For quite some time I’ve had a personal software rule that I would no longer install Apple software on my laptop PC. No iTunes or QuickTime for me. The reason I made that decision is because of the problem I’m having now.

There are a couple of websites I use regularly that continually wanted me to install the QuickTime application so I could enjoy the website in all its glory. I finally caved in and decided to give QuickTime another try.
Then I kept getting updates and updates that kept wanting me to install iTunes and Safari along with my QuickTime updates. …read more

The good news about my recent struggles with security certificates is that it’s all introduced me to a feature I wasn’t really familiar with prior to this week. Did you know there are profiles you can setup in Firefox to completely customize your use of the browser separately from other users?

The functionality reminds of the Profile features within Microsoft Mail and Microsoft Outlook. You can setup a different profile for each member of your family if you all share the same computer, or you could setup a different profile for personal and business use.
Once the multiple profiles are setup you …read more

I’ve been fighting with security certificates all day today with my browser, Mozilla Firefox, and it’s driving me crazy. Before today I had an ongoing problem with the Razorplanet domain hosting.

I eventually decided to try and delete all the certificates on my system first. I thought this might cause everything to refresh and as I hit more sites that required a certificate I would approve each request one at a time and see if I could track down the issue.
I keep approving them for sites I trust but they continue to show-up and annoy me.
My overall desire would be to …read more

I’ve been blogging a bit lately about how we have this unneeded fascination with the size of our technology devices. I’ve argued that for my personal preference having the smallest version of something doesn’t really matter to me, in my daily work, portable is more helpful than completely mobile.

I’m going to contradict myself a bit now with that argument. When it comes to screen real-estate, I want an effective use of space. This argument may be less of a rant on size though and more of a rant on flexibility and personal preference.
This was recently made clear to me as …read more

I upgraded my Firefox installation to the latest version, which is 3.5 if you’re counting. I got the warning saying that some of my add-ons/extensions wouldn’t work with the upgrade. I thought I’d take the chance it wasn’t any of them I was really addicted to and proceeded with the install.

The four extensions that were dead with the upgrade were the following:

coComment
Google Gears
Google Notebook
New Tab to Window

The tab function was okay to lose as moving tabs around was a specific feature added in the new version of Firefox 3.5. coComment I enjoyed using, but figured I could do without it …read more

The main reason I prefer using Firefox over other browsers is because of the extendability available through the use of the various Add-ons that can be downloaded to customize and enhance the browser for your own personal needs. I believe if Microsoft would increase this functionality and availability it would drastically improve their efforts. However, is the real challenge just because people aren’t developing extensions for IE like they do for Firefox?
Here’s my list of preferred add-ons. I’ve grouped them by those that I use for business tasks and those that I use just as an extension and improvement of …read more

The ability to minimize programs to the system tray has been made possible for a reason. There are always programs which we don’t intend to exit but do not use as frequently.
During work, e.g., we open a web browser – because we are so used to it – but more importanly have several other programs opened simultaneously. While navigating from Microsoft Outlook to Eclipse to the work folders using Alt + Tab, it is irritating to find Mozilla Firefox in between. Also, the task bar has only this much place.
Still, most of the web browsers like the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox …read more

McAfee provides a nice add-on for Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer called Site Advisor. I used to run McAfee Site Advisor v2.8 until recently. It identifies whether a site or a search result is safe to its knowledge or not and is one of the best add-ons to use in a cyber café.
Do not make the mistake of installing it or upgrading it now.
Firefox’s “Find Updates” in Tools –> Add-ons could not find the latest version 2.9 just like the Mozilla Add-ons website couldn’t recommend it because Site Advisor is not your normal .XPI add-on. One has to download and …read more

Various news pieces centred around the recent Internet Explorer security threat and its subsequent patch release.