If you are like me and heavily use several Firefox add-ons, chances are that Gmail Manager is one of them. It is a great add-on to manage multiple Gmail accounts (as the name implies).

However, with the latest Firefox update (v. 6.0.2) it broke and wouldn’t login.
No worries, after a bit of searching I came across a solution that worked for me.

In Firefox, go to

https://github.com/downloads/athomas/mozilla-firefox-addons/gmail_manager-0.6.4.1.3-fx+sm.xpi

when asked restart your web browser and the Gmail Manager add-on should work once again.

Updated on 12/22/11 for Firefox 9.0.1: https://github.com/downloads/athomas/mozilla-firefox-addons/gmail_manager-0.6.4.1.5-fx+sm.xpi

Post from: Milos Topic

Gmail Manager for Firefox works again

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Facebook updated their news feed, made it real-time and moved it to the right (right above chat).
This could be a nice change considering the growth of both screen resolutions and monitor sizes and as well all know instant gratification is highly rated nowadays, so the real-time component will be much appreciated. Now, if I could only opt-out of being displayed in news feeds that would be great.

Post from: Milos Topic

Facebook updates its news feed and makes it real-time

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Firefox 6 is here, now what. Mozilla’s rapid release development cycle for Firefox is getting a bit out of hand as it seems that every 6-8 weeks they release a new full version of their browser which causes difficulties in enterprises. Even their Rapid Release Calendar looks insane.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for keeping up with security and performance bugs and making their browser (and all other software) as stable and secure as possible, but when it causes difficulties for businesses to test their applications and services then it makes me wonder whether Firefox is enterprise ready. I’m still in favor of sticking with it, but Chrome is looking better each day.

On the other hand, according to Mozilla’s release notes Firefox 6 is faster (especially with their Panorama feature); address bar now highlights the domain of the website you’re visiting (feature that Chrome and IE9 have had for some time) and is more secure. One of the new security features allows users to configure website permissions by typing about:permissions” on the address bar and then configure settings such as pop-ups, data storage, cookies, location sharing and passwords.

In short, improvements are great, but it looks as if the version numbers are slowly becoming meaningless while potential testing overhead is not taken into serious consideration.

Post from: Milos Topic

Firefox in the enterprise – is it ready and does it care?

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For the second time 1and1.com ‘s technical support has proven amazing. They have been hosting several of my websites for years now and while I’ve been lucky enough not to have any technical issues, last night around midnight EST I had to contact them for assistance. Last night, I called about an issue with php version while modifying a plugin for another WordPress website. Not to bore you with details, but the site went blank and they were able to identify and correct a semantic error in the following line of my .htaccess file:

“AddType x-mapp-php5 .php .php4″       - I was missing a “-” before php5     

In any event, crisis was averted, I was reminded to double check my work and all were happy. Their responsiveness and availability are exemplary along with their great up-times. While this was only my second time interacting with them in years of service, both times my issues were resolved in matter of minutes.

In short, if you are looking for a new (or replacement) hosting company give 1and1.com a shot – I highly recommend them.

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1and1.com’s tech support rocks!

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This past weekend my wife’s iPhone was stolen from a store in Secaucus, NJ. While in store, she placed it down to try on a pair of shoes and then moved an isle down to take a look at another item which was long enough for the phone to “disappear”. Once she realized that she was missing her phone it was too late. The phone was gone, it was nowhere in sight. We traced our steps back and looked everywhere, I called it several times, but it was nowhere to be heard either. Then I remembered that I installed Find My iPhone on both phones and have tried tracking it from my phone. After a couple of failed attempts to locate the lost (stolen?) iPhone it finally displayed on a map, it was somewhere in the parking lot. We ran out to try and get a better location when all of a sudden it started moving. Its next stop was a Walmart parking lot in and this time we were able to narrow it down to within a few parking spots. Unfortunately, several cars were leaving that area as we arrived and the phone was on the move once again. Here’s where the fun really begins.

After a brief detour to fill my car’s gas tank and to drop my wife off to enjoy a sunny day by the pool (no sense in both of us spending time on this potentially useless chase) I was back on the trail of the stolen iPhone. Now, the app was showing it to be at a church’s parking lot in Fairview where it actually stayed for quite a while (at least it felt that way considering I was refreshing the screen every 30 seconds). This was good news as it gave me time to catch up, but as I was within a few blocks of that location, it started moving again – this time, heading back down towards Route 3. If you are familiar with that area (Fairview and North Bergen) you know that quite a few streets are one way which made my tracking a bit more difficult, but I finally caught up to my “blinking dot” in Union City, NJ.

