Catartis

Adblock in Firefox 1.0.6 and Infringement Issues

As many users of Firefox are sadly aware, one of the most popular extensions, Adblock, is not functioning properly in builds later than 1.0.4.

This issue came to my attention immediately after a reformat of my system. I happily grabbed the latest stable version of Firefox and proceeded to begin re-adding my favorite extensions. Adblock was at the top of the list with WebDeveloper Toolbar, EditCSS, IEView and several tabbed browsing options. Alas, no AdBlock surfaced for me.

Heading over to the Mozilla/Firefox forums, I found much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lack of functionality in 1.0.6. “Please bring it back!” was ringing in the hallways.

A workaround/hack was suggested in the lists of moans. Along with it were warnings about attempting to use Adblock *as is* in the current browser. Some seemed to be having problems with it, others swore all was well on their ends.

Warnings be damned. I was trying that fix. I have become an Adblock addict and have no intention of repenting my evil ways.

After proceeding with the suggestions, I closed Firefox, reopened and poof! Adblock was up and running. Yippee! Right? Wrong!

With no other changes to my system, I started to experience odd issues almost immediately. Since this issue arose nearly three weeks ago and I did not take notes at the time, I am unable to document the list of little things that went wrong at the time, but uninstalling the extension repaired them immediately. I sadly resigned myself to wait for a properly updated version.

Until this morning…

While waiting for *someone* to finish preparations to depart for the airport, I was killing time checking a few quick things on my eternal to do list. One of those items was to check for Adblock updates. No luck on that front. Seems the developers are busily working on a version for the next generation of Firefox and current users are out of luck for now. Wait for bigger and better? BooHoo & tap, tap, tap.

Off to the airport and back again. After a bit of the meditative ritual of weeding, watering and picking in the garden before the heat of the day sets in, I was back at the computer and into the Firefox forums to read a bit more regarding changes and estimated timelines for Adblock.

By following a few links, I landed in an article from princeton.edu discussing the blocking of ads on websites and potential copyright infringement.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I have an interest in protecting intellectual properties, both on an offline, which began in one of my “past/pre-internet lives.” I take potential infringement seriously and tread lightly on any sort of involvement of my own.

This morning, I found it extremely humorous that I would find a potential solution to my ad blocking woes in the comments on this article. And to ice the cake, it involves using one of the accessibility features in Firefox. (Web accessibility and giving users control over how things display for them is another well known soapbox of mine… just as my students.)

I was immediately digging into my Firefox profile to add this snippet in an existing or newly created userContent.css file.

So far so good! I have only had this preference adjustment on my system for a few minutes, but in a quick visit to some of the sites which I consider the worst offenders in the blinking, throbbing and generally annoying *in your face* advertisements (e.g. Yahoo TV listings), I am happy to report that ads have vanished. Ease of use is even greater than using Adblock!

I did run by a couple of sites I know use Flash in a non-advertising mode (one of which was an old Flash course posting of my own) and all .swf files on those are coming through loud and clear for me.

More wandering and watching to see the effects of this change are absolutely necessary, but as of this morning, I am doing an ad free happy dance! If that changes, I will repost regarding problems here… or in the moved, and hopefully improved, version of this blog. I swear that is on this week’s list. It is! It is!

Is a website with ads removed on your personal system a derivative work? Does it qualify as an infringement on the owner's rights by reducing their per click income (yes) and put the end user in violation of the law? Or is it choice users should be able to make on their own systems since the amended version is never published for public view? I am not sure. It does not seem so to me. For now, I am being naughty and will continue to ignore the possibility of my offence and happily dance off into to a more pleasant personal browsing experience.

TaTa! No more time for idle chatter. Time to dance, once again in ad free glee.

Farron & bored with it all _^..^_

Comments are History :^(

A few of you might have noticed that *THE* Cat & I have been absent from blogging, and much of cyberspace for the last couple of months. The hectic state of holiday preparation, beach runs to escape the hectic holidays previously mentioned and general life and laziness have kept me away. I seem to have temporarily lost my taste for it.

