Firefox updated but Add-ons lagging behind
There are plenty of good reasons to upgrade to Firefox 3.5, better performance and security features being a couple. Sadly my update was greeted with a very long list of incompatible Add-ons.
This isn’t necessarily Mozilla’s fault and I’m sure that the Add-ons will be updated soon, but it’s not the best start. Maybe a delay of five minutes would have given a better first impression. Firefox 3.5 certainly loads all of my tabs much faster than 3 did. Impressively so.
Update: Undo Closed Tabs has already been updated.
Great free fonts from Smashing magazine
I wrote a feature recently on installing new fonts. The problem is not so much the how but the what. It can be quite tricky to find good quality fonts to use in projects. Smashing Magazine has just published a list of some very attractive fonts, along with links too previous articles.
Well worth a look if you have any design projects planned.
Speeding up web browsing
There’s an idea from Gervase Markham that caught my eye in the blogroll today. Get browsers to start the process of downloading a page when the cursor hovers over a link.
In fact you can already give this a go by installing the FasterFox addon for Firefox.
Yahoo Image search adds Creative Commons
Getting copyright right when using images from the internet is very important, and not just as far as the artist is concerned. A reader contacted us once after receiving a bill out of the blue for an image he had used (click on the more link to read the full text).
One way to avoid expensive confusions is to look for images that have a Creative Commons license. You can search several sites via the Creative Commons website, including Flickr, and this has been helpful several times in the past when I’ve been putting posters together.
Yahoo has made life easier when it comes to finding images for projects by adding some Creative Commons options to their image search page. The changes are made to the search immediately so you don’t have to repeat it to change the options.
It can be a pain when the perfect image isn’t available, but you owe it to the artist to abide by the licenses.
I am webmaster for a small amateur theatre company and recently used a picture from Google Images on the website to promote an in-house Family Fun Day. A few weeks later at the end of August, I received a demand for the sum of £964 for use of the image without payment. I had never heard of the company but it said it owns the copyrights to the photograph. The paperwork states there is no negotiation possible re-their payment demand. It also said it was not acceptable to say it was not known that the image was copyrighted, or that it was downloaded from another web-site, which indeed it had been. There was no intention to defraud anybody but the photo had no rights warning and so I assumed it would be in order to use it. I would willingly pay a few hundred to clear this up, but £900 plus? I am frantic.
Terry Swoffer
Case solved
The image Mr Swoffer used was from Getty Images. The amount demanded by Getty seems to be a standard fee for cases of copyright infringement. Although Mr Swoffer stated that the demand he received said no negotiation was possible, you usually can thrash out an agreement acceptable to both parties. We contacted Getty and the representative told us that it would always try to reach a compromise. It said it realised people inadvertently use its images and in Mr Swoffer’s case there was no malicious intent to defraud the photographer or itself. However it pointed out that if someone uses a photo without permission, the photographer doesn’t get paid his or her royalties so it is very hot on copyright infringement. We explained he had tried repeatedly to reach the company to no avail. We are happy to report that Getty contacted Mr Swoffer, who incidentally had immediately removed the image from the website, and withdrew its demand for payment.
Although Mr Swoffer said there was no reference anywhere to state that the image had copyright restrictions, it is always best to assume this is the case when using material that is not your own. We should also point out that on Google images it does clearly state those photos are subject to copyright. If you are not sure don’t use the image. The same rule of thumb applies to music, videos, works of art, published text etc.
The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
UK copyright law gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions, rights to control the ways in which their material may be used. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has more information www.ipo.gov.uk/copy.htm
Microsoft Office templates
I was asked to find some exciting Excel spreadsheets today for some screengrabs and it didn’t take long to realise that none of mine really fit the bill.
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, there are lots of good quality templates to be found on the Microsoft Office website.
I rather like the Lawn and garden budget sheet for example.
It all makes me think I should work at improving the look of my spreadsheets
Microsoft DreamSpark offers free software for students
If you’re in education (or know someone who is) and want to get started with some of Microsoft’s more advanced software, DreamSpark offers just that.
There are various programming tools along with some of the server software needed to get the best from them. There’s even a voucher for a free ‘Microsoft Technical Specialist’ exam
If you’re not a student, there’s no need for too much despair as some of the software can be downloaded from elsewhere on the Microsoft site. These are Virtual PC, Visual Studio Express Edition (including Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ and Web Developer) and SQL Server 2008 Express. Don’t forget that there may restrictions on how you can use free software.
Are bundled security apps good or bad?
I’ve just installed an update to the Shockwave Player (interesting in itself as I only installed it yesterday) and had an offer to run a Norton Security scan as part of the installation.
My first reaction was irritation; I’ve already got security software. But then maybe there are people who don’t.
Maybe I’ll live with checking install options more carefully.
What counts as a program in Windows 7 Starter Edition
A puzzle for the weekend. I’ve just been reading in the Personal Computer World newsletter about how Windows 7 Starter Edition will be limited to running 3 programs at a time.
I can see why they might want to do that from the point of view of getting people to move on to bigger and better versions of Windows but what counts as a program?
Word, Excel, each OpenOffice component, Firefox. Yes, that all makes sense.
What about instant messaging? Probably counts but that could be annoying given it’s something I leave on in the background.
But what about tools that blur the line between a program and a service. A service is a program that is always running from when Windows starts. That probably covers anti virus, but does it become a program when I start a scan?
Of course, there’s a way that this could backfire for Microsoft. Increasingly I spend more of my time in a browser. Using Zoho.com I can bring email, word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and project management into one program. And then I’ll add my task list courtesy of the Chandler Hub.
Now you could say that working like this gives me the freedom to leave my instant messenger on in the background. Then again, if I’m just working within a browser, why am I bothering with Windows at all. Oh dear…
Fun games from Kongregate
As much as I enjoy games like Ka-50 Black Shark for their depth and challenge, there are times when I want something that doesn’t take quite so long to load.
It probably take 5 to 10 minutes to get going in Black Shark and similar games when you account for loading the game and then the mission or save. Frankly I don’t have the patience at the end of the day when I can only allow 30 minutes for a quick blast.
A faster and cheaper alternative that can be just as much fun, is to enter the world of online flash games. There is an important warning though, it is possible to spend (should that be waste?) huge amounts of time on these sites.
I’ve found more than enough good quality flash games to keep me happy at Kongregate.
Protector has kept me interested for ages. It’s a strategy game where you have to place units on a map to stop monsters from getting past. It sounds simple but there are right and wrong ways of doing it, as I’ve found out the hard way.
Warfare 1917 was good but didn’t last long enough for me. It is a good alternative to the fantasy setting that is use for so many of these games.
Gemcraft is similar to Protector but I’ve found it a lot more challenging.
Another way I’ve dealt with this is to restrict myself to really old games and rely on the relative speed of my newer computer. Deus Ex served quite well for a while. At nine years old it was really quick, even on the highest quality settings. The same goes for Morrowind.
You could go even further back in time and play some old DOS games with D-Fend Reloaded. A large collection of games can be found at Abandonia.com
Cheat sheets for an easy life
I think calling these very useful summaries cheat sheets maligns them unfairly. They summarise a huge amount of information onto just a single page and are very helpful for people like me how write code infrequently.
They won’t help that much with understanding what to do, but they serve as helpful reminders. I’m always forgetting which list is which in HTML.
This page has links for cheat sheets for WordPress, Javascript, HTML, CSS and some others.
