Paul Jacobson

Firefox 2.0 has really been bugging me lately. I have been a Firefox user since just before it went 1.0 and have always regarded it as a superior browser to Internet Explorer (still do). I recently switched to using Apple’s Safari as my primary browser and Firefox for those sites that Safari doesn’t fully support just yet (Vox is one of those sites). Safari is a great browser and I enjoy using it more and more (except when it starts to emulate a resource black hole and bring my PowerBook to a crawl).

Firefox has always been a superior browser in many ways. It was one of the first browsers to introduce tabbed browsing (I am not sure but I think Opera was first to do this) and isn’t vulnerable to all the bugs and bad things that prey on Internet Explorer. Firefox’s extensible capability is one the areas where Firefox really shines and I love that I can add all sorts of extra functionality to Firefox to take care of my various needs. Lately, though, Firefox 2.0 has been a bit of a dog. It has started to stall after not being used for a few minutes and won’t do anything except sit there and act pretty. It also crashes a little more often than it used to and I am beginning to wonder what went wrong.

In a related post, I noticed that Jeffrey Zeldman has published a post in which he finds that Safari is the better browser, at least when it comes to how the two browsers handle text on a page:

Though Firefox and related Mozilla browsers deserve credit for their unsurpassed handling of everything from the Document Object Model to MIME types, Firefoxs way with text leaves much to be desired, as the following screen shots show. Indeed, if reading is mostly what you do on the web, and if accurate typography makes reading more of a pleasure and less of a strain, then Apples Safari is superior to Firefox.

I know this really seems like nitpicking but it is an important issue when you consider that web browsers are meant to translate the code in a page into something a bit more readable for us lay users. Of course, whether the browser’s ability to display italics on a page is a key factor in deciding whether to use a browser is something I’ll leave up to you. For my part the fact that Firefox tends to really slow down on my Mac and just stall doesn’t make me want to go rushing back to it. To the extent this is a flaw in the software, I have little doubt it will be resolved pretty soon. For now, I am sticking with Safari.

For those of you who are using a Windows machine, I don’t think there should be any doubt in your mind which browser to use as your main browser. Internet Explorer 7 does seem to be an advance on Internet Explorer 6 but if I was betting the integrity of my Windows machine on browser choice, I’d definitely switch to Firefox right now.

Tags: web browser, safari, firefox, better browser, internet explorer, extensions, stalling, bugs

No Comments yet »

One of the features that has been missing from Google Calendar is a tasks feature. Ajaxian has a post about a third party developer called Remember the Milk which has come up with a plugin for Google Calendar called Remember the Milk for Google Calendar:

Earlier this year we added support for showing tasks on your calendar. It’s a handy way to see your tasks alongside your calendar events, but it hasn’t been possible to add, edit, complete, and postpone your tasks from within Google Calendar. That is, until now…

Introducing Remember The Milk for Google Calendar

We know that many of you are managing your tasks with Remember The Milk and your events with Google Calendar, and we thought it would be very cool if we could bring the two together. This new feature adds a small task icon to the top of each day in Google Calendar — click on the icon to:

• Review your tasks for the day
• Add new tasks and edit existing ones
• Easily complete and postpone tasks
• Review your overdue tasks
• Optionally show tasks with no due date
• See where your tasks are located on a map

See your tasks in the real world

Thanks to the magic of Google Maps, we’ve made a mini version of the Locations feature available in Google Calendar. The map shows where your day’s tasks are located in the real world, so you can see what’s nearby or on your way, and plan the best way to get things done.

As with the gadget we created for Google Personalized Homepage, this feature is available in 18 languages and will use your language setting to automatically display in your language.

In the first place it is quite something that Google facilitates this sort of interactivity with its products and opens the door for a whole community of developers who believe that can take what Google has provided and make it even better or feature rich.

To use this feature you need to first add it to your Google Calendar. To do this go to the Remember the Milk post and click on the button:

That will take you to your Google Calendar account and, after asking your permission to do the deed, will install the tasks feature. Once installed the feature is identifiable by the blue and white ticks at the top of each day on your calendar. There is a little catch though. To make use of this service you must create an account on Remember the Milk. Remember the Milk is, after all, a company that provides a task/reminder service that is accessible not just through Google Calendar but also using your mobile phone, your desktop calendar application (like iCal) or your feedreader (when you create an account you basically create a calendar which has a feed you can subscribe to).

This service is a great idea but it is another service to subscribe to and something that just takes users further away from their core applications. Running a complete schedule now requires running your desktop application (in many instances) and/or your online scheduling application (like Google Calendar) and an additional tasks application (Remember the Milk). I don’t know about you but this is the sort of complexity that would probably persuade me to make the move to an integrated application like Scrybe once the product is out of beta testing.

