Ali Ebrahim on web standards, software developement, technology, politics and law.
Thunderbird 0.8 was released today, and with it comes a slew of new features which you can read about in the release notes. My favourite is the following: I’ve been wanting this feature for a long time, and finally it’s here. Now you can show images in emails on a per-email basis! Now that’s cool.
Thunderbird 0.8 was released today, and with it comes a slew of new features which you can read about in the release notes. My favourite is the following:
I’ve been wanting this feature for a long time, and finally it’s here. Now you can show images in emails on a per-email basis! Now that’s cool.
Courtesy of Kevin Karpenske, Firefox.com now belongs to the Mozilla Foundation. Kevin deserves a huge round of thanks for donating this domain to the foundation. It comes at a crucial time, with Firefox 1.0 just around the corner.
Courtesy of Kevin Karpenske, Firefox.com now belongs to the Mozilla Foundation. Kevin deserves a huge round of thanks for donating this domain to the foundation. It comes at a crucial time, with Firefox 1.0 just around the corner.
Microsoft hosted another Internet Explorer Team Chat yesterday. I’ve put up logs of the chat in plaintext and RTF format. Not a whole that we didn’t already know was said. All in all, it was pretty disappointing compared to the last one I participated in, during which there was at least some useful discussion. Oh, … Continue reading “internet explorer team chat”
Microsoft hosted another Internet Explorer Team Chat yesterday. I’ve put up logs of the chat in plaintext and RTF format. Not a whole that we didn’t already know was said. All in all, it was pretty disappointing compared to the last one I participated in, during which there was at least some useful discussion. Oh, and for those who are wondering, the person nicknamed “ali” in the chat who was asking questions was not me. I don’t know who it was.
I’m looking for a version of AIM that will run on my Nokia 6600 (or AIM compatible client). The version on AIM.co.uk is freely downloadable, but locked to the O2 network. I found another version on my-symbian.com that looks the same, but costs USD20. If anyone knows of a free solution, I’d be most appreciative … Continue reading “AIM on nokia 6600”
I’m looking for a version of AIM that will run on my Nokia 6600 (or AIM compatible client). The version on AIM.co.uk is freely downloadable, but locked to the O2 network. I found another version on my-symbian.com that looks the same, but costs USD20.
If anyone knows of a free solution, I’d be most appreciative if you could let me know. Ideally there would be a single client that supports AIM, ICQ and MSN simeltaneously. Something like Trillian, but that works on the Nokia 6600. I’d actually be willing to pay for something like that. If not, then free applications that support them separately would be good too.
UPDATE: After some more digging, I’ve found Agile Messenger. It does exactly what I’m looking for, and it’s free. It’s a Jabber based client, so it supports AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and the Jabber protocol. It also runs on pretty much any mobile platform. Also from Agile Mobile is the Agile Lie Detector. It looks so cool!
Google has started to make its results open in a new window when clicked. This is annoying, especially when I just want to find a specific website, and not do a general topic search.
Google has started to make its results open in a new window when clicked. This is annoying, especially when I just want to find a specific website, and not do a general topic search.
Opera has snagged a new user. These days I’m spending almost as much time on Opera as I do on Firefox. Why the change, you might wonder… Mozilla has a gap in its product line that Opera not only fills, but does so excellently. I’m talking of course about the mobile phone/PDA web browser segment. … Continue reading “i’m an opera user now”
Opera has snagged a new user. These days I’m spending almost as much time on Opera as I do on Firefox. Why the change, you might wonder…
Mozilla has a gap in its product line that Opera not only fills, but does so excellently. I’m talking of course about the mobile phone/PDA web browser segment. As 3G and GPRS networks are becoming more and more commonly used, web browsing on mobile devices is become commonplace. Yet, Opera has a virtual monopoly on the Symbian OS web browser market.
Not that I’m complaining, their Opera 6.10 for Symbian OS (which came free with my Nokia 6600), and Opera 6.20 which I downloaded (also free for my phone model) are both amazing. They render websites designed for normal computers in a very readable format, thank’s to Opera’s Small-Screen Rendering technology. At the same time, if I want, I can view them exactly as they’d render on a normal sized PC, and am able to scroll left and right to do so.
As if this wasn’t enough, Opera has figured out how to turn their mobile web browser (optionally) into a subscription product without shafting the user and delivering no value for lots of money. Opera’s Mobile Accelerator is a proxy server hosted by Opera which strips (X)HTML content of elements that Opera can’t render, compresses images to much smaller sizes (who needs high-res on a 2″ screen?), and optimises the page so it renders quickly on low bandwidth connections. This is pretty smart, and it seems to work well too. I’m still in my 14-day trial period, but I’ve already decided that I’m going to purchase the service when those 14 days are up. At USD13 per 3 months, it’s very reasonably priced too. This is especially cool for those users who have metered bandwidth on their GPRS connection. Luckily in Beijing I’ve been able to get unlimited GPRS for around USD25 per month. But I think even the fast pageloads make this worth it, because GPRS isn’t exactly a speed demon to begin with.
