Gordon McKinney's Pro IT Blog

Firefox Open Search Results in a New Tab

2008-06-19T08:26:00.002-07:00

I like the FF search engine box (Ctrl-E or Ctrl-K) but would like it to open the results in a new tab. Here's how to make it happen. Type about:config in your address bar and double click the setting browser.search.openintab so it reads true.

Receiving Emails via SMS

2008-06-04T09:01:00.001-07:00

Using your gmail or another mail program, you can forward emails messages to SMS using one of the domains below. Please note former Cingular customers must use the Cingular address and not the AT&T address.

This feature is best used for simple alerts, like NOAA weather warnings, Server UP/DOWN Messages, and so on.

Verizon:	10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
AT&T:	10digitphonenumber@mobile.att.net
Sprint:	10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile:	10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Nextel:	10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Cingular:	10digitphonenumber@mobile.mycingular.com
Virgin Mobile:	10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
Alltel:	10digitphonenumber@alltelmessage.com 10digitphonenumber@message.alltel.com
CellularOne:	10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint:	10digitphonenumber@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest:	10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

ADSL SNR Margin and Attenuation Stats

2008-05-24T08:53:00.001-07:00

Here's a set of metrics for evaluating your ADSL line quality. I found this quoted on several DSL forums:

Attenuation Rates:
20bB. and below = Outstanding
20dB-30dB. = Excellent
30dB-40dB. = Very Good
40dB-50dB. = Good
50dB-60dB. = Poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB. and above = Bad and will experience connectivity issues

For S/N Margin Readings:
6bB. or below = Bad and will experience no line synchronisation or intermittent synchronisation problems.
7dB-10dB. = Fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions.
11dB-20dB. = Good with little or no synchronisation problems
20dB-28dB. = Excellent
29dB. or above = Outstanding

Decibel dB Rule of Thumb
Every 3dB represents a doubling or halving of power. i.e. 9dB is twice the signal or power compared to 6dB. Decibel usually represents a margin, i.e. the difference between a background signal and the subject signal. For more information, click here.

Introduction to Google Search Quality

2008-05-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

In a rare release of information, Google's VP of Search Quality Engineering, Udi Manber, wrote a blog post about their algorithms... click here for the full article

The details of the ranking algorithms are in many ways Google's crown jewels. We are very proud of them and very protective of them. By some estimate, more than one thousand programmer/scientist years have gone directly into their development, and the rate of innovation has not slowed down.

But being completely secretive isn’t ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.

My Firefox Addons

2008-05-07T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of my current Firefox add-ons! Updated for FF3

Js-Treemap: Treemapping in pure JavaScript

2008-04-17T04:52:00.000-07:00

TreeMapping is an ingenious means of visualising hierarchic values. Often used to answer the question "Where has all my disk space gone?" it lends itself naturally to many data models, even if the hierarchy is artificial.

jsTreemap does all this in plain old JavaScript and HTML DIV elements. The treemap control can be fully interactive and allows the user zoom in and out.

The Treemap can also make use of an adapter object to fit existing (and sometimes large) data models, in an XML DOM for example.

Click here to visit jsTreemap's homepage

Sun buys MySQL

2008-02-27T05:46:00.000-08:00

Interesting news, read more (click here).

Sun Microsystems today confirmed it has completed its acquisition of MySQL, and announced all MySQL products are now part of the Sun worldwide sales and support network.

Supporters of the MySQL buyout claim the deal will offer a new level of financial backing to the products, but not everyone has been pleased with the news. Critics of the deal said Sun must now take the time to fix lingering scalability limitations that remain within MySQL.

XDebug Firefox Addon for Profiling and Debugging

2008-02-15T07:24:00.001-08:00

This is a quick enhancement I wrote for Firefox...
http://www.night-ray.com/xdebug-helper-0.2.xpi

Based upon the original code here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3960

Enjoy!

PS. To view xdebug profile dumps use WinCacheGrind or KCacheGrind

Firefox Scroll Wheel Font Size Changer Disable

2008-01-07T05:19:00.000-08:00

Firefox changes font sizes when you control/command-scroll. It’s sooooo annoying especially with the new Logitech free-wheel mice. To turn it off, use about:config and apply the following changes:

WINDOWS
mousewheel.withcontrolkey.action to 0
mousewheel.withcontrolkey.sysnumlines to true

MAC
mousewheel.withmetakey.action to 0
mousewheel.withmetakey.sysnumlines to true

Mozilla Looks to Bring Web Apps to Desktop

2007-10-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews | October 26, 2007, 12:00 PM

Mozilla is working on a new application called "Prism," which will help to blur the line further between applications for the web and the desktop.

