Hey everybody, its rant time!
So, firstly theres the annoying issue with wordpress. Yes, thats you you annoying blog site. Eating up my cojmments and putting them in the wrong places. It only seems to do it occasionally, so its hard to diagnose, and I cba doing anything about it - but an irritance none the less.
Then, theres firefox, good old Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 5. No-one quite knows why its the default in hardy, considering it is supposed to be an LTS. Maybe it makes sense to work towards having firefox 3, but the thing its ITS SO DARN CRASHY. Yes, and (afaict) this is not Ubuntus fault. Its you firefox!
CRASH. Reload. Do something. CRASH. Reload. Try something else. CRASH.
And you may think I’m exagguariting when I describe it like that, but I’m not! It seems to have got worse, to the point where I can have 4 crashes in under one minute - I’m serious! I mean what on earth is going on? I guess it must be something to do with my particular setup. However, I’ve tried running in safemode and removing all plugins, but just the same: CRASH CRASH CRASH.
Well, at least I have a clue whats causing it. Its when I close a tab of a complicated page (thing Google Reader or Google Mail) in a particular way, either whilst a different tab is active (middle click) or when there are only two tabs open. So I know what to avoid, its less annoying. But all the same, a crash every 10 minutes, it takes the p*ss.
I tried talking to a #firefox guy about it, but it seems difficult to get debug information from my version of firefox. He said to try the official builds, so maybe I will when I get the chance. Maybe see if has been fixed in the nightlies. Weirdest thing is, I had no trouble before beta 5 (other people have been noticing this too). But, the annoying thing is, Mr Crash Crash Crash is in a long term support release!!!?!?!?!??!?!?!
Okay, enough of that rant, and onto another Docuemnt Formats, an absolute pita. My brother did a document at home, using OpenOffice on Windows (we’ve never bothered buying Word, and OpenOffice is so much better than Works; also, fwiw, its my printer and not my brother that is the freedom hater). Anyway, he takes it to school, and happily it opens. A vast improvement over a few months ago. However, here’s the wonderful thing - the reason it works is because of a filter designed to add .docx support - yes! that wonderful lie of an open standard and pile of mess OOOXML makes an appearance. However, as if the irony was painful enough, Word and its plugin, in their infinite wisodm decide to save the document, after my brother has made some changes, in .docx. Yes, thats write! It steals a .odf, rapes it and leaves it as a .docx!!!!!!!!
So, now my brother comes home and complains to me about the fact he can’t open his work! So, I endure the 20 minute wait to get OOo beta 3 running, only to find, the document is NOT OPENED PROPERLY!!!!! And, of course, I know this is not Open Offices fault, its god damn OOXML. Open standard with multiple implementations my foot:
- Its not open, because no-one can understand the mess of a “specification” that they have put out (oh, im sorry, theres a newer one, but that ones just imaginary isn’t it). Which is why Open Office have a hard time writing import filters.
- Microsoft Word does not implement it! The files it produces differ from the spec!!!!!!!! No wonder its not compatible!
Btw, the point about multiple implementations is that OpenOffice is not an implementation of the Open Shamdard! No, its just for compatiblity with the non-OOXML files that Word produces. And as you can see, that format is lovely and clear, and OpenOffice are finding it easy to implement….. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, that brings me onto one last annoyance, lack of ext2/3 support in Windows. (My brother wanted a look at one of my old documents). I have to install this rubishy freeware. Actually, the freeware itself is okay (its not freedomware, but seeing as you’re running windows anyway, who really cares), but if Windows crashes, as is its favorite pastime, every mounted ext3 must be checked at next Linux boot. Maybe I need to find something that can easily be turned off when not in use.
</rant>
5 comments
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May 15, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Kevin Dean
***
Then, theres firefox, good old Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 5. No-one quite knows why its the default in hardy, considering it is supposed to be an LTS.
***
I know why.
LTS releases are supported for 3 years… In 2.5 years Firefox 2 will be so HORRIBLY out of date that the work needed to port fixes back to the old version would be insane. Firefox 3 will be “stable” before the end of this year and once there it will provide a stable and decently current and updatable browser in the LTS system. Changing from Fx 2 to Fx 3 mid stream would open the door for a LOT of breakage on a supposedly “stable” release.
May 15, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Ben Webb
Yeah, I kind of guessed that might be the case. Its just annoying, for now, because this particular beta seems to be rather unstalbe. :S
May 23, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Tim Dobson
you need to get yourself some webspace - i mean stable webspace and a domain.
I would recommend awardspace.com if you are looking for free ad-free hosting - i have an account - dobo.awardspace.com
but ideally you want something of your own - primehosting.co.uk do some good deals but there are probably better ones now.
May 23, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Tim Dobson
oh and the beta works ok for me except when i right click it tends to think i clicked on something on the menu and so i find myself switching the page direction or something.
tres annoying.
May 23, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Ben Webb
Yeah, I just can’t be bothered with the hassle, I have free hosting at byethost, but wordpress.com makes things much easier. Also, as concerns your second suggestion, I don’t want to spend money :D. I would quite like a domain name, but I want something good, not just bjwebb.net (no offense).
As for the firefox beta, yeah I’ve noticed the same thing with page direction. Also, I have since noticed that my problems depend on what gnome theme is being used. I’m using a different theme now, and the problem is no longer occurs.