skip to content

DerekAllard.com : CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, and the World of Web Design

Browser Stats for DerekAllard.com for March 2007

March 07th, 2007

Are you reading this page in Internet Explorer 6?  For shame...

I’ve never thought that my site attracted an “average” interweb visitor.  I mean, we talk about boring things like accessibility, frameworks, scripting… the kind of things that makes Joanne roll her eyes if I even think about getting started*.  In short, my readers tend to be web-savvy, standards-aware and generally pretty technically “hip”, so it doesn’t surprise me in the least that most of you would choose to surf in something besides Internet Explorer.

Sage Vulnerability Reported

February 09th, 2007

As if you needed a reason to stay up to date, but its worth noting that a validation error in the processing of certain tags has been reported in the Sage RSS reader extension for Firefox.  This can be exploited to insert and execute arbitrary HTML and script code in a local context by tricking a user into adding a malicious feed and then viewing its contents.

I’ve recommended Sage in the past, and fortunately this was fixed some time ago in Sage 1.3.10, so run your updates.

Quick Link: Tab Effect for Firefox

January 11th, 2007

One of the more innovative things I’ve seen lately for Firefox is the Tab Effect Extension. It adds an interesting transition between tabs reminiscent of how Suse handles desktop transitions.

tab effect extension for Firefox

I’ve got to admit it does look sexy, but after living with it for 5 minutes, I’ve already removed it. The authors should be commended for creating this wonderful extension, but to me this is a clear case of eye-candy getting in the way of practicality.

Conditionally Sticky Sidebar

December 07th, 2006

If you use pretty much any browser except IE 6 (more on that later) when you visit this site, you've probably noticed that the dark-grey sidebar scrolls with you just until the banner and menu are off the page, and then locks itself into position or "sticks". When you scroll back to the top, if the menu and/or banner need to be seen again, the sidebar politely resumes its normal scrolling duties. Go ahead, try it now, I'll wait. Fun isn't it? I've had a number of people comment on that, so I thought I would outline how I accomplished it.

Quick Link: Firebug 1.0 is out in beta

December 04th, 2006

One of my favourite Firefox extensions has just released a new version. Firebug announced today that the 1.0 version is out now in beta, and even more importantly, has been released under the same open source license as Firefox itself. From the site: Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Fancy-pants DOM features abound, and the usual AJAX debugging goodness is in there. Thanks go to Joe Hewitt.

Firefox 2 tabs - Hate em…

November 04th, 2006

I don’t like the way Firefox 2 handles closing tabs. Here’s how I fixed my Firefox to get back to the behaviour I wanted.

Tamper Data for Fun and Security

November 04th, 2006

I can’t believe I just discovered this now. The Tamper Data extension for Firefox.

TamperData is an extension to track and modify http/https requests. It is great for security testing and just in general trying to break your applications. In fact, if breaking is what you want to do, check out the pre-packaged built in SQL Injections, Cross Site Scripting (XXS) vulnerabilities and other goodies.

Quick Link: Firefox 2 is out

October 24th, 2006

Get it now. http://www.mozilla.com/

Good God I hate the new location of the tab closing button.

Quick Link: Internet Explorer 7 is out

October 18th, 2006

Get it while it’s steaming…

IE homepage.

RSS in Firefox

May 26th, 2006

Do you use RSS? Really Simple Syndication is a super convenient way of tracking your favourite news and general "goings on".

When Internet Explorer releases version 7 later this year it will include the ability to read RSS… but if you want to be one of the cool kids, you can enjoy the benefits now with Firefox. Need a quick primer on RSS? Here's a great resource.

Firefox can take advantage of RSS in 2 ways.

 <  1 2 3 >

Derek Allard

I'm Derek Allard, a programmer, author, and award-winning instructor. I'm also a Technology Architect at EllisLab, and the programmer behind BambooInvoice, a simple, Open Source, web-based invoicing application. [ more about Derek ]

Recent Archives

Categories