Posts tagged with: firefox

For years I've been running Firefox from my home directory with a symlink in ${HOME}/.mozilla/plugins pointing to for /usr/java/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so the Java plugin. Whilst this has worked, it's been no where near the pain free experience that using the Java plugin on Windows and Mac OS X is. Until now. The other day I discovered that my Java plugin was no longer working and Firefox wasn't showing it in the about:plugins list either. A bit of research soon revealed the cause: I'd just upgraded to Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 3.6 dropped support for this old style plugin in favour of the ... Continue reading ►

As with Linux, Firefox and Thunderbird are available for Solaris and OpenSolaris in a variety of forms: supplied with the OS, installed separately from a pkg and installed separately from a tarball (both available from Mozilla.org). Of these, the only way you can get any sort of automatic update is with the first option: via an OS update and this tends to lag behind the available releases by quite some margin. Well, that's about to change, at least for some people. I'll get straight into the technical details and leave the background behind all of this to the very end. This post and the accompanying code was inspired by this article on Mozilla Developer Center. Update: Ooops, it would seem the automatic update DOES work by default for the tarball downloads, it just doesn't offer an automatic upgrade between 3.5.x and 3.6.x as I was testing. I'll leave the rest of this post as is as an "education" for those wanting to implement their own internal crude update system. Continue reading ►

Looks like Google have been caught napping slightly. Firefox 3.6 has been in development for while and has been out for nearly a week now and we still don't have an officially compatible version of the Google Page Speed extension. Well, all is not lost, it appears Page Speed continues to work correctly and as expected in Firefox 3.6. All you need to do is bump the "em:maxVersion" number in the install.rdf file included in the extension. I've set this to 3.6.* and the extension works a treat. If you already have the plugin installed, you'll just need to ... Continue reading ►

Links of interest for 3 Jun 2009 - 14 Jul 2009: "Is Oracle getting ready to kill OpenSolaris?" FUD - Thankfully someone's being sensible about the FUD that made it's way into the news this week. Oracle is not going to kill OpenSolaris. Oracle's Virtualization Gold Mine - Looks like Oracle is counting on Virtualization big time. Time will tell what they do with all their net technology. Microsoft will soon unveil free anti-virus software - Kind of ironic, yet potentially a brilliant business plan: you produce some software that becomes an easy target for viruses, then release your own... Continue reading ►

Got more news on Firefox 3 for OpenSolaris. Contributed builds are indeed available, but they don't count towards the "Download Day" record.

I hope you haven't forgotten: Today is Firefox 3 download day. Head on over and download Firefox 3 for your platform and be a part of history. Help set the new world record for the most downloads in one day. As of 10am US PDT (18:00 GMT/UTC) you can grab your downloads from GetFirefox.com, and there should be a Solaris version available too. Update: I've just heard on the internal aliases that there won't be a Solaris/OpenSolaris build available or included in the world record stats. Apparently it's got to do with some strict restrictions by Guinness. I suspect... Continue reading ►

Firebug, or the lack there of, WAS the only thing stopping me from using Firefox 3 on a more permanent basis, especially now it's much faster and integrates better on the Mac and given that Safari seems to be quite selective at what it caches. But not anymore. With Firebug being such a great tool, I couldn't believe they would take so long to come up with a release that is Firefox 3 compatible, but everytime I fired up Firefox or checked the plugins, there was never a compatible version available. So instead of relying on the plugin, I ... Continue reading ►

Links of interest for 21 Mar 2008 - 25 Mar 2008: Paper Enigma Machine - What a brilliant idea, and a great teaching tool too. Sun turns to lasers to speed up computer chips - Now this would be brilliant if Sun research proves to be a success. Sun's continually proving it is light years (excuse the pun) ahead of everyone else in the processor business and this is just another example. Australian WiMAX pioneer trashes technology as "miserable failure" - I wonder how many more people are going to come forward now and bring their problems to light. All... Continue reading ►

Links of interest for 18 Oct 2007 - 7 Nov 2007: System Profiling 101 : Getting started using sys_diag v.7.04 - A very useful performance gathering script that used Dtrace, amongst other tools to gather performance information Sun sues NetApp, California style - Well, if the previous case wasn't enough to let NetApp know Sun are serious, this one probably will. Sun's ZFS is close to perfect, but widely misunderstood - How's this for a rave review of ZFS. If you've tried ZFS, read this article and get out there and play with it. It's in OS X Leopard, FreeBSD,... Continue reading ►

Links of interest for 28 Sep 2007 - 13 Oct 2007: 'Hybrid' HDD Technology To Allow Data Access Without Booting - Nice to see the PC market is finally catching up with Apple. Apple computers have been able to do this for years. Firefox Is Going Mobile - I can't help but feel this is a little ambitious. Whilst it's a great idea, given the probable H/W requirements and Firefox's current memory munching issue, I'm going to need a whole PC in my pocket to use Firefox on a mobile. BUSTED! 11 Myths about Solaris on X86/X64 platforms - I'm... Continue reading ►