DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

I eagerly downloaded Firefox 3 this morning. I had stayed away from all the beta and RC releases of it, which is the first time that I had stayed away from a FF beta, and I have to say now that I’m glad. The difference in speed of rendering pages between FF2 and FF3 is stunning. The new version is so, so much snappier. So far I’ve only installed it on my Vista laptop in work, but I really can’t wait to get home and try it out on my mac. If you’re a Firefox user, this is one upgrade that I really, really urge you make right now! And if you don’t already use Firefox, now is the moment to change.

Also, if you’re a photographer, of an avid viewer of photos on the web, aside from the speed boost that you notice, probably the most exciting feature of FF3 is the ability to recognise ICC colour profiles. Assuming you have your monitor correctly setup, this should make viewing photos far better, as the profiles will leave you viewing exactly what the photographer intended colour wise, as opposed to what Firefox thought was the best fit. Unfortunately, ICC profiling is not enabled by default in FF3, and you do have to change the config, but, if you follow the steps over on Rob Galbraith’s post you will see it’s really pretty trivial.

I have a thing about the latest craze in social networks. It’s a long standing thing. I ignore them for ages, then, just as all the cool kids are moving on from the latest and greatest craze of the day, I decide to give it a try, get sucked in for about a week, then get bored. I imagine this would be the same with Twitter if I were to start getting involved. Yeah, it looks pretty cool, and by the looks of it, most people that I know are obsessed, but, do I really need to get involved? I’m thinking no, but, I’m interested to hear if anyone out there wants to try and sway me…

You may remember back to last year, when Estonia, one of the most internet savvy, connected countries in the world, came under a widespread and well documented cyber attack, originating for the most part in Russia, and in response to some political moves that were being made in the country at the time.

I’ve just read an interesting paper, written in non-technical terms on the background and implications of the event, both on Estonia, and also on the wider world as we face into a new era of potential cyber warfare. If this sounds of interest to you, I suggest that you take a read.