License plate is obscured to protect the not-so-innocent

At a particular intersection, the app was showing the phone right in front of me (and as I remembered seeing this Volvo leaving Walmart’s parking lot) it all made perfect sense – I found him. The driver (who I also recognized from Secaucus) fed a parking meter and walked into a bar. So did I…

Bar where we had our chat

After a brief conversation (where he tried to come off as a good Samaritan) he was very apologetic and accommodating in returning the phone to me. It was in the trunk of his car under a bunch of towels and blankets – luckily none of them could interfere with the GPS signal.

iPhone recovered!

While the search lasted a bit longer, the actual conversation was very quick. Within a couple of minutes of arriving at the GPS location I had my wife’s phone back. All in all, a very happy ending to this escapade (for me at least).

In short: If you own an iPhone (or any other iOS device) make sure you install this app now. As you can see, it can be very useful in getting your stuff back.

Approximate path traveled by the iPhone - Secaucus to Fairview to Union City (NJ)

Find My iPhone app (along with Google Maps app) was instrumental in recovering the stolen iPhone, but I would like to see it further developed to include the following:

• Real-time updates as the phone moves
• Show both devices on the map, my current location and the location of the device being tracked, then provide directions – similar to their (Google) Maps app

Post from: Milos Topic

How I tracked and recovered a stolen iPhone

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Blackboard’s (Bb) Mobile Learn app has been working fairly well on my iPhone for months now so I figured I would give it a try on a different platform (Android) as well for comparison sake. This was not meant to be, but let me explain.

Recently, we have purchased a Motorola Xoom (along an iPad 2 for testing and feature comparison – more about this comparison/review later) and after downloading the app from Android Market the above error came up. I remembered seeing this once before prior to Bb Mobile Learn being enabled at our university so I thought that the same had to be done for Android devices (even though technically that didn’t make much sense) so I contacted the team responsible for Blackboard within our institution and asked if access from Android devices could be enabled. Their answer was surprising, while Bb Mobile Learn works over Wi-Fi on iOS devices the only way it will work on Android (or Blackberry) is over Sprint’s 3G/4G network. What!? Why would access be limited to Sprint’s cellular network, it just doesn’t make sense. Even when taking into consideration the last sentence of the above message: “Sprint users can use Blackboard Mobile Learn at no cost to the institution due to a partnership between Sprint and Blackboard” this imposed limitation makes no sense and here’s why.

My iPhone uses AT&T’s network and Bb Mobile Learn works fine over their cellular network (including Wi-Fi at home, work…) so this “Sprint partnership” exclusivity line is a bunch of nonsense. Blackboard should definitely enable Wi-Fi access to their app for all mobile platforms in order to level the playing field while expanding their reach and strengthening their presence in the LMS market which will undoubtedly be challenged in years to come (several alternatives are available with many of them at a much lower premium which is increasingly becoming more important). Just something to keep in mind, Blackboard.

On a slightly different note, Firefox v.5 is out today, how long will it take Blackboard to catch up and certify anything newer than v.3.6? Have they simply become too big and slow to keep up?

Post from: Milos Topic

Blackboard Mobile Learn on iOS and Android

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Geotagging and location based services are all the rage these days. While they are very useful at times, these features should not be taken for granted nor should they be enabled on all of your devices and applications. Certain parts of your life are meant to be private and they should remain that way. Geotagging every move online for all to see could pose serious security and safety concerns.

Post from: Milos Topic

Geotagging your life online? Be careful.

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Facebook used as an online identity management solution? Yeah, that puzzled look on your face compares to my initial reaction when I started noticing this trend (among websites from all kinds of industries) of using Facebook as their (blog) commenting system. Some large tech websites, such as TechCrunch have completely moved over to Facebook’s Social Comments Box plugin as their solution while others allow for multiple comment options, including Google accounts.

Using FB comments can provide clear benefits to content providers as it eliminates most of the spam and dumb/evil/malicious comments, something TechCrunch for instance had a serious problem with in the past. Ideally, using someone’s real identity (assuming their FB profile is authentic) should bring up the quality of exchanges and improve the conversation. On the other hand, don’t we already have tools in place to combat spam? How about Akismet and Bad Behavior to name a couple. So why Facebook then? It is easy to see why, it’s slowly becoming the core online “hang out spot” for most and as such people can simply continue using their identities across other multiple sites. This is a great move by Facebook as the more we use them across internet the more they learn about us which they can then use for targeted marketing (among other things). Effective ads bring revenue.

