Tag: mozilla

Weave your way through the net …

One of the greatest strengths of Firefox is the ability to extend its capabilities through the use of plugins. If you want more out of your web browser, then you can usually find a plugin that will add that functionality.

One feature I searched for when I first started using Firefox was the ability to backup my bookmarks, and eventually, synchronize them between machines. I didn’t want to send my bookmarks to a third party, though, so addons for sites like Delicious were of no interest to me.

For years, I used a plugin called Bookmark Sync, which eventually became Bookmark Sync and Sort. Unfortunately, Sync and Sort was never updated to work with Firefox 3, so I had to look elsewhere for a solution.

I stumbled across another plugin called Foxmarks, now known as Xmarks. Xmarks was designed to synchronize bookmarks with the Foxmarks site, a third party. Fortunately, they added third-party server support into the addon around the time I was looking for a new solution. So for the next year or two, I used Xmarks.

Earlier this year, when Foxmarks became Xmarks, they started adding additional features that I had no interest in. For instance, when using Google to search, Xmarks added additional content to the search results. I also had intermittent problems with my third-party settings being reset and some pretty serious speed issues when syncing. I tolerated it, because there was nothing better out there, but it still bothered me.

In December of 2007, Mozilla Labs introduced a new concept called Weave. At the time, I didn’t really understand the Weave concept. It sounded like something similar to Delicious and all of the other social bookmarking systems. I planned on keeping an eye on the project, though. Fast forward to earlier this year when 0.4 was released, and I looked a bit deeper into the project.

From what I’ve read, versions 0.1 and 0.2 supported syncing through the WebDAV protocol. 0.3 on supported a custom server, which was released by Mozilla. Additionally, Weave supported syncing more than just bookmarks, such as passwords, tabs, form input, and more. After reading about the custom server, I decided to take Weave for a spin.

The first step in trying out Weave was to set up the Weave server. This proved to be a bit more difficult than I initially thought. Mozilla provides the software via a Mercurial repository, so grabbing the software is as simple as heading to the repository and downloading the latest tarball. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any “official” release channel for new versions of the server software, so you need to manually look for software updates. That said, I’ve had no problems with the current software release.

Once you have the software, place it on your server in a location of your choosing. If you choose to place it within an existing domain, you may need to do some fancy aliases or URL rewriting to make it work. That bit of the install took me a while to get working.

The server software uses a MySQL database to store all of the synchronized data. This was one of the biggest reasons I decided to check out Weave. I deal with MySQL databases almost every day, so I’m quite comfortable with manipulating them. Additionally, this gives me the ability to write my own interface to deal with the MySQL data, if I choose to. It also means I can quickly and easily manipulate the data, should I choose to.

The rest of the server install consists of setting up the SQL database and tweaking some configuration variables. Once complete, you can point the Weave addon at your server and begin synchronizing data. Make sure you go into the preferences and identify what data you’d like to synchronize.

The Weave settings in Firefox are pretty straightforward and don’t need a lot of explanation. One trick you might keep in mind is for the first sync from a new machine. Unless you want the existing bookmarks to be merged with what’s on the server, you need to use the “Sync Now” option from within the preferences menu. This command acts differently when you use it within Preferences as opposed to clicking it on the Tools menu or from the icon at the bottom of the Firefox window. If you click on it via Preferences, you get a small options menu, shown below.

Using this menu, you can choose to replace all of the local data, all of the remote data, or merge the two. Very useful to prevent those default bookmarks from being merged back into your bookmarks again.

Weave, thus far, seems to be pretty secure. It uses an HTTPS connection to communicate with the Weave server. A username and password is required to log into the server, as is typical with most services. What seems to set Weave apart is the inclusion of an additional passphrase used to encrypt all of your data on the remote server. If you look at the data stored in MySQL, you’ll see that all of the data is encrypted prior to being added. Weave encrypts the data locally on your machine prior to sending it over the network to the Weave server. Just do yourself a favor and don’t forget your passphrase. The username and password are recoverable, especially if you run your own server, but the passphrase is not.

As of this writing, Weave is up to a 0.6pre1 release. Synchronization speed has increased considerably, and additional features are being added. The current roadmap shows a 0.6 release by August 26th, but it doesn’t go into much more detail about future releases. Regardless, Weave has proven to be extremely useful and I’m looking forward to see where development will lead. It’s definitely worth checking out.

 

Prepare yourself, Firefox 3 is on the way…

Having just released beta 4, the Mozilla Foundation is well on its way to making Firefox 3 a reality.  Firefox 3 aims to bring a host of new features, as well as speed and security enhancements.

On the front end, they updated the theme.  Yes, again.  I’m not entirely sure what the reasoning is, but I’m sure it’s some inane marketing thing.  Probably something along the lines of “we need to make it look shiny and new!”  It’s not bad, though, and only takes a few moments to re-acquaint yourself with the basic functions.

