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Nov 18

CyberNotes: Top 10 Wikipedia Themes for Stylish Users

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on August 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

According to Alexa Wikipedia is the 7th most visited site in the world only to follow behind companies like Google and Yahoo. Seeing that they receive millions of visitors each day it should come as no surprise that people would use the tools at hand to make their own customized layouts and designs for the site.

Below we’ve listed out our top 10 Wikipedia themes that are specifically designed for Firefox users who have the Stylish extension installed. We’ve tested out each of the styles to make sure they work as advertised, and for each of the screenshots the Firefox Wikipedia page was used. That way you’re able to quickly compare one style to another in order to determine which one you like best. When all is said and done we’ll tell you what our three favorites are (one from each category).

Here’s a quick look at what the Wikipedia page looks like before any modifications have been made.

Note: Click on any of the screenshots to see a larger version.

–Dark Themes–

If you like dark skins here are four Wikipedia themes that you’ll definitely want to consider.

DeepPurple – The skin doesn’t use an overwhelming amount of purple, but what I like about this is that the hyperlinks are still easy to read.
Dark Grey – Instead of just having a solid black background this one has a smooth gradient that gives the interface a more streamlined feel. It’d be nice if it still used the standard Wikipedia icon, but if you know how to edit the script that can easily be changed.
Dark Blue – If you’re looking for a dark theme but aren’t fond of the black/grey then this might be a better fit. You’ve just gotta love blue in order to like this skin.
SKYY – This is almost like the purple skin mentioned above, but instead of using purple in some places it uses a greenish color.

–Minimalist Themes–

The minimalist themes focus solely on displaying the content for reading purposes, and aren’t designed for editing Wikipedia articles. They ensure that you get the most out of the space available in your browser window.

Minimalist – This is about as simple as it gets. Everything is removed including the sidebar, tabs along the top, and even the big “summary” typically shown along the right side of the article.
Simple Research – Hands down one of the best looking skins right here. It removes the sidebar, makes the content area fixed-width, throws in some nice rounded corners, and uses all the right colors to make it easy on the eyes. Plus it still includes a small search box in the upper-left corner
No Sidebar – All this pretty much does is remove the sidebar, and then place an oversized search box at the top. All other default Wikipedia color schemes and styles are kept in tact.
Clean & Compact – If you’re looking for a skin that makes the most of the space available this would surely be it. The sidebar is removed, but the search box is placed in the upper-right corner. You’ll also notice that the table of contents no longer pushes the content down further on the page, and it is instead aligned to the left of the first section.

–Other Themes–

These remaining themes modify the appearance of Wikipedia while leaving all of its functionality in tact.

Modifications – For the most part this skin leaves the site untouched, but does a few things such as round the corners on tabs and also on the various sections in the sidebar.
Grey Lady – By far the most formal looking theme available for Wikipedia. Everything looks and feels as though you’re reading an article on a professionally written site.

–Overview–

It’s definitely awesome the work some of these developers have put into modifying the appearance of Wikipedia. Here are my favorites from each of the categories:

Dark Themes: Dark Grey
Minimalist Themes: Simple Research
Other Themes: Grey Lady

Let us know in the comments which themes you like the best!

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Nov 18

Firefox 1.5 to 2.0 Upgrades to Start Rolling Out Today

Posted in: Apple, Freeware, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Mozilla finally plans on unleashing the Firefox 2 upgrade onto all Firefox 1.5.0.12 users. Starting later today, and continuing for the first few weeks, the upgrade will only be available for those people using 1.5.0.12 that are also on the "beta" channel. When the update pops up it will look something like this:

Firefox 1.5 Update to 2.0

As you can see when I was testing it I had extensions installed that were not compatible with Firefox 2. I did that on purpose because I wanted to see if it would notify the user before proceeding with the upgrade. Here is what happens during the rest of the upgrade process:

If a user selects â€œLaterâ€, they will be prompted again in approximately 24 hours.
If a user selects â€œNeverâ€, they are opting to skip this offer to upgrade and will not be prompted again for this particular release (2.0.0.4). If Mozilla decides to offer a 1.5.0.12 to 2.0.0.5 major upgrade, the user will be prompted again with that new offer.
If a user selects â€œGet the new versionâ€, they will be asked to accept the revised End User License Agreement (EULA) for Firefox 2 in order to proceed with the upgrade. The major update will then be downloaded and the browser restarted with Firefox 2.0.0.4 as the current version.

