I work a lot with open tabs in Firefox, and frequently use the Command-Alt-Left Arrow and Command-Alt-Right Arrow key combinations to switch one tab to the left or right.

It has become very noticeable recently that sometimes Firefox refuses to switch tabs.

It won’t always switch tabs when the cursor is in the location bar (but now I’ve just tested it, it will).

It won’t always switch tabs when there is Flash content on the page (at least, this seems to be the trigger for misbehaviour).

It won’t always switch tabs when the cursor is in a form text box, but again, it’s intermittent.

It is really starting to annoy me now as it means that I have to click with my mouse on the tab I want, and I’m a keyboard shortcut junkie.

Anyone have any bright suggestions as to how I can fix this, or whether it’s something that I just have to put up with?

Whilst I decry the continual advancement of Christmas in society, with marketing and advertising beginning as early as late summer, from a blogger’s point of view, late summer really is the time to begin planning any major campaigns, features, or whole sites that rely on the Season.

Particularly if you want to start a site from scratch, I’d argue that the basic layout and key articles/content need to be in place by September, or October at the latest.

That gives time for the search engines to find you, and hopefully for any sandbox effect to be overcome.

I’m planning to do something for the festive season, having failed miserably at it last year, but know that I have to make some decisions and take action in the next couple of weeks if I’m to fit the additional building and content creation into my already busy schedule without having to lock myself away from everyone for a month.

I’ve got the domain and now I just need the complete concept and the design in order to get going. I’ll be disappointed if content isn’t being plugged in to the site by the end of October.

Do you have plans for your current site, or a new site, to take advantage of the Christmas season?

I thought I was winding down for the evening after a three-day weekend, but now it’s midnight-fifteen on Tuesday morning, and I’m wide awake.

It really is a mistake to start reading articles about blogging — or probably anything — when sleep should be a priority.

The advantages of freelancing is that I can theoretically work at any time. The reality is that I should be starting work by 9am at the latest.

And I need to take dog out for a walk before that.

Ho-hum. Do I write a few articles now, risking keeping my brain active until 1am or later, or do I put some soothing music on and try to mellow out (again).

Oh the agonising choices!

I can forgive an MP3 player that insists on sticking an “i” at the beginning of its name in order to be “cool”.

I can forgive the additional lowercase letters and alternative spellings.

Surely, though, someone in marketing must’ve said the name back to themselves a few times and thought “this doesn’t sound right”

According to the press release, it “precisely reflects the desires of the young, trend-conscious target group we are aiming for”.

Uh-huh?

[Worst MP3 Player Name Ever: i.Beat blaxx (Shiny Shiny)]

Update: It’s been renamed

Worth a watch.

Here’s an example of forum inconsistency (just one way to hack off a forum member)

If you want your signature image banners to be no more than 500 pixels wide by 70 pixels high, you should:

1. Create a STANDALONE RULE either in the fixed Help Section (most forums will allow you to change the default text if you aren’t too lazy to leave a default that doesn’t suit you)

   OR

   Create a STICKY, LOCKED note in your ADMIN (or similar) area, laying out the guidelines.

2. ENFORCE the image rules by setting up maximum dimensions and/or file size in the administrator panel (assuming you have at least one administrator who knows — TECHNICALLY — how the forum functions)

Do NOT create a wishy-washy, open discussion thread along the lines of:

1. [First post]

   “I don’t want to be too much of a killjoy but as admin I need to remind people about signature banners. Please keep them to a reasonable size. Quite a few members have been posting biggies lately! The best size is to have the height set at is around 65-75 pixels high. (Eg: [ IMG height=65 ] – without spaces). There are old guidelines floating about somewhere from the early days of FHF about banners, but now FHF is developing, 65-75px high seems an acceptable height for signature banners. If you want something larger, we have paid-for advertising banners… By keeping signature banners to a reasonable size, this won’t upset our paying advertisers. I hope everyone understands. Please check your banner is ok, or the banner pixies might pay you a visit and edit it for you! lol!!”

2. [Subsequent post]

   1 banner per person. this banner should be no more than 65-70px high by 500px wide.

3. [Interwoven discussion from members, many of whom have banners that are too big by either, or any, rule]

However, if you want to alienate your members by automatically altering images, and by picking on individuals who have supposedly broken the (unwritten) rules, then go right ahead
with the second option.

Don’t be surprised if people leave, or create their own forums run by people who have a clue!

Here’s the best way to really annoy a regular member of a discussion forum. For best results, apply these principles to all of your members, thus creating a disharmonious “community”:

1. Ensure your administrators don’t know how to use the basic admin functions of your forum,  such as altering the default Terms & Conditions, and rules.
2. Ensure that you pick on individual members and enforce “unwritten rules” that everyone is (telepathically?) supposed to know about.
3. Ensure that your administrators don’t log in and actively steer the community for days or weeks at a time.
4. Ensure that, when a member who complains about another for any reason whatsoever, even if commercial or purely personal in nature, that the member being accused is automatically in the wrong, and must be reprimanded.
5. Ensure that your administrators and moderators are inconsistent with enforcing both written and “unwritten” rules, so that your members are never quite sure what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
6. Ensure that your administrators change members’ posts, signatures, and images, without any notification or discussion, even if that changes the context of what was said, results in factually inaccurate information, or “squishes” images because dimensions were arbitrarily altered.
7. Ensure that your administrators and moderators do not display a “united front”. Make sure that disagreements between those “in control” are argued out in public. If this causes members to take sides, so much the better.

These steps will ensure that your discussion forum thrives on negativity, confusion, and infighting. Well done!

I don’t know what was happening today, but Firefox (version 2) for Mac decided to mess me about.

Perhaps it was because I had a pretty nasty, unproductive blogging day anyway, but every time I wanted to do something in Firefox, it misbehaved in some way.

Firstly, the yellow “minimise” buttons disappeared for part of the morning, yet Command-M would still minimise the window.

Other weird behaviours which I’ve observed before included:

• Window refuses to stay put when dragged from one place on the desktop to another, particularly when dragging between two monitor displays.
• The active tab changes when moving the window.
• The window’s title bar disappears above the top of the screen after dragging, requiring a minimise and maximise operation to restore it.
• Whole program hanging when trying to do inline search for text on large pages.

I’m sure there were other issues as well.

The only saving grace for the latest version of Firefox is that it regularly saves the text in form elements — this has saved a lot of time when I’ve had to restart the program, though it would be great if it didn’t crash or hang in the first place.

According to a report by the BBC:

The editor of the News of the World at the time of Princess Diana’s death has said he felt “huge responsibility” for the Paris car crash which killed her.

Phil Hall told an ITV documentary if it were not for the paparazzi following Diana’s Mercedes when it crashed the accident may not have happened.

Yes, and?

Of course there were many contributing factors which caused the death of Princess Diana ten years ago, but there aren’t many people who believe the paparazzi didn’t play a significant role.

And yet, it’s only the public’s insatiable appetite for celebrity photographs that caused this in the first place. Even the documentary will show some of the pictures taken by those pursuing her.

When we stop demanding intimate portraits of the rich and famous, the paparazzi will cease to exist. Until then, expect more hounding in order to “get the shot”.