NoScript now stymies new class of exploits by revealing secret content

By Gregg Keizer
October 9, 2008 (Computerworld) A popular Firefox add-on designed to block scripts and plug-ins has been updated to stymie the new "clickjacking" class of attacks, the extension's developer said today.

The latest version of NoScript, a free extension for Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox browser, now boasts something that Italian developer and security researcher Giorgio Maone calls "ClearClick" to protect users from clickjacking attacks.

"Rather than relying on frame/plug-in blocking, which were already available, I decided to move on and add a brand new feature, developed from scratch, for people who couldn't bear blocking frames outright," said Maone in an interview conducted via instant messaging.

In a blog post earlier this week, Maone spelled out what ClearClick does in greater detail. "Whenever you click or otherwise interact, through your mouse or your keyboard, with an embedded element which is partially obstructed, transparent or otherwise disguised, NoScript prevents the interaction from completing and reveals [to] you the real thing in 'clear,'" he said.

At that point, users can decide for themselves whether to continue clicking, or free up the mouse from the underlying -- and potentially exploitive -- content.

Clickjacking, which was coined just last month by a pair of American researchers -- Robert Hansen of SecTheory LLC and Jeremiah Grossman of WhiteHat Security Inc. -- describes attacks in which hackers and scammers hide under the cover of a legitimate site, then use that cover to disguise clicks. Among possible clickjacking exploits was one that Adobe Systems Inc. described this week in Flash that lets attackers secretly spy on users by getting them to turn on their computer's webcam and microphone without realizing they've done so.

"Clickjacking is bad, old and difficult to protect from because it depends Web features modern sites heavily rely upon today," said Maone. "It's also quite easy to pull [off] and unlikely to be fixed by a mainstream browser in the short term."

Although Hansen and Grossman have not yet released technical information of their clickjacking research -- they only outlined the threat in any detail yesterday -- Maone was able to create ClearClick by piecing together what clues had been made public in the last two weeks. He also got help from other researchers, including Hansen.

"Even without knowing the gory details of the [then still undisclosed] Adobe vulnerability, it was not hard analyzing the problem from a general mitigation perspective," said Maone. "[And] after I started speculating on the effectiveness of already existent NoScript features against clickjacking, notably IFRAME blocking, [Hansen] pinged me, also because he's a NoScript user himself, and we had some deeper discussion on NoScript's alternate and specific defenses."

NoScript uses the "canvas" HTML element to draw two snapshots, one of the clicked component only, the other of the top page with all its content, then compares the two images. If they differ, the extension triggers the ClearClick warning.

Maone was confident that NoScript with ClearClick would stop virtually every conceivable clickjack attack. "It conceptually shuts down any kind of clickjacking, either based on transparency, overlays, position, redressing and so on, because all the variants boil down to 'hide the element user is interacting with,'" he explained.

Hansen was not as certain that NoScript is the right answer.

"Giorgio is doing Mozilla a huge favor," he said in an interview Wednesday. "But I don't think that it's the best way to protect users." His objections: NoScript blocks much of the content that users expect to find on sites, and it's aimed at technical, not mainstream, users. "If my Mom was using NoScript, I'd be taking all kinds of technical support calls," he said.

Not surprisingly, Maone sees NoScript differently. "The problem is that many of the problems we're facing, and not just clickjacking, originate from the 'flat' security model of the Web, where everything is equally trusted and the boundaries between Web applications are very fragile," he said.

"NoScript takes a radical approach to this, dividing the Web in[to] 'trusted' and 'untrusted' -- the latter includes both unknown sites and those you explicitly marked as bad -- and this allows greater margin to outmaneuver Web-based threats," Maone added. "Playing on a field where all is trusted by default, like mainstream browser vendors are forced to do, makes security much harder, and in many cases impossible."

NoScript, available free of charge, works only with Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers, such as Flock and SeaMonkey. Version 1.8.2.1, released Wednesday, includes ClearClick.

Access the article here.

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NoScript now stymies new class of exploits by revealing secret content

By Gregg Keizer
October 9, 2008 (Computerworld) A popular Firefox add-on designed to block scripts and plug-ins has been updated to stymie the new "clickjacking" class of attacks, the extension's developer said today.

The latest version of NoScript, a free extension for Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox browser, now boasts something that Italian developer and security researcher Giorgio Maone calls "ClearClick" to protect users from clickjacking attacks.

"Rather than relying on frame/plug-in blocking, which were already available, I decided to move on and add a brand new feature, developed from scratch, for people who couldn't bear blocking frames outright," said Maone in an interview conducted via instant messaging.

In a blog post earlier this week, Maone spelled out what ClearClick does in greater detail. "Whenever you click or otherwise interact, through your mouse or your keyboard, with an embedded element which is partially obstructed, transparent or otherwise disguised, NoScript prevents the interaction from completing and reveals [to] you the real thing in 'clear,'" he said.

At that point, users can decide for themselves whether to continue clicking, or free up the mouse from the underlying -- and potentially exploitive -- content.

