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A problem with Firefox 3 is that not all plugins are ready for deployment. The attached image shows my current set (on my laptop I have a couple more). Of particular note are del.icio.us, ScribeFire (for in-browser blogging) and Zotero (bibliographic database). Google gears is also not yet compatible so support for offline working for Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Docs will not work. I find that I don’t travel enough with my lap top for this to be an issue....

I installed release candidate 1 of Firefox 3 today. I will be giving it a trial run and reporting on any nice features in a future blog. First impression: nice sexy Windows Vista look and friendly welcome page (illustrated). I’ve only installed it on my office desktop so far because my laptop is my main machine and it has a few plug-ins that might not work. So I’m hanging fire there which gives an opportunity for comparison....

I have just posted an article with demo screencasts on my work blog @the.coalface. The article is concerned with using a new feature of Google Docs Spreadsheets: web form data entry. I intend to use it for project allocation this year, but there are loads of other uses both within education and without. To get some additional context, read the following articles first. Stop Sharing Spreadsheets, Start Collecting Information. Google announces its “fill out a form” feature....

Number 1: Put your new Nikon D40X into continuous shooting mode and make cheap animated movies of birds feeding and post the results to YouTube. Well why not! Selected stills at Picasa.

On returning to work after the bank holiday I found that my email inbox was full of phishing attempts. Unfortunately for the phishers, I have no accounts with the banks I was being phished by, so it was easy to delete them. But I have to ask, why are phishing scams so random? Furthermore, why don’t email phishing filters put on a big notice “DODGY” on such emails? They seem to recognise the links as false, so why can’t they be a bit more proactive at marking the messages themselves?...