This was getting pretty close to a year without updates and I’ve sofar made zero progress.

I’ll admit, this years been pretty busy.  For the folks who’re following for the PocketFlock updates, I’ll still deliver from time to time (don’t forget the updater still works) but its a bit more time consuming a project than I can commit to right now.  Since I don’t really use Windows itself anymore (well, except for CNC but that’s a given) the windows version gets most of its testing in WINE.  Hopefully that’ll suffice.

I’ve got some other projects which may see the light of day, and definately at this location.  If you’re a stalker (or are interested in my personal drinking habits) feel free to look me up on Twitter (@ferrite).

Sorry, this means you can’t see my work.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring over PocketFlock running the 2.0 final builds.

Chill.

Auto-Update works just fine.

I’ve made my parents proud at the cost of my soul.

It seems that nobody on the internet is fully aware of the awesome and mind-numbing stupidity that is lurking in the shadows of the net.  From the arrogant script-kiddies to people that don’t know what a mail client is and still manages to run a company’s IT division.

I’ve had to deal with one such customer for about 2 days now.  She canceled her account believing that she’s supposed to be using a Windows server if she runs Windows at home.  Apparently she’s also responsible for managing 85% of all academic websites on the internet (her words, not mine) Whatever.

-anyways-

She’s been calling just to yell at us for about 20 minutes straight each day because the refund we issued her hasn’t yet reached her account.  (Keep in mind, we sent the money, her bank is still processing it)

-sigh-

I’m always polite and talk to the customer in a professional tone, but there’s only so much you can say before you put the phone on mute and start spewing explitives you didn’t know existed before.

So let me say this in a nice enough way.

If you ever call tech support, by the time they’ve answered the phone, they already hate you.

Anyways, you know where to get it.

Tags: PocketFlock, Flock

All the nifty features of Flock 2.0 (which does cover the features of Flock 1.2), Firefox 3.0, and of course it’s portable!

Mac Version coming soon!  Linux Launcher in the Works!  Vista non-UAC Lancher also underway!  Me working less than 60 hours a week (hopefully) soon!

Celebratory Hangover this weekend! (after Mac version)

Aside from the excitement with getting a new job and training, there have been quite a few requests for a PocketFlock with the recent 1.2 betas .

While I haven’t released a new version, rest assured there will be one soon.

Tags: flock, pocketflock,

I’ve been quite busy looking into getting a part-time or side job to increase my cashflow.

The bills are numerous, but I’ll find some way of getting through it.

I’ve also been spending some time writing a book.

It’s mostly a how-to in the style of the "for Dummies" books that walks people with little to no experience through writing HTML to XTML, and DHTML, and finally PHP and more dynamic websites.

(the grammar nazis must hate me right now)

Updates will be coming even if I have to kick myself in the ass to do so and things will go back to being regular next week.

This weeks project involves playing around with some different PHP and javascript functions that normally are useful.

I’m assuming you’re already have a passing knowledge with HTML, Javascript, or PHP, though if you’re not, keep reading as I’ll gradually explain everything.

Let’s just go over the internal functions and variables we’ll be using first and what they do

PHP
explode(separator, source-string)
    explode is one of those really useful functions for dealing with very long strings.  It allows you to take a very long string (our source-string, if you will) and break it apart into an array using a separator string.
    i.e. $ourarray=explode(” “, “This is a fantastic function”) would break the string by spaces into an array $ourarray[] where $ourarray[0]=”This”, $ourarray[1]=”is”, $ourarray[2]=”a”, etc…

sizeof(ourarray)
    sizeof is another useful array function, basically doing exactly what it sounds like.  Your result is the size of the array in question.  Using our previous array as an example, sizeof($ourarray) would equal 5.

str_replace(replacethis, withthis, inthis)
    str_replace replaces a given substring (replacethis) with another substring (withthis) in a larger string (inthis).
    i.e. str_replace(“Flock”, “Firefox”, “Firefox is my favorite Gecko browser!”) would output “Flock is my favorite Gecko browser!”
    ps, like most functions that return a result, str_replace can be nested or even used as arguments.
    What do you think str_replace(“What should I do?”, “Where am I?”, str_replace(“I’m drunk”, “I’m lost”, “I’m lost.  Where am I?”))

