bobbyratliff

Creating structures that automate things people do every day.

Free software Firefox extensions

As a follow up to my previous post about free software, I decided to look at another type of software: browser extensions. Ubuntu 10.04 has Firefox 3.6.18 on it, and I added some extensions to bring the browser’s features a little up to date. I wanted to see if these extensions that I use are under a free software compatible license. The majority of them were, but some took more hunting than others to confirm this.

  • Advertising Cookie Opt-out Apache License 2.0 (Google code)
  • CookieCuller Mozilla Public License (mozdev.org)
  • Download Statusbar This and CookieCuller stumped me until I looked at the legal notice at mozdev.org where it states “All code for each project hosted on the Site must be made available under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) unless otherwise noted on the project pages.”
  • Firebug From the extension home page, go to “Get Involved,” then to the page on google code. It uses the New BSD License.
  • FlashGot The only mention I could find is on the features page, where they say “Alternatively, since FlashGot is open source (GPL)…” This license could be more clearly stated.
  • GMarks Mozilla Public License version 1.1 (addons.mozilla.org)
  • Hide Menubar Mozilla Public License version 1.1 (addons.mozilla.org)
  • HTTPS-Everywhere GNU GPL version 2
  • New Tab JumpStart Mozilla Public License version 1.1 (Google code)
  • SQLite Manager Mozilla Public License version 1.1 (Google code)
  • Stop-or-Reload Button The developer’s home page is no longer active, but the extension’s page on addons.mozilla.org states the license as BSD license. In newer versions of Firefox, this extension is no longer needed because the functionality is built in.
  • Ubuntu Firefox Modifications

Extensions without a free license:

  • Personal Menu (can’t find any documentation on the license, though the source code is publicized here)
  • Resizeable Textarea Trying to visit the home page on this one locks up the Add-ons window. In newer versions of Firefox, this extension is no longer needed because the functionality is built in.

Why I am writing this blog

After writing 3 posts, I think I am starting to get the hang of this blogging thing. I wanted to write about why I started blogging. I had been kicking around ideas for blogging in my head for quite some time, but I just wasn’t able to sit down and start it.

Taking Strengths Finder was the impetus I needed to start blogging. I took the test, and learned that my themes are input, deliberative, intellection, responsibility, and consistency. As I read through the strengths insights, something stuck out to me: three of my strengths mentioned the written word.

For example, the input theme includes the following insight: “You school yourself by reading, investigating, examining, experiencing, or receiving instruction in a subject.” As a follow-up to that, a suggested action was to share advice with others, or write about what I have learned. “Remember that you must be more than just a collector of information. … Make a point of identifying the facts and data that would be most valuable to others, and use this information to their advantage.”

I hope this blog is able to pull valuable information out of my own knowledge, and it is my hope that this information is of value to you.

The second reason I decided to jump in and start writing was because of an article I read on Coding Horror. How to Write Without Writing. Basically, writing and communication is the differentiator between a decent programmer, and an excellent programmer. Jeff Atwood’s article mentions two ways to train yourself to write: blogging, and cheating. Cheating in this case would be getting programmers to participate in Stack Overflow, where they learn to write by answering and asking questions.

I’ll try out blogging first. As I blog, my aim is to challenge myself to write longer, in-depth articles about things I have personally explored. I do not want to merely react to the latest tech topics. Jakob Nielsen’s article, Write Articles, Not Blog Postings, presents an excellent article about how to differentiate yourself by being proactive rather than reactive in your writing. We’ll see how this manifests myself in this blog.

Free software on my computer

I am intrigued by Richard Stallman’s free software philosophy, and while I would not consider myself a free software fanatic, I wanted to see how much non-free software I have on my primary computer.

