The Ramblings of a Fosgnilbmareht

This weekend I was trying to buy a round trip airline ticket from San Francisco to Maine in order to spend a week with Amanda and her family. Pretty straight forward thing to do right? Pick a site (I went with Travelocity), enter some info like where from/to, dates and a whole lot of other stuff, mostly useless. Did that easily enough. Since I was trying to match Amanda’s flight info, it was even easier (not as cheap as other options but more convenient). So I’m zipping through all nice like until I get to the page where I have to pay.

At that point I pull out my handy dandy Paypal Debit Card so I could save a few bucks on this flight (from cashback) and enter my information. I check to make sure everything is accurate then click the submit button. After waiting a minute it comes back saying there was a problem with the card and to check the info or use a different card. So I check the info again, even re-entering it and try again. Same thing. Weird.

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As I learn more of Joomla’s ins and outs, it’s getting easier to develop for it. The component I am working on right now is for a client and was specifically tailored to that client. But I can see it being the basis for a much larger project. I think I might want to turn it into a product management extension. I’m thinking it will be open source with paid support. Might bring in a little change, hopefully enough to pay for the server hosting the downloads but not expecting anything.

Please comment with features you would like in a product like this so I can plan them in for the initial release.

By the way, a big thank you to ircmaxell on the IRC Joomla channel for all the help. Show some support for a great resource: www.joomlaperformance.com

I use Firefox. I stopped using IE awhile ago after I realized how much better Firefox is. IE7 does a pretty good job most of the time, but Firefox is so much better when you can throw extensions, useful extensions at it.

I am a web developer. I make web sites (<- I never know if that’s one word or two). Part of making web sites is viewing them on as many browsers as possible to make sure everyone gets a consistent experience when viewing the site. Some of the extensions I use help with that.

Now on to the list (it’s not too long) sorted by what I think is most important/useful first:

1. Firebug
   This is probably the best extension out, even if it is buggy at times. If you don’t develop web sites, then you probably don’t use this or would have heard about it. But if you do develop web sites, and you don’t know how to use this, then you need to get in the know. Firebug is the most useful tool in your library. It will greatly improve your quality of life. Thank you to the developer’s of this.
   Now only if it worked in Firefox 3 perfectly…..
2. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
   Ever since I found this little gem, my surfing is so much easier. Now all of my bookmarks are synced across the 3 and up computers I use (Home, Work, Laptop, Virtual machines). I could use something like del.ic.ous or some other social networking site. Or I could even write my own script that would sync them, but why bother when this handy extension does it for me? I don’t care about sharing my bookmarks with people, and some of them I don’t want to. So this extension is great for me.
3. Google Notebook
   Google Notebook is a pretty useful because it lets me write notes and access them anywhere I have a computer with an Internet connection. With this extension, I can access my notebook even faster. I can just click “Open Notebook” in the lower left hand of my browser and instantly my notebook pops up in the corner. There’s even a right click context item that sends the current page to my notebook for later viewing (it saves a link to the page). I can store code, tips, reminders, any text I want to use later. Saves having to carry around an actual notebook.
4. Web Developer
   I only use a few features of this one, but that’s only because I haven’t played with all the features yet. Every time I try a new one, this extension gets better. It lets me block JavaScript, view the CSS for a page in it’s entirety, provides quick links to validate the page I am on through W3C, and many other tools I am still learning. Combined with Firebug and my web development life is almost a breeze (well not really since I still have to write all the code, but it does make debugging the visuals of a page so much easier).
5. PDF Download
   Not the most used extension, but good nonetheless. No more opening PDFs in the browser and bogging everything down unless I say it can. I normally use it to save the PDF to my computer, which should be the default action but isn’t always. I can also view the PDF as HTML.
6. StumbleUpon
   If Firebug and Web Developer are the tools of my trade, StumbleUpon can be described as the rust on my tools. This extension slows my work down. But maybe in retrospect, it speeds it up too. StumbleUpon will randomly take you to a page others have said are good. You define the categories of sites you would like to browse then hit Stumble and you are on your way. Great way to kill time, but really only if you have the time to kill, which I rarely do. I sometimes spend too much time on sites StumbleUpon sends me too lol.
7. Adblock Plus
   This would have ranked higher except that, once again, I am a web developer. Sometimes its me putting those awful, awful ads on pages. But to give myself a bit of credit, most of the sites I work on don’t have unnecessarily obnoxious ads since they are mostly corporate sites. Some of my personal sites (like this one) will from time to time have Google Ads, but those are plain text ads, not like the ones on Myspace or Facebook. I can’t really use this extension too much because I need to see the ads at time, but when I don’t need to this is great for getting rid of all that junk. If you aren’t a web developer then this should be at the top of your list.
8. Download Statusbar
   This one is only a minor one but a welcome one. It adds a counter to the bottom right of Firefox and lets me know when my downloads are done and how many are still going. Not much more to it than that.
9. Google Send to Phone
   Sometimes its easier to type a text message on my computer. What can I say, I text a lot.
10. Nasa Night Launch
    I’m throwing this one my list of extensions even though it’s a theme (although themes are considered extension in Firefox). This is purely a cosmetic thing. My home computer is Vista and has a nice dark theme going for it so having my browser match is nice. Even when I was running XP, I had the Royale Noir theme (which is pretty close to my current Vista them) so I had this theme too. It even works on my Linux boxes.

