Another Extention

I just installed another great extention for Firefox. It’s called Sage.

Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t.

Previously I Heart Firefox.

My Work Placement in Malaysia

GXM Studio is the new media company in Malaysia that I am hoping to work for while I am over there in two months. They have some pretty nifty little animations, web design, and video work. I’m very excited.

I Heart Firefox

I love Mozilla Firefox! I just upgraded to their newest version and while I was at their site decided to download some extentions.
Update: None of these links work anymore.
Extentions are part of what makes Firefox so great. They add a little bit of customization to your browsing experience. These are the ones that I have and I recommend them all:

  • Stumbleupon 1.9991
    Stumble onto sites suggested by like-minded individuals.
  • Tweak Network 1.0
    Tweak your network settings making Firefox that much faster.
  • BugMeNot 0.6.1
    Don’t be bothered with privacy issues and the inconvenience of required registration. Sometimes you can even find passwords to sites you’d never expect.
  • BetterSearch 1.7
    See the sites you are searching in nice thumbnails before you click.
  • Disable Targets for Downloads
    Gets rid of those blank windows that sometimes pop-up when you are downloading binary files.
  • Tabbrowser Preferences
    Customize your tabbed browsing experience. I especially like the “open new tab” button.
  • ForecastFox 0.7
    Now you don’t have to look outside for the weather! Just look on the small icon at the bottom for all the weather information you need.
  • ColorZilla 0.8.2
    Featuring webpage zooming and eye dropper colour picking.

Numa Numa Dancer Not Happy

By now, you’ve likely seen the Numa Numa Dance. The New York Times reports that the dancer, Gary Brolsma, isn’t enjoying his newfound fame. “These days, Mr. Brolsma shuttles between the house and his job […] He is distraught, embarrassed.” (silly registration req’d)

(Via)

How Does BugMeNot.Com Affect Online Newspapers?

I was reading a Wired News article about The Wall Street Journal becoming irrelevant because of it’s online presence or rather lack thereof. The thesis of the article was that in order for the WSJ to keep in touch with bloggers and the online community in general they need to open the doors to bloggers by allowing them to link to specific stories and remove their invasive mandatory registration requirements.

What I found particularly interesting was that Forbes.com “got rid of registration requirements when it discovered they drove away traffic.” I can’t say exactly how many times I have decided not to use a particular news source because of it’s stupid required registration but I can say that it has been less of a problem for me ever since I downloaded the Bugmenot extension for Firefox. Now I just right click on the registration pages and Firefox and BugMeNot take care of the dirty work.

So, what’s my point? Well it made me wonder if BugMeNot is actually doing a disservice to the fight against mandatory registration because it’s quite possible that sites that have them (like the New York Times and the Washington Post) have NO IDEA how many people aren’t logging with their own information like the good electronic sheep they imagine us to be. These news outlets make linking to them inconvenient, invade our privacy, and all the while they aren’t even collecting good data – they need to rethink their strategy. I’m happily surprised that Forbes has figured it out; I hope that the others clue in, making life better for everyone concerned.

The Great Scam

For those with a lot of time on their hands or in my case a lot of homework that needs to be procrastinated then you must read this epic tale of friendship, betrayal, corruption, and deceit. This is the story of one man setting out to pull off the biggest scam MMORPG history. Or at least in Eve history. Or at least in his history. It is also quite humorous.

Nature’s Nuclear Reactor

This is amazing! A natural nuclear reactor has been discovered in the African country of Gabon in 1972. It has only recently been determined how it worked.

From the article:

“[R]iver water trickling into uranium-rich bedrock acted like the control rods in a modern reactor, increasing the efficiency of fission and causing the uranium to produce a chain reaction. The reaction released heat that boiled the water. Once all the water was gone, the fission fizzled out, preventing a meltdown. Gradually, more water trickled in and the process started anew.”