Unfortunately, during that time the tacky comment spammers have not rested. Renames of mt-comments and other assorted measures have not stopped them. The blacklist helps by notifying me of gamblers, ripoff artists and general smut dealers who try to post links here, but quite by chance today, I noticed that I had not received notification on several of the offending posts. I doubt it was an issue with comment notification, more likely an issue of my mass deleting of junk that surfaced over the holidays while I was enjoying a quite, winter beach.

So, effective immediately, all comments are closed and all IP's are banned from posting via a quick fix suggestion from the forums to simply add a blank entry to the IP Banning section.

I do not anticipate reopening them until I finally get off my overly cushy tail and complete the redesign of this site and the move to Expression Engine. My buddies and well wishers know where to find me and you cheap sleaze bags out there can find someone else to pester.

Meeeeeooooowww & Good Riddance to Comment Spammers!
Farron & _^..^_

Before the Polls Close...

...I had to make my one and only political comment on this election.

<politicaldrivel>
I certainly hope this superstition is proved wrong in 2004:

http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp

And I will add an image of the best looking bumper sticker on the block. If I would put stickers on my car, this would have been the one.

Can't let Kerry get all the airtime that is clogging this server. I've been trying since early today to get in here, had this host/server is pretty much NEVER down. Except on election day. Gotta say, the powers that be at Hosting Matters are doing a stellar job of getting it running again on a tough day.
</politicaldrivel>

On a lighter note, I still have hibiscus and peavines blooming and [drum roll please] my favorite late summer veggie vendor had some homegrown, local Bradley tomatoes come in today. When I saw the handwritten sign they had out on the road at a major, busy intersection, I would have taken out anyone who got in my way when turning around.

So it's November in middle Tennessee, there are flowers blooming and real tomatoes for dinner. I think today I can even survive the flip-flop fish as president. Maybe....

Farron
[ _^..^_ only cares about dinner, not drivel ]

Print Styles: Are We Control Freaks?

Earlier this afternoon, I was kicked back nibbling the last of the homemade soup from this weekend’s batch and mindlessly [mindfully?] surfing around some blog links to see where they might lead.

It has struck me that, in the last few days, I have been falling into more than my usual share of articles dealing with print in one form or fashion.

This article from The Man in Blue blog:

CSS, printing and user expectation

got me thinking in this direction again. I have read similar comments about the average user looking for and expecting a “Printer Friendly” link or icon, or both. Some might actually want to print out the little messes with graphics and sidebars and such that we display on the screen.

Maybe we are trying to snatch too much control back from our users. Usability is about choices for the person who accesses our web pages, not for us.

None of us want to go back to having to maintain two pages, one for print and one for onscreen display. Having to create .pdf files manually adds extra maintenance for the web designer, as well.

Printable .pdf's also add another twist for Susie Surfer who has never heard of the Adobe Reader and suddenly has that “deer in the headlights” look when it is suggested that she download a program from the web. Didn't that fellow who just charged her an arm and a leg to clean wicked viruses off her system warn her never, ever to do that? Surely Adobe is just sitting there waiting for her to do that so they can add something to her system that will cause her to crash and burn, again! [Someone please tell Susie that Adobe is only interested in draining her wallet, not infecting her machine. ;^]

Several alternatives are discussed in the article and following comments including one which is slightly off-topic, but interesting, on including logos in your print style.

Shortly after reading this article and having this thought replanted in my brain, I ran across this printing solution using a small snippet of PHP at maratz.com:

Ten Minutes to a Printer Friendly Page

This one spawned some debate on the accuracy of the PHP and bandwidth use, but it sounds like it might be worth testing and forming our own opinions of the results.

Speaking of more user friendly pages, I suppose I need to get myself out of the habit of “breaking the back button,” on external links even if I do it with a little script that does not break valid coding. Hey, if users would move out of that clunky, horrid, outdated browser [you know the one I mean] , they would have tabbed browsing and external links would be unnecessary to keep from losing the original website. *sigh*

If you are interested in finding a few of the other articles vaguely related to print, among other things, that I have wandered into lately, check that del.icio.us link down in the resource links in the sidebar on this page.