Well there’s my top 10 (and consequently the only 10 extension I use). If any of these sounded interesting to you, try them out and let me know your experience with them. If you don’t like them you can always uninstall them. Firefox makes that extremely easy. To get these, go to Firefox’s add on page at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

I don’t know if it’s Joomla’s wackiness or the MVC model in general but I am still having trouble wrapping my head around the whole concept. At times it seems clear, but then I’ll read something and it blows my thinking out of the water. I think it could be a good concept, maybe I even use it at times already, but right now it seems to only add more steps to something that’s already complicated.

I like the idea of having as much separated out as possible providing the cleanest code, but I also hate it at the same time because you have to reference so many different files to see the whole picture. Overall I still am not sure about MVC programming but maybe with time and more practice I’ll come to like it better.

Ah the joys of ordering things online. I like ordering stuff online because I usually get a pretty good price on things and I love the feeling I get when I receive something good in the mail. It sucks getting bills in the mail (which is why I have changed most of my bills to paperless statements) but love getting useful and fun stuff. I got my Zune, my digital camera (first one I got not counting the camera on my phones, which is amazing considering how into tech I am), lots of cell phones, and well lot’s of other stuff. It sucks paying shipping charges but these are usually balanced out by the lower prices so its ok.

However, the one notable exception to all this is buying tickets to event’s like plays and sporting events. These places do NOT give you a discount for ordering online. In fact, they make you pay MORE for the tickets. They also make it race to buy them. First you go to the site to find the event. Then after you have found it (if you can), you have only a few minutes to buy the tickets before you lose them or have to start over. If you can manage to buy them in the precious few minutes you are given, you are charged fees up the ying yang. First there is a convenience fee of a few dollars - convenience for ordering online? They are saving money because they don’t have to have a ticket sales person manning the box office 24/7 and they charge us for their savings? Talk about a double profit. Then there is a processing fee, and a printing fee (for printing on your own printer no less).

Just to give an example, I bought tickets to an A’s game today at mlb.com but it looks like it’s using the same system as Ticketmaster. Here’s a breakdown of what I payed:

• Tickets: 2 x $13 (bleacher seats because that’s where my date wanted to sit and we are going to be late so didn’t want to pay for the really good seats for half a game)
• Convenience fee: 2 x $4.50 (1/3 the price of the ticket for the convenience of ordering at home)
• Order Processing fee: $4 (It’s a computer taking and process the order. I wonder how much that computer makes an hour)
• Delivery fee: $2.50 (This is so I can print the ticket on my printer, using my ink and paper and then handing it to myself. I love how they charge me to give myself my ticket)

So the grand total for this order was: $41.50. $41.50 for tickets that cost by themselves $26. A nice 60% markup (I think that’s what it is). Unbelievable.