Clickjacking, which was coined just last month by a pair of American researchers -- Robert Hansen of SecTheory LLC and Jeremiah Grossman of WhiteHat Security Inc. -- describes attacks in which hackers and scammers hide under the cover of a legitimate site, then use that cover to disguise clicks. Among possible clickjacking exploits was one that Adobe Systems Inc. described this week in Flash that lets attackers secretly spy on users by getting them to turn on their computer's webcam and microphone without realizing they've done so.

"Clickjacking is bad, old and difficult to protect from because it depends Web features modern sites heavily rely upon today," said Maone. "It's also quite easy to pull [off] and unlikely to be fixed by a mainstream browser in the short term."

Although Hansen and Grossman have not yet released technical information of their clickjacking research -- they only outlined the threat in any detail yesterday -- Maone was able to create ClearClick by piecing together what clues had been made public in the last two weeks. He also got help from other researchers, including Hansen.

"Even without knowing the gory details of the [then still undisclosed] Adobe vulnerability, it was not hard analyzing the problem from a general mitigation perspective," said Maone. "[And] after I started speculating on the effectiveness of already existent NoScript features against clickjacking, notably IFRAME blocking, [Hansen] pinged me, also because he's a NoScript user himself, and we had some deeper discussion on NoScript's alternate and specific defenses."

NoScript uses the "canvas" HTML element to draw two snapshots, one of the clicked component only, the other of the top page with all its content, then compares the two images. If they differ, the extension triggers the ClearClick warning.

Maone was confident that NoScript with ClearClick would stop virtually every conceivable clickjack attack. "It conceptually shuts down any kind of clickjacking, either based on transparency, overlays, position, redressing and so on, because all the variants boil down to 'hide the element user is interacting with,'" he explained.

Hansen was not as certain that NoScript is the right answer.

"Giorgio is doing Mozilla a huge favor," he said in an interview Wednesday. "But I don't think that it's the best way to protect users." His objections: NoScript blocks much of the content that users expect to find on sites, and it's aimed at technical, not mainstream, users. "If my Mom was using NoScript, I'd be taking all kinds of technical support calls," he said.

Not surprisingly, Maone sees NoScript differently. "The problem is that many of the problems we're facing, and not just clickjacking, originate from the 'flat' security model of the Web, where everything is equally trusted and the boundaries between Web applications are very fragile," he said.

"NoScript takes a radical approach to this, dividing the Web in[to] 'trusted' and 'untrusted' -- the latter includes both unknown sites and those you explicitly marked as bad -- and this allows greater margin to outmaneuver Web-based threats," Maone added. "Playing on a field where all is trusted by default, like mainstream browser vendors are forced to do, makes security much harder, and in many cases impossible."

NoScript, available free of charge, works only with Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers, such as Flock and SeaMonkey. Version 1.8.2.1, released Wednesday, includes ClearClick.

Access the article here.

Is your computer a victim of viruses, spyware and other malicious activities? The staff at Friendly Computers can help! Call 888-PCFRIEND or visit our website to schedule a technician to clean up your system.

Zach Lipton and Ben Hsieh created the QA Companion Add-On.  This is an extension that sits in a little window outside Firefox or Thunderbird and helps you to run litmus tests against the application.  It has helped hundreds of people when testing Firefox, and has become a central part of our QA Test Day events.

Both Zach and Ben are students and they're busy with school, so maintaining the Add-On has fallen to me.  I can keep up with the maintenance on this, but that's really not enough.  The QA Companion has great potential, lots of people have thought about ways to do more interesting mash-ups with it, including integrating some of the Nightly Tester Tool Functionality, integrating Mozmill automation UI etc. If we're really going to take this little tool to the next level, then I can't do it all by myself.

I'm asking for volunteers.  If you've always wanted to work on an Add-On, but it seemed like too big of an undertaking, this is a great opportunity.  The base code is already written, and it's all pretty straightforward.  I'll help you understand its ins and outs and will help you with the planning, new features, bug fixes, and ongoing maintenance.  Together, we can design a new direction for the tool and make it a really useful item for all the testers out there in Mozilla Land.

So often, getting involved with the Mozilla Project is like a scary leap into the dark water of the deep end of a pool.  This time, with a solid base of code, an installed base of users, and a willing mentor, you have a unique opportunity to step into the shallow end, and get deeper as you ramp up your skills.
Reply to this thread if you're interested.  I look forward to working with you.  I'm on IRC as ctalbert (irc.mozilla.org, channel #qa).

Udhaya

KPS and Co

This Tutorial also explains you what is the necessity to use multiple profiles in FireFox.
What is the necessity of using multiple profiles in FireFox
The necessity comes when you share your computer with other users.

• If you are familiar with FireFox Profile Manager,then you can create different profiles for different users using your computer for security reason or some particular reason.

• Using Nutshell,you can create separate accounts for each user who uses your computer.
But, If you are the only user using your computer, The profile manager can be handy rather than Nutshell.

Now i come to the point.
::  In FireFox you can add any number of add-ons and toolbars, but more number of add-ons and toolbars will consume you system resources like CPU cycles and memory,even if some add-ons or toolbars are not used at that time.You FireFox becomes slower,So here comes the concept of multiple profiles and use them in parallel. By using separate profiles you can install  add-ons used for a specified task in each profile.

