TBE Compatibility

Kevin17 Comments

The Mac Firebird theme is still not compatible with Tabbrowser Extentions. I’ve contacted the TBE author about compatibility but have not received a reply. If any of you would like to let the author know that you’d like TBE to work with Mac Firebird, you can post here: http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/forum/

Update January 23: Apparently there is a patch on Piro’s site that makes TBE work with Mac Firebird. I can’t confirm this and I probably won’t have time to test it this weekend. I’d be grateful if someone could download the patch, try it out and write out simple instructions that I can post here. Thanks!

Pinstripe becomes default Mozilla Firebird theme on Mac OS X

Kevin40 Comments

I’m pleased to announce that last night the Pinstripe theme landed in Mac Firebird. You can check it out by downloading the latest nightly build. This new version of Pinstripe contains many tweaks and updates including an excellent new icon set by Stephen Horlander.

Since this theme is brand-spanking-new, there are a few glitches here and there which will be worked out soon. If you wish to report problems with the theme, you can do so in Bugzilla. Please remember to look at the list of bugs that have already been filed to help us minimize duplicates. If you have a question or comment, please let me know.

Thanks to Ben Goodger and Dave Hyatt for making this happen and of course to Stephen Horlander for his excellent work on the icons!

Here’s a picture of the theme in action.

Music: Sam and Dave

Kevin1 Comment

I was just listening to Hold on We’re Strummin’ by David Grisman and Sam Bush on the way to work and man, is it a great album. In case you don’t know, these guys are masters of the mandolin.

The album suprised me in two ways. First, even though I’m learning to play the mandolin and admire the sound, I think too much of any genre gets a bit long in the tooth after a while. I wondered if a whole album of mando music would get tedious after the first few tracks. Also, as mentioned in the liner notes, usually when well known musicians do an album together, they record the tunes that they all know so you don’t get a lot of new material.

But my misgivings were unfounded. The sound of the album is wonderfully diverse, from the fiddle and banjo on Old Time Medley to the groove of a National steel mandolin (gotta get me one of those!) on Swamp Thing. Also most of the tracks are brand new compositions by Bush and Grisman. And did I mention the perfectly crisp sound of the recording? This album will be on my play list for a long time to come.

B&N has some audio clips, but I’d recommend buying directly from Acoustic Disc because more of the proceeds probably go directly to the artists, and it’s a few dollars cheaper.

Mozilla Releases and an Apology

Kevin27 Comments

Mozilla has let loose Firebird 0.7, Thunderbird 0.3 and the version 1.5 of the Mozilla Suite. There is also a beta version of a new mozilla.org website. The website looks nice, but I hope they get a copy editor or technical writer to look at the text at some point. And what’s up with that brown search box in the upper right corner on a brown background?

Anyway, I’m sorry to say that I have no version of the Pinstripe Theme for Mozilla 1.5. I am working with an icon artist to give Pinstripe a more professional look and I think you’ll find the results worth the wait. I do however have a preview of the Pinstripe theme for Mozilla Firebird. A version for the Mozilla Suite and Thunderbird is in the works.

Pinstripe Tabs, part 2

Kevin9 Comments

This is in response to Bill McGonigle’s comment about Pinstripe’s tabs.

Bill says: “I think of Pinstripe as truely Aqua-consistent theme for Mozilla. I place consistency one tiny notch above optimal functionality on the Mac, so I would advocate emulating Jaguar’s tab look and feel.”

Pinstripe aims for Aqua-compliance, but it misses the mark somewhat. And where it misses, it’s due to the limitations of Mozilla’s cross-platform UI…
Continue reading “Pinstripe Tabs, part 2” →

Various Updates

Kevin1 Comment

You can find up to date builds of Mozilla Firebird in this MozillaZine thread. I have never used one of these builds so I can’t comment on them. YMMV.

Work on the Pinstripe theme continues at a slow pace. My day job has been soaking up most of my free time. The bulk of the time I spend on Pinstripe is on creating icons. As I’ve said before, I’m not a “graphic designer” so it takes me a long time to come up with something good. If anyone out there would like to lend a hand at creating icons, drop me an email. I hope to have the next Pinstripe version available for the release of Mozilla 1.5 final.

Opus' Return

Kevin1 Comment

Berkeley Breathed, author of the classic Bloom County and Outland comics is returning to the funny pages at the end of November, 2003. The strip will be called “Opus” and will run in the Washington Post on Sundays only.

It will also run at a the size half a newspaper page, which is really cool. Breathed and other cartoonists have talked about the sad state of newspaper comics in terms of both size and content. Some of comments on Slashdot suggested that Breathed do a Web comic strip. I hope not. Computer screens have gotten less painful to look at in the last decade or so but they still can’t match the resolution, portability and affordability of newsprint.

I often thumb through a Bloom County collection late at night. I find it much more enjoyable than trying to absorb pages of prose before bedtime. Still – As much as I love the characters, worlds, and ideas that Breathed has brought to life in his work, I wonder if the new strip will be as fresh as Bloom County. I really enjoyed Outland but some of the jokes and the themes were recycled from older strips. But anyway that’s a small quibble. I’d take Berkeley Breathed’s recycled ideas over most cartoonist’s fresh ones.

Some of my favorite comics:

Too Much Coffee Man
Red Meat
P.S. Mueller
Zippy the Pinhead
The K Cronicles and (th)ink