I don't follow horse racing at all, nor do I have any interest in the Kentucky Derby. But I wasn't surprised when I heard that the Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro broke its leg in the Preakness. Not too long ago, I watched a 60-Minutes episode on ESPN Classic (from way back in 1979) that discussed horse doping, and its surprisingly legal status in the world of horse racing. Apparently, horse owners drug their horses with pain-killing "medication," allowing them to run a race even when they really shouldn't. It's a shame that this kind of thing goes on, especially since horses can't tell people how they feel. Hopefully this tragic turn with Barbaro will be the wake-up call the horse racing world needs.

I've been incredibly busy at work over the past week, due to the fact that I had a due date today for one of my projects. Thankfully, everything has wrapped up (for the time being, that is) and I can rest a little this weekend.

Only a few more days until Half-Life 2: Episode One is released. I still haven't preordered, but I'm hoping to do so soon. It's neat that you can preload the game before you preorder, and it didn't take too long to do (although I already have Half-Life 2 installed). Whether or not episodic content will be a winner is still up in the air. All I know is that I really enjoyed HL2 and I'm really looking forward to this next chapter in the Half-Life universe.

I'm making this post from the Bon Echo Alpha 2 build of Firefox. The greatest new feature by far is the inline spell checking feature for textarea elements. It works exactly like the spell check feature in Thunderbird, and it makes blog posting that much easier.

The new tab UI is nice, but I haven't yet opened a ton of tabs to see how they handle overflow and the like. I also like the new "Addons" window, which is essentially the marriage of the "Themes" and "Extensions" windows from current Firefox releases. Other cool features include an improved default search box (although Googlebar Lite is still the greatest one around ... ;) ), session saver (in case of a browser crash), greatly improved feed discovery capabilities (I really like this), and more. All in all, Firefox 2 is starting to look really good. I can't wait to get my hands on a more mature release; I will definitely make the switch once the public betas arrive.

The only gripe I have is that the few extensions I have tried to install all fail (the maxVersion isn't set high enough), so I'm currently extension-less. :(

On an entirely unrelated note, I have added a new Extensions category here to this blog, and I have placed all Firefox extension related discussions under that category.

I'm not much of a movie person, but tonight, thanks to a storm-related cable outage, I watched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe for the first time. What a great movie! I've always been a giant fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, and this movie was particularly well done. A few key details were left out, however. Aslan didn't mention the deeper magic when the Stone Table was broken in two, He simply explained that the witch didn't fully understand what would happen. Also, the professor never hints that he too has been to Narnia. Take, for instance, this passage from the book:

And the professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn't tell them not to be silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. "No," he said, "I don't think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won't get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did! Eh? What's that? Yes, of course you'll get back to Narnia again some day. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia."

Nowhere in the movie does the professor make such a statement (the last sentence in particular). That omission really took some of the surprise out of it (although anyone who's read the books already knows the story). There were some interesting additions to the movie as well. Aslan says to the witch that he was present when the deep magic was written, a statement that isn't in the book (I checked). It will be interesting to see what other movies they decide to make. I really enjoyed this one; hopefully they will stick to the books, and not alter the stories too much.

All hail the Highest of High Kings!

Beginning with Googlebar Lite 4.0, an interesting problem has cropped up with the search history edit box. Take a look at this screenshot sent in by a Googlebar Lite user:

See how the drop-down marker is all the way to the left of the search box? The actual edit control has been resized to 0, while the popup element (which should be invisible) has been resized. I can get this problem to occur on demand using the Charamel theme. What's most frustrating is that I cannot make it go away. I've tried forcing the edit control's style via CSS, but the rules get ignored. I've built a bare bones toolbar from scratch to try to isolate the problem, to no avail. This is apparently a problem with the autocomplete textbox itself. A Firefox bug? Perhaps. If you happen to run into this problem, there are three courses of action you can take, none of which are very appealing:

1. Use the default theme (if you already aren't). I have yet to see this using the default theme, although my dad has run into it using the default (he uses large fonts in Windows, however, so that might be the difference).
2. Disable search history.
3. Use Googlebar Lite 3.3.

Again, none of these solutions are ideal.