implode(joint, ourarray)
    implode is the opposite of explode.  With this function you can collapse an array (ourarray) into a string using another string (joint) to join it.
    Using our earlier array, and applying this implode(“-”, $ourarray) would give you “This-is-a-fantastic-function”

We could use all these functions to perform something useful on a complicated string.
If you were to create a new php file on your server with the following lines:

$firststring="*I've added some sparkly stars*They could get really annoying*but I'll use them as linebreaks";
echo $firststring
$firststring=str_replace("but I'll", "if I didn't");
$ournewarray=explode("*", $firststring);
echo implode("\n", $ournewarray);

The “\n” inserts a newline character on most *nix systems and would give you a plain text document with the following output.

*I’ve added some sparkly stars*They could get really annoying*but I’ll use them as linebreaks
I’ve added some sparkly stars
They could get really annoying
if I didn’t use them as linebreaks

-END OF USEFUL INFO-

Now let’s make that useful stuff infinitely more useless and complicated.
Chapter 1 Useless Project

Tags: useless, php, javascript, html, css

BugMeNot

BugMeNot uses a certain website called BugMeNot of all things to bypass those darn websites that require you to sign in for simple things.  Now this is perfect for viewing pages on sites like NYtimes.com that give you a teaser article but won’t let you read the whole thing or just for using free services when you don’t want to disclose any personal information.

There is a catch, however, a sticky little EULA.

The user agrees to only use the extension to access free, mandatory registration sites. Attempting to access non-free and/or private web sites is against the intention of this extension and is a violation of the user agreement.

Basically, don’t use this to post anonymous messages on myspace, get free porn, or access expertsexchange (btw, fuck you expertsexchange).

That aside, it’s a good way to bypass those annoying sites that prompt you for a password when they really shouldn’t and to “preview” sites that you might actually want to join but don’t want to disclose your info now.

How does it work?

When prompted for a password on a site, right click in the area and the select “Sign in with BugMeNot” from the context menu.

Tags: firefox, flock, bugmenot

After constant issues with stability, performance, and other issues related to working with so much different code for two platforms, I’ve come up with a solution that will put PocketFlock way ahead of all other portable browsers.

I’ve replaced the buggy and unstable Gecko Rendering engine for Microsoft’s tried-and-true Trident rendering engine!

Yep! this is the same engine that powers the worlds most powerful and prevalent browser Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

This means that your portable browser will be safer, faster, and better integrate with your system.

Unfortunately (for some) this means that I will no longer support the fringe operating system Mac OSX, and nonstandard badly coded websites won’t render correctly, but those are small sacrifices to make.

I’ve tried it, and my personal use was the only reason that I even created a Mac release, but every new version seems to cost far more money than it’s worth and the system is buggy and riddled with problems.

So dropping OSX support and Gecko should help me make releases faster and easier.
PocketFlock Improved for Windows
PocketFlock 1.1 with Trident! ~13MB

Tags: flock, pocketflock, mozilla, gecko, trident, internet explorer, osx, windows

Once again, finding that useful piece of software that keeps your browsing experience small, simple, and enjoyable.

Today I’m not just reviewing an old favorite of mine, I’ll tell you a little bit about why it’s important.

I’ll be honest here, in this more modern version of the web, FTP seems to be forgotten for fancy uploaders with pretty graphics built in to most websites and it’s hardly used now by the general public.

So what is FTP and why does it still matter?

According to Wikipedia:

FTP is a commonly used protocol for exchanging files over any TCP/IP based network to manipulate files on another computer on that network regardless of which operating systems are involved (if the computers permit FTP access). There are many existing FTP client and server programs. FTP servers can be set up anywhere between game servers, voice servers, internet hosts, and other physical servers.

I’ll sum up the rest of the article for you, FTP is a quick and easy way to send and receive files to servers that support it. It’s fairly fast, can be secured with both public (password free) and private (password protected) directories and is supported in almost every web browser already.  If you host your website with a company like Dreamhost, 1and1, GoDaddy, or some Yahoo accounts, uploading from a FTP client is far faster than using a site-based uploader, especially for making small changes.