I’m really excited to see that this is finally happening after Mozilla stated that nearly 40% of their users had not upgraded to Firefox 2. That number astounded me because I expected it to be in the 10% to 15% range, but I was obviously pretty far off. Of course I also think that Mozilla should have been pushing users to upgrade several months ago, instead of 7-months after-the-fact.

Source: Mozilla Developer News

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Nov 18

Mozilla Firefox Add-ons Page Gets A Nice Facelift

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on October 24, 2006 by CyberNet.

I just went to see what Firefox extensions had been updated today and noticed that the Firefox Add-ons page received a drastic redesign. I think this confirms my thought that Mozilla will be providing a refreshed Firefox homepage when they launch it.

I think the new design adopts the Web 2.0 theme that can be found all over the Internet, but I actually prefer the old look a little more. I don’t completely understand the motorcycle located in the header but it does look like there’s a Firefox logo on the seat. Now I’m curious what is going to happen with the Firefox homepage. Maybe we’ll get some pink ponies?

What does everyone else think of the new design?

Yahoo MyWeb Get’s A Facelift

Firefox 1.5.0.3 To Be Released Very Soon?

Mozilla Officially Releases Firefox 2 Beta 2

Firefox 1.5.0.3 Candidate Builds Now Available On Mozilla FTP

Nov 17

Mozilla Starts Brainstorming Features For Firefox 3 And Beyond

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 13, 2006 by CyberNet.

Mozilla has started a wiki page that is designed to brainstorm features that people would love for Firefox to have. Right now the list is very long so only a small amount of the recommended features would be able to make it into the Firefox 3 release. I’m still in the process of reading through them all but here are a few that I thought were good ideas:

Floating toolbars: Allow the user to pull all toolbars off the top of the window and create a floating toolbar. These floating bars could be overlapped, tiled, etc to save screen real-estate.
Optional IE theme
Drag tabs between windows
Shading of tabs denoting time since it started: On the scale of white to black, white is more recent than black.
Allow relative opening of tabs: Child tabs open next to parent tab and not at the end of tab bar.
Page change notification: Enable a system where the browser can check if a page has changed, without relying on Web feeds (any bookmark can be “live”).
P2P support
Improved file type handling: always download specific filetypes to a set of default or user-specified folders (defaults: Audio, Video, Images, Zipped, Executable, etc.).
Improve profile/user management and switching
Password-protected user profiles
Offer to install extension packs while installing
Private browsing: Implement a “private browsing” mode that prevents collection and recording of data.
Ability to resize textareas
Improve FTP support
Be the fastest browser on the market, not only on “fat” desktops, but also on bargain desktops with only 256MB of RAM.

Those are the few things that really stood out. Surprisingly, someone mentioned a “River of News” feed reading option but no one really said anything about having a full feed reader built-in. That is probably one of my highest requests for Firefox and hopefully when they do get around to it they make it similar to what Flock has to offer.

I think all browser developers should be looking at this list because it is a real eye opener as to what people really want. It really reminds me of a few months ago when I put together an article on what features the perfect web browser would have. While my list is no where near the extent that Mozilla has it still points how which browsers implement certain features the best.

A Look Back at Firefox in 2006

Firefox 2 Is Now *Officially* Released And Has A Redesigned Homepage

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5 Candidate Builds Available

That Firefox 3 Bug "Rumor"

Nov 17

Firefox 3 Tab Switcher

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 08, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the things that Alex Faaborg presented back in July was a mockup of what a cool tab switching (Ctrl+Tab) interface would look like in a browser. As it stands right now no versions of Firefox have an advanced interface for switching between tabs, but that could become a thing of the past.

