NoteMe

IE 7 addons anyone?:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 25.04.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I read earlier today that Internet Explorer is a dead albatross . But I am not so sure about that. First of all. Microsoft don`t tend to lose battles like this. Second of all, they have been a bit on their heels before, but managed to hit back. Just think about the Netscape era.

And I am affraid it will be like that this time too. Too many are not willing to put in enough effort to understand that there are alternatives. I have several friends and Ex Girl Friends that think Internet Explorer is the same as the internet, and don`t understand that it is just a tool to help you get online.

But there is still people who is hoping that Firefox will overtake IE in relative short time . But we can`t forget that IE is soon out in a new version. And this time they are better prepared. Well it is maybe a few more lines of code they need to beat other popular browsers both in compability and usability, but they are getting close.

But one of the things Firefox for example have been really good at lately is to build up a user group. And especially by letting their fans build extensions and themes for the popular browser. But this time IE will try to do the same. They just released the new add-On page for IE 7. By first climps it looks very promissing. But we just have to see if the IE fans will be just as creative as the Firefox fans are when it comes writing up small usefull add-ons.

When I am first on about browsers. I can also congratulate Opera with finaly comming out with a public beta of Opera. Their first Opera version that will pass the Acid 2 test.
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Small update + bug fixes:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 06.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
Finaly I found some time to do the bug fixes people have reported to me since last update. I think I got them all. But please tell me if I didn`t or if I added aditionaly bugs to it. I`ll try to be faster next time to fix them.

So you can just update the extension my pressing update button in the extension window, or just simply wait untill Firefox tell you new updates are ready to be installed.

If you don`t already have the great extension and you do post quite a bit on vBulletin forums, then I suggest that you try it out for your self. And all feedback is welcome. And everyone that wants to help out making this an even better extension are also welcome.
Comments 2

Firefox extension tool:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 31.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I have for a long time wanted to do this. And now I have done it. In the simplest way possible, but at least done it. Made a small tool to pack up and unpack the extension I have been working on for a while now. It has been a lot of packing and un packing, and finaly it can be done automaticaly with a pack script and an unpack script.

At the moment it only works on Linux machines with ZIP, and Python installed. And I am not going to change that for a while I think, since I am only using Linux to develop the extension. And at the moment some of the names are hardcoded for the files, so right out of the box it will only work for this extension. But it should be easy to change the names like vbf.jar to something that you use, and vbf.xpi to what your extension is called. And if you have any problems using it, then please just give me a wink.

If you just want to have a look at the code, here is the pack script: 

Python code:


#!/usr/bin/python



import os

import sys 





os.chdir("chrome/")



os.system("zip -r vbf.jar *")

os.system("mv vbf.jar ../")

os.system("rm -r *")

os.system("mv ../vbf.jar .")



os.chdir("..")



os.system("zip vbf.xpi -r chrome install.rdf")

os.system("rm ./install.rdf")

os.system("rm -r ./chrome")



And here you have the unpack script. 

Python code:


#!/usr/bin/python



import os

import sys 





os.system("unzip ./vbf.xpi")

os.system("rm ./vbf.xpi")



os.chdir("chrome/")



os.system("unzip vbf.jar")

os.system("rm vbf.jar")




How you use them:
Unpack: Leave the vbf.xpi file in the same folder as the unpack script, run the script and it is unpacked.
Pack: Leave the script in the same folder as the "chrome" folder and the "install.rdf" file, and run it. And it is packed again.

Enjoy. And please give me feedback if you need any help what so ever to use it. And just as a note, from the next version of the vBulleting extension these scripts will be in the vbf.xpi file.

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vBulletin Fx Extension:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 16.01.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
And here it is. A new version of our extension is up, and with it a brand new web page. The extension really deserved a better web page now as it is number on on MSNSearch.com if you search on "fx extension". The new design is simple, and should be easy to navigate.
The extension it self don't have any new features. Some code clean up has been done, and smilies are now moved to this web server. This is the first of a few small steps that I am thinking about doing before we might try to get our extension up and running on the official Firefox extension home page.
I have also tested the ability to port the extension so it can be used in Flock. At the current time we don't provide that version. Since it ended up a bit buggy and slow. But I also hope that we can get it up and running in Flock in a short while. But for now, only Firefox and Camino users can use it. So hang in there in the mean time.
Comments 2
NoteMe - Øyvind Østlund