gf-tech.com

While running WireShark I did a follow up post to one of my sites using ScribeFire. Something I learned was that it seems like ScribeFire is doing the right thing.

A portion of the capture:

<value>
<dateTime.iso8601>20080828T16:10:48Z</dateTime.iso8601>
</value>

This means that Drupal may not be handling this correctly. For a while I allowed users to choose their own timezone. I changed my profile to be a little different than the site setting. I thought maybe that would be causing the problem, but I changed the db to revert it back. This had no change.

More investigation needed before I can file a bug report.

I started using ScribeFire to write my blog posts a long time ago. I actually started using the add-on when it was called Performancing. It is pretty handy and allows me to compose at my leisure and to not worry about a browser crashing. Saving my work as I go is nice and easy as well.

A recent version of the add-on has introduced some strange side-effects. Before the new version my posts would be accepted by my site without a problem, and would show up with the appropriate time stamp.

Now when I post, the new posts are showing up with a timestamp 7 hours later than what I expected. My Drupal install has a setting to indicate what timezone I want my site to operate in, and right now it is set to GMT -7.

Perhaps the problem is in Drupal and maybe it is in ScribeFire. When I have time I will install WireShark and examine what is actually posted to Drupal.

Firefox, how I love thee. I also love the extensibility of it. I test a lot of extensions, and some are more useful than others. Here is my list of extensions.

Extensions (enabled: 20, disabled: 3):

• BugMeNot 1.3
• Canadian English Dictionary 1.0.1
• ChromaTabs 1.0
• del.icio.us 1.2
• DictionarySearch 2.0
• Download Manager Tweak 0.7.1 [disabled]
• dragdropupload 1.5.22
• Enhanced History Manager 0.5.8.05.1 [disabled]
• Gmail Notifier 0.5.6.5
• Google Toolbar for Firefox 2.1.20060807W
• Html Validator 0.7.9.5
• IE Tab 1.2.0.20061106
• IE View 1.3.1
• InfoLister 0.9f
• Opanda IExif 2.25 [disabled]
• Performancing 1.3
• Resizeable Form Fields 0.2.1
• Restart Firefox 0.3
• Sourceforge Direct Download 0.5
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.5
• TabScroller 0.6.3
• Talkback 2.0
• URL Fixer 1.2.7

Upon examining this list I think there are a few I can get rid of after the upgrade to Firefox 2. Restart Firefox and the Google Toolbar come to mind. And I don't use the dictionary search any more.

The most useful extensions add-ons that I actually use pretty much every day:

• IE Tab - view a webpage automatically or on demand rendered in IE in a tab in Friefox
• dragdropupload - when uploading files, you can drag it onto the form. Multiple files and multiple entry boxes are no problem.
• del.icio.us - a different kind of book mark manager
• Tab Mix Plus - my preferred session management tool

When testing out new extensions one of the big pains is restarting FireFox after installing, uninstalling, or disabling an extension. RestartFireFox solves this issue nicely.

This may not be an issue for most people, but I have different profiles set up for FIreFox, and each time I start it asks me which one to use (I set it up this way). RestartFireFox bypasses this, and restarts the existing profile. Very nice.

I've been wanting to start a series of posts on what FireFox extensions I find most useful. There are so many varied possibilities, and so much overlap that it is a tangled web that is hard to figure out.

The first extension that I want to highlight I just discovered a couple days ago. Since I have installed it, I have been using it extensively. It is such a simple concept and it just makes sense.

I give you dragdropupload.

When filling in a webform to upload a file you can drag and drop the file onto the form's input box et voila, the box is filled out. No config necessary. It just works.

One of my most favorite Firefox extensions is session saver. I read today that session saver has a memory leak. Bummer. Guess that explains some of the poor performance I have been experiencing when leaving Firefox running for a long time. Maybe.

I dumped the Tab Browser Extensions a while ago, and they were way more unstable than session saver. TBE crashed lots, never seemed to work perfectly, but got me to a point where I began to rely on the features.

Now it seems like I have to try something new.

Along comes Tab Mix Plus. I had read about it recently, but hadn't tried it since I had a working solution for my needs.

I am now trying it out on my work machine. So far so good. Since I wanted to make sure I didn't lose anything, I tried the extension on a new profile in Firefox. I created the new profile with the profile manager, then backed up my existing profile using Mozbackup. Again with Mozbackup I restored the profile to the newly created profile name, and voila, a copy of my Firefox profile was born.

I installed TMP, and deactivated sessionsaver. A little configuration later, and I am liking TMP. Looks like we have a winner ... for now.