Where it’s at

Five posts since April. It’s not as though I haven’t been busy, though the cobwebs and ne’er-do-wells sleeping in the doorway of this joint might make you think otherwise.

This isn’t one of those grandiose “return to form” posts that some people do after an incredibly long absence. I’m not going to dazzle you with months of pent up brilliance and wisdom, nor am I going to pontificate on some wildly personal jibber-jabber (thanks Frank, for bringing the jibber back).

This is more of a virtual clearing of the throat.

«ahem»

For those of you who have been patiently waiting for optimized Firefox builds, some good and bad news. The good news is I’m still planning to build and release some optimized builds, and I now have access to a G4 machine so hopefully G4 builds should make a reappearance around these parts soon.

The bad news is I upgraded all of my home machines to OS X 10.5, and wouldn’t you know it, the Firefox 2.x branch doesn’t build on OS X 10.5 without patching. I’ve managed to successfully build Firefox 2.0.11 but it crashes on launch. So it may be a little while before updated builds are available.

In the meantime, I’m working on writing down a step-by-step “how to build optimized versions of Firefox” for your incredibly geeky enjoyment. It should be up before the holidays are completely upon us, assuming I manage to eke out enough sleep to remain semi-human.

Speaking of which, if anyone has any tips on getting a six-month old baby to stop waking up every two hours at night I’d sure be thankful.

C’est tout.

Another month, another minuscule Firefox update with the minuscule version number is released. Firefox 2.0.0.8 is now available and I have put together Intel Mac optimized builds, available below.

(It’s sad that I can just update the version number in the above paragraph every time a new 2.x release comes out and it’s still completely valid. O Firefox 3, where art thou?)

Please do not email me bugging me for G4 builds as I just don’t have the time right now. I barely have nerd time for my newsreader, never mind building custom versions of a web browser for a CPU I don’t even use.

You can still download the G4 build of 2.0.0.3 here.

Here’s what’s new in 2.0.0.8 according to the Mozilla change notes:

• Security fixes
• Support for Mac OS X 10.5 (aka “Launching Next Friday!”)

That’s it!

Download

Intel Mac-optimized Firefox 2.0.0.8

• w/ Firefoxy form widgets
• w/ aqua form widgets

G5-optimized Firefox 2.0.0.7 (thanks to the hard work of Stephen Saunders)

• w/ aqua form widgets

Why is the name / icon different?

I really shouldn’t have to keep repeating this, but every time I post a new Firefox release I still seem to get people annoyed / pissed off / confused as to why these builds are missing the Firefox name and icon. So here comes the strong emphasis:

The Firefox name and icon are trademarked and cannot be used with non-official builds. These are non-official builds, so they cannot have the official branding. Pretty straight-forward. Please don’t ask me to build versions with the official branding.

As always, feel free to post your thoughts / experiences / etc. in the comments. Enjoy!

Seeing how it’s all about the quick fixes these days (with the bulk of my time taken up with more pleasant pursuits), I wanted to take a minute to spew out some random nerd potpourri.

To iPhone, or not to iPhone

I got a chance this afternoon to finally play around a bit with an iPhone, and from the brief time that I had to play with it I was very impressed. I think one thing that was really striking is how familiar the whole interface felt even though the only exposure I’ve had to its UI was via online video and some photos. Within seconds of getting my greasy, greedy fingers on it I was happily pinching and flipping and scrolling around like there was no tomorrow.

Seeing how no one has (yet) unlocked the iPhone to work on any non-AT&T GSM networks, I have to try and determine if it’s a worthwhile risk to buy one and use it solely as a WiFi-enabled iPod. One big plus is Toronto Hydro’s OneZone, which has adequate enough coverage that it could work fairly well as a replacement for Roger’s stupidly expensive EDGE network. It’s only $29 a month for unlimited access, too, so it’s not an expensive option.

The one concern I have with buying one now is the possibility that Apple may not be able to prod Rogers (Canada’s sole GSM provider) to loosen their grip on their bandwidth charges, Right now with Rogers for $5 a month extra you get a measly 5mbs of data transfer. The double kick in the balls is:

1. This is only WAP data - HTML pages are charged at 0.05 per kilobyte. This means that downloading the HTML version of the Globe and Mail’s front page (weighing in at 1.14mbs total) would cost me 58 dollars if my math is correct.
2. This is only a limited list of “mobile internet partners” — any WAP site not on this list is charged at the 0.05 per kb rate.

With AT&T offering unlimited data for all of their plans, Rogers’ price gouging is just fucking ridiculous.

So my concern is that Apple may end up giving Rogers a big middle finger and go with one of the CDMA providers (Bell Mobility, Telus, etc.) instead. Yes, there isn’t a CDMA iPhone yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. This would leave any early Canadian adopters who purchased one of the GSM iPhones hoping for an eventual Rogers / Apple deal cellular-less and sad-faced.

Sure, this is all conjecture at this point. Who knows, maybe Rogers might actually capitulate to Apple and completely revamp their data pricing. If I do end up buying an iPhone now I will definitely have to hope so, less I end up with a very expensive WiFi iPod with a useless phone feature.

Quicksilver tip: Assign quick keys based on the current application

I love the fact that I’ve been using Quicksilver nearly since it was first released and I still keep finding new stuff it can do. Here’s a tip I found recently: you can assign quick keys in Quicksilver on a per-application basis.

I recently implemented John Gruber’s killer non-top posting applescripts for Apple Mail and also followed his advice to use FastScripts to override Mail’s default menu keys and run these scripts instead.

I just realized you can do this from within Quicksilver, alleviating the need for FastScripts. The secret is when you are creating a new quick key action in Quicksilver to switch to the Scope tab in the quick key settings:

Here you can constrain the quick key to a specific application, to any application but the one you specific, or allow it to work in all applications. You can get to the Scope tab by clicking on the (i) button at the bottom right-hand corner of the Quicksilver quick key prefpane.

Hey, maybe it’s obvious, but it’s the first time I noticed it, so hopefully this is news to you, too. Anyone else have Quicksilver tips they want to share?

World, please welcome a new addition to the global roster: our son Alec, born June 1st at 12:32 am and weighing 6 pounds, 3 ounces. For anyone who is waiting for a phone call, returned email, or smoke signal you may have to wait a while as our life shoots off into new and exciting tangential space.

We are currently accepting well wishes, offers of food, maid service, or deep tissue massages, or any tips or tricks on how to squeeze a day’s worth of sleep into 20 minutes.

All I can say is huzzah! Life is grand.