Smart Bookmarks

Smart bookmarks in Firefox 3 may be too smart. I may be a great idea or useful for some, but personally, I do not like the idea of having my action tracked. I would like to have an option to easily switch it off. Right now, I need to go to about:config to turn it off ... only if I can ... Firefox seems to refuse to have it switched off.

Anyway, if you are like me who does not like the Smart Bookmarks feature, here is what I did to my system to disable it. You can try to right click folders under the Smart Bookmarks except recent tags, and delete them. This seems sort of disable the Smart Bookmarks feature.

In addition, while I was trying to figure out a way to disable Smart Bookmarks, I found Firefox actually backing up bookmarks in the background. Again, I thought this is too sneaky. When I delete a bookmark, I want it to be really deleted. Options! Options! Options is the keyword! It is privacy!

display setting

There are many aspect of Ubuntu has been improved. However, I do not really understand the rational for their decision for removing old good working video setting tool from the setting menu. The new one is not as good as the last one.

Anyway, the tool is still there, but is hidden. The command for it is

sudo displayconfig-gtk

Also, if you are like me who has an old machine running old Intel integrated graphics. You may want to set the color depth to 16 as it does not support color depth higher than it that well

XSane

Linux hardware supports have definitely improve dramatically. Many devices that previous was a pain to install now work faultlessly. I have this scanner, which previously won't work under Linux. Today, I thought, well give it another go with the latest Ubuntu (under virtual machine). To my surprise, it works, and to certain extend, it is better than working under Windows. One of the problems I found under Windows is that you often need to throw away working hardware because drivers of these old devices are no longer working under the version of Windows (Vista...pain) It is a comfort to know that my perfectly working scanner has a long life as it will work under Linux.

Offline Software installation

A friend of mine has this very old machine. It was running Window XP, and has lot of troubles with it. Since it is old, and the driver set was not complete. I decided to put the latest version of Ubuntu on it instead a version of Windows due to the drivers and speed issues.

As expected, everything went okay. Granted, it took longer to install due to the speed of the machine. After a reboot, everything is working fine, and that includes components which was not working in Windows before (a add-on USB2 card). Now, the fun part begins. Where the computer is used, it has not internet connection, i.e. software needs to be installed offline. Since the installation allows multi lanuguage, I expected that I can install Asian languages from the installation CD. How wrong I was. Okay, what bout VLC? Wrong again.

Okay, I guess I just need to get the packages from the Net, and install it offline. Well, I can do with some, but not all of them. Since one software often use libraries from others, this make my life extremely difficult if I want to install software offline. I need to ensure I download all the pacakges required, including dependencies. The matter can only get more complicated by minutes as there is also a versioning problem.

Although, the default setup is more usable than a Window machine. It is shortfall in offline software installtion may prevent people like my friend to move to Ubuntu (Linux)

Firefox 3 ...

Few days ago, I have upgraded my Ubuntu to the latest 8.0４ LTS. On my old laptop, it took a while, however, the whole process was smooth. This is something Microsoft can only dream off. Upgrade for Windows is a joke. Even though, there is an option for Windows to upgrade to a new version, it just too messy. The upgrade often left tons of old backup files behind and a broken system due to incompatible drivers. It may sound funny, but it is actually less a troubles to fresh install Window. Anyway, have enough talk about Windows.

Back to the subject, Firefox. Well, on the surface, the version 3 looks pretty much like the old one. However, once you checked out the options, you will see many things had changed under the hood. I sure many features are well come, however, there are few features that I personally not welcome. That is the "new improved" location bar. While you are typing an URL, the new location bar starts to show entries from address book that match your typing. This may be a handy feature for some, but personally, I felt it shows too much! I have looked around on Google, and it seems there is no option to turn it off. You can reduce the number of entries show to 0 by setting the

browser.urlbar.maxRichResults

, but it would still show you an entry from your bookmark.

Another feature that I found it annoying is the smart bookmark. Again, I don't like the idea it highlights the most recent vistied or created bookmark. I would really like to have options to switch off these "features" off in the future

Router Update

This is my second day with my new Zyxel 660HW router. I am delighted to report that it has been running faultlessly in the last two days.

Router

I have just got a new router for my ADSL connection. Since, I am running P2P applications, it makes finding a router difficult. P2P application tends to open and close large number of connections simultaneously, and this puts a lot of strain onto a router. Many routers would lock up shortly after used. I guess there are people who are in similar position as me, so I would like to share my experience with my new router here.

I have three routers, the first one is a Safecom SWART2-54125. With its default firmware, its performance would gradually degrade and finally lockup. However, if you don't mind to void the warranty, and replace it with an open source firmware from routertech, it is very stable. It just runs.

The second one is a Safecom SART2-4115. It is similar to the first one, except it does not have WiFi. Also, it has less memory inside the router. Again it is a solid worker if it is using the Routertech firmware instead of the official firmware from Safecom. However, the setting interface would become a bit sluggish after a long period of use due to the reduced memory inside the router.

The third one is this latest addition, the Zyxel 660HW-T1. This router seems based on the same hardware as Safecom routers mentioned (based on TI ARD platform). I have only had it for a day. So far, it has been stable. I will post an update later