What I don’t like about FireFox

Posted Wednesday, November 30th 2005

I’m a huge supporter of Mozilla Firefox. There’s no doubt about it. As a web-junkie and a web developer, I absolutely adore it’s compliance with standards and it’s high level of security. But there are some things about it that keep on bugging me.
And let me get this out of the way right now - I’m not attacking Firefox. I’m merely pointing out a few issues that have bugged me before and still keep bugging me. And a note to all of you Firefox and Open Source zealots - this is a personal point of view. If you don’t like it - well, that’s your problem. I have nothing against Firefox and/or open source.

First of all, I hate the lack of customizability in Firefox. I am an avid supporter of Maxthon simply because you can customize the interface completely. It’s easy to add, remove & modify buttons, items from context menus, bars, etc. In Firefox, customizability is extremely limited. And yes, I know there are extensions - but that’s the point. Some of the options available in extensions should be built in the browser itself. I mean, the Ffox developers should take the hint, and take the top 5, or 10 extensions that probably 90% of Firefox users use, and build them INTO the browser. Extensions such as AdBlock, Tabbrowser Extensions, Tab Mix Plus, etc, all offer customizability that should be in Firefox by default. Why should I download extensions for functionality that should come as standard?

“Out-of-the-box” customizability would help other things too. For example, I hate installing a new version of Firefox, only to be informed that half of my installed extensions are no longer supported and that they don’t work. Excellent.

I just downloaded Firefox 1.5. And I’m not entirely happy with it. For example, the tab context menu has two new options on it - ‘Bookmark This Tab’ & ‘Bookmark All Tabs’. Now, while I do see how these are usefull things, I don’t like how they chose to include them in the browser. For one thing, who was the genius that decided to include those options under the ‘Close Tab’ option? I’m used to doing right-click->Close Tab. And yes, I know I can middle click on the tab to close it, but I’m just used to right-clicking on the tab and selecting the close tab option. Which was always the last option, and hence, the movement became mechanical over time. And there’s no way to move these new options on the context menu, or remove them altogether. There’s even no option for something as simple as removing the ‘Go’ button from the address toolbar. It has to be done manually.

Which brings me to another thing - changes in the interface. Anyone that has done any application development will tell you that end-users don’t like changes. At least to the user interface. Users will become used to a certain way of doing things, and any change becomes irritating. The options menu in Firefox used to be vertically-navigated. Now it’s horizontal. Hurray for confusion!
The application should conform to the users, not the other way around.

Firefox is a great browser. It truly is. But by doing simple, not properly though out mistakes, they’re pushing users away.

Me? I’ll keep using it. I just hope that it becomes a bit more user-friendly in future releases.

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Review: Transcend T.sonic 620

Posted Sunday, November 27th 2005

I got tired of lugging around my aging Sony cd walkman. I love that thing to bits - I’ve had it for over 3 years now, and it has served me very well - in fact, it still works as flawlessly as the first day I got it. But it’s rather heavy and large, and I got somewhat tired of carrying it around, so I decided to get an mp3 player!

There are two main types of mp3 players out there - hard disk based (iPod & co.) and the flash memory based - the group that today’s topic of discussion belongs to. The Transcend T.sonic 620.

Main Features:
Capacity: 1 GB
Supported Formats: Mp3, WMA, WAV
Battery: 1 AAA battery, good for 15 hours (manufacturer’s claim)
Up to 20 preset radio stations.
Voice Recording
Repeat Function
User EQ & built-in EQ presets
+ more

Daily Use
I guess most people use their MP3 players on a daily basis. Using the 620 was easy enough. On Windows XP, you just plug it in an available USB port (either through the long USB cable, or the mini USB jack), and XP will recognize it as a removable hard disk. Then you just copy files onto it. The good thing here is that you can use it to move files around as well.
It’s limited to 450 files and 50 folders, which is probably more then anyone will ever want (or be able to fit on a 1 gb mp3 player), so that’s not really an issue. It’s also very light. Weighing in at 36 grams (without a battery, ~50 with), it’s very light and doesn’t get in the way. In the box, you’ll find a neck strap, a wrist strap, a carrying pouch (really nice), the earbuds, and 2 USB connectors (one with a cable, long enough, one direct connection jack) and a driver CD.

Sound quality is pretty good, although the earbuds that come with it are quite bad, and a bit too big, so they wouldn’t fit in my ears right. Luckily, I got my hands on some Philips earbuds that work much better, the sound is much clearer and much louder.
Navigating through the player is pretty straightforward, although a rocker-like button would have been much easier to use. Nevertheless, getting around all the options (and there are a lot) is quite easy, and all settings can be easily found.
The one thing that I found to be quite annoying is that there’s no dedicated shuffle button. Instead, I had to go in the options and select the ‘Random Repeat’ option. Not a big hassle, but it would have been easier if there was a dedicated shuffle button, or some sort of shortcut to take care of it.