Farron
[who’s off to feed a hungry _^..^_ ]

Blogging Workshop

IT Kitchen has a two week clinic on blogging and related topics starting this Monday, October 25th. It runs through Friday, November 5th.

Clinic Overview:
http://wiki.itkitchen.info/Clinic:Overview

Clinic Schedule:
http://wiki.itkitchen.info/Clinic:Schedule

Sounds like an event that might well be worth checking out!

Farron
[ & _^..^_ who heard it was a feline approved event ]

Gallery2, Planes, Cars and Fish Tales

Mornin' All,

_^..^_ and I were testing Gallery2/Alpha-3 last night. From the looks of what I had seen on their forums, it appeared that it might be worth a try at this point.

Installing was easy. Very close to the same as G1. The main (not clearly noted) difference was that the /setup directory is now called /install. That wasn't hard to spot though. The step-by-step setup is extremely clear.

I haven't diddled with the styles or many of the underpinning yet, but I have to say, it creates some lovely codes. Hit it with the validator, gang. That's what's generated automatically by G2. Yah!

The only visual change I have made so far is to slap a font fish and Tony's name in the corner where the Gallery heading that was nothing more than an ad banner was hiding. That I couldn't stand for more than five seconds. I simply added a same size quickie replacement for the testing page.

There is a nasty little hack in the styles that is said to be for IE5/Mac. It rips at the style validity. I need to go dig around and find where exactly that style sheet links to the pages so I can see how easy it would be to edit the link to nuke codes for IE5/Mac completely. As far as I am concerned, that needs to be sent to the annoyances corner with NN4.x, but the page does need to remain usable. It's day is done, so let's let the sun set on it quickly. Pull those styles to encourage a move, gang!

As it stands now, G2 is very plain jane both out in public view and behind the scenes. The user interface is extremely limited and not very intuitive. But what do you expect from an alpha release?

I know there will probably not be a route to migrate this alpha to the next generation, and it will have to be deleted rather than moved. It is noted that there will probably not be a good upgrade path until the Beta releases. There were also suggestions about saving a duplicate in G1 and importing your data that way. Might be worth a look.

I have attempted to set up so information can be reset at least fairly easily. There is one issue with that though, the upload is the slowest thing I have seen in years! Picture a GeoCities file manager handling a full sized image on dial-up. That's about where it stands. Possible even slower. Ugh!

If I dig around, I think there may be a way to mass upload. If there is not, surely there will be soon. A max of four images at a time or 2MG, whichever is smaller is the pits!

Oh! Did you want to peek? The look is a yawn and since I don't know what captions or titles would be wanted, I have to hold on that, along with the styles since I think *the boys at the office* may be peeking today, so I don't want to be breaking it apart right now. (Yes, dT, this is a time working on Apache locally might be handy. ;^)

Here ya go:

http://tonyb-ict.com/gallery2/main.php

Butzi, the plane you wanted to see is there, so are those Mustangs I never put anywhere. I'm more of a toes in the sand kinda girl than someone who plays with that mechanical stuff.

Images for slide show are sized down to 400x300 since Tony (and most of the guys in his office?) still run on 800x600. Wanted them to be able to see the images in one screen. They can be enlarged to 640x480 or original monster size for details. Humm, that's another thing I wanted to look at... if you change to 640x480 size, is there a way to keep the slideshow running at that size? And max size nukes tall images down to small in that option. Lots of diddling needed, but this is finally a quick gallery that doesn't have codes I am not only humiliated to put on a page, but codes that I absolutely refuse to use. Definitely a beginning in the right direction for the Gallery guys. Three cheers to them from...

... Farron and That _^..^_

P.S. I have some little notes that I will pull together and post over on the Wiki.

Baldwin County Red Cross Donations

I should have noted last night that the Meyer Real Estate site [posted below] has an internal link where you can make donations directly to the Baldwin County Chapter of the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

The Red Cross general disaster relief donation link has been noted earlier in this blog, but I for one, wanted to add a bit extra that was targeted directly toward the people of Gulf Shores and Baldwin County who have made my life joyful on many occasions.

