It’s here.

Firefox 4 is out. I highly recommend it. It does seem faster than previous versions.  It is certainly better than Internet Explorer. I’ve been using the public beta for about the past month, and while I’ve been impressed with the overall performance, I was having a few issues with the extensions. I ended up getting rid of quite a few of them that didn’t work.  There are a couple of others that aren’t being updated fast enough, but i figured out how to make them work (hint: the .xpi file that the extension comes as is a .zip file. You can can simply unzip it, and there is a certain file that you can open in your favorite text editor and you can change the maximum Firefox version…) I don’t have the specifics now on how to do it. Maybe later, I’ll post it…

Firefox is available in a mobile version (for Android). I used to try it, but I found for Android, your best bet is Dolphin Browser HD. Not as many plug-ins as there are for Firefox, but it gets the job done (in fact, my boss thinks it’s even faster than his iPhone, which says something since my phone isn’t even supposed to run Android….). For those of you stuck with a Windows Mobile 6.x device, I’d have to go with Opera 10. Or better yet, get a new phone….

I know it’s late to comment on it, but…

The Huskies are out of the dance. I was at work at the time, but I followed it on my phone (my boss hath decreed no internet for personal use at work, but he shouldn’t put me on the schedule for major sporting events if he wants me to follow that… And Gonzaga got eliminated to. By BYU. Gonzaga is run by the Society of Jesus (who just so happen to be the largest Catholic order around). The Jesuits got beat by the Mormons. And to further add to the humiliation, BYU is more known for football (in fact they’re more of a quarterback factory). And they were beat by a team that didn’t even have it star player… But BYU just got eliminated tonight by UConn.

I’m now no longer officially interested in the Final Four…

And lo1 The Noodly Appendage reaches out again…

The Noodly Appendage has reached forth and called home Elizabeth Taylor. May she frolic forever in The Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory. Ramen.

To be honest, I never really did care for her on the silver screen. But I will always remember her for her role as the voice of Maggie Simpson when she spoke her first word. She was as well known for off-the-screen antics as her on the screen performance. Think about it. Without her and Richard Burton, Cleopatra would’ve been the Ishtar of the early ‘60s….

Let's go dancing

I was st work when this happened yesterday, but the UDub won the PAC-10 tournament, giving them an automatic trip to The Big Dance. Gonzaga got one, too. I have never really followed basketball in any form, college or otherwise, but it is nice to see one (even two) sports teams in the Pacific Northwest show some consistency. And wining records aren't that bad either....

The NFL has gone from the National Football League to the No Fun League. A lockout has been imposed, the players' union has decertified, and lawsuits have been filed. Player vs. the Team Owners. Both parties are at fault on this one. No matter who wins, it's the fans who are going to lose. Take a page from the NHL. They canceled an entire season a few years back, and I dont think they'll ever recover fully. Everyone involved needs to get rid of their ego....

Into the kitchen, boy....

Edit: I never thought I'd see the day, bought tonight Blogger for Android is easier to post to than Windows Live Writer. I don't know what's wrong with it. But tonight's blog entry is courtesy of my phone. And the Swye public beta...

Edit: wrote this on my phone, but links were added from my computer.

Anyway, IgwanaRob once posted about cooking his own ROMS for his Tilt II (aka the HTC Rhodium, our the Touch Pro II), the he settled upon the ENERGY ROMS, which I used for my Rhodium and my Leo, before I switched to Android (in fact, there is an ENERGY ROM for Android, too). I haven't yet found a specific Android kitchen, but when using the Clockwork Recovery mod, I found a way to do some serious tweaking on my ROM. Before it's installed.

I start of with Rafdroid, what ever the current version. Then I unzip the archive (CWM ROMs are actually .zip files). Then I start off by deleting stuff I don't use (I don't tweet, so Twitter stuff can go, as well as most of the HTC Locations stuff). I used to use another ROM, and I liked the skins it used, and so I load those in. And I add some stuff I use, then re-zip and install.

And there's another flash I do for the custom theme, just because I like the flying windows it offers, but I've yet to figure out how to cook everything in at once.

Now, while I'm on Android ROMs for the HD2, I've noticed the best ones I've tried come in two flavors: those that are based on the HTC Glacier (the MyTouch 4G), and the HTC Ace (the HTC Desire HD). The Glacier based ROMs have the eye candy, and generally they take up less space (meaning you have more space to download crap your don't need from the market...). But I've found that the Ace based ROMS have for functionality...

Today's big Linux lesson is...

If you have a Realtek 8169 ethernet adapter onboard your motherboard (like I do), and you decide to install Linux, there's some good news for you. It'll work in Linux just fine. The bad news: when you boot back into windows, it won't work anymore. You'll just get rude messages about the cable being disconnected, even when it's connected. The good news is there's an easy fix: just power off the tower, and then unplug the power cord (actually my setup is such that I just turn off the power strip. It's safer, imo...), and unplug the network cable. Then count to 100. Plug everything back in, turn the system on, and it should work in windows again.  While it is an effective work around and I can attest to that, it is also a deal-breaker for me. So I've wiped the drive that ir was installed on and taken GRUB of the MBR. In windows, everything works, and it works well, from a hardware point of view. Maybe in the future, I'll give it another shot, but I like windows for now.

And the rude message I got from Gnome that my hard drive was on the verge of failure may have played a factor in my decision, too. Il I'll se what CHKDSK has to say for itself. That's why I like to have to two drives in my tower.

I suppose this means I can put my wifi card back in...

Here we go again....

Hello, I'm blogging from my phone again....

A few years back, I was dabbling with Linux, and I even managed to get most of it to work. With one exception: the printer. When I bought my printer, I want thinking of the possibility of using anything other than windows, so I just went for what the Gateway guy recommended: a Canon MultiPass C755. Which is a very good printer for windows. In fact, if you're still running XP or 9x, and you can still find one, snag it. You won't be disappointed. Having said that, there are no Linux drivers for it. I tried everything. So, at the most, the average life of my linux installs were one week. Except for Knoppix. Which I stopped using after 4.02 (something about no longer being able to connect to the internet). Fast forward a few years, I have a new computer, my old Canon went to The Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory, and my father gave me a new printer for my birthday, a Canon PIXMA MP250. And one of Facebook friends needed a Linux Dvd downloaded. So I grabbed the current version of SuSE (yes, I know it's called opensuse now, but I like old name better. My blog, my delusions...). And I figured, why not give it a try. Which I did last night. And everything installed as planned. And then I tried the printer. Canonusa.com are no help. It's either you use windows or you go elsewhere. But Cannon Australia, on the other hand, does offer Linux drivers. And they work. Unfortunately, my first attempt was on a virtual machine in windows, and my virtual machine software messed up my network cards (I ended up having to finally pull the wifi card out). I finally got everything fixed, but in the process, I 'repaired' my hard drive's master boot record, which meant I couldn't log into linux anymore. And I couldn't login to repair it, either. So tonight I'm reinstalling it again.

I hope I can keep this on for more than a week.

Edit:  I think I'm going to have to throw in the towel on this one. The graphics card just can't seem to work with a twin display. Which is too bad. I remember getting 1280 x 1024 on both monitors when I had a Radeon 9250, several generations behind this one. At best, on this one, I can get 1280 x 1024 on one, but only 1280 x 800 on the other...

Edit 2: I think I fixed the graphics issue. Nothing that a root login and a text editor couldn't fix....