Otherwise, moving around files is pretty easy. The file browser is easy to navigate, and it’s easy to skip tracks, fast forward through them or rewind them, and the play button doubles as a pause button aswell.

The T.sonic 620 also has a built in radio and a voice recorder. The radio performs quite well and reception is good. Obviously, because of the lack of a dedicated antenna, there is interference, but it’s good nevertheless. The voice recording function might come in handy if you want to take a quick note of something, and there are various levels of quality for voice recording, so potentially, hours can be recorded. Might come in handy if at some sort of a presentation. But ultimatively, I don’t see a real use for it. Still a nice option to have.

According to the manufacturer, battery life is expected to be around 15 hours. While I do think that this is a bit of an over estimation, and that in reality, battery life is around the 12 hour mark, 15 hours can be possible if the player is not tinkered with a lot. It has a screen saver option to preserve battery life aswell. It uses one AAA battery, and I think that this is an advantage over USB-charged MP3 players because there’s less of a dependency on a single point of charging. It also has an auto-power-off feature if the player has been idle for 5 or 10 minutes, and a really good OLED display, which is easy to see at all times.

So to sum up, the Transcend T.sonic 620 is a pretty good little mp3 player. It’s feature packed, has a decent battery life and it’s light enough to carry around and not be a hassle. On the other hand, the crappy earbuds that come with it, and the lack of a dedicated shuffle button are a bit of a letdown. It also takes a while to turn on when there are a lot of files, but that is to be expected.

Positive
- Small & Light
- Good sound quality
- Packed with features!
- Decent battery life.
- Easy to use and to upload files
- Can be used as a removable drive.
- Lots of accessories come out of the box.
- Good display.

Negative
- No dedicated shuffle key
- Crappy standard earbuds

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Some input on the Bugatti Veyron.

Posted Tuesday, November 22nd 2005

In the November 2005 issue of CAR magazine, in an article, Wolfgang Schreiber, Bugatti engineering’s technical director is quoted saying the following:

“The maximum combustion energy in fact adds up to 3000 bhp - 1000 bhp is swallowed by the cooling system, 1000 bhp goes through the exhaust apparatus, and 1000bhp is relayed to the four driven wheels.”

Now isn’t that a bit scary? In the December 2005 issue, Mark Walton, CAR’s ‘editor-at-large’ (whatever that means), in his column says:

“If you had 3000 horses, you could make 2.328 watts, or 2.2 megawats… … 2.2 megawatts could switch on 37.000 60 watt lightbulbs. Given that the total population of the Shetland Islands is 22.500, you can start to imagine a Veyron hooked up to the national grid, the Bugatti test driver’s boot mashed hard on the gas, the W16 screaming in the night, and the Shetlands glowing in the dark Atlantic like Chernobyl on a raft.”

Now that’s a good description if I’ve ever seen one. And just proves again the utter lunacy of the Veyron. As a technological achievement - it’s astounding. As a car, it’s ludicrous, a bit pointless and just a bit daft.

Posted in Cars | Trackback | 2 Comments »

Violence.

Posted Tuesday, November 22nd 2005

Just to explain. I stutter a bit. I’ve dealt with it, and I accept it as a part of me. However, I get really ticked off when people bother me about it and joke about it.

Anyway. It happened a long’ish time ago. I was in my home town, going towards the center, and talking on my cell phone. While I was talking, I stuttered a bit. Some guy that I had never seen before, and never have since, laughed at me. I ended the call, put the phone in my pocket, and punched the guy in the head as hard as I could.

I didn’t say anything. People around me didn’t say anything. I walked away.

I’ve never told this to anyone.

Posted in Personal | Trackback | 2 Comments »

A combination of things..

Posted Monday, November 21st 2005

So many things to do. I’ve got to finish up a network model in a network simulation tool called ComNet and do some simulations for an assignment due wednesday. I know I can finish the whole assignment in just a few hours, but i’m too lazy to do it. But I’ll get it done. I always get stuff done. During my undergraduate studies, I was never late with submissions - and I don’t plan to start now. It’s just an assignment I don’t feel like doing. I’ve got another assignment to give some attention to - my data warehousing assignment. Not too hard, just needs some love and attention.

My girlfriend was here for a few days! Great times indeed. It sucks that she lives over 500 kms away, and I we don’t get to spend as much time together as we’d like. I can’t wait to see her again, which will probably be around New Year’s. But we did have a lot of fun over the past few days, and she even cooked for me! She made the best pasta sauce I’ve ever tasted. Dammit. I miss you E.

And on a completely different note, I get my MP3 player today! I’ll probably write a full-blown review after a week or so of use.

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