Author Archives: Christopher Finke

Browser Add-ons, Facebook, Facebook Image-to-Email, JavaScript, Mozilla Firefox

Facebook Image-to-Email: Broken Again

I am aware that the Facebook Image-to-Email Firefox extension is (once again) broken, and given that version 1.1 installed on Firefox 2.0.0.8 was working, and now version 1.1 installed on Firefox 2.0.0.8 is not working, it has to be due to a change that Facebook made. The problem is that I can’t discern any relevant changes in Facebook’s profile pages that would cause a problem.

The crux is this: I’m getting an NS_ERROR_DOM_SECURITY_ERR error when trying to run context.getImageData(). From what I’ve read, this implies that the JavaScript is not in the same domain as the image that was fed into the canvas and/or does not have permission to know the image’s contents, but as far as I can tell, Facebook didn’t change where the e-mail images are coming from, so that would seem to be a strange problem to have.

Any insight into this is appreciated.

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Netscape Blog

Netscape Messenger 9 Alpha 1 Released

This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.

Netscape is pleased to announce the availability of the first public alpha of Netscape Messenger 9, a mail and news client, to complement the Netscape Navigator Web browser. This release is now available for download from mailnews.netscape.com for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The release notes for 9.0a1 are here; they include download and installation instructions.

NOTICE: This alpha release is an early developer milestone of the next major version of Messenger. It is being made available for testing purposes only. If you are currently using a previous Netscape mail client, you should not switch to Messenger 9a1 as your primary mail and news client. Feel free, however, to install and test it so that you can help shape the future of this product.

Report any bugs, or request any features, via this feedback form.

Netscape Messenger 9a1 is based on Thunderbird 2.0.0.9, giving it a secure and efficient base, as well as allowing it to support Thunderbird-compatible extensions. As we move through the alpha period with this product, we look forward to adding the most-requested features from the community, allowing us to improve on an already great product.

Along those lines, we have two questions for you:

1. What is the #1 killer feature that you’d like to see in the final release of Messenger 9?

2. Google and Yahoo have recently made announcements to the effect that they’ll be building social networking features into their webmail clients. Are you interested in seeing social features added to Messenger?

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Life

Observations on Rome

Ciao is not pronounced see-ah-oh.

The handrails on the escalators move slightly faster than the stairs, stretching you out like a life-size Stretch Armstrong doll.

An Italian optometrist cannot fix your camera, but he will lend you his tiny screwdriver (cacciavite) so that you can try to do it yourself.

If you take too long in the bathroom at the Vatican Museum near closing time, you may find yourself escorted out by security guards.

The Circus Maximus does not have clowns or elephants, just Italians. Still fun to watch though.

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Netscape Blog

Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.3 Available

This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.

Navigator 9.0.0.3 was released earlier today in order to incorporate the stability fixes included in Firefox 2.0.0.9. Please be sure to update your installation of Navigator when prompted by the automatic updater, or you can force the update manually by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Help menu. The release notes for this release are here.

You can also download the full installer for Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.3 from browser.netscape.com.

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Browser Add-ons, Facebook, Facebook Image-to-Email, Mozilla Firefox

Facebook Image-to-Email Working Again

I’ve just updated the Facebook Image-to-Email Firefox extension to be compatible with Facebook’s new image generation algorithm. (Facebook Image-to-Email converts e-mail addresses in images to plain text.)

This new version should be a little more robust; if it can’t convert the image to text, it appends a small question mark after the image, rather than just giving up and removing the image completely. Thanks to Gervase and Aaron for their help in finding and fixing this set of bugs.

You can install Facebook Image-to-Email from its homepage. It is compatible with Firefox 1.5 through 3.0a9, Netscape Navigator 9, and Flock.

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Netscape Blog

Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.2 Available

This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.

Navigator 9.0.0.2 was released earlier today in order to fix a bug related to searching using both the location bar and the default Netscape search engine. Please be sure to update your installation of Navigator when prompted by the automatic updater, or you can force the update manually by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Help menu. The release notes for this release are here.

You can also download the full installer for Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.2 from browser.netscape.com.

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Gawker, RSS

Gawker: Please fix your feeds

The Gawker Media blogs (Consumerist, Gizmodo, etc.) do something with their RSS feeds that is incredibly annoying: they include a “category” of sorts before the title of the post:

Gawker RSS Feeds

This does two things:

1. It obscures the actual title of the post. Many feed readers are loaded in the sidebar, which has a limited width. You should be making the best use of this space.