Anyone else feel the same way about the area and the people there? If so, do not forget that every little bit helps, especially if we all do that!!

Farron
[ _^..^_ says "Do It Now!!"]

Validation of (X)HTML Files with messIE ~ SP2

There seems to be yet another problem for those unfortunate souls who still use messIE and have downloaded SP-2.

When attempting to validate code on a local .html/.htm page the following error/warning will be generated:

"Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because its content type is text/plain, which is not currently supported by this service.

The Content-Type field is sent by your web server (or web browser if you use the file upload interface) and depends on its configuration. Commonly, web servers will have a mapping of filename extensions (such as ".html") to MIME Content-Type values (such as text/html).

That you received this message can mean that your server is not configured correctly, that your file does not have the correct filename extension, or that you are attempting to validate a file type that we do not support yet. In the latter case you should let us know that you need us to support that content type (please include all relevant details, including the URL to the standards document defining the content type) using the instructions on the Feedback Page."

There seems to be very little documentation of this problem online. Purrrrhaps because so few designers bother to validate their codes? *sigh*

Huge thanks to someone I do not have the pleasure of knowing named Lachy for this blog post with a potential fix.

I still think the best solution is to lose that funky browser and steer clear of SP-2 at this point in time, but that's not always possible for one reason or another.

The _^..^_ simply says:

but he's much better and coming up with the sensible solution than I am. For those of you who will not listen to the sage advice of *THE* wise senior feline, the alternate fix may be of assistance.

Farron
[proud to learn at the paws of *THE* Master _^..^_ ]

Lose messIE! Browse Happy!

For some reason, I had not noticed the Browse Happy Campaign at WaSP

I am jumping on that band wagon by adding a button link to my sidebar here

and by running over and finding a spot on the classroom pages which release to our students tonight to add a larger, more *in your face* version. Maybe even the big, blinky one? haha

_^..^_ and I are trying to work to change the web, one student at a time.

Now if I'd just clean up this lil mess over here and get it moved to the spot where I am working on a more current, standards driven layout. One that looks better, too. lol

What a difference a year or so can make in the way you like to code, huh?

That's all for now!

Farron and that _^..^_

Is it Internet or internet?

Not to terribly long ago I watched with interest from the sidelines of a conversation regarding words like Web and Internet and questioning when, and if, they should be capitalized. The general consensus was that they should always be capitalized. Treat them like proper names.

I have found that to be more than a wee bit silly for quite some time. Glad to see that times are changing and using these words in a normal, everyday fashion may not be frowned upon by the punctuation, grammar and capitalization police.

As if I ever really listened to any of them for any longer than required to receive passing grades in English Grammar 101.

Article from wired.com:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64596,00.html

Which I found via a comment in The Daily Report:
http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0804d.shtml#cap

My actual belief is that some [cough, cough] marketing guru came up with those caps. Not one of my college English professors from all those years ago. They had never heard of the internet anyway. [smile]

Farron ...errrr farron
[ _^..^_ is ignoring this silliness ]

So Much for a Quiet, Spam-free Blog

I am pretty well hidden over here as this blog, which started a bit over a year ago as a test I was doing with some friends is not a heavily travelled corner of cyberspace. It's mostly just a place for me to stash things I would like to be able to find again and share a few smiles or grumbles with friends.

Wellllllll, the PITA comment spammers seem to have found me. I didn't even realize it for a bit as the most of the nasty litttle titles in the notifications didn't even make it to my mailbox thanks to my email spam blockers and filters.

I started to use Phil Ringnaula's suggestion from the forums about a fast and easy way to ban all IP's temporarily by simply entering a blank IP address via the MT IP Banning feature, but that made me almost as mad as having to delete comment spam. Why shouldn't I be able to allow comments if I want them and still be irritation/spam free? It's not like someone will get super SE ratings for attaching to this little corner.

