Firefox 3 released, among other things !!!!

Have been inactive for the last couple of days, time to kick start with some new stuff!!

For starters, Firefox 3 has been released, so thats a pretty good news! Coz I already was using the beta version which was pretty stable from my standpoint yet its always better to switch to a stable release lest any bugs crash my session in the middle of some important work. My biggest grievance with the earlier version so far is that, with multiple tabs open, firefox tends to be a resource hog. Also the usual javascript gimmicks tend to get slow as well. So I desperately wish there is some marked improvement with the new release. One of the guys from the web dev team at the place I work, was praising the efficacy and the speed of the latest rendering engine of the latest offering, well I think there was hardly any doubt regarding the superiority of the rendering engine of FF vs IE.

I think efforts like Firefox epitomize the open-source code revolution. Its a great competitor for stalwarts like MS-IE, coz it constantly keeps the giant on its toes all the while improving the product at a professional scale ....

The add-ons for firefox are quite impressive and handy tools as well. I have been using quite a lot of them, notable among them being

• Web Developer
• Deja Click
• Table tools
• DashBlog
• Download Statusbar

and my recent favorite

• Piclens!!!! --> Amazing visual experience, here's an actual snapshot of how it appears ....
  

  
  
  

Some good sites
Here's a list of good sites I recently came across, some of it is pretty well known still someone might stumble upon my blog and this might turnout to be useful ....

• How Stuff works?


• Miro
  

Buildings/Images for Alphabets

Found these two cool sites which can be used to generate sentences consisting of alphabet images!!!

• This one picks out a building on google sat maps and uses that image instead for the alphabets! -->Geogreetings
• I like this one better, more possible combinations -->Spell with flickr
  

Here's ma profile name :)

Disturbing traffic noise, inside apartment!!

Recently a friend of mine after shifting to a new apartment realized, much to her dismay, that there was too much road/traffic noise coming in her apt bedroom from a busy rd facing her apartment. She spoke to the apartment guys and they told her that the best they could do was to offer her another apartment with a transfer fee charged to her.

Now isn't this something that the apt mgt should take care of, by say offering to soundproof the window or installing extra glass panes outside the windows? It certainly doesn't help being shrugged off saying "No one has ever complained!!!" .....

Nevertheless I was researching on the net the other day and it seems there is a lot of suffering in this area!!! There are whole bunch of products and soundproofing solutions available to those in distress. Understand that it really becomes a big issue the moment its a new home owner, coz the poor fella just shelled out huge sums for getting the condo/house of his dreams and he is unable to sleep due to the sonic booms produced by heavy trucks and similar big engined behemoths.

For her though the sound (am sure) can be muffled using some thick rugs and thick curtains (the blackout curtains are also noise-reduction!) . So the hunt is on and she is now looking for slick looking curtains (and I thought "noise" was the problem not "which design")!!! Ahh, women!! :0)

Here's a couple of sites I forwarded to her:

• http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Reduce-Noise-Levels-in-Your-Apartment&id=719722
• http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/how-to-reduce-noise.html
• http://apartments.about.com/od/apartmentliving/a/apartmentnoise.htm
• http://living.apartments.com/roommates-neighbors/reducing-the-noise/
• http://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Noise-Levels-in-Your-Apartment
• http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=507807
  

America's scenic routes

I found these interesting websites about some good routes to travel on, in US.

www.roadtripusa.com/ --> Have used one of the routes mentioned in here, was a fantastic experience ....
www.byways.org
www.trails.com/toptrails.asp?area=14192
www.usaweekend.com/03_issues/030518/030518springtravel.html

Remember Street Hawk?

Here's a site I found that contains all details about that 80s show called "Street Hawk". I used to love that series man!!!

http://www.streethawkonline.com/bikeinfo.php

Record streaming media

If you were wondering how to convert streaming audio to mp3 files, here's a cool tool to let you do so:
Download Freecorder toolbar

This basically downloads a small toolbar for firefox/IE. Play the song of your choice from the website or wherever and simply press record, once done just click on stop and it'll prompt you for the file's name and folder ....

The clarity is WYHIWYG (what you hear is what you get). It records the sound being played from your sound card. Pretty nifty huh! I understand there are lot of other tools similar to this but I like the simplicity ....

Media Activism

Just saw a video post on CBS site about rising fuel prices and the nexus with the excessive buying in energy future contracts. Its good that journalists venture out into all the various different facets of issues ailing the fora in general but I am really against the conviction with which they present the so called "facts" !!!
Their holier than thou attitude really stinks especially if you know the real facts vs the reported ones.

They are unflinching in their criticism if they really want to blame someone, why, even the court of justice doesn't allow calling someone a murderer unless convicted !!!! I think the fourth estate needs to go back to its roots and find out the real reason of existence of their being.