Open Office, the no cost competitor to Microsoft Office software released 2.1 this week. John over at Meahl Dubh raises some interesting issues on why the open source industry is free to roll out updates more readily than proprietary software. I guess the ability to react is one of the big plusses in open source and I appreciate that.

Earlier this year I waffled on about a Windows Update utility for Firefox, called WindizUpdate. I was pretty impressed at the time and used the utility for a few months, but I was left wanting due to a lag between Microsoft releasing updates and finding that they were available for WindizUpdate. Now I’ve found something I like even more.

IE Tab is an extension for Firefox which embeds Internet Explorer in a Firefox tab. Unlike the IE View extension which simply opens selected pages in a separate Internet Explorer window, IE Tab displays selected pages using the IE engine but contained wholly within a Firefox tab.

So, why might this be useful? I currently use Internet Explorer exclusively for two reasons:

1. To run Microsoft Update / Windows Update, which won’t otherwise work in any other browser.
2. To check web pages as I develop them, to ensure that my pages look consistent between browsers.

Now with IE Tab I can do both of these things from within Firefox, simply by right-clicking and selecting “View Page in IE Tab”. And to mark the happy occasion of first running Microsoft Update within Firefox I snapped this celebratory picture for you:

Yes, I realise that using IE Tab really means that I’m using IE. But if nothing else I’m enjoying the convenience of doing it all from within a Firefox window.

One of our favorite utilities for several years is DadaMail. We have never used it on our site, but have installed it for many other people. If you need help installing it, we are happy to do so for a donation, link or whatever. Of course we also encourage you to donate to the author of the fine software.

Justin, the head dadaist as he self styles himself, just released version 2.10.11. The biggest plus to this version is that it tracks sending status and picks up where it left off if it is interrupted. A nice feature.

We keep asking for a multi-user function. Right now if you want two people to have access to one list for management purposes, they need to share a common password. Allowing two passwords would be a big plus. I should probably write such a hack.

Anyway, check out what he has to say here and let us know if you need help with an install.

Someone asked me tonight if you could copy text from a portable document (pdf) formatted file into Word or some other program. The answer fortunately is yes! Find the text button and click it. Either drag the section you want to highlight, or click control + a to highlight all. Hit control + c to copy. That puts it on the pasteboard. Place your cursor in the next program and hit control + v and you are golden and off to the races.

News to me, a loyal WordPress user: there is a companion bulletin board software that apparently started back in December 2004. I’ll have to give bbPress a try as I am really tired of my existing bulletin board software.

I often use my laptop in conditions where the screen is difficult to read. This “tough man’s portable” says it is always visible. What is out there that is affordable to help with laptop screen visibility (and I’m not asking you to suggest that I pull it inside my sweatshirt … I already do that … or put a blanket over my head … I already do that on occaision too).

In reviewing the HTMLfixIT site content it occurred to me that we’ve done little or nothing lately to draw attention to Franki’s Statistical Hit Counter. This counter is the “jewel in the HTMLfixIT crown” in my opinion, and I’ve encouraged all of my clients to use it to analyse web traffic. It comes in two flavours: the advanced counter (which at $10 attempts to partially offset this site’s running costs) as well as a free version that we can all afford.

But seeing is believing, so please take a peek at the online demo and see what you think!