Evilsoft.org

So this, the next installment of my “I just re-installed my box, what’s on it” series we are going to look at the wonder that is the Firefox extension. Firefox is indeed a fantastic browser, but what really makes it a killer app is the ability to extend it so that it perfectly meets your needs.

Bar none the best experience I have had with this was at work. Being a contractor, I have to punch in and out multiple times per day, but my employer’s IT department doesn’t support anything other then IE internally (this seems to be the norm). Well, they made 2 small mistakes in their html and javascript that made the site unusable on anything other then IE, which of course means that I have to use two browsers. Well, Greasemonkey came to my rescue. Because I can use greasemonkey to dynamically re-write sites, the timesheet app now works perfectly in firefox for me, and IT didn’t have to lift the finger they refused to.

So, what I have installed in my firefox:
Web Development:

• Venkman: A javascript debugger for firefox. This package is fantastic for javascript developers, and provides you with a number of useful features. Must have if you do javascript.
• Web Developer: Adds a menu bar

Google:

• Google Pagerank Status: Google Pagerank is the algorithm that pretty much controls the web, well now you can see in your status bar just how popular a particular site is according to google.
• GooglePreview: This extension is surprisingly useful. All it does is adds a snapshot of the web page into the google results. If you are looking for a link to a page you have been to before, the fact that you can see it is invaluable.

Just Plain Cool:

• FoxyTunes: Lets me control Winamp from the status bar of firefox. No more fumbling around to which desktop my winamp is on, just find the nearest browser.
• BlogThis: A plugin that well…lets me post here more easily.
• del.icio.us: A fantastic replacement for the bookmarklets that let you post a link to deli.icio.us. All the functionality of the experimental del.icio.us interface, but with a xul window. Yum.
• SessionSaver 2: I keep a lot of tabs open. I mean a *lot*. This makes rebooting, or for that matter shutting down firefix a 10 minute ordeal as I determing which pages I still need to read, and which ones I ma done with – as I save the links somewhere for after my reboot. Well, no more. Sessions saver grabs the state from the last Firefox session, and opens the same windows/tabs.
• Greasemonkey: This plugin isn’t interesting, it’s web changing. Greasemonkey is a paradigm shift in how the web works. No longer are we constrained by the piss poor design decisions other people make in their websites. Using Greasemonkey, you can write or download scripts that completely change the way that a web page works. You can alter the content, layout, javascript, whatever you need. Some really clever thing shave been done with this like the hack that overlays the subway system of Chicago on google maps.
• Aardvark: Sort of a cross between Greasemonkey and webdeveloper, Aardvark lets you select elements of a web page, and either remove them, or alter their formatting to make them easier to read/print. Perfect for printing sites that make getting a good hard copy a pain in the ass.

I have 3 current problems with my windows usage:

1. I happen to be a member of the camp of people who believe that Windows really should be re-installed ever 6-12 months. It frankly just gets to crufty, performance drops, errors increase, in general it just sucks after it’s been used for to long.
2. As a half and half Linux/XP user, windows in it’s default install is barely usable. I need at least Cygwin, Firefox, Putty and a handful of other apps; lest I tear open the case, snap the motherboard in half, and gouge out my eyes like a half crazed King Lear.
3. I like to run current software on the 3 XP pcs I use on a regular basis: Work, Home and Laptop – but if I install an update on one, I have a tendency to forget to install it on the others.

One piece of software has stepped in to fill much of the void waiting to be filled for these three issues: Subversion. Now, I realize it’s nothing new to check files into a version control repository, but Subverion is the first piece of free (as in beer, as well as in the Open Source meaning) software that doesn’t suck when applied to the problem of keeping track of one’s installers.

Setup of a server for subversion is fairly easy if you already have an apache server, but it can also run using the apache portable runtime, in pretty much any environment apache can run on, including windows. O’Reilly has even made it’s excellent book on configuring and using Subversion available for free on the web.

After getting the server set up on a system that you can access from most, if not all the computers you have to use, you will want to install TortoiseSVN. This app integrates with explorer, and it makes it bloody simple to check in files, update them, and pull them down elsewhere.

Figure 1: Subversion

So what I tend to do is I keep a directory tree of various types of software. Networking, Programming, Applications, Multimedia, etc. When I realize that an app is something I will want to keep installed (or when I download an update to something I already keep installed on all my boxen), I make a directory for it in my New Install folder, under the appropriate type, and then check it in. When I switch to a different computer, hit update, and bam – all my installers are updated to the current version with the added benefit that I can see what all I need to update on that computer based on which files TortoiseSVN says got updated. If I decide I no longer want to use a particular package, removal is easy, as is moving files around the directory structure (since Subversion actually supports renaming directories and files.)

Now, my three computers all basically keep the same environment, so I can sit down at any one of them and feel confident that I will have the tools I need.

T-Mobile has a new coverage (well new to me anyway) mapping tool that is very neat. You can enter your address, click search and you get a nice map detailing the relative signal strength of their service at the address you entered.

Very cool and useful in troubleshooting signal problems. Now if they could add some AJAX love to their mapping widget it would be damn near perfect.

Almost exactly 3 years ago, Slashdot got the geek masses to go out and buy the Intel QX3 video microscope, which was a failure on the toy market, but saw some success with geeks right as intel cancelled the line.