My primary computer is an HP Compaq dc7900. I’m running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS as my main operating system. Right now I have the following non-free software programs on it, and I think this is a representative list for many GNU/Linux enthusiasts:

  • Graphics driver
  • A few games (Sauerbraten, Urban Terror, Assault Cube)
  • Skype
  • Flash plugin
  • Microsoft fonts

These packages can be easily found by using “Virtual RMS” (ubuntu package vrms), which basically gives advice that Richard M Stallman would give if he looked at the list of software on my computer.

Web browser extensions

Then I thought I should examine the list of web browser extensions I use regularly to see if they are open source.

Chrome

Lately Chrome has been my main browser. I like Chrome’s default feature set, and I’ve only needed to add 3 extensions to it.

  • RSS Subscription Extension (by Google). I guess this really is by Google, because all the bug links on the extension info page link to crbug.com, which redirects to the chromium google code project. This doesn’t make clear which license is used.
  • Super Full Feeds for Google Reader. This extension is simple. As soon as you visit the developer website, you can see that the code license is GNU GPL v3
  • Yet Another Google Bookmarks Extension. This developer page does not make clear what license is used.

The Social Factor

My boss’s boss at my summer internship loaned me “The Social Factor: Innovate, Ignite, and Win through Mass Collaboration and Social Networking,” by Maria Azua. (IBM Press, 2010)

The book focuses on some societal changes that are happening. The thesis of the book is that companies need to respond to these changes in order to succeed.

Ready for a history lesson? Chapter 1, “The Dawn of the Social Age,” covers some important background in communication technology. Each new communication technology (Radio, TV, Computer, Internet) had a faster adoption rate than the technology before it, and the result is a shift in how people communicate and share information. Chapter 2 discusses the implications for companies: employees are better able to share information if they can use these new technologies.

The next chapters discuss a number of social tools: blogs, wikis, tagging, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. As I read, I compared the tools the author discussed with tools that I have used. I am somewhat familiar with blogging, as I blog here and at midmncru.com. I have contributed to Wikipedia. My summer internship is at Securian, and our company uses SocialText for several internal Wikis. I have a Facebook account, but I haven’t tried Twitter or LinkedIn yet. Reading this book definitely swayed me toward trying out these services.

On the other hand, after taking my Computing Ethics class at SCSU, I am increasingly cautious about sharing information online. A recent article I found through ACM confirmed this. The Obama administration released a roadmap that discussed cyber security, saying “The public is insufficiently aware of the risk of sharing information in cyberspace — which can affect personal and national security.” Whenever you’re using the internet, your every action is tracked and cataloged somewhere, and you don’t always have control over it.

A Linux OS for my Eee PC

Two years ago I purchased an Eee PC 900 with a 16GB SSD and Windows XP. I left Windows XP on it and installed Eeebuntu 3.0. At this point I don’t remember if I installed Base or Standard. The Eeebuntu people became the Aurora OS people, and they have not released a stable OS since Eeebuntu 3.0.

Eeebuntu 3.0 is based on Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04, and support for Jaunty recently ended, so I will not be able to get security updates for it. To top it off, Google Chrome realized this, and has been complaining to me that my operating system is obsolete.

Windows XP itself is a bit old, and I don’t use it anyway. I decided to wipe out the entire hard drive and install a new operating system. I picked Xubuntu to try out first. I downloaded the Xubuntu ISO and used Ubuntu’s Startup Disk Creator tool to put it on a usb stick.

Backing up

I booted Xubuntu and used the command line to backup using an external hard drive with enough free space for a 16GB image of the entire Eee PC disk.

First, identify the name of the hard drive:

sudo fdisk -l

Then I ran the following command to backup the hard drive:

time sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/ubuntu-backup/home/bobby/eeepcharddisk-20110620.dd
31522176+0 records in
31522176+0 records out
16139354112 bytes (16 GB) copied, 642.54 s, 25.1 MB/s

real    10m43.059s
user    0m40.083s
sys     5m36.741s

Installing Xubuntu

I used the shortcut on the desktop to start the installation.