Do you know what's going on here? Know of an existing bug in Bugzilla that references a similar problem? Found a workaround or a fix? Please let me know! I will continue to investigate this issue, but I don't see a fix at this time. If only everything would just work as it is intended to …

The Simpsons is the greatest television show of all time, regardless of what the clowns at TV Guide say. I mean, how can you go wrong with quotes like this?

Skinner: And, in a gutless act of political correctness, pizza day will now be known as Italian-American sauce bread day. Italian Chef: Ah, now that's a-sensitivity. Right Giuseppe? [the monkey claps...] Giuseppe is such a happy monkey!

Homer: I'm not looking for fame or glory. I'm just trying to buy that stairway to heaven Jesus sang of. Flanders: That was Led Zeppelin. Homer: Psh. Get back to your bong hippie.

Homer: So, a graduate student, huh? How come you guys can go to the moon but you can't make my shoes smell good?

That kind of writing is simply classic. The greatest episode of all time? Quite possibly, Homer: Bad Man. It just doesn't get much funnier than that.

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 began preloading today yesterday and I'm seriously considering pre-ordering it over the Steam network. There's something rather appealing to purchasing software online: no traveling to a store and no waiting for a package in the mail. It's instant gratification, pure and simple. Lots of people seem to dislike the fact that the game is "locked" until June 1 (the official release date), but that doesn't bother me too much.

One thing that I dislike is the fact that I don't get a game box. I know that may sound silly, but I have quite a collection of boxes (I have nearly as many as I have computer games). Having a game box provides a tangible token of ownership for something that is intangible. My collection is unfortunately still packed away in boxes from our move; otherwise, I would post some pictures.

It looks as if Firefox Places will be disabled for Firefox 2.0. This is a disappointing turn of events, but the developers apparently feel it needs more polish before it can be let loose on the public. I've only briefly played with the latest implementation in recent trunk builds (it has since been disabled), and what I saw seemed pretty good. Live bookmarks need work, and accessing the Places window is still a little clunky. The feature set for 2.0 is still fairly interesting. Hopefully, 2.0 will be an exciting release.

So, apparently, the Nintendo Revolution has been renamed to Nintendo Wii. Let the jokes commence.

This is the primary problem with using "code names" in the wild. When an official name comes along, replacing said code name, early adopters are thrown for a loop. It happened with the Firefox web browser not too long ago. Early builds of Firefox were known as Phoenix and later Firebird. I actually happen to prefer the Firebird name; it keeps some semblance of continuity with their Thunderbird product (plus, it just sounds cool). At first, the Firefox name seemed really stupid. But as time has passed, it has become ingrained in our culture, and has lost that silly feel to it.

Can Nintendo's new console do the same? I don't really think so. The name they've chosen is so incredibly stupid, that it will be an uphill battle to win back the respect they had earned. We'll see how they fare in the long run with this decision. I have a bad feeling that they won't do as well.

I know I've mentioned this a number of times already, and I'll do my best to make this the final post on the topic, but Oblivion is so incredibly fun. After 73.5 hours of gameplay, my level 34 Wanderer (a character class I created) has finally completed the main quest line. I've rid the world of Tamriel of those pesky Oblivion gates, and generally saved the entire populace from annihilation. Fortunately, the game doesn't end there. I've completed 81 quests so far, and still have a total of 15 active quests under my belt. There's no telling how many I have yet to start. My character has risen to the top of the Thieves guild, is nearly to the top of the Mages guild, and is on the way up in the Fighters guild (I haven't even started the Dark Brotherhood line of quests). To say that this game is packed with stuff to do is an understatement.

Unfortunately, I've run into a number of crashes recently. I occasionally get dumped to the desktop when performing a quick-load, and my graphics card has conked out a time or two (I've got to build a new machine). But thankfully, the sheer joy I get from playing this game overshadows these annoying problems. And the upcoming game patch that Bethesda announced will hopefully solve these issues. If you still haven't purchased this game, I highly recommend it. Oblivion is a purchase you won't regret.

Firefox 1.5.0.2 is now available to download. Several stability and security fixes have been included, so make sure you upgrade.

Googlebar Lite 4.0 will be released this weekend (most likely on Saturday). Lots of great new features are coming, so stay tuned.