If it’s supported by Firefox/Flock/etc already, why do I want an extension?

Perhaps I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. Downloading from FTP servers is supported by all major browsers, the only one I’ve found that supports uploading is -ick- Internet Explorer for Windows.

FireFTP changes that, giving you a full-fledged ftp client within Firefox and its offspring. It’s not the fastest FTP client I’ve found, and in many ways it’s not the prettiest, but the UI is very easy to work in, and the instant gratification of pulling it up from the Tools menu is an absolute plus.

Like any Ftp client worth it’s salt, FireFTP supports multiple accounts (not at the same time, but few clients do), better still, while many clients cost anywhere between $10 and $30, FireFTP is completely free for you to use (though the author does ask that you make a charitable donation) –BTW just found a weird bug in Flock while trying to paste the address for that link in.

Half the donation goes to orphans in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and FireFTP will only ask you once, so there’s no annoying splash like some freeware/shareware FTP clients.

Sounds great, so what’re you holding back on?

Ok, I’ll be honest, there is a cloud to go with this silver lining.  Unlike many standalone clients, you cannot drag files from an explorer/finder window and have it automatically upload to your server, you must navigate your disk from the client’s UI and upload/download from there.  It’s also a bit slower to start and cancel uploads than most standalone clients, so in many cases I’d recommend not using it to update a blog or cms installation, but for uploading pictures, media, and small files its a must-have extension for the modern-day nomad.

Verdict:

If I didn’t think it was perfect for portable browsing, it would never have been a part of PocketFlock’s earlier history.  If you’ve got any another FTP client on your USB drive, ditch it right away.

Tags: flock, firefox, pocketflock, fireftp, ftp

• keep it small
• keep it simple

How do you do that when it comes to messaging?

Enter SamePlace

Sure, you could just load Meebo and watch as the host machine’s ram slowly dies painfully due to Gecko’s memory leaks, but after a while that just gets tiresome. You could also try a portable version of many of the popular instant messaging clients, but why load two programs when you just wanna get something done quickly?

SamePlace currently supports, Firefox, and Flock (including their portable offspring) natively.

Features:

• Supports Google Talk, Jabber, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, and AIM
• Supports dragging web content such as pictures and snippets into the conversation window
• Shared web applications
• Extensions (or should I say Extension) and Scriptlets (think of it as an IM version of Greasemonkey)

That’s great and all, but how well does it actually work?

Immediately after launching SamePlace you’re given a friendly wizard to help you setup your accounts.

Setting up each account is quick and easy, the only hitch is that if you enter the password incorrectly, you’ll have to run the wizard for that account again from the beginning.

Afterwards, Sameplace occupies a sidebar on the left of the browser and a new menu item.
It seems to work pretty well and is definately worth the download for those of you wanting to take your messaging, and your browser, with you.

Verdict: It’s earned it’s place in my PocketFlock profile

Tags: flock, firefox, extensions, pocketflock, portable firefox, sameplace, jabber, xmpp, aim, msn, yahoo, google talk, gtalk, im

Ouch.

Oh well.

I realized that I neglected to bundle the source of PocketFlock Win and since it’s based on GPL code… big no no.  I’ve corrected this mistake and uploaded a separate .zip file containing the NSIS code written by John Haller that PocketFlock Win is based on ( I really need to replace this soon since it doesn’t play nice with Vista).  I will be uploading the Mac source after I stabilize some features of it.  (currently it’s a nasty cludge of bash scripts and ruby code held together with Platypus)

Tags: nsis, flock, pocketflock, portable apps, gpl

Blogged with the Flock Browser

That was their update… and that was the push I needed.

I’ve always been a bit favorable to using portable browsers since I’ve been almost constantly traveling between Washington DC and Virginia Beach, VA since 2004.  Mind you, that may not seem like a long time, but when your ‘commute’ is three hours long and you know almost every side-street, alternate path, city, town, empty field, and rest-stop in between, it adds up.

Before I had a reliable laptop (Thanks to the donators who gave me a whopping $15 towards my MBP) I carried around a small gray 64MB USB key.  I’ve since lost the cap, the keychain hook has worn off, and all the paint has come off the sides, but I still use it.

