Firefox Toolbar

Finished my first Firefox toolbar at the weekend, it isn’t mind blowing yet, allows users to log in to the site via a button on the toolbar, jump to key areas in the site via drop down menus in the toolbar and has a search bar for people to search the site directly. Small steps and all that.

I hope to revisit this after I’ve finished my never ending iPhone app. I aim to integrate message alerts, maybe a side bar for news feeds and so ajax linking to get current info. All on the list of things to do.

References that I found helpful were:

http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/automatic-firefox-extension-updates/

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/McCoy

http://www.shell-tools.net/index.php?op=hash_sha256

Also stumbled on references on how to provide a default search service using open search, so people can set your site to their default browser searches, might be something i look into:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/creating_opensearch_plugins_for_firefox

Snow Leopard install hassle

Well my Snow Leopard (SL) installation was traumatic, as I have a first generation Macbook Air it was as straight forward as sticking the disc in.

So I grabbed my windows laptop as it has the required DVD drive and installed the DVD share package so my macbook could use the drive for installing SL. I began running the installation but it came up saying i need to run disk utility to sort out my HDD.  This is where the problems began.

The SL advised that I reboot my macbook holding down the ALT option button, then choose my wireless network and select the disk, effectively booking from the dvd. The problem was I could locate my wireless drive from the drop down of wireless networks.

I tried to get one to my wireless box but i’d forgotten my username and password, so i reset the wireless box, this threw my internet connection out as the static ip information was lost. What a fool! So I phoned up O2 to sort the connection out and the outcome was i have a strange wireless box that isnt their standard one, so they swtiched me to a dynamic IP that works for now and are sending me out a new wireless box… probably a result.

So once i get the box working again and disable WEP so my wireless is an open connection (I read this might be a problem for SL installs with macbook air) but it still doesnt appear in the list, so i have a brainwave and rename the network to a shorter name than the O2 default, horrah this work it now appears in the list. It took 2hrs to install SL and now its done i’ve recovered about 10 gig of HDD. So all in all a worthwhile hassle but a bit of a waste of a Saturday evening!

Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, os

OpenSocial talk @ Google London

Managed to bag a ticket to the Open Social discussion over at Google next week, slightly excited to be entering the Google HQ.

Also hope to learn more about OpenSocial, the penny is finally falling on setting up my container, i’m just battling to have the time to set up the API and system required to approve developers and apps etc.

Anyone interested in attending should check out http://london-gtug-opensocial.eventbrite.com/ only about 5 tickets left and its free!

Tags: conference, google, opensocial, talk