experience

Firefox extensions

Yesterday was a somewhat slow day, so I spent some time on the housekeeping of my Firefox browser. Somehow I managed to accumulate a lot of extensions, themes, plugins, bookmarks, bookmarklets, and what not. It felt like a good time to clean the mess up a bit.

I spent about two hours going through the list of all installed pieces, upgrading outdated versions, changing old solutions to the modern alternatives, getting new tools, and so on. I have to say that after that effort my Firefox works faster, and it suits me better now. One of the biggest changes from my previous setup became the use of Tab Kit extension. Among its many features, it has the one that I’ve been passively looking for for a long time now – tab bar on the right side, instead of top, but not as a part of the sidebar, and with a tree view. Combined with Aging Tabs extension, the result is exactly the way I wanted it.

(it is better in real life than it is on the screenshot)

Now when I open links from the site in the new tabs, these new tabs are organized in a tree like structure. Tabs that I haven’t yet visited are highlighted in green. Current tab is highlighted in blue, as usual. And the rest of the tabs are coloured in different shades of grey, depending on how long ago I last viewed them. Also, because the tab bar is separate from the sidebar, I can get an additional panel on demand, with an application that I need the most at the moment, without sacrificing my precious tabs.

And just in case you are wondering which other extensions I am using, continue reading for the list of all extensions, which was generated by one of the extensions on that list.

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Migrating MS Dynamics CRM to SugarCRM

I’ve been a bit quiet for the last couple of month. That’s because I was leading an ambicious project at my new job – migration of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 3 to SugarCRM Community Edition version 5.0.0. There were only three people involved, non of us could afford to work full time on the project, and we only had three weeks to do it.

Read on for a story on why it took us longer, how we did, and if it was a success at all.

Continue reading Migrating MS Dynamics CRM to SugarCRM

Whiteboard wins

The other day we ordered a large whiteboard for our office. The board arrived some time later, complete with a bunch of whiteboard markers and whiteboard eraser. Gladly we put it up and started writing our plan for the world domination.

A few moments later, when we tried to do some corrections, we realized that we can’t really eraze much from the whiteboard. Hmmm.

Marker theory check. Are all of them marked as “whiteboard markers”? Yes.

Marker practice check. We tried to write something with each one of them and then tried to delete it. Only greek could have been erased easily. Turned out that four markers (black, blue, red, and green) were from a total of three different brands. Red and blue were from the same maker.

Because we were rather pressed on time, we covered the whole whiteboard with green text and diagrams. Then we called the bookshop and asked to bring us more markers of the same brand with green. People in the bookshop were rather puzzled by the request, but confirmed that we will receive more markers the next day.

The guy that brought the markers tested them on the board and saw that they could have been easily erased. Then he tried the other ones and saw that it was almost impossible to eraze them. Then he asked for a knife.

It was our turn to feel puzzled and confused, but we found a knife for him.

… five seconds later, it was our turn to feel really stupid. Apparently, the whiteboard was covered with transparent plastic film to protect its surface. It was absolutely invisible and looked and felt exactly like the whiteboard surface itself. Once the film was peeled off, the new shiny surface of the whiteboard was revealed. And, of course, all whiteboard markers – old and new – could be used normally. We tested them all and we could eraze everything easily. The magic moment!

I would like to take this opportunity and thank the guy from the bookshop, who solved a big problem of ours, and … didn’t laugh in our face, like many would do in a similar situation (tech support stories anyone?). As a matter of fact, he didn’t even smile. I bet he had a blast once he left our offices, but that doesn’t matter, because it was, indeed, funny.

Fedora 9 : before and after

I have recently upgraded my laptop to Fedora 9. Those of you who come often to this blog or follow me on Twitter, know that I’ve been waiting for this release like for nothing else. Two technologies in particular – KDE 4 and Firefox 3 – were the center of my focus. Of course, I could updated them separately and tried them earlier, but I wanted to follow the path of the distribution.

The upgrade itself went fast and easy. But starting with the first reboot, I was getting more and more negative towards the new release. While booting for the first time, I got two messages, notifying me that wpa_suppclient service and CUPS daemon failed to start. While I don’t care much about printers, wireless connectivity is vital for me, so that was a bit discouraging.

The login screen. It was changed quite a bit, and I didn’t like it much. Logging in. Somehow I ended up in Gnome, even though my desktop environment was KDE for the last 7 years or so. Logout. Switch into long awaited KDE 4. From the first look it was beautiful, even though not quite for my tastes. Surely, I’d need to reconfigure and change a few things. Not a problem for me at all – even more fun so.

Continue reading Fedora 9 : before and after

The sad truth about web working

Celine Roque of Web Worker Daily makes yet another observation that makes one nod his head in agreement:

There’s a slight irony about being a web worker and staying in your home office most of the time.

The post goes on to suggest a few ways to spice up your life, in case you are a web worker…