I dug around for another minute in the forums to find a quick and easy fix. Did not want to invest large amounts of energy into it at this point as catartis.com will be migrating off of MT in the near future. It would have been gone already if I hadn't gotten a case of extreme & acute lazification over this summer break. I have a spot ready for it, but I need to kick my creative cells into gear and come up with new site design templates before I toddle off. I am just that way. lol

Found this quick fix at Neil's World thanks to a post in the MT forums:

One Idea

Just tested posting a comment on my previous entry and all seems to be working on that end. Now, let's see if it helps. If not, all IP's will be banned until I get off my [ahem] assets and get moved.

The _^..^_ is disgusted, and so am I. [grin & growl]

Farron

Causes, Campaigns & Coding

In doing just a wee bit of that blog surfing I planned to blow off the rest of the night. Ran across a few spots that seem to be trying to spread the word about issues near and dear to my coding and computing heart.

First, here's one the students will love. A new *sticker* to strut on the pages they are creating with their new found coding skills:

This *sticker* button links to information about why table layouts should be avoided and the value of table free design.

And how about spreading the word that messIE6 is [ahem] not the ideal choice in browsers? It's about time some of the superior and more compliant browsers like Mozilla/FireFox and Opera started getting more attention and use:

Commentary from scottandrew.com:
http://www.scottandrew.com/main/ie-psa

Several links to articles like this one are included.

Internet Explorer is Too Dangerous to Keep Using:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617931,00.asp

And last, but not least, what about these notes on an unfortunate step backward in time from Apple and the Dashboard project?

http://jking.dark-phantasy.com/log/?post=91
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2004/07/07/wrapped-in-canvas/

Okay, I'm pooped now. Enough for tonight. Time to snuggle in with a fella, a pillow and THE _^..^_.

Sweet dreams all!

Farron

Web Standards Supporters!

I was just shown a link by a fellow LVS staff member that I do not want to lose, so I am adding it here.

MACCAWS... Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards

I might also suggest that anyone wanting to make a case for the advantages of designing to web standards to an employer or client might suggest they at least flip through Jeffery Zeldman's book “Designing With Web Standards” or look at a long time favorite site, Zen Garden and a new, soon to be favorite just discovered thanks to the MACCAWS site:

Web Standards Awards

Be sure to take a peek and see some of the goodies there. I notice that the [until very recently] hybrid site, Happy Cog, has been reinvented and picked up an award here. And the most recent winner, Twinsparc, is absolutely lovely in my humble opinion. Since it posted on my birthday, I consider it a personal gift. [Wish I could take credit for being the designer...lol.]

I really need to get on the stick and work with this level of design and standards. Until the first of this year, enough of a percentage of my user base was still using good old Netscape 4.x as their primary, or only corporate, browsers that I was rather hopelessly stuck in beating all but *playtime* pages with hacks to accommodate them visually. But, like magic, they have finally started dropping that old browser like a hot potato in the last few months. What a freeing turn of events that has been! I can finally wander into the 21st century!

TaTa for now!

Farron & That _^..^_

Multiple Versions of IE on One Computer?

Hummm,

I saw this several days ago and am just wandering back to inspect a bit more closely. Might just have to give this little trick to add multiple versions of IE to a single Windows system a try:

Mulitple Versions of IE on Windows

That is something a lot of us have wanted to do for page checking for ages.

Back to do more reading and see what is involved.

Farron

Who Trusts Trusted Computing??

I've been doing some reading on [cough, sputter] Trusted Computing. The more I read, the more frightening the idea becomes. Trussed & Tied Computing might be a better name.

This entry is mainly so I will have easy access to this link myself:

http://www.againsttcpa.com/tcpa-faq-en.html

I have been scanning through it and clicking assorted links. Information in all directions here. My plan is to dig deeper as time allows.

Unfortunately, in this day and time, what Microsoft wants, Microsoft gets....or so it seems. *SIGH*

But in the infamous words of Katie Scarlett, "#8220;Tomorrow IS another day.#8221; We can hope it will be a bright one, and strive to do our part to make it so.

Farron