Category: Browsers

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Audible.com + Chrome + AdBlock Pro (64-bit)

Rodin - "The Thinker"
Rodin – “The Thinker”

Updates – Sometime it nice to NOT be alone! – “Frames failing to load add a bogus history entry“

Back in early August, I ordered a new computer for myself, and like any personal item, it takes some time to figure out all the new nuances…

When I first started using Loong, everything was so new, that when I ran into a minor issue, I took a quick look, and moved on to the bigger on configuration issues.

One of the really cool things about the ASUS installation disk, is that it comes with Google Chrome as an option when installing the various motherboard drivers, and being a long time user, this was great!

I was able to complete my base OS install without having to launch IE once!

Fast forward a couple of days…

With the basics of installation over and done with, and really beginning to use the computer in a ‘normal’ fashion, I noticed that one day, when I tried to check my Audible.com account for a new book, I was unable to do ANYTHING once I got to the site.

I could see an image of the website, and I could refresh the site and images changed, but no matter where I clicked, nothing would happen, even in the bare-bones links in the footer!

This had never happened to me in my 32-bit environment, running the same software configuration, and why on only one website?

Immediately, added Audible.com to the Cookie Exceptions in Chrome, and still nothing…

This is very strange…

Okay, time to read the Forums, but wait, I can’t get in via Chrome…

Thankfully, I got in without issue with Firefox, and started to poke around to see if anyone else had a similar issue… Nothing…

I Google-d the internet, still nothing…

Oh well… on to the next thing, I had a workaround.

Fast forward some more, a new school year has started, and I have new credits in my Audible account. Time for a new book.

I’m already in Chrome, and after I type in the address, I am reminded of the issue from a couple of weeks ago, that I had fluffed off because I had already found a workaround.

More searching… Nothing…

I finally typed up an email report, and sent it to the Audible Help Desk.

I received a standard “Thank you for your report” email, followed by another note suggesting that I do a un-install and re-install of Chrome.

Yeah, but… all this for one site?

Earlier, during my morning constitutional, it occurred to me to take a look at my AdBlock Plus settings, and once I white-listed Audible.com, I was in!

Yeah! – I’m a happy camper now!

Needless to say, this is very strange…

What is so different between a 32 vs 64 bit environment to cause only one site to behave this way?

What are your thoughts on this?

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Tech Talk

Configuration

  • Windows 7 (64-bit)
  • Chrome 29.0.1547.66 m (at the time of this post)
  • Adblock Plus 1.5.5
  • Audible.com

I never had to add Exceptions or White-list a site in my 32-bit environment.

Updates

I LOVE the power of the internet!! – Thanks Friends!

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Add-Ons Backups Browsers Flickr Hacking How to(s)? Information Reference Tech Talk Tips

flickr Award Counter – Backup, Restore and Transfer

Beam Walker - Victoria Harbour (Hong Kong)
Beam Walker - Victoria Harbour (Hong Kong)

If you get involved with the Flickr photography groups that have awards, you will notice that there is no really good way to track what you have, until flickr Award Counter (fAC) by Andy Felton (PhazeShift).

flickr Award Counter can take some time to initially setup, because you have to enter in each Award Title (think of a naming structure), and the URL to the Award image for the greasemonkey/javascript counters to work, but once it is done, fAC works great!

But beware, once done, there does not appear to be a direct way to back up all your filter/counter work.

Backup

After some hunting, I found a thread on the Flickr Hacks – “Award Counter – backup?“, which suggested that one backup the Firefox “prefs.js” file, which can be found (example: Win XP):

C:Documents and Settings%profilename%Application Data ¬
MozillaFirefoxProfilesdm24ria8.defaultsprefs.js

where

%profilename%

is the current user, and

dm24ria8.defaults

could be “any-name.defaults” within this path, and includes “prefs.js”, and all the more fun if there are multiple users! A-)

The simplest backup, is to copy/duplicate the “prefs.js” file within the same directory and adding the “.bak” extension (“prefs.js.bak”) or copy the file to another location, and leave yourself a reminder of where!

Restore

To restore, just replace the damages file with the backup from above.

Transfer

Many times, all you want to do, is to transfer your filter/counter information from one machine to another.

If you use the Restore method mentioned above, one of the immediate down sides is that the destination machine, will inherit the “prefs.js” settings from the source machine.

In some cases, this might be sufficient, but what if you ONLY want the filter/counter information.

about:config

On the machine that has the Main/Source of filter/counters, launch Firefox, and type about:config in the address bar.

You will get a warning screen, and just agree.

[Technically, you are on your own now, so...]

Scroll down to the following filter:

greasemonkey.scriptvals.http://www.phazeshift.co.uk/download//flickrAwardCounter.awards

Double click on the entry, and a new window will open up.

In the “Enter string value” window, copy the string value.

Move to the destination machine, and find the similar entry, and paste in the source filter information.

Quit your browser, and re-launch Firefox, and check your work.

This has been done transferring an existing series of Firefox 4.0 XPro filters to Firefox 4.0 Win7Pro (destination):

C:Users%profilename%AppDataRoaming ¬
MozillaFirefoxProfilesx5lnhhwl.defaultpref.js

with out issue (“x5lnhhwl” will change).

Your mileage may very.

Feature Request(s)

  • Ability to Export/Import filter/counters
    • These could be “traded” via Flickr

Please feel free to add Comments or Feedback.

– Andrew
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Browsers

FireFox 2.6 is Available!

If you are not aware, Firefox 2.6 is out!

Over the weekend, I downloaded and installed, and have been VERY impressed with the speed!

I have been running FF and IE side-by-side for a couple of months now, and with this new release, IE is now being put to pasture… (Still installed, just in case, but…)

Update – 10-May-17
There have been several Updates to Firefox since this original post, and Firefox still remain my primary browser.
Update – 10-Feb-02
Just had a chance to use IE 8 again to do some testing… I had forgotten how SLOW it is, and does NOT do spell checking!
– Andrew
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