For example; If you are a web developer and you use Web Development add-ons in FireFox and use it only when you are at a web development job and you will not use when you do other particular task.You can create a profile to include these these add-ons ,so that when you use the FireFox with this profile other add-ons will not be loaded into FireFox and speeds up your browser and reduce the use of most computer resources.
I think you are clear about this explanation.

::  Another advantage to use separate profiles is you can use separate set of Bookmarks for each profile.

For example;When you are on web development job, you will use specific websites related to web development . By using separate profiles, you can create a specific set of Bookmarks in a profile.

::  Yet another one, You can use particular toolbars like stumble upon Toolbar in a profile.
How to run different FireFox Profiles at the same time.
By installing  Profile switcher add-on to your FireFox, You can switch between profiles quickly and easily and even use two profiles at the same time.

Here I am not using screen shots to explain you, But you can understand what i have posted here and do the same.

1. After installing, you should restart your FireFox browser.Go to File and then Open Profile Manager.

2. If it is the first time you are adding a profile, then a default profile will be listed.For creating ProfileCreate Profile button.

3. Click Continue when you got a Introduction screen. Read the Introduction, if you are the new user to use this feature.

4. Give your Profile Name which should be very easy to understand and descriptive one and suites your profile and Click on Button DONE.

5. Highlight you profile and click on button Start FireFox.

6. Now both profiles will run at the same time. NOTE; Any Add-ons installed in a profile will not be added to other profiles.

7. If you want to launch any particular profile, Go to File and Launch Another Profile and select from listed profiles.

8. Another Feature included is you can make automatically close open profile to close when you switch to another.Want to do Select Tools then Add-ons and in listed add-ons select Profile Switcher and change preferences of Profile Switcher.

9. When you click on Preferences button in Profile Switcher add-on automatically a small pop up window will open displaying three options. Never close the Current profile, Close always the current profile, Ask always what to do.

The Goal

Allow young minds to surf the Internet on what I believe is the safest browser available today - Firefox. Allow the young ones a sense of freedom without letting go of the reins. Allow me, parent and guardian, to view any and all online activity without restriction.

With these goals in mind, I am now using a system that is working well. While it could still use some tweaks, I hope other parents will find this as useful.

Grab a copy of Firefox

Get your free copy of Firefox and install it. Why Firefox? The answers on Firefox and security, productivity and customization are laid out, as well as why use Firefox instead of Internet Exploder.

If you're already a Firefox user/fan, that means you're probably familiar with it's functions and extensibility. That familarity will help as you set up the browser for your household.

Set up profiles

If your kids will be using Firefox on a computer that is shared, you may wish to set up profiles for different members of the family. To do this, first close any running instances of Firefox. Go to Start › Run › type in firefox.exe -ProfileManager. Click OK. Now create a new profile (following the instructions provided in the Knowledge Base). Repeat this for each person in the household.

Tip: To ensure each household member uses their assigned profile, untick the box that reads Don't ask at startup in the Choose User Profile window. From now on, upon starting Firefox the user will be given a choice of which profile they would like to run.

Set the options

Let's set up some basic options in Firefox. Go to Tools › Options. The options window offers many settings, some of which you may wish to further tweak after this initial set up. Some settings will depend on changes we will make later in this article. For now, let's follow these guidelines:

Main options: When Firefox starts › Show my windows and tabs from last time

Main options: Downloads › Always ask me where to save files (allowing each user to save to their specified folder, optional)

Tabs options: Check › Always show the tab bar

Tabs options: Check › When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately

Privacy options: Remember visited pages for the last › 30 days

Install some add-ons

There are numerous add-ons for Firefox that can assist in creating a stronger and more secure browser for use by minors. Below are my (current and tested) choices along with some detail.

Install K9 Web Protection

K9 Web Protection by Blue Coat is an invaluable piece of free software. "K9 Web Protection is our free Internet filtering and control solution for the home. K9 puts YOU in control of the Internet so you can protect your kids." The benefits of using software like this are numerous. Here is a general list of features provided with K9:

• Block 60 Content Categories (MySpace, adult humor, etc.)
• Time Restrictions (10pm - 5:30am is my set blocked time)
• Web Site Exceptions (I allow some Last.fm usage)
• Blocking Effects (Extended blocking, sounds, etc.)
• URL Keywords (Block all sites with sex in the URL)
• Web Search Options (Enforce safe searching)
• View Reports of Internet Activity (Log viewing)

As an alternative, an additional Firefox add-on named ProCon Latte can help to block unwanted Internet content from your computer. "ProCon is a content filter for the Firefox browser. It can filter any kind of material (pornography, gambling, hacking, cracking, etc...), it can also block all traffic, making sure that only desired websites (set in the Whitelist) can be accessed, and includes a profanity filter, all *like* a parental control filter." (I have not tried this add-on. While it certainly would be a great addition, K9 provides some options not available with add-ons - time restrictions, logging, etc.)

With the above arsenal of products, add-ons and settings, your children's browsing activities will be more protected than ever. Please note though, nothing is 100% failsafe or foolproof, but doing something is always better than doing nothing.

For further security, disable other browsers (e.g., IE!), move home computers to more public spaces within the home, and let the kids know they are being monitored. And lastly, be sure to set up some basic house rules and have each kid pledge to abide by them.

