influenced dot net

I don’t know how long this update has been out but Google have finally added a fast way to limit your reading list to a certain subscribed feed or label set.. about time too!

I’ve been working on my ColourBase website recently.

I decided that rather than have a half assed publishing system (like the currently unfinished one I use on this website), that I would instead try to integrate WordPress into the existing website..

It seems to have worked quite well!

I will probably adopt it here, I think that’s the best bet until I can finish my own system completely

I am writing this mostly for personal reference – I couldn’t figure out how Courier successfully authenticated POP3/IMAP access via MySQL as PostfixAdmin stores the passwords in the MySQL table using a custom function (or so it says – pacrypt)..

However I have discovered that although the function is custom, Courier also has a method to produce the exact same digest using an 8 character salt (md5cryptredhat)

So that’s how it works!

The digg auto refreshing AJAXy queue/spy have been updated, they are now much more functional and aesthetically pleasing

Here’s a list of my favourite extensions (in installed order):

• DOM Inspector This is actually bundled with Firefox itself – very useful for pulling a page apart and understanding its underlying structure
• Adblock Blocks annoying ads! Combined with Pierceive Filterset.G, it stops most ads
• View Rendered Source Chart This one is useful when you’re debugging scripts which modify the document structure.. it lets you view the page as it exists in memory (with sexy colours to boot!)
• IE View I still use IE view on my work machine, IE tab is also good.. I think you know what they do
• Nightly Tester Tools I’ve had this installed for a while as I usually run the latest builds of Firefox and extensions usually lag a few builds behind.. this forces them to be compatible
• Live HTTP Headers This extension lets you see what headers are being sent/recieved from the webserver you’re connecting to.. useful debugging tool
• Tabbrowser Preferences Extra prefs for tabbed browsing
• Web Developer Lots of useful functions on this toolbar, too many to list! A must have for any web developer
• User Agent Switcher I don’t use this much.. sometimes it’s useful for reading forums content when the forums only allow useragents of robots to view them without registration e.g. GoogleBot
• Javascript Debugger Currently disabled as it’s not been updated for a while.. was useful for stepping through javascripts and inspecting variables
• Favicon Picker My bookmarks toolbar uses only icons with no textual descriptions.. Therefore I can’t have any generic icons.. this lets me pick icons for sites which don’t have a favicon.ico
• Google Toolbar for Firefox I hate Firefox’s built in search box, Google Toolbar is a must-have
• Scrapbook Save pages or parts of pages for later review.. I used to use this a lot but Furl Toolbar has come into play more recently
• SnagIt Firefox Extension Capture whole pages, this extension automatically scrolls them to grab the whole thing
• Greasemonkey User scripts! Modify pages to suit you – e.g. Delete button for Gmail
• Furl Tools My Firefox 1.5 Fixed version Bookmark a page and save a snapshot of it so that even if the site goes down you’ll still have access to the original content of that page
• del.icio.us Social bookmarking, superb
• SessionSaver .2 Ever been knee deep in pages? 30 pages open around some random subject? 10 tabs per window, 3 windows? Need to shutdown or reboot? Save a snapshot of your session and reload it later! Also saves snapshots on the even of crash and reloads them at first restart
• Chrome Cleaner Clean out the cruft left by extension install/removal, speeds up Firefox
• Xinha Here! Textbox helper, HTML formatting, etc.
• DownThemAll! Want to download lots of links on a page but can’t be bothered to do them all manually? This is the tool for the job!

I was pleased to hear that Firefox 1.5 will be released today, however I noticed that furltools wasn’t working with it..

Delving into the code it seems that since recent builds of Firefox 1.5 force xpcnativewrappers=yes by default, so furl ceased to work properly in its current incarnation..

I’ve added a chrome.manifest to disable xpcnativewrappers which lets furl function as per normal with its existing code

The modified furl extension is available here:
furl 0.61

I emailed the furl devs beforehand regarding a new version of furltools but haven’t recieved a response yet (because it was only a few hours ago!)

Hopefully this will fill the void for fellow furl addicts until an official version is released for Firefox 1.5

A problem I encounter many times a day is trying to find some information that I’ve read recently on the net..

• Maybe I bookmarked it via traditional browser bookmarks, but which PC is it on?
• Maybe I bookmarked it via del.icio.us.. but what tags did I give it? The site may be down or moved
• Maybe I starred it in google reader.. but there’s no way to search your starred items (very annoying)
• Maybe I slogger‘d it.. but there’s no decent way to synchronize your slogs amongst multiple machines.. slogger also falls down with frames etc sometimes, not logging the stuff you want
• Maybe I ScrapBook‘d it.. but again – no decent way to synchronize your ScrapBook’s on multiple machines

I know there’s USB sticks etc.. but I want them to be online.. all the time! Instantly accessible wherever I am

Enter furl! I’m angry that I didn’t know about this amazing service early, it truly rocks my socks off..

It’s free to use and you get 5GB of space to store your saved pages.. you can tag them, make them private, share them, visit the original URL, it even has a Firefox extension! magnificent..

I actually started a Win32 tray application today to aid in synchronizing ScrapBook entries via FTP/SFTP/HTTP, but I guess I’ll put that on hold for the moment as furl has currently answered most of my needs..

The only problems I can see currently:

• furl.net might be down when you want the info
• furl.net might stop the service

For me, a furl.net-esque system that could be run on any machine (e.g. private webserver) would be the best thing possible at the moment

A thread just popped up on talkaudio regarding the ‘best search engine’.. I thought I’d mirror my post here as it’s something that’s been increasingly bothering me

Recently, I have been finding googles search results leaving a bit to be desired.. I have been getting more relevant results from MSN/Yahoo..

I am a big google fan but the fact is that you get some really popular blogger who mentions a certain phrase and they’ll shoot up to the #1 spot for that phrase in no time – it’s just not right!

I still use google as my primary search engine but am increasingly turning to MSN/Yahoo when google gives me crap results (becoming more common)

Some people have too much time on their hands…

I use the excellent Ta-da Lists to keep track of things I need to do, my only wish is that it would allow you to reorder your lists. It already lets you reorganise items in the lists, but not the actual order of each list on the main page..