Thanks to a mention from Penny Arcade, I downloaded the BTMod for Oblivion, and wow what a difference it makes! The mod makes the inventory and map screens larger, so that you can see more at once. If you have the PC version of Oblivion, and you haven't grabbed this mod, you absolutely need to.

It looks like Google Calendar has gone live. I've only played around with it for a few moments, but it really looks great. Lots of customization options, and a clean interface. If you have a GMail account, you can sign up with Google Calendar to try it out (registering with them is merely a matter of specifying what time zone you live in). This new tool should make lots of folks happy, although I personally don't have a use for it. We use the Worst Program Ever Written at work, and outside of work I don't have any need for scheduling events. It should be interesting to see how this ties in to GMail. There is some really interesting potential there. More information on the whole tool can be found over at Matt Cutts' blog (my dad was his graduate school advisor!).

I'm currently enjoying some vacation from work (essentially today and tomorrow), so I have some free time to get stuff done. Perhaps Googlebar Lite 4.0 will show up soon. I'm still waiting on one of my translators to respond; once he does, a release is quite possible. Much of my free time has so far been spent in Oblivion. I just can't get enough of that game!

Posting may be slow over the upcoming days. I’m very busy with something that I’ll talk more about soon.

Thus ended my last post which, to be quite honest, wasn't that long ago. Regardless, I have to admit that I've been 'busy' with Oblivion. I purchased the game from Amazon last week, got it on Thursday, and have been enjoying it ever since. Here's my quickie review of what I've seen so far.

Visually, this game is stunning; one of the best to date. The lip-synch seems poorly done, but I know that's a hard thing to get right, so I'll cut the developers some slack. But everything else is truly magnificent to behold. My personal rig seems to be able to handle the game, albeit at 1024 x 768 (with all the eye candy, mind you). The forest areas are a real treat to behold, as are the caves and dungeons one gets to explore.

Content-wise, this game is gigantic. I've played for several hours, and have only scratched the surface of what is available. I've restarted the game 3 times so far, for a variety of reasons. The first two times, I was unhappy with the way I had set up my character. The third time, I unwittingly turned into a vampire and died, with no cure in sight (and I didn't have a save game from before my sickness). My current character, Rolande, is a "Wanderer" (a custom class I created; part Thief, part Mage), and he's doing very well so far. I have yet to start the main quest; I've simply been too busy getting sidetracked. Joining the Mage's guild is quite an involved task!

This game isn't without its problems. Game installation was flaky, and I got the game into a state where it wouldn't start and couldn't be uninstalled. After wrestling with that, I'm now facing a problem where the game crashes every time I exit. Granted, it's not a major problem (I am leaving the game, after all), but it's an annoyance. There are other minor quibbles: the AI system has its flaws (although it works surprisingly well on the whole), the enemies are (and remain) incredibly difficult, and it stinks that you are only given 8 hotkey slots.

But I am very pleased so far. This game is awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Morrowind.

Over the past week or two, I've noticed increasing amounts of bogus referral links in my website statistics. This so called "referral spam" has nearly gotten out of control, so I'm employing yet another WordPress plugin (Referrer Bouncer) to combat this plague. The spammed referral links are interesting: poker sites, ring tone sites, and even "adult" sites. We'll see how well this works out.

Posting may be slow over the upcoming days. I'm very busy with something that I'll talk more about soon.

I surf Digg.com nearly every day. And the more I use the site, the more problems I see with it. Granted, the experience has improved over time, but we're still a long way from perfection. One side effect of the democratic approach to news posting is the introduction of stories not worthy to be labeled news. Sensationalist stories show up there all the time, undoubtedly posted by people who know absolutely nothing about the topic. Recent headlines to this effect include "Autistic or just a geek? Take the test!" and "40+ suggestions for better desktop" (yes, that headline is grammatically incorrect). Do you see where we're headed?

An internet "test" isn't news, nor is it a scientific way of determining whether or not you have Asperger's Syndrome. Likewise, a collection of suggestions for improving desktop software is purely opinion, not news. "So vote against the story," you say. "It is, after all, a democratic process."

Well, not exactly.

To "digg" a story, a user need only click once (after logging in) on the associated "digg it" button. But to vote against a story, a user has to click three times: once to open the "problem?" drop-down menu, once to select the problem, and then once on the JavaScript alert that pops up, indicating that the story has been "reported." Reported? To whom? I thought this was a democratic process!