However, could this push to use FB profiles also have a negative impact? Yes it can and here’s where I see that come into play. In the not so distant days of internet, chat rooms and blogs, people were (and still are) leaving comments under their pseudonyms which lead to more open and honest discussion (along with an occasional argument or two), but it’s what people liked about being online, being able to search, roam, comment and explore without being tied to their proper, socially accepted persona. Furthermore, some folks would expect their comments to serve as traffic baits in hopes that they could get some of the visitors to follow them to their business, website or a blog. Now, that that that’s no longer an option, I wonder if the participation has decreased on TechCrunch and other sites which have completely moved over to Facebook comments? It would be interesting to know if this change had any negative impact on the volume of comments and interaction between readers/viewers and publishers. Based on some preliminary tests and my gut feeling, the answer is yes. Unfortunately, on most websites this is not a win-win situation.

Using Facebook comments presents clear benefits for publishers and potential drawbacks for both publishers and readers. To answer who wins in the end, one must ask the question: Who is the website’s intended audience?

Post from: Milos Topic

Facebook, an online identity management solution?

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Flash is dead and here’s why. Last week, Adobe released Wallaby, a tool which converts Flash files into HTML5 to reach more (mobile) devices. When the creators of Flash are providing free tools to convert their proprietary format into an open, standards friendly alternative (HTML5) it’s safe to say that Adobe Flash is on its way out.

It all started with Apple refusing to allow them onto their iOS (used by iPhone and iPad) and this banishing of Flash is slowly propagating onto other platforms as well. HTML5 is taking over and if it was a movie character with a theme song I think that “Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you” would be a perfect fit. HTML5 is flexible, capable and reduces necessary “double development” for primary and mobile versions of websites since technically (for the most part) you can use the same code.

The web is meant to be open, collaborative and innovative which makes Flash past its useful life, while HTML5 along with several other languages continue to propagate across internet at incredible speed.

By the way, if you know who made the clever photo above please let me know so that I can properly credit them.

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Flash is dead, HTML5 considered prime suspect

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Internet Explorer (IE) 9 was released on Monday night and having used it a bit this week I can confidently say that it is a clear improvement over previous versions. The main improvement I noticed so far (besides obvious visual design enhancements) is its speed. It’s fast! This is in part accomplished with better operating system (OS) integration (I run a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Enterprise); hardware acceleration and better adherence to well established web standards and protocols. Playing well with existing standards is a great step towards unique user experience across multiple web browsers while at the same time allowing websites which have been designed with slightly outdated concepts in mind to remain functional.

One of the websites I use daily in IE is our help desk call tracking system which by the way should have been designed to work with other web browsers as well, but that’s a story for another time. In any event, as you can see below, IE9 switches to a “Compatibility View” and allows the site to function as expected. While this feature is in no way a new concept it is of great importance to both web content creators as well as visitors as it will take years for majority of websites/web applications to be in line with most web standards.

I have also tested the latest IE version with Blackboard, our on-campus Course Management System and as far as I can tell everything works fine. Just a note of caution though, when it comes to ANY of your enterprise services such as Blackboard please make sure you thoroughly test IE9 and other browsers prior to deploying them to users.

Another component I found useful is IE’s warning system of sorts that informs you which add-ons are misbehaving (due to poor coding principles and/or lack of exhaustive testing) and in turn contributing to slower performance.

On the other hand, what I find as the greatest improvement is the decision to due away from being backwards compatible into the “early” days of Microsoft. As you can see below, due to OS integration IE9 will not work on Windows XP. Backwards compatibility is important, but there have to be reasonable limits to it. Microsoft has been always focused on this component which often caused their software to be bloated, insecure and unstable. On the other hand, their #1 OS competitor, Apple, kept changing their system requirements (both hardware and software) every couple of years to the point where you couldn’t upgrade to the latest OS if your computer didn’t have a Pentium based processor. I think that both Apple’s constant changes as well as Microsoft’s compatibility that at times reaches some 10-15 years back are plain dumb. A medium of some kind (let’s say 6-7 years) could be the optimal solution and with this IE change I hope that Microsoft is heading in that direction.

In short, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox (along with Opera, Safari and others) once again have a serious competitor in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

*For a more in depth review of IE9 you can head over to Lifehacker and their review of IE9′s best new features.

Post from: Milos Topic

Internet Explorer 9 is here to compete

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