If you want to buy a new car, you should be aware of the pitfalls involved in buying a new car.

Not knowing these new car buying pitfalls can and will cost you thousands of dollars more during the initial purchase and for the years you own your new car.

Things That Can and Will Cost You Thousands More When Buying A New Car…

• Walking on to a new car lot without having done some serious online research first.
• Getting your new car financing through the car dealership instead of securing it before.
• Trading your car in to the dealer instead of spending a few hours cleaning it up and selling it on your own.
• Telling the car sales person while shopping for your new car how much you can afford per month on your new car financing.
• Buying your new car without giving it a test drive first.
• Buying into the games the car salespeople will play on you in order to wear you out.
• Acting all excited about your new car purchase in front of the sales person.
• Giving a deposit on a new car that is not already present on the lot.
• Going to the car dealer hungry and thirsty.
• Not knowing when to leave the car lot.
• Letting them talk you into their exorbitantly priced add-ons like; rust proofing, fabric protection, new car paint sealant, extended car warranties, etc.
• Paying all their bogus add-on fee’s.

When you buy a new car, you should know that it is like going to battle!Entering a new car dealership to buy a new car without applying ALL of the above will result in you spending thousands of dollars more when buying a new car...and its just not necessary to spend more because those are all easy things to do, or not do, when you buy a new car! For more information, you may want to take a look at the new site car buying for dummies. ]]> http://heroinechick.wordpress.com/?p=468 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:59:51 +0000 Anj http://heroinechick.ca.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/mecha-ui/ Time for another episode of "Let's Have A Look At Your UI, Then"!

Finally. Finally. And thrice, finally, SpartanUI has been given some update lovin' by Ansu and, it seems, his newly acquired minions. Given that the buff-displaying shortfalls of the original v2 caused me to delve into the wonders of Satrina's Buff and Unit Frames, the most pleasing new feature is the ability to turn off the display of party portraits and vital stats at the bottom of the screen.

The Unit Frames have since been replaced by X-Perl for the extra prettiness (and, let's be honest, clearer visibility of my own mob debuffs) so Spartan's repeated information isn't needed. Seriously, I was going to write a forum post asking if such a thing was possible to implement, but turned out to be giddy like a pig on smack to find I didn't need to.

Sadly, for some reason which I expect is a good one but haven't bothered to find out about, the tall quest and crafting logs of Old Spartan have gone and, quite by surprise, I was thrust back into the long-forgotten world of the default WoW, 640x480 offchance editions. I'm still dabbling with replacements as I can't seem to find DoubleWide any more although Bayi's Extended Questlog is okay, I suppose... Skillet on the other hand needs replacing for the overcomplicating nature of bells 'n' whistles extraneous to my requirements.

Okay, so the grand dream of clearing up screen space that Spartan offered has, by personal preference, been lost but it's always been the tidy layout and the action bars that I've liked it most for. That's still safe! The current quandary concerns the whole-raid health bars in the bottom-right quarter. Do I need really need them? Really really? I think they'll be disabled soon.

Coming in as part of a mass WoW Matrix add-on update was the x-Perl HUD display, not nearly pretty enough for my likings and prompting a fun encounter with MetaHUD in the centre there. A fancy throwback to the heady days of Top Gun and surprisingly useful for keeping the health of myself and my target not too far away from Omen which, come raid-time, needs to be constantly monitored (yes, the warnings are off). Plus, a minor shift of the scroll areas for MSBT means that all the stuff I might ever need to know (save for, perhaps, the colour of the off-tank's pants) beautifully hugs the parentheses I'm now regularly encased in, which is nicely understated I think. It's like, oh, by the way, there's me as well. Brackets are the new black this autumn.

Now sit back, grab yourself a drink and watch it all crumble like a house of cards when Lich King arrives and inexplicably changes everything.

Some of these might be just what you need!

Check out Gizmo's Best Free Add-ins for Internet Explorer.

The difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is simple. Web 1 was about sharing information and Web 2 is about sharing more information quickly. That's all. In fact, it's mostly the quickly; that's led to most of the fast.

So... how do you get involved in web 2.0? And what are all of these websites for anyway?

------

Get a good browser, anything but IE.

• Safari with webkit builds renders pages perfectly.
• Opera has built-in mail, web reader, and widgets.
• Firefox has well built extentions.
• Chrome Beta is crash resistant and pop-up resistant and simple.

Get an email account (just covering all the bases here) and an RSS feed reader.

Your best bet for both is Gmail and Google Reader. In fact I've never tried a feed reader that could hold a candle to Google Reader. A feed reader downloads content from numberous websites and pulls them into and easy-to-use interface.  It's necessary.

A useful thing to do that doesn't require a lot of work would be to save bookmarks online so y don't lose 'em. I've talked about Blummy and it's very useful, but for other bookmarks, the pages you love, the memes you adore, the stuff you'll never forget or can't forget, save them online because I've lost that stuff before. Foxmarks is good, if you use Firefox. Google Bookmarks is what I'm using now. Lots of places that call themselve social bookmarking sites are horrible at what they do. Digg (ew), reddit, and StumbleUpon are communities, not social bookmarking sites.