One significant change is the function of the front and back history buttons.  In previous versions you could click towards the bottom of the button and get a history of the pages forward or back in your history, relevant to the button you pressed.  They have combined this into a single button now, with a small dot identifying where in the history you are.  Back history expands to the bottom of the list while forward history moves up.  It’s a little hard to explain in words, but it’s not that difficult in action.

Next up is the download manager.  They revamped the entire download manager, making it look quite different.  Gone is the global “Clear History” button, in is the new “Search” box.  It seems that one of the themes of this release is that history is important, so they added features to allow you to quickly find relevant information.  But fear not, you can still clear the list by right clicking and choosing clear list.  It’s just not as apparent as it used to be.  In addition, you can continue downloads that were interrupted by network problems, or even by closing the browser.

Some of the pop-ups have been reduced as well.  For instance, when new passwords are entered, instead of getting a popup on the screen asking if you want to save the username and password, a bar appears at the top of the page.  This is a bit more fluid, not interrupting the browsing experience as it did in the past.

Many of the dialogs related to security have been re-vamped in an attempt to make them more clear for non-technical users.  For instance, when encountering an invalid SSL certificate, Firefox now displays something like this :

Other warnings have been added as well.  Firefox now attempts to protect you from malware and web forgeries.  In additions, the browser now handles Extended Validation SSL certificates, displaying the name of the company in green on the location bar.  Clicking on the icon to the left of the URL provides a small popup with additional information about your connection to the remote website.

A plugin manager has been added, allowing the user to disable individual plugins.  This is a very welcome addition to the browser.

The bookmark manager has been updated as well.  In addition to placing bookmarks in folders, users can now add tags.  Using the bookmark sidebar, users can quickly search by tag, locating bookmarks that are in multiple folders.  Smart bookmarks show the most recently used bookmarks, as well as the most recently bookmarked sites and tags.

The location bar has been updated as well.  As you type in the location bar, Firefox automatically searches through your bookmarks, tags, and history, displaying the results.  Results are sorted by both frequency of visits, as well as how recent your last visit was.  For users who clear their history on a regular basis, this makes the location bar much more useful.

Behind the scenes there have been a number of welcome changes.  The most noticeable change is speed.  Beta 4 is insanely fast compared to previous versions.  In fact, it seems to be significantly faster than Internet Explorer, Opera, and others!  And, as an added bonus, it seems to use less memory as well.  Ars Technica did some testing to this effect and came out with some surprising results.

Mozilla attributes both the speed increase to improvements in the JavaScript engine, as well as profile-guided optimizations.  In short, they used profiling tools to identify bottlenecks in the code and fix them.  The reduction in memory is attributed to new allocators and collectors, as well as a reduction in leaky code.

Firefox 3 was built on top of the updated Gecko 1.9 engine.  The Gecko engine is responsible for the actual layout of the page on the screen.  It supports the various web standards such as CSS, HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, and more.  As the Gecko engine has evolved, it has gained additional capabilities, as well as performance.  In fact, using this new engine, Firefox now passes the coveted Acid 2 test.

Overall, the latest beta feels quite stable and I’ve begun using it on a daily basis.  It is definitely faster than previous releases.  I definitely recommend checking it out.  On a Windows machine, it will install separately from your primary Firefox installation.  It imports all of your bookmarks and settings after you install it, so there is no danger of losing anything from your primary install.  Just be aware that there is no current guarantee that any new bookmarks, changes, add-ons, etc. will be imported into the final installation.  Many add-ons are still non-functional, though there are plenty more that work fine.

Best of luck!

A new hairpiece for Mozilla?

Back in October I wrote about a new technology from Mozilla Labs called Prism.  Since then, the team at Mozilla has been working on some newer technology.

First up is something called Personas.  Personas is a neat little extension that lets you modify the Firefox theme on the fly.  You are presented with a small menu, accessible via an icon on the status bar.  From the menu, you can choose from a number of different “themes” that will change the design of the default Firefox theme.

Overall, personas is just a neat little extension with no real purpose other than breaking up the monotony.  You can set it to randomly select a persona, which will cause the persona to change for each instance of the browser.  More options are definitely needed, such as a custom list of personas to choose from, but it’s a decent start.

More interesting, however, is the second technology I’d like to present.  Dubbed Weave, this technology is a bit more on-par with what I’ve been looking forward to for years.  Weave presents the user with a way to record their individual user settings, store them on a remote server, and sync them up with any other installation of Firefox.  In fact, Weave aims to allow the user to sync their preferences with other third-party applications, such as social networks and browsers.

To be honest, I have no real interest whatsoever in social networks.  I avoid MySpace like the plague, and I haven’t bothered to look into Facebook at all.  My on-line collaboration, thus far, has been mostly through traditional means, Instant Message, E-Mail, and the Web.  In fact, I’m not sure any of my online activities fall into the so-called “Social” category.  So, my interest here lies merely in the distribution of my personal metadata between applications that I access.  I would love to be able to “log in” to any computer and immediately download my browser settings, bookmarks, and maybe even my browsing history.  Having all of that information in one central location that can be accessed whenever I need it is a wonderful thought.

I currently use the Bookmark Sync and Sort extension which allows me to upload my bookmarks to my own personal server and synchronize them with other installations of Firefox.  Other such extensions exist to allow you to sync with Google, Foxmarks, and more, but I prefer to have complete control over my data, rather than placing it on a third-party server.

Weave promises to be an open framework for metadata handling, or services integration.  The offer the following view of the process (click for larger image) :

In essence, you access your metadata via a web browser, phone, or some other third-party application.  That application, being Weave-aware, allows you to view and manipulate your metadata.  You can choose to make some of your data available to outside users, such as friends and family, or even make it completely open to the world.  At the same time, any new metadata you create is automatically synchronized with the central servers, updating it instantly wherever you access it.

Weave looks to be a pretty exciting project, one I plan on keeping an eye on.

AIR, and a Prism

Web 2.0 is upon us, and with it comes new technologies determined to integrate it with our daily activities.  Thus far, interacting with the web has been through the use of a web browser such as Firefox, Opera, or Internet Explorer.  But, times are changing…

 

Let’s take a peek at two new technologies that are poised to change the web world and truly integrate web-based applications with traditional desktop applications.

 

First up is Adobe AIR, formerly known as Apollo.  According to Adobe :

Adobe® AIR lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

In a nutshell, it brings web-based content directly into standalone applications.  In other words, developers can write a complete web-based application and distribute it as a downloadable application.  It’s a pretty neat concept as it allows you access to the standard UI elements of a desktop application, while allowing you to use standard web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript.

It’s cross-platform, like Java, so you can build a small distributable application without needing to distribute the framework as well.  It also supports offline use.  In other words, you can interact with web-based applications, while not connected to the Internet.  There are limitations, of course, but all of your interactions are queued up and synchronized with the online portion of the application the next time you connect.

It looks like a pretty cool technology.  Time will tell if it takes off or not.  One drawback, depending on who you are, is that this is not an open-source solution.  This is an Adobe product and with that comes all of the Adobe licensing.

 

The other new technology is Mozilla Lab’s Prism.  Prism is similar to AIR in that it strives to create desktop-based applications using web technologies, but so far, it’s doing it in a manner opposite to that of AIR.  Prism allows you to encapsulate on-line content into a simple desktop application, minus any of the fancy UI elements associated with the Firefox web browser.  The result is a fast web-based application running in a normal desktop window.

It doesn’t sound like much now, but it has potential.  Mozilla has plans to add new functionality to the web to allow for offline data storage, 3D graphics, and more.  So, instead of extending the capabilities of Prism, Mozilla wants to extend the capabilities of the web.

So why the different approach?  Well, with AIR, if you are away from your computer for some reason, you may not be able to access the same content you normally would.  AIR may not be installed on the new machine, and you may not have permission to install it.  You can likely access the web-based version of the application you were using, but you may end up with limited functionality.

Prism, on the other hand, allows you to use web applications as if they were desktop applications.  But, at the end of the day, it’s still a web application.  So, if you find yourself on someone else’s machine, without Prism, a simple web browser will do.

 

Both technologies clearly have advantages and only time will tell if either, or both, survive.  It’s a strange, new world, and I’m excited….

Firefox 2.0

The latest incarnation of the Firefox browser is nearing release. Version 2.0 brings with it a smattering of nifty features as well as an updated UI and enhanced add-on handling.

I’m particularly fond of the built-in spell checker which comes in really handy. It works in a fashion similar to how the spell checker in MS Office and Openoffice works. Each misspelled work is underlined in red. When you right click on the underlined word, Firefox pops up a list of suggestions. You can choose one of the suggested replacements, or add the word to your dictionary. The spell checker only checks text boxes by default, but you can right click on any text entry field to force a spell check.

The new UI places a close icon on each tab, allowing you to close a tab in a rapid fashion. I can see this causing slight problems with people that are too quick to click as it doesn’t prompt you to close the tab. If you have a large number of tabs open, it begins to suppress the close button on all but the current tab. There is also a drop down on the far right side of the tab bar that shows you all of the open tabs in a list, allowing you to read the full title before jumping to the tab you need.

Firefox now defaults to opening all links in new tabs instead of new windows. I prefer this behavior to simply opening new windows. In addition, the popup blocker has apparently been enhanced. Since installing 2.0, I have not seen a single popup.

The default search bar now supports suggestions. As you type, the search engine you have chosen will offer suggestions for search terms, helping you find the information you want. This is the same technology that Google uses for Google Suggest. The new search engine manager allows you to add in additional search engines as well.

Overall, I think this is a real positive step in Firefox’s evolution. You should check it out, it’s a really great browser!