Mozilla Links noticed that work has already begun on Ctrl+Tab replacement system for Firefox, and it might make its way into the final release of Firefox 3. The great thing is that a preview is currently available as an extension which can be installed on any pre-release version of Firefox 3.

Once you get it up and running you’ll notice that pressing Ctrl+Tab on the keyboard presents you with a slick looking interface that has a thumbnail image for each of your open tabs:

Click to Enlarge

It doesn’t stop there though. The drop-down menu on the tab bar has changed it’s appearance. Clicking on it will bring up a visual display of all your open tabs, and you can use the Filter box to quickly find a site according to its title:

Click to Enlarge

Don’t get your hopes up if you want to see this in Firefox 3. It seems a bit late in the game to throw such a big feature in for the first time, but as long as it is offered as an extension I don’t mind. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

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Nov 14

Firefox Mobile Progress Update

Posted in: Freeware, mobile, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 14, 2008 by CyberNet.

It was almost one year ago that we first got a glimpse of what Firefox Mobile looked like running on the Nokia N800. Then in January we saw some mockups of what their iPhone-like interface might look like for other devices, and even more recently we saw a video demonstration that knocked our socks off with an intuitive tab navigation system.

Where’s the project at now? The version that runs on the N800 is making some steady progress. As it stands the first Alpha release, codenamed Fennec, should be available in the next month or two. At that time they’ll have the basic functionality included, but the fancy things we saw in the latest video demonstration are nowhere to be found. According to Mark Finkle, Mozilla’s Platform Evangelist, those things are to come:

We have been focusing on some of the underlying, platform work. The UI changes will come in future releases to be sure.

The latest version, Milestone 6, is available for Nokia N8x0 owners to test out. Here is a snapshot of what it looks like:

firefox mobile-1.jpg

A Windows Mobile version of Fennec isn’t a top priority on their list, but it is expected to debut at some point. There’s no mention as to whether other phones, such as the Blackberry, will also be considered for development.

Keep an eye out for the next milestone because that’s when some of the interface updates are supposed to land. According to this page on the Mozilla Wiki the end result should look something like this:

Recent Fennec Mockups (Click to Enlarge)

We’ll definitely be watching close as new versions are released, and will keep you posted of anything interesting that we find. In the meantime any of the Nokia N8x0 owners out there should take the new release for a whirl and let us know how it is. I’ve read a few reports of it not being too stable, but no one is giving up hope this early.

[via Mozilla Developer Center]

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Nov 13

Tweaking Firefox To Load Pages Faster

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 15, 2006 by CyberNet.

Everyone looks for ways that they can speed up their Web browsers using simple tweaks. Whether you are new to Firefox or are an advanced user this tweak is something everyone is able to do. The value that you enter in below, which I recommend entering “0″, will determine how long the browser will wait before it will start using the information it receives. By setting the value to “0″ the browser processes the information or Web Site immediately.

Here are the few steps you need to take to do this tweak:

Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
Right Click in the page and select New -> Integer.
In the box that pops up enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay and then press Enter.
Now enter in a value of 0 and then press Enter.
Restart Firefox.

That was painless now wasn’t it? I noticed that some pages would load faster after doing the tweak…YAY!

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Nov 10

Portable Firefox 1.5.0.5 And 2.0 Beta 1 Get New Features

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 28, 2006 by CyberNet.