2. It makes it harder to scan the items to find something of interest. I can’t scan the first few words of each title, since each title actually begins at a different point for each item, depending on the length of the category name. I’ve found that I rarely read items from the Gizmodo feed just because it’s difficult to parse the titles for interesting news, but I read Engadget much more frequently for the opposite reason.

As far as I am concerned, these prologues add no value. Gawker: please either use the <category> tag in RSS for this information or provide a feed that doesn’t have it at all.

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Facebook, Microsoft

Facebook is not worth 15 billion dollars

($240,000,000 / (0.016 + x)) != $15,000,000,000

Attention world: Microsoft did not pay $240 million simply for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. They paid $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook and the privilege of being Facebook’s only ad supplier for visitors from outside the United States. So unless you’re valuing that privilege at $0, stop spreading this ridiculous valuation estimate around.

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Robert Scoble, Techcrunch

Techcrunch’s credible sources

So Techcrunch used Fake Steve Jobs as their primary source for saying that PodTech is going out of business; do they realize how irresponsible that is? Robert Scoble does.

Duncan Riley’s justification:

“We didn’t run it first or second or even third, I sat on it for a couple of hours. Problem was (and is) if we didn’t run it and it turned out to be true later we would have missed covering it.” #

Anything to get the scoop, I guess…

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Best When Used By

Best When Used By: Reactions

Since I started working on Best When Used By, I’ve gotten two distinct reactions from people to the idea of a website for tracking food-related information:

  1. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
  2. “That’s a neat idea; I’d definitely use it.”

Both opinions have merit, but I think it boils down to how ubiquitous you allow computing and the Internet to be in your life. If you’re like me and you already have a computer in your kitchen and/or a mobile computing device on your person, it’s not a stretch to think of uses for them in the aspects of your life that are not traditionally digitally affected. If you only go online on the computer in your den to check your e-mail and read a few blogs, it might seem ridiculous to spend time cataloging the contents of your refrigerator.

Time will tell, I suppose. But I don’t think that this guy needs to worry; I doubt that Google is interested.

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Best When Used By, Lifehacker, Project X

Best When Used By

So my side project that I’ve been working on is now in something of a public beta, as it got linked from Lifehacker earlier today.

It’s called Best When Used By, and it’s a site for tracking the expiration dates of your perishable foods. You put in a food and its “use by” date, and then the site e-mails you a few days before that date to remind you to use the food. That reminder e-mail will also link to recipes that use the food as an ingredient.

I started the site after realizing that I tend to forget about food in the fridge until it’s too late, and I have to throw it away. Countless jars of spaghetti sauce, partial loaves of bread, and blocks of cheese have met their moldy demise because I just wasn’t keeping track of their lifespan.

I’m maintaining a blog for the site over here, so if you’re interested in the project, you can subscribe to the RSS feed to stay updated on any new developments.

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Netscape Blog

Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.1 Available

This post originally appeared on the Netscape Blog.

Navigator 9.0.0.1 was released earlier today in order to incorporate the security fixes included in Firefox 2.0.0.8. Please be sure to update your installation of Navigator when prompted by the automatic updater, or you can force the update manually by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Help menu.

You can also download the full installer for Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.1 from browser.netscape.com.

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Browser Add-ons, Mozilla Firefox, OPML, OPML Support

OPML Support for Firefox updated

I’ve updated the OPML Support for Firefox extension to be compatible with the latest Firefox 3 (Minefield) alphas.

The compatibility changes were more than just bumping the maxVersion, since Firefox 3’s bookmark and history architecture has been completely reworked as Places, but the awesome new FUEL project (Firefox User Extension Library) is an incredible asset, especially when working with bookmark data.

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Ideas

That’s right Neighbor.ly of you

This post at TechCrunch about residence-based social networks reminded me about an idea I had about a year ago for a similar system.

I was going to call it Neighbor.ly and register the obvious domain (.ly being Libya’s TLD). Users would register with their physical address and would then be grouped into dynamic networks consisting of all the other registered users within X number of city blocks. The features available to users would be the standard message boards, marketplace, invitation system, etc. I think it could be successful (and I’m sure there are already a few sites doing something similar) but at $150/yr for just the domain, I decided that it was too spendy for something that I might never get off the ground.

So now that I’ve put it out there, you’re free to go ahead and register neighbor.ly and see my plans through, but I want a 5% stake. Deal? Deal.

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