Category: Web Stuff

Mobile Boost

I’ve mentioned before that I have a mobile (aka. wireless but not to be confused with wifi)) broadband modem I use when I am out and about. It is very useful for things like meetings and when travelling. One problem I have found though is that there are some areas that don’t have good coverage. I often use it at a friends place and there the signal is quite variable. Sometimes it will work but usually it won’t maintain a connection there.

In an attempt to solve this I recently purchased an antenna for the modem. Some modems have a port to plug in an antenna and fortunately my Huawei E169 does. It arrived in a couple of days which is great service. I plugged it in and the signal strength seemed higher and steadier. It has a desktop base and a clip that will clip to the netbook’s screen. It fitted well without touching the actual screen too.

The real test came a few days later when I was at my friends place again. I was able to connect and maintain a workable connection. A great improvement. I don’t use it all the time but in the places I need it it is invaluable.

I don’t say it will allow a connection everywhere but in areas where there is a signal but it isn’t strong enough to use the antenna will make a difference.

Browsing

I haven’t been here for a while, I know, so here is something I’ve found recently. I have been using Firefox as my main browser since before it reached ver 1 but lately I felt it was getting slower. I have tried a few others, Konquerer, the default browser on KDE is quite good but had some problem with a couple of sites. I really liked Arora but I had become addicted to some of the add-ons in Firefox and Arora is a no frills browser.

Then I found Chrome by Google. Chrome is based on the open source Chromium and is easily the fastest browser I have used. It is still in beta, well it is a Google product, but I’ve found it quite stable.

Best of all it has most of the popular extensions that have made Firefox so powerful. Some of them are also still in development. I’ve had problems syncing with Xmarks, for example. I replaced the Gmail signature add-on I was using with Autopen which is much better. One disappointment is that Cooliris is only available for Windows at the moment. A linux and Mac version has been promised for a while but is still to appear.

I’ve had no problem getting You Tube to work and downloads seem to be handled better than Firefox too. One thing I would like to change is to have Chrome more integrated into the desktop. It doesn’t pick up display properties from the desktop but uses it’s own. Still I would recommend it, give it a try.

Mandatory Internet Filter

It seems our government is ignoring all the advice the contrary and public opinion and aiming to introduce mandatory filtering with the legislation coming before parliament later next year. Of course they are hiding behind the child pornography issue but many people don’t realise that much more will be blocked.

The Google blog covered this in a reasonable article here. Well worth your time to read it if you are concerned about basic rights in this country.

Gmail Signatures – Updated

Update. Since I posted this I have found the add-on again. In fact it is now available from the Mozilla Add-Ons site. There is a new home page for it too.

I posted some time ago about Firefox add-ons. One I mentioned was Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures which allowed you to have different signatures for each Gmail account. Unfortunately it is no longer available on the Mozilla site. There is no mention of it on the Blank Canvas site either.

This is a great loss as it is the only Gmail signature add-on that supported multiple accounts. There are other add-ons for signatures but none of them have this feature. The xpi file can still be found on archive sites, a search should bring up a source for you.

Hopefully one of the other add-ons will add this feature or even better Gmail itself will provide it.

Credit where it is Due

I have criticised Optus in the past when I had problems with my mobile broadband so it is only fair to give credit when they get it right.

As a result of the storms the other night, al least I guess it was the storms could have been a totally unrelated problem, I lost all mobile phone and broadband reception at home. I called them to report it and after describing the situation, my phone could see distant towers weakly for short periods and both being out, they agreed it was most likely a network issue. They said they had several problems in the Sydney area but our local area hadn’t been reported. They would get a tech to investigate but it could take up to 48 hours to resolve. Not something to look forward to.

Anyway less than 10 hours later I had gotten into the habit of checking my phone every so often and there was a full signal this time. I had internet and working well too.

Well done Optus.

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Fedora, Mobile Broadband and Conky

It was over 12 months ago that I blogged about using my Optus mobile broadband with Fedora. I’ve noticed there have been a few searches on that subject recently so I thought it was about time I updated.

With Fedora 11

When I first plugged the 3g modem in it generated a SELinux error and I had to set SELinux to permissive to get it working. That is no longer the case with Fedora 11. Nor does it load the modem as an usb drive. It is recognised as a modem and Network Manager just handles it.

I must add that this seems to apply only to Fedora. I have tried it in Mandriva and Ubuntu derivatives like Gos and only Mint has worked.

This will improve in Fedora 12 with a new feature that will automatically set up the requirements for each provider. Looks like a great feature for those who need to change the default settings.

Working with Conky

Conky is a very useful system monitor. I have often thought of doing a post on Conky but in the interim I’ll just talk about monitoring the Mobile Broadband.

