I guess most people are familiar with Firefox, I’ve been using it for quite a few years now. I did change over to Opera for a short period but I quickly came back to Firefox. I know alot of people swear by Internet Explorer (can’t teach an old dog new tricks and all that) but whenever I find myself forced to use IE it really slows down my work.

For me the greatest thing about Firefox are the 1000s of freely available extensions developers happy share with the community. Extensions are basically small plugins that give extra functionality to the browser, there really are 1000s with a huge variety of uses. Things from integrated MP3 players to fancy bookmark tools.

This post is simply trying to outline the extensions that I find useful and why. In the future I will try to elaborate on each individually.

All in one sidebar
This sidebar extension adds functionality to the tools menu by placing a bar at the left/right most edge of the browser (just a click away!). You can view browsing history, downloads, bookmarks extensions and more within it. Giving you a central location to configure various things.

Greasemonkey
‘A user script manager for Firefox’ is how it is penned, its an extremely powerful tool supported by 1000s of people who write specific scripts to perform a range of tasks. Anything from embedding a download link on youtube videos to numbering search engine results, to linking directly to images on the google image search.

IE Tab
An absolute priceless plugin. If like me you hate using internet explorer, but you would on occasion find yourself forced to use it because of browser problems when using firefox (unaligned columns etc). Well, there is hope, you can embed Internet explorer within firefox - what does this mean you say? Well your running firefox but the page your viewing has been rendered by Internet Explorer! You can easily switch between the two engines and you can even make the extension remember which pages should always be opened by Internet Explorer.

Minimise to Tray
One of the thing I used to hate about Internet Explorer (before they implemented tabbed browsing) was that if you had a number of windows open they acted as numerous stand alone programmes in the task bar really clogging up my ’space’ - I really hated that. Firefox acts as one and using minimise to tray lets me hide firefox (without closing) neatly in the tray for the 5% of the time I’m not using the browser.

Mouse Gestures
Another excellent function from opera that can be successfully integrated into Firefox using extensions. Using your mouse you can mimic keyboard controls in your browser - greatly speeding up navigation. Personally the only two functions I use are ‘back’ and ‘forward’, holding down the right mouse button and dragging horizontally from right to left moves back to the previous page - genius

Paste and Go
How lazy am I? When you have a URL in your clipboard and you paste it into the location bar, doesn’t it just bug you having to hit enter or press the go button? Not to worry - hover over the location bar, right click and press paste and go. Page loads without me having to move my arm! :-O

Tab Mix Plus
The best extension EVER! Too many cool features to mention, just download it and see for your self. Thing include, lock / protect tabs, session feature, page open on new tab, one window function and loads more stuff.

Posted on June 21st, 2007 by admin
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Film rental store Blockbuster is to rent high-definition DVDs only in the Blu-ray format at 1,450 stores in the US.

The move is viewed as a huge blow for the rival Toshiba-backed HD DVD format - which has been battling against the Blu-ray format for dominance of the next generation video standard.

Blockbuster said that customers have chosen Blu-ray over HD DVD in the 250 stores where both were available.

The limited choice of titles in the HD DVD format was also a factor in focusing on Blu-ray, Blockbuster said.

“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbusters, told the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Smith added that most studios were offering films on Blu-ray, with the exception of Universal which has been supplying films on HD DVD alone.

The North American HD DVD Promotional Group said Blockbuster’s move was short sighted, and had been prompted by the success of films released exclusively in the Blu-ray format in early 2007 such as Casino Royale and Spider Man.

“I think trying to make a format decision using such a short time period is really not measuring what the consumer is saying,” said Ken Graffeo, co-president of the group.

The HD DVD format will still be available at Blockbuster in 250 of its stores as well as via the internet.

Looks like a big blow for the HD-DVD camp then, is this the shape of things to come? Only time will tell.

Personally I seem to be getting the vibe that Blu-Ray is slowly edging ahead in the market, if this emerges to be the case I’m unsure how HD-DVD will claw back into a competitive position. But for now – I am happy to wait.

Posted on June 19th, 2007 by admin
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Permalink is a Wordpress Plugin that enables you to automatically rename all your urls into a more search engine / user-friendly format.

The beauty of the Plugin is that your old links stay intact; people visiting these pages will be automatically forwarded to the new URL. So this wont affect your search engine rankings, your page rank etc.

I opt for a simple, ‘www.paulduggan.co.uk/category/article name’

If this is the link construction you want update your permalink structure using

/%category%/%postname%/
To install this plugin and read the simple installation steps visit Permalinks Migration Plugin for wordpress over at Dean Lee’s excellent blog. Thanks for this great Plugin

Posted on June 15th, 2007 by admin
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Russian computers controlling the International Space Station’s (ISS) orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed, Nasa officials have announced.

The station’s three crew and seven visiting shuttle astronauts are not at any immediate risk; the ISS has not lost all vital systems.

The news could force Nasa to extend the current shuttle mission by one day.

Engineers are uncertain why the computers stopped working as a failure of this type has not occurred before.

The US space shuttle Atlantis docked with the orbiting outpost at the weekend to begin its latest mission.

Nasa’s space station chief Mike Suffredini said he expected the problem to be fixed within the next couple of days.

Without the Russian oxygen machine running, the space station has a 56-day supply of oxygen left. “If we are in that position, we have an option to depart,” Suffredini added.

The station’s Russian segment has a network of six computers, but on Wednesday, only two were functioning.

The computers have experienced problems before, but a system-wide re-boot usually solved the problem.

This time, the systems were unable to re-boot.