John Haller from PortableApps.com has finally released Firefox 1.5.0.5 and 2.0 Beta 1 with some snazzy new features. Here is what he has to say about the what’s new:

Live/CD Support – Firefox Portable supports running from a CD or other read-only media right out of the box. You just need change one setting to do it, too. Best of all, Firefox Portable will even detect if you’re running from a read-only location and offer to run locally, which is handy if you have a write-protection switch on your flash drive or memory card. Full details are in the support topic on Running from a CD.
In-Place Upgrades – Firefox Portable now supports the ability to do what we’re calling an “in-place upgrade”. This means that you can extract it right over an existing installation of Firefox Portable without losing any of your existing data and it’ll Just Work. This will apply to future releases of Firefox Portable as you’ll still need to manually update due to the directory changes.
Partial Upgrade Support Fixed – Firefox Portable now fully supports the ability to use Firefox’s partial upgrades. No changes are needed. Firefox Portable will automatically let you know when an update is available and let you choose when you’d like to install it. This is important, since some flash drives can be very slow, taking several minutes to update. Just be sure you have at least 40mb free on your drive when you do an update, since Firefox’s update process doesn’t yet check for low disk space.
Wine Support in Linux/Debian/Unix – Firefox Portable now supports the ability to download, install and run within Wine. That means you can run it right within your *nix of choice without any changes. You can even copy things like your bookmarks and cookies back and forth to your local copy of Firefox.

It is great that Portable Firefox (now renamed to Firefox Portable) will be able to download and install the partial updates which makes upgrades a little quicker. Also, one of the coolest features in my opinion is that it can run with Wine which should make some of the Linux fans happy.

Download Portable Firefox 1.5.0.5
Download Portable Firefox 2.0 Beta 1
Download Portable Firefox 1.0.8

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Nov 07

Firefox Extension Moderators Overloaded

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

firefox extension.jpg You’re probably aware of how the Firefox add-on system works by now, but we’ll give a quick recap. Over a year ago Mozilla decided that they needed to add a middle-man to the extension publishing process so that they could ensure that only the quality extensions made it onto the add-ons site. This seemed like the right move since users generally trust the content found on Mozilla’s site, but it has become a sore spot for those who are creating the extensions and themes.

A few weeks ago we released our first extension, CyberSearch, and since then it has received over 3,400 downloads. A few days after its release I decided to put it up for public nomination, which (if accepted) means that it can be downloaded from the add-ons site without needing a username and password. Our extension is currently sitting with 24 reviews (4.40 out of 5.00 stars), and has over 3,700 daily users. So the other day I was wondering why it hadn’t made its way out of the sandbox.

I started searching around, and that’s when I came across this thread in a Mozilla forum. Apparently I wasn’t the only one wondering what was going on. So what’s the hold up? Not enough extension editors/moderators, period. The release of Firefox 3 caused an onslaught of new/updated extensions to get submitted to the site, and they just can’t keep up with the vast quantity of submissions. As of yesterday there were 215 extension updates waiting to get published, and another 461 extensions like ours that are waiting to make their way out of the sandbox.

If you’ve got some spare time you should consider becoming an extension editor yourself. I’m just hoping that this kind of thing doesn’t discourage developers from creating new add-ons for the browser.

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Nov 07

Firefox 3 Themes for XP & Vista

Posted in: Firefox 3, Freeware, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

Firefox 3 Windows Theme

Last week we kept you up-to-date on Mozilla’s progress for the Firefox 3 theme on both the Linux and Mac OS X platforms. Today we finally have a glimpse of what both XP and Vista will look like once the new icons are integrated into the browser. The mockups are posted above with the icons straight from the Iconfactory:

I had been curious how the “keyhole” back/forward button design would actually look, but I think it fits in quite well on both operating systems. I’m still a little skeptical about the green buttons on XP, but it’s hard to judge when you aren’t looking at the overall browser.

You can expect to see the new icons integrated into the nightly builds soon. I’m sure you’re wondering what some of the other ones look like, and so I present you with the main set of icons in their various states:

Note: I believe the order from top to bottom is: normal, hovering, disabled, and clicking on the icon.

Firefox 3 Windows Icons

Firefox 2.0 Themes – presented by Learn Firefox

Easily Compare The Different Windows Vista Themes

Vista Themes For Linux

Themes For Your iPod – Make It Look Like Firefox

Hasta La Gadget!