There are three levels of blogging: blogging, sharing, and status blogging. Micro-blogging is a tech-y buzzword for the other two kinds of blogging. And if you hear someone seirously using the term "nano-blogging", punch them in the face.

Blogging is for the seirious. It requires commitment. It takes on numerous forms; blogging, vloging (video blogging), photo blogging (phlogging), podcasting (audio blogging)... 

The word blog comes from "web log". A log is a seiries of entries with a time stamp on it. That's all a blog is. And there's no other way to define it. Any list of entires with a time stamp on the web is a blog. Almost all blogs are mixed media if for no other reason that it's stupid to try to do a completely written blog ith no pictures and expectto keep someone's attention.

Next, sharing. I use tumblr a half-dozen times a day to keep a list of cool stuff I've found on web pages. Pictures, ridiculous quotes, videos... When you don't need the whole page, just a picture and a link, this is what you want to use. It becomes a kind of collection of cool stuff. My Friendfeed is starting to look more like a tumblelog more and more. Posterous is easier to use than Tumblr because you can simply email-in your posts - no password required to post, but obviously login required to delete stuff or change how it looks. And Posterous looks like it might bridge the gap between tumblelogging and longer blog posts simply from the way it looks.

There are a lot of sites for doing this and they can be a bit ridiculous. Diigo allows you to add sticky notes to websites (what?) to make your comments. Reader has a sharing and noting function but the page you share it on is stupid, same with Google Shared Stuff. I can recommend anything else for sharing except tumblr or posterous.

Twitter is sometimes used for sharing, but it only gives you the link and the left-over of 140 characters. 

Status is a newer trend. Status blogging Is generally one or to sentences, a short thought, a message to whoever stumbles across your page or is subscribed to the feed (a message might be " or, as for Twitter, a statement about what you are doing. It's difficult to explain why this has caught on as phenomenally as it has.

• Some people actually use it to tell people what they are doing.
• Some share links
• Some send messages to other people in the network.
• Some people share thoughts.

Twitter has cleaned up it's act and has become the only real place to be for status. If you use Google Chat, that's become a legit place for status. Plurk has a timeline feature and has statuses which take the form of " "tehKenny ASKS why does sarah Palin suck" and "tehKenny IS going to sleep" which makes it easy to use plurk for all of those above reasons without making it look screwed up. Facebook status can streamed, too. But that's not a legitimate reason to use Facebook. It sucks. Stay away. 12 Seconds is a video status updater, no video is longer than 12 seconds on the site.

Best bet here is to pick one and stick with it. People who have more than one and actually USE more than one are pretty messed up. Besides, your status blog goes on your website/blog/hub. No-one has JUST a status blog.

There are many other sites that allow creation of content and public linking or embedding of that content.

• Dipity - Create interactive timelines.
• Finetune - Create songlists.
• 43 Things - Create lists of goals to meet.
• Goodreads - Create lists of books to read, have read and get recommendations.
• Slideshare - Create slideshow presentations and share them.
• Scribd - Uplode documents and embed them in a post or website.
• Wikispaces - Create your own goddamn wiki.
• Listography - Create and share... lists.
• Google Knol - Create and share well-reaserched articles.
• Ning - Create AN ENTIRE GODDAMN SOCIAL NETORKING SITE.
• WikiHow - Create and collaborate or how-to guides.
• WikiNews -  A Wikimedia Foundation project where you can collaborate on "news articles". 

A re-tool version of the $700 bailout plan will be voted on by the Senate later Wednesday evening.  Being that the House of Representatives failed to pass it on Monday, the bill was enhanced to give it a better chance of getting voted through.  The enhancements came in the form of primarily two additions that would make the plan more attractive.

Senate leaders added in an adjustment on the government's FDIC cap of insured bank deposits to go from $100,000 to $250,000.  They also attached it to business and energy tax breaks, that were previously opposed by House democrats.  Much of the republican base that rejected the bailout plan on Monday, may be more inclined to take a look at this version because of this. 

This new and improved bailout plan, would allow the Treasury Department to buy problem mortgage-related assets from banks.  Their hope was to help with unlock credit markets and stop the country from falling into a deeper crisis.  But with the new add-ons, the price tag is likely to exceed the $700 billion that Secretary Paulson initially asked for.  Supporters say that the tax payers will get most if not all of the money back, but opponents don't seem agree.

Some of those supporters are to include current presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, both of whom have said that they will be in attendence at the vote this evening.  But as we saw last week, this is only part one of the bill's passing through the Senate vote.  Part two, where the bill died on Monday, lies with the House vote.  We won't know the bill's fate until that comes around.  Meanwhile, some seem optimistic while others are still leery of what the redux will do.

Not for nothin', but I see all the build up and the Senate support I saw last weekend before the House voted on Monday.  Even though this time around, extra toppings may lure more votes, it could still come down to what people want...or don't want.  Many people still believe that this price for this bailout is still too much, too fast, and too ambiguous.

Click here for the story.