Under a worst-case scenario, where the computer problem persists beyond the shuttle’s stay, and attempts to resolve it come to no avail, the station’s three crew members could be forced to return to Earth early, the website Space.com reported.

The crew of space shuttle Atlantis were originally due to spend 11 days at the ISS.

The mission was extended to 13 days in order to carry out repairs on a 10cm (4in) section of thermal blanket which peeled back as the shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral on Friday.

Whats the bet that them ‘Russian’ computers are running a pirated version of Windows Vista?

Posted on June 15th, 2007 by admin
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Windows users are being urged to install the June package of security patches from Microsoft.

The security update contains six patches which close 15 vulnerabilities found in a variety of Windows programs.

The patches help to shut a number of loopholes in Windows software, such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Vista.

More than half the releases are rated as “critical” which usually means they can be exploited without a PC owner’s knowledge or consent.

Malicious code to exploit one of the vulnerabilities in the package is already known to be circulating the internet.

Using this code cyber criminals could craft e-mail messages or ‘booby-trapped’ webpages that could take over PCs.

Some of the vulnerabilities fixed by the patch rated as “critical” are for various versions of Internet Explorer including the one that runs on the Vista.

Vista, the latest edition of Microsoft’s operating system, gets a patch for itself which aims to stop malicious hackers exploiting a loophole to steal admin passwords.

Included in the bundle is a patch that tackles a serious problem in the way that Windows handles part of a program called the Windows Secure Channel.

This vulnerability could be targeted by malicious hackers as it is used by many websites to handle security certificates and keep user data confidential.

Microsoft security patches are typically released on The first Tuesday of every month.

Posted on June 13th, 2007 by admin
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A few weeks ago I posted about kissyoutube, a site that lets you download youtube videos in their native flv format.

Another site that has come to my attention is vixy.net. Unlike many pay for stand alone video conversion programmes, vixy is web based and free to use. You can convert you tube videos into a variety of formats, including AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP, or if you wish simply extract the audio as MP3.

All you need to do is drop your URL into the text box, choose your format and click start, once the conversion is complete you will be able to download your newly converted file. viola.

Posted on June 4th, 2007 by admin
Filed under: YouTube | No Comments »

As your blog begins to grow you will want to take backups seriously, those clever little word press plugin gurus have created an automated backup tool coined with the original name WordPress Database Backup.

Head over to www.ilfilosofo.com and download the appropriate file. Install it as you would normally (place the folder in wp-content/plugins). Next, you will need to enable your new plugin, secondly head over to the plugins tab, enable your new super back-up plugin then click on the manage tab. Navigate to ‘backup below’, now you are ready to customise your options, as you can see it’s all pretty self explanatory. You can download to various sources (including to your email address) and schedule backups at various times! Enjoy.

Posted on May 30th, 2007 by admin
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Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million copies of its latest Operating System – Vista.

According to chairman Bill Gates, sales had been quicker than Microsoft had first expected. Windows is used on more than 90% of the world’s personal computers.

Vista has been on sale to consumers since the end of January, and there had been concerns that take up might be slow, hurting profits.

“I’m really thrilled at how this has come together,” Mr Gates said.

Speaking at a company conference in LA, he added that one of the reasons for the excellent sales was that many customers were looking to increase the amount of digital media they used, a central feature of the Vista package.

The software aims to make it simple for consumers to set up home computer networks, and to manage and share digital content such as photos, videos, music and documents.

Vista is Microsoft’s first new operating system in five years, and the company said that more than three quarters of its sales have been for the software’s premium versions.

Posted on May 16th, 2007 by admin
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Who said no pain no gain?

I felt compelled to post this Youtube video. Its a clip of a pro photoshopper who gives, lets just say a somewhat plump women a three minute makeover - she almost looks hot at the end. There is no doubting the power of graphics and the ability to doctrine such images, it makes me think back to the ‘evolution of beauty’ youtube video and how every aspect of society can be manipulated for certain means, the video is a microcosm of the world today, I guess that’s why the person uploaded it.

Posted on May 16th, 2007 by admin
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I wrote a ‘contact me’ script once before in the past in (written in PHP), it worked fine until one day my site went down. I contacted my host who informed me that my account had been suspended because of an unsecured script on my website. I guess someone was somehow using it for malicious means.

I’m not very advanced at coding - so how they were abusing the script I don’t know.

Anyway, I thought a contact me page would be a good addition to my blog, for now and for future reference. My first hit on google for secure email script brought up Secure PHP Form Mailer Script by Dagon Design I had a look and as if by magic he has written a wordpress plugin - perfect - minimal setup needed.

Installtion is simple, the website offers a more indepth look at setting everything up - but if you are like me and just want it up an running straight away there is little to do.

• Download and uncompress dd-formmailer-wp.zip
• Upload the entire dd-formmailer directory to your WordPress plugins directory
• Activate the plugin under site admin
• Configure your options (explained below)
• Add the form to your page (explained below)

Now, create a new wordpress page, and drop the following text into it:

Under Options in ’site admin’ -> DDFM1, fill in the following options:

• Contact page - Enter the full URL of your newly created contact page. (in my instance http://www.paulduggan.co.uk/contact/)
• then below that enter the email address that you wish the emails to be sent too. Hit update options and you are done.

The Secure PHP Form Mailer Script for Wordpress can be found and downloaded here, along with the official installation instructions. If your not using Wordpress you can still get your hands on the source code at http://www.dagondesign.com and work your magic!

Posted on May 9th, 2007 by admin
Filed under: Wordpress | No Comments »