Category: misc

So a few days ago fiefox-3 was pulled in during the regular system updates, and after a few hours of using it I must say: it sucks even more than firefox-2, which IMHO was already a regression from earlier versions. Actually I think that since they changed the name from phoenix [i]my[/i] user experience has gotten worse with each new version. Now I have to admit I’m probably not a typical user, so firefox-3 might be an improvement for the majority, but I’m really fed up with it.
As neither konqueror (kde-centric) nor opera (binary-only) are alternatives for me I looked out for other broswers out there today and noticed Arora, a new qt-webkit based browser and decided to try it out. And I must say I really like it so far, though I’ve only used it for a few hours so far. It feels a lot like older firefox versions, just without much of the “user-friendly” bloat they’ve added over time (e.g. the new fancy addressbar in firefox-3). It’s still a very early version, so obviously it’s lacking some features (like no flash support, though I consider that more as a feature :>) and probably has a few bugs, but at the moment I like it (much) better than what has become of firefox.

No matter what AI scientists tell us I tell you that computers are really sentient, and have been for quite a while! No matter how hard I try I can’t think of another reason to explain how my systems behave sometimes. Most recent example:
You may remember how I complained about the instability of my server. Now some time ago I asked on adopt-a-dev for replacements for some of the components I suspected to be the cause (ide controller and graphics card, thanks to all who offered their help with that). And as soon as the request went out the random crashes stopped! The box has currently an uptime of almost two months (while previously it crashed every few days, and for a short period even every few hours). It must have sensed that it couldn’t play games with me anymore without getting punished!

While I’m not a fan of winter, the current temperature is simply too much, in the last few days I’m measuring a constant (= day and night) room temperature of about 30