I've said it a hundred times now that we are a casual raiding guild, but we are a raiding guild. I don't think it hardcore to expect everyone to be fully prepared if they want to raid. Most raiding guilds I know that find raiders not fully buffed with flasks, elixirs, and food will quickly remove raiders from the guild. That's not what we want to be about. We want to keep things casual, but why does that mean a select few don't have to bring their 'A-Game' when others do?

While clearing trash to Void Reaver the other night, I used Big Brother to do a quick check and after noticing about 10 people without food buffs and more than 5 without elixirs or flasks, I posted it to the raid. Unfortunately, three of them were officers. When the raid leader asked to post it again later on after another wipe, one of the officers jokingly asked not to post it until the boss fight. When questioned why her reason was because she didn't waste elixirs, flasks, or food buffs until the boss fight because of the cost.

Did I mention I was upset?

Rather than causing a scene in raid, I posted in officer chat that not fully buffing during the trash pulls didn't sit well with me. Heck, I was using my buffs and lost several after the first 6 wipes, 4 of which were completely idiotic and stupid. I pointed out that one could argue that our wiping was due to the lack of buffs. This isn't exactly true, because like I said some of the wipes were completely avoidable. However, the argument is sound.

The officer, along with the other two non-buffed officers, have spent a lot of time complaining in the past about people not pulling their weight and how so-and-so shouldn't be here, they suck, so on and so forth.

Hypocrisy is an evil thing. I absolutely hate it. I hate it even more when I catch myself being hypocritical. I'm not a pleasant person to be around when that happens.

So my final comment to all the officers was I didn't want to hear any more complaining about anybody not being ready, not pulling their weight, or any other thing from those who are not buffing up during trash pulls. Another officer agreed with me.

The comments from those 3 officers were very minimal the remainder of the evening. LOL

Top 6 Excuses (believe me there's more LOL)

The other raid members when confronted with why they didn't have food, elixirs, or flasks had a varied range of excuses. I've compiled them here and included a couple I've heard before.

Excuse #1 - I just logged in and didn't know we were raiding tonight, so I didn't have time enough to buy or farm the stuff I needed.
Excuse #2 - I'm broke and didn't have enough money to buy the mats, food, etc.
Excuse #3 - The AH didn't have what I needed.
Excuse #4 - We've wiped so much, I ran out.
Excuse #5 - If I buff up, I'll end up aggroing.
Excuse #6 - I don't buff up for the trash pulls.

Answers To Any And All Excuses

Chances are you've been in whatever raiding guild you are in for a while. For those of you that haven't, you'll soon notice a trend that your raiding guild has. This may include a raid every single night, whenever there are enough people (kind of like my guild). You may find that you only raid certain nights and only certain raids on certain nights.

You may find rather quickly that you will either be a part of every single raid or you may find that you are part of a select few. Whichever category you fall into, be creative in finding time to do the things you need to do to prepare. Best thing I've ever found is doing it all at once for an entire week's worth of raiding. (Saturday morning when I live on the East Coast and play on a West Coast server...absolutely the best time ever to farm!)

Finding yourself in every single raid puts a strain on being prepared. See if you can't set up an alliance with someone to help you out by trading mats for food, food for pots, etc.

Running out of funds? Get with a group to run the Isle dailies if nothing else. I can almost guarantee at least a few of your guildmates are running it every day. Getting in a group can make it go faster. In just under an hour you should net yourself a little over 100g with all the trash loot.

Bored with dailies? I personally do maybe 2-3 daililes on any average day and do the Isle or Netherwing dailies about once per week. I spend most of my days farming mats to make Primal Might. As a transmute master, I hope for proc's which can boost my income.

Plan ahead. Spend a day each week farming what you need for an entire week's worth of raiding. You can't count on the AH to always have what you want, especially at the price you want. Find someone in guild that can make what you need. Like I said, work out a trade. If you think you need so many of an item, chances are you need more. Always be prepared for a bad wipe night. If you think you need 20 of something, bring twice that to be safe.

I usually fish 60 Golden Fish Sticks at the beginning of any week and use about 40 before the end. I have the extra 20, just in case we have a really bad wipe night. I always carry 300 Symbol of Kings at the beginning of any raid because there are times after a really bad raid night that I will log out without restocking and need to be ready right away the following day. 300 is a lot, it's probably overkill, but it's only 3 stacks and I'm always prepared.

Answers To Excuses #5 and #6

I don't buy excuse #5 and you'd be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise. If you are over-aggroing, it is not because of your food buff, elixir, or otherwise. You need to adapt. In most cases, a change in your spell / attack / shot rotation or waiting just a few seconds for the tanks to build aggro before starting your DPS will accomodate any extra buffs you have. This also means you need to get a feel for how often you crit and the affect it's having on your aggro.

Excuse #6 upsets me because it tells me that someone believes they don't need to bring their 'A game' to a raid before we get to the boss. It doesn't upset me because I feel it affects me personally in the raid, it upsets me because I find it disrespectful to the others in the raid.

But those elixirs are pricey, Ky!!

I don't care!!! So are mine and I use them every single time! Based on the Big Brother addon I've been using, so do a lot of other people in my guild. I'll bet you find in your own raid that it's the same. What makes it right for you not to be as prepared and ready as they are?!

