Sunny Wu’s Blogging Zone

I have been using Mozilla Firefox for a few years already. One of the best feature which Firefox excels in is that it allow developers to create “add-on”, a small software that add new features, and this leads to innovation in Firefox customization such that a lot of great useful add-ons are improving the Firefox Internet browsing experience. Locationbar² is one of them. It provides multiple useful features:

Increase the location bar readability

Using an example below, normally, an address is shown like this:

With Locationbar², it is improved to this:

Basically, the website’s domain name is shown more obviously, with the grayed out subdomain and spaces to separate with the rest of the address. It also hides out the protocol name (like http, https).

However, this will not affect you from copying the address - once you put your mouse pointer on top of the address bar, you will be presented the address in the usual format.

Easier phishing detection

Phishing is a Internet scam that basically misdirect people to give out confidential information to “fake” websites. I will use the following example to highlight how Locationbar² can help users to detect fake website.

I got this email today “from” Westpac” which wants me to login to its website to confirm some info:

If I click the “Click here” link, it opens a seemingly innocent looking banking login web page:

But if you notice the address bar:

It clearly shows that the domain name of this website is “form2700.com”, not the typical “westpac.com.au”. It uses “online.westpac.com.au” as a sub-domain name which pre-pends the real-fake domain name. Without Locationbar², it can easily mislead a user by the word westpac and also the not-so-obvious “form2700.com” website, like:

That’s why this is an excellent feature for phishing detection.

Mouse-click to select the whole address

Go to File Menu->Tools->Addons->Locationbar2 Preferences, and tick the “Click selects all” box, whenever you click your (left) mouse button on the address bar, the address will be automatically selected and you can do a quick “Ctrl-C” or choose “Copy” from the Edit menu to copy the address to wherever you want, e.g. to your Email client or Word document.

I find this option very convenient for address copying.

Conclusion

I would recommend anyone to try this out, especially for the casual computer users, who may need to be more aware in terms of verifying the web pages they are directed is whether legitimate or not. Also, there are other customizable settings which can be used to improve the address formatting that any users can manipulate to their liking.

You can download this plug-in here.

If you have not had Firefox installed, you can get it below, accompanying with Google Toolbar, for the ease of use of various Google Services:

Disclaimer: I will get referral commission if you download and install Firefox on your computer if you download Firefox through the link above. Just a referral experiment to see if anyone will find this entry useful enough to get Firefox

Adobe has upped the ante in the competition between Silverlight and Flash - it will catch up in quality of video streaming by offering a beta version of Flash player that supports H.264 codec - the same one used in iPod and iTunes video today (or tomorrow, depending which timezone you are). The news are available here and here. Tinic Uro, a Flash engineer from Adobe, has provided more insights on what various codecs and standards the new Flash player will support.

Finally, we have a user-friendly way to watch near DVD (I would not be greedy and ask for Hi-Definition) quality online streaming videos. Actually, this comes at the right time when I previously made a point on how unsatisfactory Flash video currently is when showing action-packed clips.

Also, it will be interesting that Youtube, which already has converted user-uploaded videos to H.264 format for Apple TV, can probably make them available online to all Internet users through this updated Flash player version later the year.

The adoption of standard H.264 codec will be a good thing from both user and content/video producers points of views, in terms of ease of video access and video production delivery.

One concern I have is that, with higher video quality/resolution support coming soon, it will be unavoidable to see subtitle-style in-show advertisement, similar to what most TV shows have these days, which is not really feasible with the current supported lower resolution of Flash video. Embrace more ads!

This has nothing to do with startup but this deal can be a bargain for a startup developer, or anyone who is looking for a new desktop and a LARGE 27″ LCD at a bargain price.

Currently, the Dell 27″ LCD is selling at $1799 alone. However, I have found a deal found through buckscoop, you can get an extra desktop computer for only $66 more! Be careful though, this deal may finish by Thurday night!

To get this deal (modified from the buckscoop source):

1. Click here or go to Dell and enter E-Value code Q240822V-web in the E-Value code box
2. Look down the configuration listing for the monitor section and upgrade from the 22″TFT to the 27″ Ultrasharp for $973.50 more
3. Now go to checkout at $2072.40
4. Here we will enter the 10% discount code of 39131CC55486 to reduce the total by $188.40
5. Total price payable inc delivery is now $1865.16

If you buy it for your business/company, don’t forget you can claim your GST back too and push the total down to $1695.60.

You can read the reviews of the Dell 27″ 2707WFP LCD here and here.

While the desktop will not run the latest PC games well, it is an alright business desktop for typical word-processing and web browsing tasks - probably good enough for some lightweight web application development too. It has the following highlights:

• Pentium E2160 1.8Ghz (relax, it is actually a basic version of Core 2 Duo branded as Pentium, not a Pentium 4 running at 1.8Ghz, the speed itself is okay for its price, see a review here)
• 2GB Memory
• Windows Vista Business (not your usual crippled Vista Home Basic version, see the comparison here), offers great backup feature for safeguarding your valuable data!
• 250GB hard disk storage
• DVD Burner

You may notice that I provided a different E-value code than the one written from the top of the buckscoop message thread. The reason is that you can get more value - better CPU and 1GB extra of memory for basically ~$12 more.

I have prepared the perfect excuse for you to get a massive 27″ LCD - you can increase your productivity, see a study by an Apple consultant study here and here. Time to upgrade your 17″ LCD NOW!

Personally, I have made more than a few purchases from Dell in the past few years and I found the products satisfactory, be it laptops, desktops or LCDs. Also, there is this Total Satisfaction Policy offered by Dell that lets you return the products within 15 days and get full refund (minus delivery cost). But read the fine prints though.

Disclaimer: No, I don’t earn any commission if you indeed make the purchase…

I was reading on 37Signals on how iPods influenced the design of iMac. Actually, I would think the U2 iPod, with the black and red colour combination and iPod nano Product (Red)’s aluminium casing, together can potentially produce a cool looking iMac Product (red) edition?

To be honest, between this imaginery product and the current new iMac, I would prefer this red hot colour!

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comment
p.s. iWork 08 is available as free 30-day trial download here.

p.s.s. Is there something I can use instead of Photoshop for simple colour filling on Mac?