Now I Have a Blog TooNow I Have a Blog Too Christopher Finke is a software engineer at Mahalo. He is available for birthday parties and bar mitzvahs.

Firefox development productivity tip

April 3rd, 2008

Since I always use Firefox as a single window with many tabs (and have become quite adept at switching quickly between tabs, but not so fast at switching between windows), having the Error Console open in a separate window always slows me down. What I've done is created a bookmark on my toolbar (right-click, select "New Bookmark") that points to chrome://global/content/console.xul. This way, I can control where it opens.

Firefox's Error Console in a tab

Mahalo Share screencast

April 1st, 2008

Shawn Smith at NewMediaBites.com has recorded a straightforward video guide to using Mahalo Share.

Today's photo tip: Cropping

April 1st, 2008

Click to view the full version of this picture of C.K. to see why cropping can be a very handy tool.

C.K. sitting in front of a monitor

Twitter-splosion

April 1st, 2008

So my Twitter address gets posted in Jason's UStream chat, and all of a sudden my inbox explodes:

Names removed to protect the innocent
Names removed to protect the innocent.

Feed Sidebar 2.0

March 25th, 2008

Feed Sidebar 2.0 has been released. Upgrade now to enable filtering your feeds with the search bar and to experience the big improvements in performance and memory usage.

Filter your feeds with the search bar.
Filter your feeds with the search bar.

You can install it at Mozilla Add-ons.

Feed Sidebar 2.0pre

March 24th, 2008

If anyone who has been using Feed Sidebar is interested in testing out the next version, you can install this nightly build of Feed Sidebar 2.0pre. Besides massive improvements in performance and compatibility for various feed types, it sports a nifty new search bar that you can use to filter your feeds:

Screenshot of Feed Sidebar

Filter your feeds with the search bar.

(Clicking the magnifying glass hides the search bar.)

Please send any bug reports to cfinke@gmail.com or leave them as comments on this post.

Facebook Lock-in

March 22nd, 2008

Gervase Markham has an insightful post about Facebook's lock-in policy with regards to e-mail. He has a way of writing about the situation that clearly explains the points I'd like to make but can never form into coherent paragraphs.

Pedro is here for you.

March 17th, 2008

If you're ever feeling down, Pedro will lend a sympathetic paw:

Pedro will be there for you.

Takedown'd

March 13th, 2008

I received this lovely letter from Facebook's lawyers earlier today. The key points are transcribed below:

"Dear Mr. Finke:

I am writing you concerning the Firefox extensions you posted at:

  1. www.chrisfinke.com/addons/facebook-image-to-email and
  2. www.chrisfinke.com/addons/facebook-scavenger

These plug-ins are deeply concerning to Facebook because, among other things, they violate Facebook's trademark rights, its Terms of Service, the security of the site and Facebook user privacy. For example, the facebook-image-to-email extensions permits people to circumvent Facebook security measures that protect user privacy and the scavenger extension allows people to harvest data off the site in contravention of the Terms of Service and also infringes upon user privacy. [...]

I insist that you immediately take down the extensions listed above. [...]

Sincerely,

Mark Howitson
Deputy General Counsel"

TubeStop reviews requested

March 3rd, 2008

I've finally uploaded TubeStop to Mozilla Add-ons, but it can't be brought out of the sandbox (protected area for untrusted extensions) until it has some reviews and undergoes an editor approval process. If you use TubeStop and find it useful, I'd appreciate it if you'd write a quick review of it over at the Mozilla Addons page for TubeStop so that I can get that process started.