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,

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