So, voting against a story requires three times the effort. No wonder so much crap makes the front page. If Digg would make it easier to vote against a story, using only a 1-click process, I predict things would get much better.

I'm beginning to spend more time thinking about how to upgrade my personal computer. As I have mentioned before, deciding what pieces of hardware to buy is frustratingly difficult, especially in today's market. This time around, I'm trying to pay more attention to user reviews at sites like NewEgg, and less attention to the dedicated hardware "review" sites, which tend to consist of more previews than anything else.

I'm currently leaning towards getting the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ CPU. I'm still trying to track down a good motherboard, and then I'll have to pick some memory and, quite possible, a new power supply. Throw in a couple of new SATA hard drives (the Maxtor drives I have are real crap), and a new graphics card, and you've got a brand new system.

I'm probably going to end up spending a large chunk of change on this upgrade, but I think it will be worth it. Selling my current components on eBay should offset the cost somewhat. I've always done a good job of taking care of my stuff, and I tend to keep the boxes that components come in, so that should help increase the price I get by auctioning them off. Plus, I'm getting a performance bonus at the end of this month at work, and that can only help.

Were I to have my way, and were I to know exactly what I want, I'd order the components today. But seeing as this upgrade is going to be rather expensive, I'm resigned to waiting a bit. I'll clearly have to put Amazon purchases and the like on hold for several months after I make this move. The old bank account can only handle so much spending.

This looks so freaking awesome. And it seems to be getting really good reviews so far. I thoroughly enjoyed Morrowind (although the game had some annoying bugs), but I unfortunately never finished it. I lost my save games when I bought some new hard drives, and I didn't feel like replaying 60 hours worth again (save early and often).

As I recently mentioned, I've been hungering for a new game to play. I don't even recall what I bought last, and I've been replaying through Half-Life 2 recently; for what must be the seventh or eighth time (and it's still a blast). Something like Oblivion will keep me hooked for hours (nearly 200 hours according to some reports), which has me very excited. Hopefully my machine can handle it. This game is apparently quite the resource hog.

It's official: I'm an Amazon junkie. Perhaps their Prime service has spoiled me. Or perhaps it's their incredible product selection. Regardless, last night I did something I've never done before online: I made an impulse purchase.

The latest Cingular Wireless ad was on television (I was watching Boston Legal with my mom), and I wondered who sang the song that they were playing. I knew it sounded a lot like Genesis, but I wasn't sure. A quick Google search for the lyrics and a subsequent trip to Wikipedia answered my question and pointed me to the first Peter Gabriel album (the song is Solsbury Hill). So I went to Amazon, took one look, and bought the album (along with a few other items I've had my eye on). Is that crazy or what?

I have several projects cooking at the moment, and the following is a brief rundown on where I'm at with each:

Googlebar Lite 4.0 The new search history system is working like a charm and is now feature complete. I am currently wrestling with whether or not I should include a fix for the highlighting system (disabling highlighting within input fields). Unfortunately, implementing this fix has been a challenge and I have yet to find an appealing solution. Some general code cleanup still needs to take place (a number of old search history code will be removed), and the "Paste and Search" feature needs to get turned back on. If I decide not to work on the highlighting fix, this might be available in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, it'll be somewhat longer.

Toolbar Tutorial Updates I have two more chapters to complete in the Firefox 1.5 toolbar tutorial. It was my hope to get that done this weekend, but it's looking more and more like that might not happen. Once the tutorial is done, I'll begin considering how to phase out the older 1.0.x version.

Born Geek Redesign My lack of artistic ability has been a real road block on this, but I've finally come up with a design that's fresh, clean, and simple. I'm bound to tweak it further, but I think I'm ready to port the design over to my localhost website replica. Once I see the design imposed on every page, I can get a better feel for how things need to be tweaked (and whether the design as a whole works or not). I'm estimating another three or four weeks on this one.

Miscellaneous Stuff Currently on the back burner are two more Firefox tutorials: advanced toolbars and a guide on profiles. Both are merely sparks of imagination at this point, but perhaps I can get something started in the next month or so. One day I'd also like to get around to updating my wallpaper application (Paper Plus). There are several needed features that I've been too lazy to implement.