On this key were a few Word documents, some mp3′s and Portable Firefox.  When I first found out about Flock and got excited.  Your bookmarks/favorites were stored online!  This was huge!

I started blogging seriously once I found out how easy Flock made it to be… but it was still tied to my desktop.

The idea behind PocketFlock was born.

At first just given the name Portable Flock (how unimaginative) and was just a Flock install with the directory renamed to firefox, and flock.exe to firefox.exe lazily pasted over John Haller’s launcher.  It went through many fits and spurts.  Lots of bundled extensions, upx packing, and many failed attempts to bring the experience to the Mac platform.

I snuck time here and there from work, and tweaked the theme, learned NSIS, PHP, met many great people, and started the most active development in my life.

I also started a huge controversial thread on the Flockstars Mailing list.

I had many detractors, and many supporters, it got very ugly and left everyone involved with a bad taste in their mouth.  Many of my detractors included people who were at that time on Flock’s payroll, where I was publicly derided on their personal blogs and in the instance of Lloyd Budd tried to deny my existence, deleting PocketFlock, and Flock’d from the Flock Wiki, many forum posts, and Wikipedia (and its easy to tell who it is when they go by the same handle on all these sites).  I would get harrassed on my blog, on other forums, but when reasonably approached was still able to apologize to those who I offended.

Things got overwhelming and I stopped caring.

It was a for a variety of personal reasons too.

Illness, 3 moves (4 if you just count august of 2007), many unsatisfying jobs, more spam than actual comments on outraged-artists, and horrible financial problems led to infrequent and half-assed updates.  Many people asked me if I had given up, if PocketFlock was dead, and I replied much later that that wasn’t the case, but I really didn’t act like it.

When Flock went from 0.7-0.9 there were many issues that were quite frankly security issues for people in a portable environment.  I tried to get back into things by submitting a buzilla entry and having a dialog with the Flock devs.  While they promised that there might be a fix in the future, they quickly closed the bug and only offered me the solution to compile my own binaries with modified source (to their credit they did tell me what to change and how to do it, but I didn’t have the resources to do it).  Again there was some hostilities towards me, but I tried to shrug it off.

Flock 1.1 got me excited again… I had switched from Flickr to Picasa, and had been asking for email support since Flock 0.4.x.  Most of the old staff was gone, and I felt like things were finally behind me.  Now, I’m still stretched for time, but I’m excited again and want to get back to being busy.

That brings us to today, I’m on a new domain, with a new blog, and a fresh start.
PocketFlock now supports 2 platforms, has a new source code under development, that might allow it to support Linux x86 and Vista.

I’m back, PocketFlock is back, and I want to get everyone excited again.

Tags: flock, pocketflock

I’ve also figured out exactly why the Mac version of PocketFlock won’t work in the dmg.  It seems that when I converted it to a compressed image, the contents were no longer read/write.  There’s still no fix for this, but that might come later.

I’ve started compressint the Windows version with 7zip instead of OSX’s built-in compressor and got some marginal improvement on the ratio.  I should probably start running both versions through upx again.

I’ve been meaning to improve my release schedule and I’m going to try to stick to it.  Many other projects may come and go, but PocketFlock seems to be the most desired.

So here it goes.
PocketFlock Mac 1.1b 26.5MB

PocketFlock Win 1.1b 12.1MB

Note that the Mac version is now 0.9MB larger on OSX and 0.4MB smaller on Windows.  Still no bundled extensions, but I’ll get to that when I can.

Tags: pocketflock, flock, windows, osx, dmg, 7zip

Still on my list (though not in any order of importance):

• Flock’d (and not just that old version, but a completely rewritten program that’s fully compliant)
• PocketFlock extensions… as part of my commitment to building the most complete portable browser experience, I’ve got to start better sorting what extensions get bundled with PocketFlock.
• Pollux.  Yeah… I had a working version, no I never posted it or it’s source, I’m reworking Pollux into a client side app instead of a server side app. (for those of you who forget it’s a podcast creator)

I’ve got a few new ideas brewing in my head that I just haven’t implemented yet, but I’ll do what I can when I can.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: flock’d, flock, pocketflock, podcast