Minimal

Thanks to Chris, I’ve just discovered that only Blogger users were able to comment on my posts. Ooops. Sorry to all non-Blogger people — that was a bit rude and cliquey, wasn’t it? Well, it’s fixed now. Feel free to hurl abuse, one and all! :)

Following installation, it’s time to bite the bullet and get all of my preferences, extensions and so forth copied across from Firebird to Firefox. The first concern I have is that I don’t know what preferences I set in Firebird and which I left at the default values. The second concern is that I’m not 100% sure where I got my preferred extensions from and I get the feeling some are easier to Google for than others. Whatever, let’s dive in.

Automatically copying settings across?

First things first, is there a tool/feature to copy stuff across from Firebird for me? The Import� command looked promising, but offered only to import settings from Internet Explorer. Wonderful - it can import a rival’s preferences, but it can’t manage its own. After a bit more digging, it appears there’s no way built into the software to copy an old version’s settings. Boo.

Maybe Google had the answer. In total, I spent about an hour searching for information on how to avoid the pain of reinstalling extensions, reinstalling a theme, copying preferences and re-laying-out toolbars, but all I found was other people in the same predicament. Hey ho. The actual process of migrating my preferences would probably take less time, but I know I’ll have to do it all over again if I ever upgrade to 1.0. Or maybe by then there’ll be an extension to do it for you. Heh, that would make me snort.

The manual labour of updating

Once I realised I really did have to do things by hand, this is how I got on:

• IEView: found on main site, supports 0.9+
• WebDeveloper: found on main site, supports 0.9+
• EditCSS: found on main site, supports 0.9+
• FLST: found on main site, supports 0.9+
• Digger: found via texturizer.net, supports 0.9+
• CopyImage: had to Google for it, only supports 0.8 :(
• GoUp: found via texturizer.net, supports 0.9+
• Luna Blue theme: had to Google for it, supports 0.9+

Overall, it took me about an hour to get all the proper versions of things above (I did make a couple of mistakes) and copy across my preferences, bookmarks, etc. Now, however, I’m done. Maybe I’ll conclude in a third part. Right now, I just want me dinner.

There I was, ready to salute Trenton Moss for his article on writing effective link text, contrasting it to Jakob Nielsen’s outdated dogma about always using the default link colours. But lo! What's that? I see Jakob’s moved into the 21st century himself with updated guidelines. Bugger.

Shame, really. I like having a go at idiots. I guess that’ll teach me for giving up on the self-aggrandising egotistical dipshit.

To prove that upgrading from Firebird to Firefox is more hassle than it’s worth, I’ve decided to upgrade. I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised by a hassle-free upgrade process, but I’m not banking on it. Anyway, here goes with part one: installation and first use.

Installation

• Good that it’s an EXE distribution (rather than the old ZIP one) and that it’s a fairly pleasant wizard.
• Bad that it didn’t seem to notice an old version of the browser already on the system. I’m guessing the upgrade is not so much an upgrade as installation of new, different software. In other words, I’m going to have to figure out how to manually copy my settings across to the new browser. Bugger.

First use

• Good that it asked if it should be the default browser.
• Bad that it didn’t tell me how I could revert the default browser setting in the future. This would put many people off (incl. me), but for this review, I’m going with the flow.
• Bad that it’s not picked up my Firebird homepage setting.
• Bad that it’s not picked up my Firebird theme.
• Bad that it’s not picked up my Firebird bookmarks toolbar.
• Bad that it’s not picked up my Firebird extensions.
• Bad that it’s not picked up my Firebird toolbar configurations (e.g. History, Print, Go button, etc.).
• Bad that it hasn’t prompted me to import settings from anywhere.
• Bad that it hasn’t shown me anything other than the product page from which I downloaded the software. In the absence of keeping my old homepage, I’d expect to be shown a help page for first time users. Oh well, at least I can probably find it somewhere on Firefox product page, but that can wait.

To be honest, having got this far and seen that I need to do stuff by hand, I’m already reconsidering the wisdom of upgrading. The switch from IE to Firebird was easy to justify, but I can’t think of a single feature in Firefox that would justify the upgrade pain from Firebird. Maybe if it can render the tables used in the mini2.com forums properly (Firebird frequently messes up), then it’ll be worth it. Otherwise, this looks like becoming the exercise in frustration I was expecting.

I bet everyone and his dog has a GMail account by now, but right now I’m pretty pleased to say I’ve just got mine. I’ve even got my preferred address. Want to know my new address? Well, the service is provided by gmail.com and my preferred username is malross, so I’m sure you can work it out. But the spam bots can’t. ;)

So... if you could stop using my old mail.com address from now, I’d appreciate it. Ha, mail.com! No more crappy banner ads and interruptions in my free web mail. Liberated, at last. :)

Do you think IE sucks? [Chris Sells]
Although I use Firebird (yes, Firebird*) as my web browser, the reasons for me to continue doing so have diminished since Windows XP service pack 2 became available (in beta, at least). I can’t help feeling the case against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is generally somewhat overstated by the anti-Microsoft crowd. If you disagree, Chris Sells points out that you’ve now got ample opportunity to gripe about what’s bad in IE, as the development team has its own blog. It’ll be interesting to see what this throws up.

