Firefox Needs To Go To School

Thu Aug 30

I’ve recently been away (yes, it was great) but I’ll try to get back into my usual semi-regular blogging.

First up to the plate is the notion that Firefox Needs To Go To School (from WebProNews) meaning that unless kids are trained in the Fox Arts then the stranglehold that Internet Explorer has on the Internet will never be loosened. It’s not that I think IE is a bad browser, it’s made massive strides forward in the last year, but a bit of competition would be great against the worlds largest monopoly.

So I’m doing my bit. My 11 year-old son is currently using Firefox on Ubuntu Studio to write his blog. Step by step…

I am the luckiest man alive

Thu Aug 2

This week has been a tough one owing to a rather nasty cough I’ve had since last Friday (just call me “dog”). But signing into my Hotmail account has cheered me right up, as they say in Yorkshire. Not one, not two (not four, not even five) but three people have contacted me to offer “very confidential and lucrative investment transactions”.

I can hardly contain my excitement. This kind of thing never happens to me. I’ve never won anything on the lottery, but that may be because I’ve never bought a ticket. But still, this is a happy day.

I can’t give too many details as I don’t want to jeopardise these exciting business opportunities, but I will give you some quotes from their emails:

I procured your contact information from my search for a reliable person, who is capable of handling such a proposal of this great magnitude

In this account, he has (Thirty-nine Million Dollars) $39,000,000 only, which was credited in his favour

It has been resolved by the family that 30% of the total fund shall be your share for presenting yourself for this purpose/assistance you will give in this regard

My assurance to you is that this transaction is hundred percent risk-free

I secretly put in a box the sum of $30,000,000 million USD (Thirty million United states dollars) and deposit it in a security company abroad

I hope to trust you as who will not sit on this money when you claim it

BECAUSE OF THE SECURITY HAUNT FOR MY ARREST,I HAVE LEFT LIBERIA TO TAKE REFURGE IN TOGO BECAUSE OF SURVELLANCE HOVERING OVER MY LIFE

CAN I TRUST YOU? IF I CAN NOT ESTERBLISH MY CONFIDENCE AND TRUST ON YOU IT MEANS WE CAN NOT WORK TOGETHER BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING IN THIS WORLD TO HOLD ON TO APART FROM THIS PARTICULAR MONEY.

IN RECOGNITION OF THE EFFICIENT PERFORMANCE OF YOUR DUTIES,I HAVE ACCEPTED TO GIVE YOU 20% OF THE TOTAL SUM OF $71,000,000.00 AS YOUR ENTITTLEMENT.

I LOOK FORWARD TO RECEVING YOUR COMPLIMENTARY ACCEPTANCE

Well, what can I say? It seems like nothing exciting ever happens to me, then I get involved in three highly exciting things on the same day. Luck must really be on my side. I’m curious how they all got my email address, but now’s not the time to ask silly questions.

If things keep going like this then I might even buy a lottery ticket.

Ubuntu Studio - freedom in creativity

Wed May 16

Something I’ve been waiting for has finally happened. Ubuntu Studio, the Linux distribution for “creatives” has finally been released. Based on the marvellous Ubuntu it has been specifically put together with tools to help people working in the audio, video and graphics industries. That, dear readers, includes me.

Ubuntu studio logo

In particular I’m looking forward to trying out Ardour, a free multitrack digital audio workstation, which basically means I can record stuff at home in great quality. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Cheeky marketing: lesson 1

Sat Mar 24

Go to your dad’s birthday party and leave small piles of business cards wherever there are nibbles.

More Performing

Thu Mar 22

There are a couple of new functions I’ve got in development for my unobtrusive JavaScript library. I’ve you’ve not had a look at what Performer does then have a ganders now, I’ll be waiting.

Anyway, new functions. Firstly I’m doing a simple Submitter function that will listen for a form being submitted, intercept the submission and send all the data in the form to the processing page. The response from the processing page is then loaded into a named element on the page. Simple, but I think I’ll be using that a lot, and I hope it will be useful for other people too.

Secondly I’m doing a Popper function which (amazingly enough) pops up content fom a remote page based on passed parameters. So it could be used for an image gallery, or perhaps in-page help. This function, unlike most of the Performer functions, is pretty dependent on some CSS, so I’ll be making the Performer.css file available along with the JavaScript file when those functions are released.

As normal, these additions shouldn’t break anything you’re currently using, but if you do see wierdness please let me know.