I have a 1996 Dodge Neon, and I think the fuel pump is dying, but I’m not a car guy. It chokes and sputters going up decent hills, and over 45 or 50 on flat roads on an average day (say, 70 degrees). I can go faster on cooler days, and maybe only 40-45 on hotter days. Like I said, I’m not a car guy, but I think it’s the fuel pump. Now, what do those things cost to replace, I’ve heard around $200, and might there be something less expensive to test first (like you change the thermostat first then your car is overheating on a full reservoir)?

I’ve been getting a number of emails lately about my old Password Manager Tricks page, which was easy to find on my old domain (which squatters now grabbed) and I keep forgetting to re-link it. Well, here it is, again.

I just had to share this one.

A language where “coward” is an insult marks a possibly dangerous species. — Larry Niven

I started with this idea a couple weeks ago. Well, I decided, why not blog a few more. Ideas are good to spread around, as you have a better chance to make it happen.

First up is some New Tab issues. Linux folks have -remote openURL([url], new-tab) but those of us on Win32 have no external options for specifying a new tab or window, only one-size-fits-all preference settings. I’m so used to middle-clicking links in Mailnews that I don’t think I can bear going back.

And the ability to specify a new tab using the target= attribute on links would be nice too, but that ship has sailed.

Another tab thing would be tab-reordering built in. Asa blogged about an extension called MiniT+indicator, but a simple featureset like this should be built into Firefox.

Ever use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Acrobat Reader? I love how holding the spacebar lets your grab and move the document around freely. I would absolutely adore an extenstion that added this feature. And not just for pages; for images that are larger than the viewport it would rock too (no, I hate image auto-resizing so don’t even speak of it). Anything with a scrollbar.

I’m sure I’ll think of more later on, or rather, remember more later on. 🙂

So far, Firefox has really been kicking ass and taking names. But a recent letter to Infoworld from a happy convert made me stop and think for a moment. The user’s only complaints were a few rare sites coded for IE, and of course Microsoft’s Windows Update. Now,there’s not much we can do about sites coded for IE, but there is something we can do about Windows Update. If you change your user agent string to look like IE, the Windows Update site loads fine, with some minor visual differences, although the ActiveX control doesn’t load since Firefox doesn’t support AX controls. But there is some work on supporting AX, such as with limited instances of AX in Netscape. Lots of people bemoan the fact they still need to use IE for Windows Update, in fact. So, what we need is an extension specifically written for Windows Update. It could come with a custom style sheet so the page renders better, and some mechanism for triggering the AX control on Windows systems when the Windows Update site is visited. Yes, this would only be useful for one site, but that one site is incredibly important for Windows users, and the ability to use it would give many people the reason to never load IE again.

Read this article. Yes, it’s several pages long, but it’s well worth the read even if you have to crazy glue your ADD butt to the chair.

Why exactly is it not racial profiling when witnesses say that it was a [white/black/other] guy that shot this guy on the street, but it’s racial profiling when we keep an eye out for middle eastern guys flying with one way tickets, when it was 19 middle eastern guys (Hell, 14 of them alone were Saudis) that smashed planes into buildings killing almost 3,000 people? Let’s face facts. They were middle eastern men between 20 and 40 or so that did it, not 85 year old blue haired grannies. That’s not racial profiling, it’s FACT.

I’m not saying we need to strip search ever arab every day, but there is such a thing as common sense. Look at the hostage takers in the videos coming out of Iraq and surrounding areas. They’re not Japanese, they’re not Swedish, they’re not Argentinian. It wasn’t racial profiling in WW2 when you were hip deep in mud in France and shot at anyone speaking German. It wasn’t racial profiling when you were hip deep in swamp and shot at Vietnamese. It wasn’t racial profiling when everyone thought it was a middle aged white guy driving a white panel van in the greater DC area in fall 2002. Why is it racial profiling now?

Also, read this page at the TSA’s website, it’s also linked from the article.

• If you are wearing an exterior medical device and are uncomfortable with going
  through the metal detector or be handwanded, you may request a pat-down
  inspection and visual inspection of your device instead.”

In other words, wear a shoulder harnessed oxygen pump, and hide a gun in it, and tell the screener
you’re uncomfortable. That’s insane. I’m uncomfortable when they make me boot up my laptop or my camera.

• “Screeners should not be asking you to remove your orthopedic shoes, appliances,
  or medical device at any time during the screening process.”

Translated: To successfully pull a successful Richard Reid, just wear ortho shoes.

When the next major attack happens, it won’t be because the terrorists out smarted us. It’ll be because our government, those who are sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution and the citizens of the United States, were totally and completely incompetent and spineless.

Ok, at this moment, I’m trying to retrace a browsing-path I made two to four days ago. History isn’t helpful here, as I’m looking for paths that I took through Google. So, I realized something. A Google Search History extension for Mozilla or Firefox would be a huge help. But something far more than IE’s pathetic little dropdown. Maybe that would be a start at least. Give the Googlebox Search box in Firefox a dropdown history of the past X days or past X searches entered there. Then you could build on it that the extension would remember which links you visited from the search result, and show you their URLs, or generate a page with only the links you visited from that search term’s result list. Like how you can browse where images in your cache came from. Or has this invention already been invented?

I rarely pontificate on theology. I do not frequently discuss or debate theology. I even less frequently espouse my own theological beliefs. I find religion to be a very personal issue, and also a very private issue. So, since I will be undoubtedly offensive to someone (as opposed to being offensive to everyone, which I’m fine with), you can click the little link there to read the whole post.
» Continue reading “Theology”

I’ve done two more Mozilla posters, which are all now located here. Also, I noticed a few small flaws in the original SVG, either there originally or maybe created during the importation into Illustrator 11 (it was originally made and exported to SVG by Illustrator 9). I fixed those up, and saved it as an SVG, and as a PDF for folks without SVG capabilities. Everything is there in the directory, all in PDFs, with previews in PNG. These are not original works, I have just remake them in a scalable vector format. They’re all based on works on the Mozilla.org website, in raster format, usually small, and all unsuitable for large scale printing. I’ve already gotten word of folks in Japan enjoying them printed and hung on the walls, so let me know what you do with them, too. 🙂

Well, MightyMu was looking at the images here and mentioned how he’d love to see this as a poster, preferrably 24″x36″. So, I made this. It’s 100% vector, so it will scale to whatever size you like. It’s in 2:3 ratio, so it will fit a 24″x36″ poster paper without any alterations, or 18″x12″ posters, etc. Here is a preview image made directly from the original. It was drawn in Adobe Illustrator, so I can export it to other formats, if folks wish, such as SVG, EPS, etc. I’ve got an SVG version, but it’s half a meg, so I am looking to see if it can be optimized or whatever.