Zenning!

Upgrade to Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 was not as smooth or satisfying as I would have expected it to be. Many of the extensions I use were marked as incompatible and there were no updates available to them for Firefox 3 either.

Firefox 3: Incompatible Extensions

The following extensions (I use) are as yet incompatible with this new version of Firefox:

The ones that are most essential to my Firefox experience are PicLens and Tab Mix Plus. Other extensions that came in handy now and then are del.icio.us Buttons, Firebug, MeasureIt, Remove It Permanently, Screen Grab! and Web Developer.

Firefox 3: Working Extensions

The extensions that are compatible and working (after updates) are:

StumbleUpon’s extension is not working perfectly though, as the images displayed in Google search for rating and other stuff appear broken.

Firefox 3 Default Theme: So Bland!

The theme that I had grown used to, iPox, became an outcast, and I had to settle with the bland default Vista theme of FF 3!

There are only a couple of themes available for Firefox 3; none of them suit me. I ended up applying a theme that merely contained icons, though much better ones than the ones available in the default theme for Vista - Azerty III.

Not Feeling at Home

Although I loved the new features, especially live searches through your bookmarks and history as you type in the address bar, the add to bookmarks, site info, and bookmarks being tag enabled (awesome!), but I didn’t feel at home!

With the bland theme and incompatible extensions, this didn’t seem like the Firefox I had become used to.

I wanted my money back! My Firefox 2 back!

The Little Fiasco: Getting Back to Firefox 2

I had made no backups of any sorts (assumed, wrongfully, that everything would go smoothly), and having overwritten the existing installation of Firefox 2, there was no way to use Firefox 2 but to reinstall it … over Firefox 3!

After reinstalling it, Firefox 2 refused to start up! Just great!

Installed Firefox 3 back, which, thankfully, worked.

Hanging on to Firefox 3 RC1

For now, I have adjusted myself with the bland Firefox 3, hoping and checking for extension and theme updates every now and then.

I am sure most developers are already updating their extensions and themes for Firefox 3. So let’s wait for the updates and the final version to enjoy this vastly improved, feature-packed version of Firefox!

It has not even been two years since the arrival of Firefox 2, the version of the open source browser that built up on the success of the first Firefox version (and 1.5) by further denting its way into the desktop browser market share, taking Internet Explorer head-on.

With recent reports of Firefox gaining 29 percent browser market share in Europe, even nearly 50 percent in parts of Europe, Firefox version 2 proved its mettle as a stable browser that didn’t let you - neither the user nor the developer - down.

Now make way for Firefox 3!

The good folks at Mozilla have released the first Release Candidate of Firefox 3 to the public.

It looks pretty solid. If you, like me, love getting your hands dirty (and your computer for that matter) before others, then download Firefox 3 RC1.

Download Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1

Caution: With my initial experience of installing Firefox 3 RC 1, it is not going to be such a smooth ride as far as the extensions and themes are concerned, so be ready for that. More on it in my next post.

One of the tools that you can readily utilize for blogging is an offline software editor to write, edit and publish posts to your blog. One (new entrant) among such editors is Microsoft’s
Word 2007.

Supported Blog Providers/Engines

Word 2007 – a part of the Office 2007 suite – provides in-built functionality to connect to different types of blogging systems and perform editing and publishing tasks from within the very familiar interface of Word. Supported are some of the major blogging engines out there:

• Windows Live Spaces
• Blogger
• SharePoint blog
• Community Server
• TypePad
• WordPress

If your blogging engine is not in the above list, then Word also provides an option of ‘Other’, where you can connect to your blog through the API provided by your blogging engine. Consult your blog provider to check how to publish from a software editor, outside of you blog. Most bloggers would be pretty happy though, just like me, to find WordPress in that list.

Connecting to My Blog from Word

It was a breeze to connect Word to my WordPress blog. All I had to do was to provide the URL of my WordPress blog (relative to the xmlrpc.php file) and my username and password for the blog. That was it! Now I am composing this post of mine from within Word, and (if everything goes well) I will be successfully publishing it from within Word as well.

One Caveat

There is, however, one important thing that needs to be checked: the way Word formats HTML content, inserting its own markup and what-not into the code. This is the biggest issue when composing or copy-pasting rich-text from Word, or other word processors, into a web-based visual editor (such as TinyMCE). That is why word processors are generally avoided for HTML based content creation (not even for copy pasting) to the extent that it’s highly discouraged. I will edit this post after publishing to check what has been done with the code behind the visual layer: whether Word 2007 throws its own garbage into the code or keeps it clean and tidy XHTML.

Word 2007 Blogging Features

I will be writing a tutorial in my next post on how-to utilize Word 2007 to post on your WordPress blog. For now, a brief list of blogging features that are provided in Word 2007:

• Publish: Publish the post to your blog account
• Publish as Draft
• Home Page: Opens the home page of your blog in web browser
• Insert Category: Categorize your post from the already defined categories on your blog account, or type a new one
• Open Existing: Open an already published post on your blog for editing in Word
• Manage Accounts: Add, remove or modify your blog accounts

Now that it’s time to publish, I realize that Word lacks the ability to tag my post! Tagging is now supported by WordPress and I love to tag my posts with the relevant keywords of the post rather than putting them in one or two generic categories. Now this step will need to be carried out manually. Oh well. Let’s publish.