I remember when Firefox was called Phoenix. At that time, when doing web design, everyone was testing on Internet Explorer 5, which was the de facto standard in HTML and other web technologies. If the client wanted a website that was a little fancy, then you would recommend that it was built using Flash. We all knew then that Flash websites were bad for search engines and usability, but everyone was doing it. Continue reading
Well, I must say that working with an Android tablet poses a lot of challenges. Firstly, to get my tablet to connect to the corporate Wifi network at a TAFE college was a serious challenge for my sanity. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would want to ship a tablet operating system without any configurable proxy setting. Most tablet users would want to take their tablet to work and connect to a wireless network that uses, guess what, proxies.
Luckily, my sanity was saved by the ability of Mozilla Firefox (for Android) to have a proxy setting (via an Add-on), but the method that I had to use to connect to the wireless network at TAFE is so bizzare, that it defies any logic (this same craziness applies to using my Mac laptop as well). Unless you are using Internet Explorer on Windows, then your milage varies quite a bit.
The procedure on the Android tablet goes like this:
Bizarre or not?
I have been spending a lot of time on the computer these days. Virtually everything I do these days involve the use of the browser and an internet connection. What has caught my attention recently, though, is that many software has followed Google’s lead in releasing perpetual Betas. I use Aptana, Thunderbird and Firefox regularly and they all regularly ask to be updated so instead of getting something done in two minutes you have to spend ten or even fifteen minutes while the software you want to use is updating. I am not opposed to updates, but isn’t there a better way or time to update the software than at start up (usually in the ” I have two minutes to do this thing” mode)?
Recently while I was on the run I needed to find a location on a map and of course I immediately fired up my trusty new netbook and launched Firefox. Lo and behold, I could not get Google Maps to display whatsoever. I tried refreshing the page, I tried relaunching it and finally I had to fire up Internet Explorer to access the map. Since I usually avoid using Internet Explorer at all costs, this was really an exception.
I thought it might have something to do with my connection setup, but after a little bit of digging and retracing of my actions, I remembered that I had just updated Skype and I noticed that it installed an add-on onto Firefox. After I disabled this add-on from Skype, Google maps loaded effortlessly. Since I do not know what this add-on does and why it is there in the first place, I am probably not going to miss it.
So if your google maps not loading in Firefox 3.0, do not hesitate and disable that plug in to get your maps back. Someone at Skype needs to check this.