PitchDark Honors and Props
Posted by Tim
Ever since the release of Firefox 3.0 I’ve had an outpouring of appreciative and supporting (not to mention help related) emails. I’d like to say thanks to all the faithful users and I apologize for the lack of releases recently (especially on the Thunderbird side).
Furthermore, I’ve received recognition from the internet community:
- editors have selected PitchDark for Fx to be listed on CNET Download.com
- “PitchDark for ThunderBird 2.0.2″ has been tested by the Softpedia labs and found to be completely clean of adware/spyware components
- Mashable.com named PitchDark for Fx one of the The Top 20 Firefox 3.0 Compatible Themes Worth Upgrading For
Anyway, I’ll be settling in and getting to work on updates to both themes (See the PitchDark page for the list of fixes that are pending).
Getting Things Done: Integration of online calendars (GCal with Thunderbird-Lightning, Outlook and Facebook)
Posted by Tim
The plethora of calendars I have to manage was getting to be quite the mess. Trying to schedule events was a danting task requiring lookup in multiple places.
I use Thunderbird (with the Lightning extension) when I’m at home most of the time. When I’m at work we’re required to use the standard Microsoft Outlook. Finally I use Google Calendar and Facebook (events and birthdays) to manage personal events.
Well, I finally sat down and integrated everything.
Thunderbird
Using the extensions Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar, I enabled the ability to view/edit GCal through TB. Follow the instructions by Jonny Sync GCal and Thunderbird.
Outlook
The awesome developers over at Google released a Sync tool for MS Outlook. Download and follow the instructions they provide. You can set whether you want 1-way (GCal to Outlook, or Outlook to GCal) or 2-way.
Some cool guy named VeganBob has created a facebook application called fbCal that facilitates integrating Facebook Events and Facebook Birthdays with Google Calendar (and also Sunbird/Lightning, Outlook, and Apple iCal). Simply add the application (click the big “Create” button), generate your urls and follow the instructions.
FuseCal (via LifeHacker) is a web-based app that can integrate iCal based calendars, but leaves out facebook.
Anyone have better ways to do it?
Ahhh, thebankshow is naked!
Posted by Tim
If this is your first time here, you’re probably thinking to yourself: “Wow, this site sucks. It’s so plain.” Well for your information, I’m promoting web standards by participating in CSS Naked Day on April 9th, 2008 and showing off my <body>.
Have a look around and enjoy your time here.
Updates to Mozilla Add-ons Site
Posted by Tim
Basil has already done an exceptional job of outlining most of the new updates in AMO 3.2 but I thought I’d touch on a few of my favorites.
Rehauled the color scheme and layout
The new “Eco” visual identity is very easy on the eyes and the ‘findability’ on the site has greatly improved.
Cleared up the difference between installing and downloading a theme
Using smart install buttons the user is presented with clear options for using an add-on. While this might not seem like a very big issue, you don’t know how many emails I get from frustrated users who click the Install link for a Thunderbird Theme/Extension and it tries to install into Firefox - only to error out.
Impressive language support
24 languages and probably more to come. Localization is where we should be moving - props to Mozilla for leading the way.
Statistics dashboard
The statistics dashboard under the developer tools section (which can also be made public) features some awesome filtering and graphing functionality.
Car Company Family Tree
Posted by Tim
The good people over at Jalopnik have posted a “family tree” for automobile company ownership. Now you can understand why so many cars look alike these days.
