We would like to modernize the shape of the tail.

Currently the Firefox appears as a two dimensional sprite placed in front of a three dimensional globe. We really like how in Jon Hick’s conceptual sketch the tail starts to wrap beyond the horizon of the globe. This gives the icon a strong three dimensional feel, and really streamlines and modernizes the overall design.

We would like to update the texture used for the Firefox and the globe.

Currently the globe is a gloss reflective surface and the Firefox is a matte surface, but this difference in textures could be made more pronounced. The softer we make the fox and the glossier the planet, the more the two can play off and contrast each other. This focus on texture will also give the icon a much higher fidelity without introducing too much additional complexity in terms of the shape (like adding additional shapes in the fur).

It all began here. The inspiration of the Firefox icon partially came from here.

All excerpts and images are taken from here: Firefox Icon History and Creative Brief for Shiretoko Refresh

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

jBrout is a cross-platform JPEG (an image format widely used by digital cameras) photo manager, released under the GNU/GPL license.

It’s downside; handles only JPEG images.
It’s upside; It uses a simple rewritable XML file as database for your photos and another xml file to handle your tags
jBrout also has an explicit Help Page.

Installation in Ubuntu:
Add the following lines to the /etc/apt/sources.list file
deb http://jbrout.free.fr/download/debian binary/
In a terminal: sudo apt-get update && apt-get install jbrout
You’ll find it at Applications -> Graphics -> jBrout

A run down of what this Python written photo manager can do for you.

* manage albums (folders) and pictures in JPEG format,
* create folders by dates,
* tag pictures with IPTC keywords (tags),
* add comments to pictures (into the JPEG comment field) and albums (text file in the album folder),
* rotate loss-less JPEG (and internal JPEG thumbnail),
* display the picture EXIF fields (date, size,shooting),
* search pictures by tag, comment, date and format,
* use plugins,
* call externals tools (for example open picture with Gimp),
* export pictures (to a Web gallery in HTML format, perform like a HTTP server, send by email,…),
* export to a Flickr or PicasaWeb account,
* use a basket system to pick out pictures.

What else:
You can also call-on external tools like Gimp to open an image. Edit the tool.txt file in ~/.jbrout directory. Uncomment the line # 1|Edit with The Gimp|gimp $* and save. Now when you right-click on a photo, the menu has External Tools -> Edit with the Gimp

During a slide-show, press the [Insert] key to bring up the side-bar with icons for rotating, deleting and commenting photos. In slide-show mode you can also add photos to the basket. Pressing the [Insert] key again will hide side-bar.

With jBrout you can “Export to” Picasa and Flickr websites. Send photos to your contacts via email, upload to your web space using jBrout’s FTP client or to a HTML Gallery.

jBrout, out-of-the-box does not support the RAW image format or movie files. Follow this guide if you need them: JbroutRawWorkflow

jBrout is written under the GPL licence, and authorizes and encourages you to develop your own external tools calls.

jBrout is a more stable photo manager with respect to nascent Solang photo manger for the Gnome desktop.

jBrout Photo Manager

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

Did you know your hair-dryer can effectively clean-up your Keyboards. Sounds bizarre no. But amongst the 10 ways to clean your Keyboard according to Inc.com, you’ll find it and several other strange but effective ways to clean-up that germ-bump called Keyboard.
Other bizarre ways mentioned:

• Use a USB vacuum cleaner ~ Screenshot above.
• Remove all of keys and Use the dishwasher; ~ if you can wait a day or two for it to dry-up –with
• Use CyberClean ~ a yellow gel blob that looks like Play-Doh.
• Use Scotch Tape

What methods do you use to clean-up your laptop and desktop keyboards?

How to Clean Your Keyboard – - Inc.com

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

The graph show the US is leading in the downloads, as usual, but its a huge surprise to see Germany at second place with almost 1.2 million downloads with respect to third place Japan at 550 thousand downloads.
I expected more from China and India that do not even feature in the top 10.
Iran that had a better position with Firefox 3.0 is nowhere to be found, for reasons we all know.