* Why Firebird and not the more recent Firefox? It’s because some of my essential extensions weren’t updated when it went to v0.8. I don’t want to upgrade if it’s going to downgrade my browsing experience, so I’m stuck at 0.7. And you’ve got another thing coming if you think I’m going to keep on hitting the websites of my favoured extensions’ authors until they re-release. I’d sooner go back to IE than have that kind of maintenance hassle.

Update: Oh great, looks like the site’s down already. Is that some punk-ass kid’s idea of justice via a DDoS attack? I openly confess to knowing nothing about such things (wouldn’t it mean the website just couldn’t reply at all?), but I hope it’s not some lamer’s idea of fun.

I’ve no idea what possessed me, but I’ve finally updated this place. It’s not the custom back-end I’d planned, but who cares? Blogger seems to be doing all sorts of new things since I last looked at it. Being acquired by Google was the best thing that ever happened to Pyra, from a user’s point of view at least. :)

Updates are done for tonight, but at some point I’d better iron out the numerous bugs I’ve just introduced. And in case you’re wondering, yes, both petrolhead and 7days7cars are now officially discontinued. You’ll all have to put up with my rambles from now on.

All my life, I’ve had light-brown hair (on my head, madam), so who the hell keeps on bleaching my eyebrows while I’m asleep? Is it you?! And what’s with the growth hormone, too? My forehead’s starting to look like a blonde version of Denis Healey here! Well, ok, not my entire forhead. Anyway, it could be worse — I could be Alastair Darling. He really is a freak. :)

Ever since a careless neighbour chipped and dented the side of my precious car, I’ve been feeling the need for a place of my own — with its own private garage. Once again, however, I’m coming to the conclusion that my finances can’t keep pace with my aspirations and list of wants:

1. Private garage i.e. not a shared basement
2. Within half an hour’s walk of Newcastle town centre
3. No garden = no weeding = happy Mal
4. A good, invigorating shower
5. Gas central heating (anything but night storage heaters!)
6. Separate washing machine and tumble dryer (or plumbing suitable for)
7. Unlikely to be broken into

Well, they’re the things at the front of my mind anyway. I’m sure there are other requirements like “not falling down” and “mould-free bathroom”, but they’re almost givens. So... do you know anywhere that might suit?

On the 22nd April, I felt truly alive and scribbled down the following before leaving work:

If only I could bottle this feeling,
Bouncing around with fear and elation
A bombshell crashing through the ceiling
Maybe my downfall, maybe salvation

Tears in your eyes well up without asking
Equal in measure for joy and for pain
Think of the glory in which you’ll be basking
Think you’re so clever, don’t fuck up again

Today, I just wish it were the 22nd April again. :(

Schumacher seals easy win [BBC Sport]
Ross Brawn, Ferrari’s technical director, summed up my view of Michael Schumacher’s current F1 dominance perfectly yesterday. When asked to respond to claims that his driver was making the sport boring, Brawn said simply that we should enjoy watching a master at work (or words to that effect), noting that we may never see a talent like Schumacher’s again.

Hear hear! I, for one, am thoroughly enjoying the incredible winning streak and long may it continue. How awesome a statement would it be for him to win every race in a season? That truly would be something special and if it hadn’t been for the Monaco tunnel mishap, it could still have been a very real possibility. Hats off to you, Schumi — you’re a class apart.

Went karting again last night, this time down at Langbaurgh (Middlesbrough) as part of a 3-man team in a 90-minute endurance race. I can honestly say I’ve never been quite so bruised and battered after a race. I’m in a world of... soreness. I guess it’s not really pain, but leaning back in a chair is not an option. ;)

You want to know how we got on, right? Well, out of the 16 teams racing, we came 6th. I, for one, was pretty damn pleased with that, as there were some seriously good drivers out there. In fact, the event was organised by the local motorsports club, so I think we did rather well. I think Chris and Dave, my teammates for the night, were reasonably happy too, so a good evening out then.

Having qualified in 2nd place (each team member had a shot and the fastest person’s time was taken), we slid slowly down the field, as it seemed that most teams had put out their best driver first. Our tactics were a little different, preferring to avoid congestion both on the track and in the pit-stop driver changes. As each driver had to have two stints in the race, most people went for their first stop after about 15 minutes. We kept Chris out till 20 minutes, letting him get into a groove and claw his way back through the field. When he came in, we were back up to 3rd.

The rest of the race was a little hard to judge, as different teams’ pit-stop times juggled the leaderboard lap by lap. However, we spent most of the race hovering around 8th or 9th place. Despite sounding like a really long race before we started, the time just flew by and as the circuit floodlights came on, it was time for me to take the final stint.

Coming into the pits, Dave had got us to 7th place. After coming out again, we were back to 9th or 10th. Of course, I had no idea which karts on the circuit were our immediate rivals, so I just went for anyone I came across and kept an eye out for people passing me. About half-way into my shot, I started catching a guy ahead who seemed a bit quicker than most and for the rest of the race had some fantastic racing with him. Sadly, the only point at which I got ahead of him was when I was travelling backwards, having made a desperate lunge up the inside. Still, you’ve got to have a go, haven’t you?

Although we missed out on the trophies, we were still pretty pleased to have achieved our aim of 6th place. Next time, we’ll be looking for a bit more. :)