In the land of computers there is never a shortage of annoyances, issues, and problems. I have been having a weird one recently that has been beyond diagnosis, let alone solution.

ijustwanttofitin.com (follow link = funny article!)

In Firefox, the right mouse button stops working AND I am unable to click the menu bar at all. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. To further complicate diagnosis, it isn't just that I am running Firefox on Linux, but also as a virtual machine inside Oracle VirtualBox on Windows 7. So is it my mouse driver? VirtualBox's Hardware Abstraction Layer? Well, I still don't know but I did find a way to fix it every time it happens.

ALT-F10
That's it. Problem fixed. Alt-F10 seems to toggle full screen / windowed in Firefox. That's not something that should have anything to do with my mouse but for whatever reason it does. If you are suffering from intermittent mouse issues, try it. Hopefully my posting this will help someone else out with the same problems!

--Jack

Windows Live Writer is one part of the Windows Live suite.  Windows Live includes client side programs, web applications as well as mobile services.  I recently got interested in the mail portion of Live: Hotmail.  Hotmail has been undergoing a lot of changes recently and it is shaping up as a competitive mail app.  Hotmail is closely bundled with other web apps including Messenger, Photo Gallery,  Office web apps, and a 25 gig storage cloud - the 'SkyDrive'.

 

The client side programs include Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, a Bing browser toolbar, Family Safety (an internet filter for your kids' online activities), and Writer - this blogging tool.  Writer would certainly like to post to Microsoft's own Windows Live Spaces blog, but it also claims integration with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, SharePoint, 'and others'.

Since we use B2evolution here at Jackrabbitscrewball, I am just going to hit the publish key and see what happens.  I'm crossing my fingers and now wondering if there's a mobile version of Writer too cause that would be pretty cool!

 

--Jack

I recently got a cell phone that for less than the cost of a normal voice plan will not only make phone calls but do "smartphone" type things. I used to avoid any extra service that nickel and dimed me to death (I'm looking at you T-Mobile). Now I can actually snap a photo and upload it with no hidden charges. This is cool. What's even better is that there are a solid handful of good photo sharing sites out there to choose from. My plan is to upload photos to these and do a comparison of features and usability in the coming weeks.

from The Frugal Yankee

Here's the ones I'm signed up for and playing around with right now:

• Flickr: The venerable workhorse now owned by Yahoo!
• Photobucket: Awful name but has been around for a long time. It's a solid contender now.
• Picasa: Where would we be without you Google?
• Windows Live: aka the old Hotmail. Now rejuvenated with a plethora of features and serious competition to Google's suite of apps.
• 23HQ: A relative newbie, offers solid features and a nice interface. Of all of these listed it has the most generous "free" plan.

I'm using the $25/month unlimited plan from Virgin Mobile and snapping photos with a very untrendy LG Rumor Touch phone. I don't have a contract, but I certainly have a plan on how to carry out these photo sharing tests.

Stay tuned for more to come as I explore cheap photo sharing and the free services of these 5 providers.

Well not much to add to the title. I did an automated update after being away for the weekend and it all works again. I knew I didn't have much to worry about anyway.

Well suddenly Yahoo web mail isn't working on Ubuntu 10.04. It looks like it works, until you try to read an individual email. This is what you get:

So here's the list of possible culprits:

• The web browser: Firefox 3.6.6
• The client operating system: Ubuntu 10.04 (or the software update from this week)
• The hypervisor: Oracle VirtualBox 3.2.0
• The host operating system: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
• The web application: Yahoo! Mail (New Version)
• The web host: Yahoo!

Given that list, I did what anyone would do. I blamed Yahoo and did the easiest thing I could to localize the problem. I switched to Yahoo! Mail classic. Problem solved.

Now I don't in fact know what caused this problem in the first place. While I am curious, I have my email back and that's the most important thing. If I had to guess, I bet this all goes away in a few weeks while I do nothing but wait.

--Jack