When I first  set up the Mobile Broadband I couldn’t get Conky to report on it. I tried “dmesg | grep usb” and it reported that the modem was using ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2. However none of these would report any activity. Searching around I found that these were redirecting to ppp0. I can’t remember where I found this but it has been consistent across multiple Fedora versions and computers. I can now see the current activity on the Internet connection.

If it is useful here is the code I added to my .conkyrc to get it working

${color0}INTERNET $color(${addr ppp0}) ${color0}${hr 2}$color
${color1}Down:$color  ${downspeed ppp0} KB/s${alignr}${color1}Up:$color ${upspeed ppp0} KB/s
${downspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2}$color
${color1}Downloaded: $color${totaldown ppp0} $alignr ${color1}Uploaded: $color${totalup ppp0}

Hope that helps.

Another Firefox Gadget

Since I wrote the last post I have added a new gadget that seems pretty useful. It is aimed at Australian Firefox (and other Mozilla browsers) users and others who have download limits on their internet connection. It provides a quick check of the current usage using the data from your ISP. It adds a meter into your toolbar. Hovering the mouse over the meter shows more info.   I found out about on my friend Snowy’s site here. More information and it can be downloaded here.

Firefox Add-ons

I have written before about a couple of the Add-ons I use but I haven’t listed the ones I consider to be essential. So it is time to make that right. I have tried many different Add-ons or extensions as they used to be called but these are the ones I use all the time.

I won’t give links for each Add-on as they can be found by doing a search on the Get Add-ons box in Firefox.

Adblock Plus

This is probably one of the more controversial Add-ons. There are arguments for and against it as advertising is how many sites, particularly the free ones, pay the bills. However as I never click on ads I don’t feel guilty about using it. There is another advantage as in Australia we have download limits, the more we use the more we pay, so I don’t want to use my limit to download someone’s advertising that I won’t even look at.

Having said that it doesn’t block all ads. Those that are coded into the page still appear..

Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures

I’ve written about this recently so won’t add more here accept to say after living with it for a while now I am very happy. It fills a gap in Gmail.

Fast Dial

Obviously inspired by telephone speed dial this is a very handy Add-on. I manage my bookmarks in three layers. The standard bookmark menu is for links I use occasionally. It is sorted into categories to make them easy to find. Next level is Personal Toolbar. Here I keep links I use regularly but not every day. The top level is Fast Dial, it holds sites I access every day like WordPress and a couple of forums.

Fast Dial creates a tab which holds thumbnails of each site. Clicking on it opens the site in a new tab. Incredibly simple and useful. In fact I use Firefox’s ability to have multiple tabs as my homepage. First tab is IGoogle with Gmail, Google Reader and Calender displayed and the second tab is Fast Dial.

No Script

The advent of JavaScript brought a new era of web sites. Now there is hardly a site that doesn’t have some scripting built in. Most menus, buttons and media needs scripts to run. That’s great but what many people don’t realise is the the script is running on our computers. While it is doing useful things it is OK but it can just as easily be used to do damage. For more information on the dangers of scripts have a look at the No Script site.

So what can we do? It is not possible to use the web without scripting but we are at risk with it. A good compromise is to just allow it run on trusted sites. That is what No Script does. When you reach a site you have the option of allowing scripts to run just for this visit on to mark it as a trusted site for all future visits. You may find that many sites are trying to run scripts not just the one you are visiting. This can be one of the dangers although often it is OK.

It is a bit of a pain to set up as you need to approve each site the first time you visit. However once up and running it doesn’t interrupt as often as it did. A recommended Add-on if you are concerned about security.

Xmarks

Formerly known as Foxmarks it was renamed earlier this year when some new features were added. As I use a couple of computers and I like my passwords and bookmarks to be consistent across both of them I find this essential. But it also useful as a way to back up your browser data.

I used to use Google’s Browser Sync but when it was discontinued I needed to find a replacement. Foxmarks, as it was then, had just added passwords to its system and so I tried it out. It seems to work just as well as Browser Sync and has some additional features such as tagging bookmarks.

A Word of Caution

Add-ons are a great feature of Firefox and are one of the reasons to use it over other browsers however there are some things to bear in mind. Add-ons are created by the community and so the quality can be variable. The ones I have listed are popular and seem quite stable but that can’t be said for all. Also it is not advisable to use too many Add-ons. More than 10 or so will cause Firefox to slow down.

If you are having problems with Firefox try disabling all Add-ons and then re-enable one at a time. You will probably find one of the Add-ons are responsible.

Summary

So that’s it. Five Add-ons I find useful. These are the ones that have stayed part of my system when many others have come and gone. Which Add-ons would you recommend?