Tech Tip Daily

Of all of my addons for Firefox, one of the newest is Firebug.  After a recent rejuvenation of my programming interest, I decided to practice a couple of skills using javascript.  Firebug is a debug tool for javascript, CSS, and HTML.  It allows you to set breakpoints, stepping through each line of code to find a problem.

When visiting gmail the other day, I was presented with a message stating that firebug can cause gmail to run slowly.  They listed instructions for a workaround, although they didn’t seem to apply for my version of firebug (that, or I’m an idiot).  Apparently, there is a much simpler way.

To disable firebug for gmail.com:

1. Visit gmail
2. Open firebug (click the “bug” icon in the status bar)
3. Next to the tabs “Console”, “Script”, and “Net”, there are drop-down arrows that provide additional options.  For each tab, click the arrow and choose “Disable for gmail.com”

This will disable firebug for gmail.  To be completely honest, firebug seems to be a bit confusing in how and when it does what.  Oh Well.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

While I was surfing a few days ago, I came across a wav file I wanted to listen to.  Like usual, I clicked on it to open it, except it opened iTunes to play the file.  Usually, I would have no problem with this except for the fact that by default, iTunes adds all files it plays to the music library.  Therefore, you can’t easily use iTunes as a stand alone file player.  I really wanted an embedded media player to open the file instead.

Within windows, you would change the action performed for certain file types within the context/tools menu (steps for this are another day).  However, when opening a file from within firefox, you must tell firefox what application it should use to open the file.  In my case, iTunes was set as the default application for wav files.  This needed to be changed.

To change the default action for file types in firefox:

1. Open Firefox
2. Click the “Tools” menu and select “Options”
3. Click the “Applications” tab
4. In the list, find the file type you are attempting to open.  You can determine a link’s file type by hovering over it and looking at the url in the status bar (at the bottom of the screen)
5. Click the drop down menu for the action associated with the file type.  You can choose from a program already in the list or you can browse your machine for a different application.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure the application you select is actually made/capable of opening the file type in question.  As a suggestion, you should consider applications that have plugin forms for use within firefox, avoiding the need to open an external application (VLC works great for this).

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

I love Google Maps.  Who doesn’t?  Between Google Maps/Earth, I could waste my entire day searching for Missle Silos, Sunbathers, and Swastika Complexes.  Now, on top of google maps, I am an avid user of Firefox (who isn’t anymore).  One day, I went to look for some directions, when to my dismay, the window displayed “Loading” instead of our slightly intrusive satellite imagery.  I had figured it was a bug in firefox, so I tried it in Internet Explorer 7, where it loaded with no problem.

Doing a google search, I was led to the google groups where it was explained that this was a symptom of an incompatible version of the Skype Firefox plugin.  This plugin was installed along with Skype (of course).  It adds the capability to call numbers directly from firefox, turning recognized landline phone numbers into Skype links.  In my opinion, this is very handy.  However, this plugin happens to stunt Google Maps, keeping it from loading correctly.  At one point in time, the only remedy was to disable the Skype plugin.  While this still solves the problem, it’s recommended to download the updated plugin.

Download the updated plugin:

• https://developer.skype.com/SkypeToolbars?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=SkypeFFPlugin.2.2.0.90.exe

For those of you who would rather not mess with the plugin or updating the software, you can disable the plugin.

To disable the Firefox Skype plugin:

1. Open Firefox
2. Go to the “Tools” Menu, then click on “Add-ons”
3. In the window that appears, scroll down and click “Skype extension for Firefox”
4. Click the “Disable” button

This will disable the plugin and you will need to restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.  Once you have restarted, Google Maps should load with no problem.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!