On the other hand there is a degree of integration given that the Remember the Milk application does integrate into Google Calendar. I have signed up for an account and there is quite a few interesting features in Remember the Milk worth checking out. The accounts are free so if this interests you then check it out. In fact, this site is worth checking out even if you have no interest in Google Calendar and your only interest is a web-based tasks application which you can access pretty much anywhere.

Do you have any thoughts on this service? Any other services you found to be better options? Let me know by posting a comment below!

Tags: google calendar, remember the milk, tasks, reminders, scrybe, integration, organiser

1 Comment »

Here is a story for you:

a psychologist receives a patient and spends time with that patient.  The psychologist mostly listens to the patient and comes to the conclusion that because of the way the patient looked at the family budgie from time to time, the patient has certain early signs of having a "murderous" tendency and suggested that the patient be put to death.  The family agreed and the patient was executed.

Doesn’t that sound a little odd?  Crazy even?  Well this story is based on fact.  The main difference between this story and the facts the story is based on is that the patient in the story was a two year old dog in the original set of circumstances.

News24 has the original story which details how a so-called "dog whisperer" advised the owners of a two year old Boerbul who felt that the poor animal had "early signs of hunting".  For goodness sake, it was a dog.  Dogs are descendants of other dogs which were bred to be hunters.  The hunting instinct is hardwired into these animals.  What a quack!

I’ll make another point and then go fume in a corner.  Human beings have definite violent tendencies.  Perhaps we should start executing human beings who psychologists feel may start to develop violent tendencies?

Tags: dog whisperer, pam whyte, violent tendencies

No Comments yet »

Pamela Slim has published her Work Manifesto and I believe it is worth reading.  Here are her main points:

• Work is your real life. 
• Good work will improve your sex life. 
• Your secret desire holds the clue to your best work. 
• You can’t fool your kids. 
• Fear is the great inhibitor. 
• Owning is better than renting.

It is so easy to forget the important things that drove us when we struck out on our own.  We really should find ways to remember those things that motivated us in the beginning. 

I am having one of those days where I find myself experiencing some of the feelings and sensations I experienced just before I left my last job and it is quite an effective reminder to go back and remember what it was about my new path that had me leaping out of bed on Monday mornings.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?  What are you excited about?  How do you take yourself back to those happy thoughts that got your juices flowing in the beginning?  Do you have a word manifesto of your own?

Tags: remember the passion, forget, work manifesto

No Comments yet »

The Enron and WorldCom debacles emphasised the importance of the retention of emails and other digital communications in the event that something goes terribly wrong and an investigation is required.  While there are clear guidelines for the retention of paper documents, there was a degree of uncertainty about digital information until the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act was passed a few years ago.  The Act provides for retention of information stored digitally in section 16:

1) Where a law requires information to be retained, that requirement is met by retaining such information in the form of a data message, if-
a) the information contained in the data message is accessible so as to be usable for subsequent reference;
b) the data message is in the format in which it was generated, sent or received, or in a format which can be demonstrated to represent accurately the information generated, sent or received; and
c) the origin and destination of that data message and the date and time it was sent or received can he determined.
2) The obligation to retain information as contemplated in subsection (I) does not extend to any information the sole purpose of which is to enable the message to be sent or received.

It becomes important to implement systems that are compliant with the Act to ensure that, should the need arise for an investigation, that the information has been stored in the manner required by law and that the company itself does not expose itself to criminal or other sanctions simply because of a failure to comply with its obligations to properly retain this information.  There are a number of laws which require companies to retain information for a period of time and the fines for non-compliance can be pretty hefty.  Aside from the imperative that this information be retained, it is often in a company’s interest to retain information generated and transmitted across its network should the need arise to investigate, for example, an employee’s misconduct.  This ties in with the need for policies dealing with the interception and monitoring of communications across a company’s network, which I took a look at here.

I was chatting to a developer in Cape Town, Martin Hattingh, who runs a company called bsolve.  bsolve recently launched a product called mailMAC which he develop in consultation with the IT law expert, Reinhardt Buys:

mailMAC enables easy retrieval of archived records through a centrally accessible and user-friendly web search interface, giving both administrators and end-users quick access to their archived mail.

How does mailMAC add value?

mailMAC solves the following problems:

• Mail deletion by users - mailMAC archives mail before it reaches the user
• Lack of integrity/authenticity of records - mailMAC uses secure encryption and verification to ensure item integrity
• Storage efficiency - archiving enables centralised Exchange quota enforcement without fear of items being lost
• Access to old records - the search capabilities of mailMAC enable easy retrieval of items several periods old
• Compliance - secure and authenticity-verified retrieval of items lends credibility to records as legal evidence

This is really one example of a product designed to help you comply with data retention requirements in law.  I recommend that you investigate your options and put a system in place that helps you meet your legal obligations.

Tags: document, information, email, retention, mailmac, buys, bsolve, interception and monitoring, ect act, electronic communications and transactions act

No Comments yet »