Inside View

When You Repeatedly Crash Firefox

EVEN THOUGH I don't think I've ever crashed Firefox, sometimes when I start up the browser, it thinks I've crashed it. After a few months of this occurring and not wanting to restore Firefox to where it thought it crashed, I discovered other strange behaviours, including Firefox refusing to allow me to right-click and save things. I've worked that out and have posted how I restored Firefox's ability to save things directly in the browser. If you discover Firefox freezing on you or if you start a new session and Firefox tells you it wants to recover where you've left it hanging, you need to know you might have to edit some things in your Firefox profiles. It's no big deal but most power users will confirm it hurts not to be able to save while browsing.

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Previously: Cannot Save Files in Firefox.

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TWIT Discovers Bebo

TWIT 98 includes a segment (30:42-32:30 1.9 MB 96 kbps MP3 file) about Bebo. At the Tipperary Institute Internet in Education Conference, Bebo figures as a topic because of its reach into the mindset of Irish school students. But the TWIT panel did not seem to understand the impact Bebo is making in Europe. Some snippets of the conversation reveal the level of TWIT's understanding.

Multi-channel microblogging

WITH 1000 TWEETS already recorded across four separate Twitter accounts, I'm a little miffed that Twitter cannot hold the load of its natural growth. Today, a little message popped up that said, "Delivery of msgs has been up and down today. IM? Mostly down. We're working into the night to resolve the issues, thx for your patience!" Twitter is also soliciting "developers, developers, developers." These growing pains are not unusual but they have caused some of Twitter's senior members to start migrating elsewhere. The same kind of thing will happen in any social network that offers multiple channels of publishing alongside a point of presence. If you permit your community to freely send messages into the commons over text, instant messenger, the web, and through APIs attached to other communications platforms, there will be slowdowns. That's one reason why long-time bloggers often have an IRC or separate IM channel open while they sit at their screens. You need separate channels to ensure open communications. In a past life, we called it redundant communications.

Loving the Scanjet 4890

MORE THAN ANY other piece of technology I've used this year, the HP Scanjet 4890 does more to bridge me from old to new. That's because I have five ring binders full of 35mm negatives from the 80s and 90s that cry out for a peek to the world. Originally, I was going to scan and shunt the strips of film. But then a little voice said, "There are people who have never seen camera film before." So we're going to save the albums in the coolest, darkest recess of the house for as long as they survive. And along the way, we are sharing some scans of negatives and positives in our Flickr photostream. Only family sees them all.

At OpenCoffee Plantation

NICOLAS CARR might call it an "information plantation" but my experience with the quiet channels of communication at OpenCoffee meetings leads me to consider those channels well worth the criticism some people make that they can easily become piles of contacts saved inside information silos. Those who travel the OpenCoffee circles (Jan Blanchard and Paul Sweeney shown in photo) know that some of the traction following from the open sessions happen in the time-tested quiet way of direct contact via e-mail, phone calls and closed wikis. Limerick's OpenCoffee continues to draw an energetic pocket of people due to pokes on Facebook, LinkedIn direct contacts and Twitter textbacks. Some of these channels are buried from easy viewing by others.

See You in My Dreams

RICHARD WALLACE KLAU died tonight. With his passing, grandson Rick Klau remembers the favourite song of his grandparents. The song, I’ll See You in My Dreams, is a popular track from the 1920s. Rick writes, "Grandpa told me that every night before going to bed, he would say 'I’ll see you in my dreams' to Grandma, and I have to imagine that not hearing it tonight is absolutely brutal for Grandma".

I’ll see you in my dreams, Hold you in my dreams;

Someone took you out of my arms, Still I feel the thrill of your charms!

The English singer Joe Brown performed a version of the song on the ukulele [2.9 MB 192 kbps MP3 file] as the finale of the George Harrison tribute concert, Concert For George, in 2002.

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Rick Klau -- "Remembering my grandfather". Rick runs Feedburner, part of the Google shopping list.

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OpenCoffee Limerick in The Clarion

WE PUSH OFF FOR OpenCoffee Limerick tomorrow morning in the Clarion on Steamboat Quay (at left), hoping to book our Copenhagen harbour cruise seats with TouristR, our Ruckus Wireless entertainment network with Wimax-EU, our Voxtr design pattern with Magnetic Time and Voice Sage and some unexpected surprises that always evolve from the conversation in the lobby of The Clarion. For example, is it true that Jim Corbett occupied one of the first 1000 Typepad blogs? Is he that old?

Smart business travelers use The Clarion in Limerick for many reasons, including its free and easy Wi-Fi access and the relaxing pints outside along the River Shannon in the afternoon.

Four Ways Flickr Gets Censored

DEPENDING ON MY viewing platform, content to and from Flickr has to jump through four hoops.

1. I must relinquish some creative control to Yahoo! Here are the terms: “Flickr is not a venue for to you harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we will send you a warning or terminate your account.” So if someone is pissed off with something I upstream, with a caption I write or a comment I make, I might be banned forever by Flickr.

2. My images must pass the Flickr community sanity check. If I put up an image of someone on a beach, a mermaid underwater, or a backstage group mingling at a burlesque show, that image normally gets shuttered behind a "safe content" setting by Flickr's internal controls.

3. Unless I change my default settings, Flickr will not show me everything for all lookups because in nearly every category, Flickr judges some things as unsafe for work or unsuitable for the easily offended.

4. All of Flickr must pass through local censorware when I operate on bandwidth maintained by the local civic authority. I cannot see anything from Flickr when on that bandwidth, which means days of outreach spending sharing my Flickr photostreams with some community sites are days without my Flickr photo albums.

I'm a little surprised by the heavy-handedness of both Flickr's policies and the easy manner some IT staffs have rolled over and accepted the default settings of some censorware products. But I'm upset by what's happened to someone who used a Flickr image to document how she was ripped off--and then got censored by Flickr. Thomas Hawk explains.

Well-Known Web Crank

SOON TO RETIRE from his role as spokesman for Ireland OffLine, Damien Mulley now assumes the mantle of the best-known Web Crank in Ireland (his words). Fact is, if TWIT ever rings up Ireland, the cranky geek on this side of the water will surely have a Cork prefix. Want proof? Read the man. One rule: play the point, not the man.

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6 Essential Uses of Paper Clips

YOU CAN NEVER have enough paper clips. Here are six essential uses of paper clips.

1. Unbreakable  Bag Closers
2. Zipper Pull Replacement
3. Cherry Pit Remover
4. Bathroom Door Key
5. Christmas Tree Ornament Hooks
6. Reach Electronic Reset Buttons

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via John Walkenbach and  Kassidy Emerson.
Bonus Link: Six Unusual Uses of Toothpaste

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