I'll make a concession with you. If you're running Kara with an elite group, I won't say anything. I told my guild that I won't say anything to them. I still think it's wrong as the majority in the raid are still using all of theirs, so why handicap yourself in a raid that will go just a bit faster if you buff up?

In Closing

I will continue to monitor raid buffs in the future. What will be the outcome? As of right now, probably nothing except my addon and the public knowledge as I post it for all to see. Will it affect them? I can almost guarantee a few of them will never be affected by it. Only their conscience can decide.

So what about you? Does that mean you shouldn't do anything about it? I suppose that's up to you and your conscience.

All I'm asking is for you to pull your weight and be fair to everyone else by bringing your 'A game'.

Remember, I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together!

http://www.keepvid.com
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
http://wish.kuso.cc/youtube/
http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Untuk mendownload video dari YouTube atau Crunchyroll dll. Ada cara lain yang dapat digunakan, yaitu dengan menggunakan Video DownloadHelper yang merupakan add-ons dari Mozilla Firefox. Jadi, untuk mendownload video dengan menggunakan Video DownloadHelper, web browser yang digunakan adalah Mozilla Firefox.

Untuk mendownload add-ons tersebut, klik saja link :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

Setelah mendownload & menginstall Video DownloadHelper, maka Firefox akan restart. Kemudian muncullah add-ons DownloadHelper, terletak di sebelah kanan address bar browser. Ditunjukkan dengan 3 lingkaran yang berputar yang berwarna kuning, merah, dan biru.

Bila terdapat video flash yang sedang dimainkan, maka lingkaran tersebut akan muncul. Sedangkan bila tidak, maka logo DownloadHelper tersebut hanya berwarna abu-abu dan tidak berputar.

Nah, untuk mensave video yang sedang dimainkan, klik saja tanda segitiga yang ditandai dengan lingkaran merah. Setelah diklik, akan muncul video-video yang sedang dimainkan.

Pilih video yang ingin kamu simpan. Setelah itu, file video tersebut (dengan extention .flv) akan disave langsung ke komputer.

File video tersebut akan terdownload secara langsung di windows download Firefox.

Bila kamu mendownload lebih dari 1 video, maka akan muncul keterangan berupa angka (jumlah video yang sedang kamu download) yang terdapat di sebelah kanan.

Kelebihan mendownload video dengan menggunakan cara ini :: kita tidak perlu mengakses web seperti www.keepvid.com dkk untuk mendownload video. Karena saat video dimainkan kita dapat mendownloadnya secara langsung dan dapat langsung disimpan di komputer.

Biasanya aku cancel proses download video & mengklik kanan di list video yang sedang didownload di windows download Firefox. Lalu pilih Properties, copy link From : http://www.youtube.com/get_video……………………… ke program downloader.
Oia….. aku biasa menggunakan Internet Download Manager.

Jadi, proses download video tidak memakan waktu lama meskipun agak repot untuk mengcopy tiap link video-video tersebut ke IDM.

File video yang didownload tanpa diberi ekstensi .flv juga bisa diputar koq. Aku pake Media Player Classic untuk memainkan video tersebut (tanpa .flv). Ukuran window video saat dimainkan lebih besar daripada .flv yang ukuran windownya kecil.

Sekian!!

Link terkait :: Baba Studio Web Tutorial - Mendownload Video (YouTube dsb) Menggunakan Video DownloadHelper

One of the features I like best about the add-on is that you can add a new thumbnail by right clicking a page and selecting Add to Fast Dial.  The add-on lets you customize the layout of the blank tab.  The default layout is a 3x3 configuration.

When you add a bookmark to the tab, the thumbnail is a snapshot of the web page you are bookmarking.  So the thumbnail might not look that great.  The Fast Dial website has logos of various websites that you can use for the thumbnail.  For example, there are thumbnails for all of the Google apps.  You can also use your own pics.

One word of caution: A few users have commented that the latest version of Fast Dial has scrambled their bookmarks.  I haven't seen that, myself, but thought I'd pass it on any way.

Technorati Tags: Fast Dial, Add-ons, Firefox, Technology, Internet

The catch: it does not work in an email client like Thunderbird. It only works in web-based email. The ones that are supported are Gamil, AOL, Yahoo!, and Hotmail. It's pretty easy to use and install. Once installed, you can go to Tools and click on WiseStamp. Edit your signature in either the visual editor or the HTML editor. Then, log into one of the email services and compose a new message. It was automatically inserted into my email message for Gmail. You can also right click to access you signature and insert or edit it. This would be a great addition to a forum post. I was also able to insert my WiseStamp signature here (because it's HTML based, but I wasn't able to add it into a Blackboard forum):

Angel B, MS
Email: a@gmail.com
Website: http://www.angelbrady.com
Blog: http://angelb.wordpress.com

Contact Me:

--- @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

This is a great tool to help promote yourself on the web. Let your email signature stick out! Click on the link below to find out more:

http://www.wisestamp.com/features

Enjoy!

Ever since the launch of Google Chrome at the beginning of the month, users are insistently saying that they would like to see more customization features for this speedy-stripped-down browser. By customization, they mean more Add-ons or extensions, mimicking Mozilla's Firefox.