Well, as some of you know, I recently bought a new desktop system at home, and I decided to pull my QX3 out of mothballs, and give it a whirl again. The old drivers on the CD don’t work on XP, but before Intel stopped supporting the QX3, they released new drivers. The XP install comes with the software, which IMHO is kind of wonky, as well as TWAIN drivers. (Note: in XP sp2, Microsoft started to abandon TWAIN in favor of it’s new WIA architecture for imaging devices – as a result, the QX3 will not show up in your control panel as an imaging device, nor with it show up in software that only uses WIA, like Paint.NET. (Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop or the free Irfanview all do work though).

In digging around looking for information on my QX3, I discovered something. As far as I can tell, in November 2004, Prime Entertainment purchased the intel play line, and has been selling under the company name Digital Blue. Well, in December they released an upgrade to this great piece of equipment: the Digital Blue QX5 Digital Microscope. New Features include moving to an ultrabright LED for lighting, a 640 x 480 camera, faster video (15 frames/second), and a few other features. It’s running about $80 – $90 online.

Misc QX5 & QX3 links:

• Digital Blue (Prime Entertainment) – The new Manufacturer of the QX5
• Mac OSX Drivers for the QX3 & QX5
• Linux drivers for the QX3
• Linux Info for the QX3
• Fun with a QX5
• Using the Digital Microscope – Book on the QX3, can be downloaded in pdf, or purchased in paperback
• Using the Intel Play QX3 Microscope
• Y! Group dedicated to the QX3 & 5
• Intel support site for the QX3 – If you have a QX3, they did post drivers for XP
• Getting the most out of your QX3
• Using the QX3 Microscope
• Science, Optics and You: Intel Play Microscope

Well, I got a new computer today, and as I set up the XP partition, I thought I would post a list of the excellent free tools that I put on all the machines I use. So here we go:
Productivity:

• AllerCalc (Freeware): Excellent replacement for the windows calculator, allowing the user to do substantially more complicated equations.
• Open Office (Open Source): Very mature office suite that is highly compatible with MS Office.
• Paint.net (Open Source): A fantastic .NET paint program that is meant as a replacement for the paint program that comes with windows.
• Picasa (Freeware): Google’s photo organizer, helps me bring some order to the thousands of photos I take.
• Winamp (Freeware): The classic mp3 player for windows. IMHO, still the best.
• Winzip (Shareware): Why do I still use winzip? Because I personally think XP’s handling of zip files kind of sucks, and winzip is still better.

Networking:

• Mozilla Firefox (Open Source): Bar none a far better browser then IE. Live it, love it, use it.
• Mozilla Thunderbird (Open Source): Not only do I use this with my deals hack, but I use it for my mail. Excellent mail client.
• Bittorrent (Open Source): Great way to download large files. Spreads the bandwidth usage across multiple users.
• FileZilla (Open Source): Good, usable and open source FTP client
• GAIM (Open Source): IM client for AIM, MSN, YM, ICQ, Jabber, Irc, etc. Seems much more stable to me then other multi-im clients. Has a spell checker – Yum!
• Google Desktop Search (Freeware): Makes finding files on your own system actually bearable
• NMap (Open Source): For all your port scanning needs.
• Putty (Open Source): Great SSH suite of tools. Does SSH, SSH2, Telnet and Rlogin.
• Winscp (Open Source): What I prefer to use instead of FTP – this lets me move files around the net, but with solid security.
• Shareazza (Open Source): As far as I can tell the best p2p app out there. Does nutella, G2 & eDonkey.
• TightVNC (Open Source): VNC (desktop sharing) server and client.
• Waste (Open Source): Secure IM and file sharing for me and my group of friends.

Programming:

• Java SDK 1.5 (Freeware): Well, I’m a java programmer, gotta have a JDK.
• Eclipse (Open Source): The emacs of the java world, except that it’s actually usable without hand injury.
• ActiveState Perl/Python/TCL (Open Source, sort of): Compilers on windows for a number of unix scripting languages. Activestate makes em a bunch more usable on windows.
• TortoiseCVS (Open Source): Explorer interface to CVS source control.
• TortoiseSVN (Open Source): Explorer interface to Subversion source control. I’ll post a hack about this later.
• YourKit Java Profiler (Free for Open Source projects): Best Java Profiler Ever.
• Textpad (Shareware): Fantastic, lightweight text editor. If I don’t open it in eclipse, I open it in textpad (on windows).
• Squirrel SQL (Open Source): Usable, but slightly clunky Database front end for any JDBC database.

Utilities:

• Cygwin (Open Source): This is the program that makes windows a usable environment for me. Gives windows a unix shell, and ports all the major unix utilities to windows. No more Dos!
• Sysinternals utilities (Freeware): Sysinternals has a number of fantastic windows utilities that let you see how programs interact with the filesystem, registery and network.

Two quick articles that made me happy about science today:
Garlic Compound Used as Anticancer Ammo

Damn clever techies…
Yahoo! Research Labs and O’Reilly Media have created a new market to play in. In this market you are not going to ever make your fortune, but you could win a Mac Mini. Mmm Mac Mini. But even if I don’t win I suspect that this will be both useful as an investing bellwether and a fascinating work time waster as daily I watch emerging trends accelerate. And for the record there is no such word as deceleration. If your interest is piqued by high-tech-gadgetry or something more pedestrian check it out.