Tag: product reviews

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 Web Browser Released

loketyLeave a comment

For those Mozilla Firefox 1.5.x users who are cool with their version and can wait for 2.x to be downloaded automatically, your browser will probably be downloading 1.5.0.8 right now.

This version resolves three bugs and improves the update feature for it to download lean and custom FF 2.0 installation instead of full installer.

FF 1.5 will be supported and updated until April 27 2007. Although most extensions work in FF 2.0, your only reason to stick with FF 1.5 is the themes, unless you can find FF 2.0 versions.

I’m giving one last chance to FF 1.5 not to crash occasionally when I open a link in a new tab…

Meanwhile, let me recommend a really fun extension, called StumbleUpon. It is a social bookmarking service which lets your surf to pages recommended by others. You can share interesting pages that you have visited and give reviews. Pretty useful extension when you have been surfing for eight hours already and can’t seen to find any more and will crash and die of fatigue. Check it out using the link below.

Oh, FF 1.5.0.9 and 2.0.0.1 are planned to be released on Dec 14 2006. So, you got some time to really think carefully if you want to move on to FF 2.0. ;)

Related posts:

Mozilla Firefox 2 Web Browser Released
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/10/mozilla-firefox-2-web-browser-released.html>

Firefox Into The Sky!
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/firefox-into-sky.html>

Links:

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 Release Notes
<URL:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.0.8.html>

Download Firefox
<URL:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=187103&t=213>

StumbleUpon
<URL:http://www.stumbleupon.com>

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Roomba Rave

loketyLeave a comment

Following on to my previous post about one of the most practical technological marvel on the market in recent years, here is an update on my Roomba, from iRobot.

After several months of using Roomba, I find my floors spotlessly clean, both common areas and areas under furniture. For my usage pattern and nature of dirt, I have to empty and clean the dirt bin once a week. More often than the average vacuum cleaner, but worth the benefit of total floor coverage.

Be aware that although this robot is smaller than your average vacuum cleaner, it still has quite a noise level. Baby will find it a bit hard to fall asleep with Roomba wandering around. :) The cause is the powerful motor that creates the vacuum effect in the dirt bin at the back of the unit. Another source of noise is the motor of the side rotating brush. I’m figuring out a way to soften the noise there, but I suspect it will have to be a major overhaul of the motor or having to do without it.

Once I had an awful experience that started by someone in my household who carelessly rinsed the dirt bin with water. Don’t do that as the bin contains electronics and the motor for the vacuum function! As I was worried that the electronics would short circuit, I took apart the bin and tried to blow-dry the area using a hot blower. Not being careful enough, the plastic fan driven by the motor started to melt and distort. The fan couldn’t turn any more as it was warped. After much twisting and re-melting, I became more experienced in hot modelling and got it back mostly in shape.

There are several places on the underside of Roomba which you can try to oil to reduce friction. This can help prolong the shell life of the machine, keep dirt out, and lower operational noise. The easiest place to apply oil without using tools is at the two axles of the long brushes. They are the round white plastic pieces with square holes in them, shown in the photo on right.

After months of two sessions per day, the first thing that gave way on my Roomba is a section of the hinge that holds one of the two rubber wheels.
A chunk of the hinge cracked, but the wheel is still kept in place by the other side of the hinge. This was probably caused by the metal rail of my sliding glass doors. My machine must have been banging its right wheel in and out of the rail and stressed the structure of it. If you have such a place in your house, take note of it and think of ways to avoid it.

In case you are still undecided on whether you should get one, check out roboticvacuums.net for more reviews and information about Roomba. There is a good review on Roomba which I have been describing, and one on a fairly new model, Scooba. This fancy blue vacuum may just be on my wishlist as it can wash and vacuum hard floors. A little bucket contains the dirty water collected from the floor after washing. It would be so satisfying to see that dirty water!

Related post:

Cleaning The World, One Robot At A Time
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/cleaning-world-one-robot-at-time.html>

Links:

Reviews on Roomba
<URL:http://www.roboticvacuums.net/>

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Mozilla Firefox 2 Web Browser Released

lokety2 Comments

The world’s best free web browser has been upgraded to version 2 and released on October 24 2006.

Firefox 2

The list of new features in Firefox:

  • Improved tabbed browsing
  • Spell checking
  • Search suggestions
  • Updated web feeds
  • Identity theft protection

I have used a beta of version 2 before. The major peeve for me is the changes Mozilla made for tabbed browsing. The width of each tab is fixed, which is a benefit as you will be able to read the title of the page all the time. However, this results in tabs that are not able to fit in the width of the browser window and you will not be able to guage the number of tabs that are currently open and not be able to see the next tab that you are about to switch to. Having a button that lists the open tabs doesn’t appeal to me because I prefer to use the keyboard (ctrl-tab and ctrl-shift-tab) to navigate them. I suppose there is a key that I can set to change the behaviour of the tabs.

If you happen to accidentally close a tab, Firefox 2 can recall it from the History menu. My favourite add-on, called Session Manager, can save and restore the list of tabs when the browser is restarted, so you can resume your browsing when you turn your computer back on. This also has been integrated in version 2 and is known as Session Restore.

Identity theft, or phishing, protection is a very useful feature. Firefox 2 will warn you when you visit a web site suspected of forgery and is out to maliciously capture your secure information.

Some of Google Toolbar’s features have also been integrated natively into Firefox 2. You will find spell checking in forms and search suggestions in the search toolbar in this browser. However, Google Toolbar is still good to have for features such as AutoFill, AutoLink, PageRank, Word Translator and Highlight Search Terms.

Go ahead, get yourself a better web browser. Click on the “Get Firefox with Google Toolbar” or the links below.

Update (30 Oct 2006 1047hrs):

To revert the tab behaviour to pre-version 2.0, type “about:config” in the address bar, press “Enter”, look for or create (if it does not exist) the setting “browser.tabs.closeButtons” and set its value to 3, set or create the setting “browser.tabs.tabMinWidth” and set its value to 0, and install this style. For more information on new or upgrade installation issues with Firefox 2, go to this thread in the MozillaZine Forums.

Links:

Download Firefox
<URL:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=187103&t=213>

Firefox 2 Press Release
<URL:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2006-10-24.html>

Firefox Into The Sky!
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/firefox-into-sky.html>

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