While searching the Web, I accidentally found that one company has built a convenient Add-on for Google Chrome which I would like to share with you today. The extension is called Google Chrome Backup, created by Parhelia Tools.

Chrome Backup is a small tool to create, backup, restore and manage Google Chrome profiles. As you probably know, a browser's profile holds valuable personal data like history, bookmarks, etc. Everything is done with one click. Latest version also supports Chromium, which modified version of Google Chrome, for portable use.

Not only that, you can easily create multiple user profiles (each with different settings/bookmarks) and switch between them quickly.

Parphelia Tools has a website which will baby walk you through the whole process of managing your Chrome profiles. It's nice to see new extensions being built for Google Chrome. Good Day!

Download Google Chrome Backup

• A while back the official meeting title was changed to Mozilla Project Weekly Status.
• Watch these meetings live (and past meetings) at Air Mozilla
• New this additions week include AMO (addons.mozilla.org) and Lightning/Sunbird (Mozilla Calendar project).

ADDONS.MOZILLA.ORG (AMO)

FIREFOX/GECKO

SUNBIRD/LIGHTNING

THUNDERBIRD

Complete Meeting Notes

1. Chrome, (anche per la grafica e per la novità);
2. Firefox, (per la praticità),
3. Explorer (purtroppo non capisco come si possano fare ancora siti ed applicazioni dedicate),

Ma questa "stupida" classifica probabilmente cambierà! Si perchè, una delle feature di Chrome,  OMNIBAR è ora disponibile anche per Firefox.

Per chi ancora non lo sapesse, Omnibar è la barra di navigazione che nel browser di Google, è diventata il centro della navigazione, pescando informazioni dalla cronologia o direttamente dal nostro motore di ricerca preferito o completando la nostra digitazione.

Questo semplice add-on permette, citando da sito degli add-ons di Firefox:

Transform Location bar into an Omnibar. Search directly using location bar with ease. Supports searching multiple search engines for same query in one go. One can choose to search using different search engines by typing in the engine name in the "bar".
Search suggestions are used to show top suggestions as well. Search suggestions have to be enabled to use it.

A general search query is:
@engine1,engine2 your search query.

Buona navigazione! ;-)

Anyway, once the WotLK comes out I suspect that a whole lotta addons won't work anyway.....thats my experience from the last major patch anyway (2.4 I think it was)

I'm a bit of an add-on fan (I do the same thing with Firefox Add-ons) I just like to see what these things do. Here's some screenshots of my addons from Wowmatrix:

A few examples of this are:

• computerworld.com
• environmentalgraffiti.com
• ew.com
• gamesradar.com
• instructables.com
• itwirecom
• maximumpc.com
• rd.com

While Adblock Plus usually makes short work of the ads, there are also self-promoting ads on every page as well. I may be interested in these on the first page, but by the second, third and fourth pages they're nothing but the visual equivalent of static noise.

Repagination (a Firefox add-on) stitches all of the pages together, much like taking a report and taping the pages end to end to create a large ribbon.

Add in Adblock Plus' side kick "Element Hiding Helper" to zap the noise, and you can actually do what you set out to do - read the article!

How-to:

Requirements:

• Firefox
• Adblock Plus
• Adblock Plus - Element Hiding Helper
• Repagination (the official project doesn't support Firefox 3, but a simple edit or alternative source will allow you to use it)

The first thing you'll need to do is stitch the pages together:

1. Right-click on the Next link
2. Choose Re-pagination
3. Choose All
4. Wait as it loads (you should see your scroll bar shrinking and jumping up)

Then I'd recommend scrolling down to the second page, or even just the last page.

Once you're there, you'll want to use Adblock Plus' Element Hiding Helper to target the areas that are not related to the article (header, footer, "you might be interested in" links, etc.)

The way I target each annoyance is:

1. Right-click on the Adblock Plus icon and choose "Select Element to Hide"
2. Move your mouse over the offender
   
3. Hit W (wider) on the keyboard until it outlines an area that affects the content
   
4. Hit N (narrow) to go back down a level
   
5. Hit B (blink) to see what removing that selection would affect.
   
6. Hit S (select) to choose that area
7. Go into the advanced editor
   

Here's the tricky part... I, personally, don't like the first page affected by the slimming process.

In the advanced editor,

1. scroll up the tree until you're just under the body area,
2. choose the one that's the ancestor of your target
   
3. then find the ancestor with the SAME name on the same level.
   

Troubleshooting:

Every once in a while Repagination inserts a frame for the next page, which foils adblock's selection.

The easiest solution to this is to go into Adblock Plus' Preferences, finding the rules for the site, and replacing (as an example):

instructables.com##*#container + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + * + *#container > DIV#sidebar

with

instructables.com##*#container ~ *#container > DIV#sidebar

The tilde (~) means "any sibling after", and so this would target all of the "container"s after a "container" that are on the same level. It's usuall shift + `, which is called a "back tick" and is in the very top left of most keyboards.

If you are trying to save your thesis, I cannot recommend this extension enough.

Now,  after this post, contradiction.wordpress.com goes onto my hard block list (set for access on Sundays only, locked-down so I can't unlock it through options), as have many other sites. Extreme procrastination needs extreme tools!