So after all the hype I finally got a Google Wave account and well…. well…what was all the hype really about?  And I guess I’m not alone in being underwhelmed.  Now yes, it is really beta (not just a perpetual beta that really isn’t) and they are trying to do something completely different.  Plus, as with any social networking/collaboration tool it isn’t much fun when there aren’t many people using it.  I do fault them for producing something that doesn’t run in Internet Explorer, and didn’t even seem to run too well in Firefox.  Browser dependent behavior is a cop-out at best.   Maybe it, or the protocol will become useful for something really good over time, or the user community will embrace it in numbers to reach some tipping point.  But until then I’m much more interested in the possibilities of other tools — like BuddyPress.

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The Firefox browser is five years old today (11/9).  Not bad — check out this goofy video.  Over a billion downloads and a sizable share of the browser market — not bad for a little open source project!

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I have been a big fan of the Firefox extension ScribeFire for some time.  It makes it really easy in Firefox to comment on web pages you are viewing.  I really like to include references to the resources used in writing a post, and ScribeFire has become an essential tool for my blogging.  In fact I rarely write a post directly in the WordPress admin interface.  But in editing some posts today I noticed a little invisible bit of tracking code — and of course, wondered “where is that coming from?”  It turns out that since February 2009 ScribeFire has a new feature/integration with Zemanta, and the code started showing up then.  You can turn this tracking off (see the screen shot below) but it is on by default.  What are they tracking?  Beats me, but I don’t like my tools inserting tracking code for who knows what.  Not that I’m paranoid, but it is my content.  I will go on using Scribefire, but I do feel a little used.  I guess nothing is truly free.

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I received an email contact from Onlinecourses.org mentioning their latest post on Firefox Add-ons. I’m a bit of a Firefox add-on addict so I always enjoy seeing which ones someone else highlights.  Their list includes my all time favorite, ScribeFire — a tool for easy posting to a blog right from Firefox.

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What is your browser of choice? Or better yet how many do you have loaded on your computer?  I use and design first for Firefox.  For testing purposes these days I treat Internet Exporer as my canary in the coal mine.  If whatever I’m working on web-design-wise runs in IE I figure I’m OK.  Probably not the best testing strategy, but it works for me.  Who really has time to include Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome, testing in all the various operating system permutations — plus don’t forget mobile.  I’m a veteran of the Netscape vs IE browser wars and with only two it was painful enough.

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Do you still keep track of the how many kilobytes, or even megabytes, your web pages are delivering to the customer?  Back in the day of dial-up modems your minimized files sizes or perished.  But not that we all have speedy cable/dsl connections does it matter anymore?  I think so, and here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »