» 2005 » July » 16 Blue Sky On Mars

I’ve been using the Deer Park alpha (Firefox 1.1 alpha) for a few days now. So far, it’s been very stable and very fast. It also includes a couple of regular annoyances with Firefox 1.0… those things that don’t really stop you from doing what you want, but annoy you every time you hit it (which is frequently).

1. When you open a link from an external program (like Mail), it now opens in a new tab rather than replacing the contents of your topmost browser window.
2. You can middle-click to open a link in a new tab, which something I do *a lot*. Opening a link in a new tab is part of my normal reading flow with Zesty News.

I’d highly recommend Deer Park for other Mac users. The only drawback I’ve seen is that some extensions have not yet been updated for Deer Park. Don’t worry, though… the Web Developer extension is there!

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July 16, 2005

Harry Potter – the weekend’s biggest entertainment

by Kevin Dangoor

Two years ago, I wrote about how Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’s $90 million haul was bigger than that of Hollywood’s biggest movie of the week. With reports of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince selling through more than 10 million copies *today*, this book is debuting bigger than any movie has ever debuted. If Amazon’s $17 price is at all representative, that means that Half-Blood Prince will have a $170 million day.

Oh, and if the spolier Stallman posted a couple days ago turns out to be accurate, this is going to be a helluva story.

July 16, 2005

Shortcut to Stronger Writing

by Kevin Dangoor

Sci-Fi author C.J. Cherryh offers tips on improving your writing. With so many people writing so many blogs, good writing tips are a welcome thing. Many blogs use “conversational” writing… but, if you’re interested in the tips, here they are: Writerisms and other Sins: A Writer’s Shortcut to Stronger Writing.

July 16, 2005

Personal offshoring

by Kevin Dangoor

For a large software development project, the risks of offshoring development can potentially be huge. For small, specific parts of a project, farming that piece out to someone else can be fairly low risk. This can also apply to very small project, like one you might want done yourself. Ben Hammersley gives a tiny taste of personal offshoring. The internet really does change things.