If you haven’t downloaded, then what are you waiting. See how to run Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu with a single command. Also enrich your portable hard drive with Firefox 3.5 Portable Edition by PortableApps.com

Worldwide Real-Time Firefox Downloads

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

Windows-only: PortableApps.com has quickly come out with the portable edition of Mozilla Firefox 3.5, so-called Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.5.
The famous duo, Mozilla Firefox browser and PortableApps.com launcher are by now standards in the techie world. Together, they come to your aid where there is no doctor sorry Firefox.
They come along with your bookmarks, settings and extensions. And when it’s time to go, they (Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition) leave behind no personal information on the machine you ran it on.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.5 is available in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Russian and Spanish (Spain and International). – It also has an improved launcher and installer.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.5 is a completely free open source download.

Download Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.5

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

Chritter is a Google Chrome extension that places non-intrusive Twitter updates on your Chrome Status Bar. So whilst navigating with your Chrome Browser, Twitter updates appear down there and keep you informed on what your contacts are up to.

This Twitter notifier fetches Twitter updates in a five minutes interval. Updates can consists of, Notes, Linkifys http://links, @usernames and #hashtags. This means Tweets, Retweets and Replies; all go through.
Twitter links open up web pages in a new Tab on the current-working Chrome window.

Chritter doesn’t ask for your password after installation like other Twitter clients, it uses the new Twitter API, OAuth to sign in. OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password.

Chritter saves your access token as a Bookmark, so to sign-out go to the Chrome Browser Bookmarks and look for ChritterToken (click to sign out).

Given that Chritter uses your Status Bar for its updates, what happens when you carry-out an operation that uses the Status Bar, for example, if you hover your mouse over a link?
Since the Status Bar is occupied, this information is displayed in a stripe pop-up window.

Chritter reminds me of similar extension for Firefox called Yip, that brings Taskbar tray pop-up notifications, for web applications

Download Chritter

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux

The final version of the Firefox 3.5 is now available for all major Operative Systems on Mozilla’s web site. Firefox downloads, as usual are not only on a per-OS basis, but also on a per-language basis. Firefox 3.5 maintains that tradition, it is availabe in over 50 different languages. “Your is certainly included”.

If you want to get Firefox 3.5 on your Ubuntu producton box, before Ubuntu offers you a Firefox 3.5 update, then, just copy and paste these lines of code below.

Back-up your current profile of Firefox 3.0.11 (or whatever version you have) with
cp -r ~/.mozilla/firefox/ ~/firefox_backup
This will backup your current Firefox profile into the firefox_backup directory in your Home Folder.

Now install Firefox 3.5 with
wget -O - http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.5/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 | tar xj -C ~
Replace “en-US” with say “en-GB”, “It” “es-ES”, “es-AR”, etc etc. if you want Firefox respectively in English as in Great Britain, Italian, Spanish as in Spain or Spanish as in Argentina. Hit Here to have an idea.

To run Firefox 3.5, move to your Home Folder, look for the firefox directory. Double-click on the firefox file in that directory.
You can also run Firefox 3.5 from the command-line with ~/firefox/firefox .
You can now add it to your Applications Menu. Go to System->Preferences->Main Menu
In the “Command Field”: /home/username/firefox/firefox.
In the “Name field”: Firefox 3.5

Make sure Firefox 3.0.11 is closed before running firefox 3.5

Firefox 3.5 will begin with an update. It will update your Bookmarks, Browser History, Passwords. It will also update your Extensions and will check for compatibility.

What to do with Incompatible Add-ons.

Lifehacker proposes this:

• Type about:config into Firefox’s address bar and click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
• Right-click anywhere. Choose New>Boolean. Make the name of your new config value extensions.checkCompatibility and set it to false.
• Make another new boolean pair called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value to false.
• Restart Firefox.

Lifehacker: Make Your Extensions Work with the Firefox 3 Beta ~ also works with Firefox 3.5

Firefox 3.5 is the first browser to support open video formats, allowing movies to become part of today’s dynamic web pages without requiring a plug-in.

Now Watch This!!! A quick preview of Firefox 3.5’s new and exciting features.

Have your say on Mozilla’s fastest Firefox so far!!!

Download Firefox 3.5

Article from: Kabatology ~ Open Source, Linux