So Opera has picked up a new and very satisfied user. I’m of course still very partial to Firefox on regular PCs. However, now that I’ve entered the consumer marketplace for mobile web browsers, it’s clear to me that Opera is the only company who has any real product aimed at this market. Luckily, they’ve still managed to innovate and put out a great product.
What does this mean for Mozilla? My reading of the situation is that Mozilla has a gap in it’s product line. Mozilla has an excellent, mature, cross-platform rendering engine in Gecko. Mozilla has talented FE developers. I think it’s time that Mozilla once again pioneered it’s way into uncharted territory.
UPDATE: It’s been pointed out that the Minimo project exists to fill this void, but after looking at its site, it still looks very much in its infancy. It also looks like nobody is working on it anymore. Maybe it would be a good idea to revive it and somehow gauge OEM interest in a Gecko/Minimo-based browser. One thing to note is that the Minimo project appears to have rather heavy hardware requirements. It’s targeted at machines that have 32-64MB of RAM. My Nokia, for example, has only 8MB of RAM (total, not free) and a lowly 104MHz ARM9 processor. There’s a pretty large gap between Minimo’s target requirements and the mobile hardware that’s out there today.
UPDATE 2: You can see my response to Daniel Glazman’s post about Planet syndication in the comments section of his post. Nothing personal against Daniel, I just felt it deserved a response from me.
I have 12 more Gmail invites to give out. The first 12 people to comment with their full name (first and last) and unobfuscated email address will get invites. If I have to do more than copy/paste, then you won’t get an invite. For those who are worried that spambots may pick up their email … Continue reading “twelve more gmail invites”
I have 12 more Gmail invites to give out. The first 12 people to comment with their full name (first and last) and unobfuscated email address will get invites. If I have to do more than copy/paste, then you won’t get an invite.
For those who are worried that spambots may pick up their email address, if you leave your email address in the email field then only I will be able to see it. It won’t be publically displayed on the site unless you write it in the comment field itself. For those of you using free webmail accounts such as Hotmail or Yahoo, remember that the invitation email may be classified as Junk or Bulk Mail, so remember to check those folders too!
Bonus karma to those who also give the URL of their blog with a Firefox or Thunderbird button on it. Ideally I’d like to limit this to people who don’t have a Gmail account yet. Since I can’t do that, I’m going to ask nicely that only people who don’t have Gmail yet sign up.
UPDATE: That’s a wrap. Invites have been sent only to the first 12 commenters. I don’t have any more right now, but keep checking back, I’ll post if I get more.
During our international students’ orientation at BLCU, a nice gentleman from the Beijing Public Security Bureau came to give us a talk about various things that we should know about our stay in Beijing. First off were all the visa and entry/exit regulations which were useful to know. Second were things to do and things … Continue reading “the talk from the man”
During our international students’ orientation at BLCU, a nice gentleman from the Beijing Public Security Bureau came to give us a talk about various things that we should know about our stay in Beijing. First off were all the visa and entry/exit regulations which were useful to know. Second were things to do and things not to do. That part was also pretty predictable. One part that I wasn’t really expecting to hear was this:
While talking about health services available, he mentioned the following: “If you are feeling sick, have injured yourself, want an abortion, or have any other health related concerns please visit your nearest licensed hospital.”
I laughed a bit inside as I thought about how an American audience would have reacted to this.
I have twelve Gmail invites to give out. First twelve people to comment with their full name and unobfuscated email address get them. If I end up with more than twelve invites, then more than the first twelve will get them. Priority goes to people I know or recognise. Also, if you leave your email … Continue reading “twelve gmail invites”
I have twelve Gmail invites to give out. First twelve people to comment with their full name and unobfuscated email address get them. If I end up with more than twelve invites, then more than the first twelve will get them. Priority goes to people I know or recognise. Also, if you leave your email address in the email field, then only I will be able to see it. It won’t be publically displayed on the site unless you write it in the comment field. For those of you using free webmail accounts such as Hotmail or Yahoo, remember that the invitation email may be classified as Junk or Bulk Mail, so remember to check those folders too!
UPDATE: Invites have been sent to the first twelve commenters. At this time I have no more invites.
Do you know anyone who needs to grab Windows XP Service Pack 2 but doesn’t have the bandwidth? Microsoft has a solution: they’ll ship an SP2 installer CD for free to pretty much anywhere in the world. All you have to do is fill out this form, and a CD will be shipped out almost … Continue reading “order a windows xp sp2 cd on microsoft’s dime”
Do you know anyone who needs to grab Windows XP Service Pack 2 but doesn’t have the bandwidth? Microsoft has a solution: they’ll ship an SP2 installer CD for free to pretty much anywhere in the world. All you have to do is fill out this form, and a CD will be shipped out almost immediately. My brother received his less than a week after it was ordered.
There are a lot of nice enhancements in Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in SP2. They feel a lot smoother. Browsing with Internet Explorer is no longer popup hell, and Outlook Express is no longer prone to loading remote content without thinking. Even so, Firefox and Thunderbird still blow them away.