The Washington Post has noticed the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant that gets installed as a Firefox plugin. But what – if anything – does it actually do?

My theory? It’s kind of an ActiveX-dotNet-for-Firefox that doesn’t actually work. Anyone got any better ideas?

Xmarks, formerly known as Foxmarks, is a bookmark-based search engine, a bookmark replicator, a saved password replicator and even helps out at lambing time. (Okay, I made that last bit up)…

Basically, there are two aspects to Xmarks. The first is a cross-browser bookmark and password replicator that can copy your bookmarks between different computers running Firefox, Safari (on the Mac only) and MS Internet Explorer (they’re working on Safari for Windows, and Opera – I think – but I have found that it does work in Flock). (more…)

Well, I’ve finally got my PC back, and have now installed the Windows 7 beta (sorry, downloads aren’t available any more).  It’s the AMD-64 version, so it really can’t be compared speed wise to either XP or Vista, but it’s performing pretty quickly compared to XP, and quicker than Vista – although I haven’t yet installed everything I usually use yet.

Of course the first thing I did – before I even installed Firefox – was to use Norton Ghost to back it all up.  Then Firefox went on (with Foxmarks, NoScript, Extended StatusBar, Web Developer Toolbar and Download StatusBar).  Finally, I installed ScribeFire, which is what I’m using to write this post, (it also takes away my one reason for installing Flock by adding a blog editor into Firefox).

Fortunately there are 64-bit versions of Directory Opus (unsupported, but working fine so far), 7-Zip (but sadly not WinRar, or OpenWatcom yet).

So far, only one crash – ironically, Windows Explorer just after a startup.  But once all the usual gubbins is loaded and clogging the system up it probably won’t be the last.  I’ll keep you posted…

After yesterday’s fairly glowing review – 35 out of 50, if I recall correctly – I’ve found a problem with Chrome. (more…)

I just added a search plugin to my site. Unless you use Firefox 3 and noticed the small blue highlight on the arrow, it’s fairly difficult to notice, but for those who – like me – make good use of that box, it’s a nice thing to have.

Let’s start with the easy bit: the addition to the header. (more…)