I took a bit today to play with the recently released Mozilla ‘Ubiquity’.  Ubiquity is a new “browser command shell” for Firefox that allows you to interact with your browser and the Internet in some pretty interesting ways - mainly in that it allows you to take many of the interweb’s most popular services and create a giant mash-up on the fly.  Largely based around the services and products typically associated with the ‘new Internet’, or ‘Web 2.0′, much of Ubiquity’s value comes largely from the fact that a significant percentage of Firefox users are also users of Google services and sites such as Wikipedia and IMDB - services, coupled with many others, that Ubiquity incorporates under one “launcher shell”.

Being the huge fan of Gnome-Do that I am, I am always open to utils that allow me to “keep in the flow” while shifting focus.  Ubiquity serves to do just this - allow the user to pull some of the more useful and interesting content from the “rest” of the Internet into “the part” of the Internet in which the user is currently working.  Say you are typing an email to a friend about grabbing drinks at a bar you recently heard about?  While in Gmail, you bring up Ubiquity and enter something along the lines of “map Ye Olde Pub, Yourtown, ST” and you are presented with a nice, manipulable map which you can easily drop into the email!

The above is just one simple (and overplayed) example, but there are far better and more in-depth examples at Mozilla’s Ubiquity site, so I will end it with that and let you decide if you want to check it out or not.  I am optimistic about the future of Ubiquity.  It currently has considerable bugs and is definitely facing some reliability issues (odd hangs and glitches), but for a first release, I am incredibly impressed about what this will do to how Firefox users interact with the virtual world around them…

By this point, you are either intrigued enough to stop reading my ramblings and head to Mozilla to grab a try for yourself or you could give to squirts less and are heading over to college humor to see what the work firewall will actually allow to slip through…  In either case, HAVE FUN!

Link: Here is a link to the Flickr set showing some of the features.
-Matt

So, I logged into my Hotmail account (aka the Spam Dump) and was surprised to find that Microsoft has stopped their blocking of Firefox for the “new” mailbox features…  A long time user of Firefox, I have simply accepted the petty tactics of MS against Firefox users (it’s not just them, my bank does it too), but it seems that I no longer have to live my life as a second class Hotmail citizen.

For those with no knowledge of the issue, Microsoft has seemingly singled out Firefox users and prevented them from accessing the “Full” interface to Hotmail’s email service.  Seemingly limited to Firefox, other browsers (IE & Opera - not sure about Safari) have been able to access the full functionality of Hotmail since its initial roll-out.  Hotly debated in various circles, it is widely believed that the limiting of access to the “Full” functionality of Hotmail’s services were based not on browser computability, but instead merely on browser client branding alone (which is why some browser other than MSIE worked, while others did not).

I do not know what brought about the change of heart over at Microsoft - perhaps they are finally finding honey works better than vinegar? - none the less, I am ‘pleased’ (read as indifferent) to see Microsoft has decided that childishly blocking their service’s users from utilizing its full functionality is not a good business move.

Well, off to my sparkling new spam box’s interface!

Because of my extensive use of the tool as of late, I now feel compelled to write a small bit on “Gnome DO“. This launcher has really reduced my required keystrokes and mouse clicks to launch my applications and to load my documents. This nice little app is brought up by the “Super+Space” key combo (Windows Key + Space). Once in the foreground, simply begin typing what it is that you wish to have and GnomeDo begins dynamically displaying the launcher for the application or document that you wish to load - once the correct app is shown in the GnomeDo window, simply press enter and you have you app ready to go.

I know that this may not sound like much, but the amount of time saved by keeping my hands on the keyboard (without having to press Alt+F1+down, down, down, over, enter) is considerable - not to mention the preservation of the work flow and associated mental processes. Think - you are working in your text editor on a Python document, want to open up a terminal window to test it out - just press super+space, type term and hit enter. This is a small example, but there are thousands of uses.

To install GnomeDo in Ubuntu Hardy Heron is simple enough, though it is not in the standard Hardy repositories. To add the Do repos, simply add the following to your repository list (software sources) :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu hardy main

then either update your sources and search for ‘gnome do’ in Synaptic, or open up a terminal and enter:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gnome-do

Once installed, I would recommend opening it up (Applications -> Accessories -> GnomeDo) and customizing it a bit. For starters, set it to start at log on and to hide the window at first launch. I am also partial to the Glass Frame theme as it matches my Emerald theme. Next head over to the plugins tab and make sure that all available plugins are listed. This tab is a virtual candy store where you select the tools to suit your usage the most - I am partial to Gnome Dictionary, files and folders, Gnome Terminal, Google Maps, Pidgin, and Tomboy - but you should definitely play with them and see what you like. The nice thing is that if you click ‘about’, you will often be taken to the Ubuntu Wiki on the plugin, which usually gives you some handy methods for using the tool.

Well, thats my little bit on GnomeDo - install it and check it out, or don’t, but don’t come complaining to me when you fingers are tired from all the excess key strokes.

So, I recently decided to go ahead and get my A+ certification from CompTIA since I have been unable to get a job as either a computer tech or a programmer (no one wants a CS major as a tech and no one wants a programmer with no experience).  I decided a moment ago to head over to CompTIA’s website to download my certificate and was presented with this:

I thought that the A+ test seemed a bit light on the security questions… now i know why…

Update: In very  little time, CompTIA seems to have resolved the issue and all is well in the world of Firefox Comptia access.

I could not be happier.  I am writing this post from within my Hardy Heron install while VirtualBox churns away behind my firefox window.  Churning away at what?  Churning away with Windows XP, which is busy flashing my X-ROM GameBoy Advance cart with some of my archived gameboy ROMS…

Thanks to the USB support provided with the PUEL version of VirtualBox, I am once again able to flash my carts with my backed up games for pending road trips - a 5 day excursion to PCB in this instance…  Also, in the spirit of giving credit where credit due, a very informative post over at ubuntu-unleashed.com lead me through the steps to get it all  up and running.. For the sake of indexed information, I will post my consolodated instruction set for the process for any who may stumble here because of this post…

Installing Sun’s VirtualBox with USB support in Hardy Heron

• Download VirtualBox PUEL Binaries from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
• Install downloaded VirtualBox DEB
• Add user to vboxusers
• Edit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh (uncomment last 4 lines) :

#Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

• Check /etc/group for user and group ID(grep vbox /etc/group)

Example: vboxusers:x:123:eznet

• Edit fstab (etc/fstab) by appending the following (note group id):

## usbfs is the USB group in fstab file:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=123,devmode=664 0 0

• edit /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh - add following ABOVE the line: “# Mount spufs, if Cell Broadband processor is detected” :

## Mount the usbfs for use with Virtual Box
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=123,devmode=664

• Reboot
• Load up VirtualBox (Applications->System Tools->Sun xVM VirtualBox)
• Install WindowsXP in virtual machine (not explained here)
• After system is fully installed, configure VirtualBox to your needs
• Add USB device support to VirtualBox by clicking ‘Settings’ while virtual machine is powered off
• Click ‘USB’ from settings in left panel
• Enable USB and USB 2.0 Controllers
• Add Filter From Device (ALT-INS) and select your device (if not named, enter lsusb from shell and google vendor and product ids - something like this: lsusb shows 4542:4144, then google vid 4542 pid 4144) and click OK
• Boot up XP and hopefully all will be well for you as it was for me!

Now I am off to try out the iPod support

Matt