Prism lets popular Web services such as GMail and others be used just like a normal desktop application, without a need to open the Web browser. Prism itself will be built on Firefox, meaning any Web technology Firefox supports could also be used within Prism.

"Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we're not building a proprietary platform to replace the Web," Mozilla Labs wrote in a blog post. "The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we've moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism."

In addition to supporting common web technologies, the company is also working to give Web applications access to further computer functionality, such as offline storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.

Mozilla's latest creation may not necessarily be an entirely seperate application; instead, the Labs team is looking into ways to integrate the functionality into Firefox itself. Thus, when a user sees a Web application they would like to run as a desktop app, it would only take a few clicks to create new Web-desktop application mashups.

While Prism will eventually be available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, currently the team only has an early build for Windows available (builds for other platforms are said to be on the way).

"Prism is just the first of many experiments we hope to conduct around improving the usability of Web applications," the team wrote.

HTTP Introduction and Debugging

2007-07-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

I have republished my HTTP article here...

This relates primarily to the superb HTTP Debugging tool called Charles.

Jing - Free Screen and Video Capture

2007-07-19T17:11:00.001-07:00

Tired of hacking out those screen shots and typing a ream of text. Well now there's free software to crank out those visual descriptions at record speed. Try this software out - you won't be disappointed!

Print Spooler Crashed/Hung? Windows NT/XP

2007-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a little batch file I run occasionally when everything jams up. It restarts your spooler and clears your print queue.

@echo off
net stop spooler
del /f /q C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*
net start spooler

RSS in Plain English!

2007-06-19T04:42:00.001-07:00

Apple Releases Safari 3 for Windows!

2007-06-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

In a surprise announcement, Apple have released Safari for Windows!!! Finally a way to test on all platforms without owning a Mac.

Adobe Releases AIR

2007-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

Adobe® AIR™ is a cross-operating system runtime that allows web application developers to use their existing web development skills (HTML, Javascript, Adobe Flash®, Adobe Flex™, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

Drobo Stroage...

2007-06-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

A novel product that goes beyond RAID for storing your photos. Its the first 'storage robot!'. Watch the training videos by clicking the picture right.

Downloading a Blogger Blog, pt II

2007-06-11T05:41:00.001-07:00

You can also use:

 http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01

Downloading a Blogger Blog

2007-06-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

You can download a number of posts from Blogger with the following syntax:

   http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000

You can then use FireFox to "save webpage complete" to create a local copy of the specified number of posts.

Google Gears: Enabling Offline Web Applications

2007-05-31T04:33:00.000-07:00

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. It consists of three modules that address the core challenges in making web applications work offline.

	LocalServer Cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) locally
	Database Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
	WorkerPool Make your web applications more responsive by performing resource-intensive operations asynchronously

Microsoft Surface

2007-05-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

Hmmm... www.microsoft.com/surface

TomTom Go with Cingular Wireless

2007-05-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

TomTom Go 720 or 910 with Cingular/AT&T, I have tested with both Samsung A747 and Motorola V551. Enter the following information into your TomTom to get your wireless data connection setup. And don't forget TomTom traffic is free in the USA while its in beta.

Gateway   : wap.cingular    } Please check your phone
Gateway   : 66.209.11.61    } to see which applies
Dialing   : *99***1#
Username  : WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password  : CINGULAR1
Modem init: &f&d2&c1+cgdcont=1,"IP","wap.cingular"

Mathomatic Win32 Builds - Online Again

2007-04-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well it wasn't as painful as I thought... a reinstall of CygWin and my builds are working again. I'm using the same version of CygWin so there should be no changes for your environment. Please check Version.txt to see it matches the latest on Mathomatic.

Mathomatic Win32 Builds - Offline

2007-03-29T11:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lapse in builds. I need to reinstall my CygWin environment before updating the Win32 build.

Please contact me if there's a desperate need for new functionality.

New Website

2006-09-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

I'm in the process of migrating my old website to this blog. Please comment on anything you're missing!

Update: My file storage website is back online. Thanks for your patience.