark Here extension, so you can be viewing a page, and navigate the bookmarks before choosing a subcategory to add it to … and then add it straight in. All it really does is invoke the standard add item menu, but with the category pre-chosen. Very handy. One of the list of things I often think "why doesn't firefox do this by default?" (I think the answer to that is, use Opera. Opera already does “it” by default.)

Then I generally add Mouse Gestures to the set, which is another retrofit from Opera. Not so sure I'll be using that much under Linux at the moment as I'm playing with the ion3 window manager (very keyboard-centric), but it's very useful in mouse environments.

Blank Last makes it possible to ^W your way out of tabs, without accidentally exiting FFox when you hit the last one. Firefox is relatively slow to start (especially with Google's Sync in place) so anything that helps prevent you from exiting too early is good. Hmmm … just like Opera! It helps if you play around with the Tabs Preferences first; don't hide the tab bar and force new links into new tabs. From the same site comes Stop-or-Reload, which combines the two named buttons, saving screen real estate. Just like Safari …

And where would we be without Firebug to show us how AJAX is ticking along? And DOM inspection into the bargain :-)

Finally back to Google again - the Gmail Notifier sits happily at the bottom of the Firefox page, quietly reminding you to catch up with your outstanding messages, when they turn up.

Mark Pilgrim's blog lists his essential Ubuntu software, of which one category is Firefox and the addons. Have a look :- http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006⁄06/26/essentials-2006 Also consider Scot Finnie's "Best Firefox Extensions" http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/best_of/firefox.htm page for inspiration too.

If you get carried away, try downloading Opera 9 instead. Smaller, faster, and does more by default than Firefox. Plus they have an Ubuntu 6.06 download, and by default opening .deb files launches GDebi, a stand-alone package installer … just like … ummm … Windows! And OSX! Unlike those two OSs however, you'll get other system dependancies installed properly (like libqt). Because the package installer isn't part of your download. Meh.