I can’t help but wonder, considering the number of websites and web developers who insist on ensuring that their websites are still fully compliant with Internet Explorer 6, which was rendered obsolete long ago, should other non-standard browser configurations be considered as well?

Has anyone ever tried to count how many users run Firefox with the NoScript add-on?

How many users have JavaScript disabled in Google Chrome?

Do a lot of IE users have JavaScript turned off or restricted somehow?

Most importantly, if you added up all of the users with JavaScript unsupported or JavaScript disabled in their web browser, how big of a user group would they be as a percentage of all web users? Would that number be larger than the number of people still using IE 6? If so, wouldn’t it be prudent for website owners and webmasters to ensure that their websites function correctly without JavaScript, especially when so many of the elements using JavaScript are superficial like animated menus?

I for one test every WordPress theme or website template in Firefox with NoScript running to see what it looks like when it “breaks” because JavaScript is not enabled in a browser. If it still doesn’t render and function at a basic level, then I won’t use it.

Does anyone else do something similar?

Can the noscript tag be used effectively enough to compensate for non-JavaScript enabled browsers?

The basic speed dial window all browsers have.

I usually don’t like to post stubs or preliminary articles like this, but I went all reviewer on Mozilla.org this morning and, of course, ended up writing a review of my favorite Firefox add-on of all time, Speed Dial. As that review got longer I felt myself wanting to show people how to really maximize productivity with this Firefox plug-in by configuring Speed Dial the way I have ended up tweaking it and setting it up. Don’t get me wrong, my why isn’t the only way, but when you see the power and customization of the Firefox Speed Dial plug-in in use in my setup, you can see why I think that Speed Dial is the most important Firefox add-on anyone can have. In fact, it’s the one real drawback to Google Chrome for me right now.

There is a Speed Dial extension for Google Chrome on the Google extensions website, but it is a pale imitation of this powerful Firefox add-on. It doesn’t have dial groups which is the main powerful feature of the Speed Dial plugin.

Anyway, it would be irresponsible of me to get into posting my Speed Dial Firefox extension review right now when I have deadlines barreling down on my like runaway trucks with no brakes on the side of a steep mountain. However, I don’t want anyone following the link I threw onto my review at mozilla.org to arrive and wonder where in the heck the review I promised is. Therefore, I’m going to post a couple of screen shots that I think will help any user with even a little bit of power browsing experience to understand the kind of productivity gains that are possible with this plugin.

If that is you, either install the plugin and start messing around with it. Just got to Tools -> Add-ons -> Options and start customizing away. (I recommend setting up either a Speed Dial icon on your toolbars, or doing like I did and setting the right click on a page to include the context menu option to Add to Speed Dial. You can make that work by right-clicking on the tab if you prefer, but I’m used to right-clicking on the page itself when I want to do something. One of the best things about this add-on is how much it can be customized to work exactly the way you need it to in order to help out with your own time management by making browsing faster and easier.)

The quick, quick, version of how to use Speed Dial to speed up your Internet browsing and boost your online power goes like this:

1. Use Dial Groups – Every web browser offers some sort of dial based start up screen. Opera was first, but Google Chrome has one now too. IE has a similar concept although it is done via text links instead of actual configurable dials. What makes Speed Dial great is the ability to have MORE THAN ONE page of dials.
2. Set Speed Dial to show up in new tabs instead of waiting to click something. Every time you press CTL-T you’ll get a list of your speed dials to use. Just make your current homepage the first dial on the first dial group to keep instant access to it.
3. Customize the dial group tabs – You can change the colors to make tabs easier to find. Just don’t go crazy or you’ll hate it.
4. Customize the dial groups – Need more than 9 websites for one dial group? No problem. One of the configurations is how many sites to show on a speed dial group. You can change both the default, and even better change on a per group basis. You can have 12 dials under Work and 6 dials under Facebook Games or vice versa, depending on your lifestyle – If you have a widescreen monitor take advantage of that width by setting your default dial group configuration to 3 rows and 4 columns.

Lastly, if you are a power user looking for maximum time savings, you’ll end up with a lot of dials that link to a lot of webpages. By default, the speed dial thumbnails refresh frequently which means you could end up with a slow running Firefox when running Speed Dial and switching through several dials because thumbnails are being generated for each site no matter how fast you click. (See the link for details.)

There is lots more power. Read the docs or poke around the settings to see what else you can do to improve online productivity with Speed Dial. Or, come back here in the next day or two when I get time to go on full tilt. Even easier, grab the Best Hubris RSS Feed to make sure you get the updated Firefox plugin reviews as soon as they come online.

Then you can check out my post about Firefox personas if you need to read more about the Mozilla web browser.

Recently, an upgrade to the WP-DBManager plug-in for WordPress started giving an error message on my sites.  The error message is, "Error Warning: Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public".  The plug-in goes on to recommend that you copy the .htaccess file from one folder to another.

There are two glitches with the WP-DBManager WordPress plug-in.

The first is that there is no .htaccess file where WP-DBManager says to look.  It is an easy solution, on the support forums, the author notes that there are some difficulties distributing the plug-in with a real .htaccess file in it.  To get around the issue, there is a htaccess.txt file instead.  Just copy it to the new directory and then rename it .htaccess.  All of which is easily done with Filezilla or another FTP utility.

The second glitch is a little trickier.

Even after you have copied the .htaccess file where you are supposed to, the plug-in might show the error message anyway.  In other words, you still keep getting the error even if you have the right .htaccess file in the correct directory.

On the support forums, there is information to make the Warning message go away.  It involves how to tweak the plug-in’s PHP code, but all this does is stop the check.  It doesn’t fix the problem.  That is bad news, because if the error message is broken your backups might be broken too.

What gives?

WP-DBManager Error and Dreamhost Hosting

For whatever reason, Dreamhost hosts their accounts for WordPress and other sites with a full directory path that includes a ".something" directory. WP-DBManager requires a path to mysquldump and mysql, but also the FULL directory path structure to work properly.

As a Dreamhost user, that means that you will input a Path to Backup containing a ".".

For example, /home/.swami/domain.com/wp-content/backup-db

Whether it is a Dreamhost thing or a WordPress thing, I don’t have any idea, but for whatever reason, when the WP-DBManager plugin code tries to read the Path to Backup field it uses the /.swami/ part correctly in one section, but then does NOT use it correctly in the next section.

The result?

Keep getting the Warning: Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public error message even though you have the right .htaccess file because the check the plug-in makes fails due to have the "wrong" path.

Even worse is that your backups are failing!  The same path error that causes the warning to falsely display causes a directory write error when it tries to run the backups!

How To Fix WP-DBManager WordPress Plug-in Error Message

Fortunately, the fix is pretty easy.

Go into the DB Options under Database in your WordPress control panel and change the Path to Backup to NOT include the .directory whatever it is.

In the example above, delete the /.swami/ part of the path.

That leaves /home/domain.com/wp-content/backup-db.

Save the changes and then click on a different plug-in or control panel option and then back on the Database (to get it to re-try and read the file).  The error message should disappear, and more importantly, your backups should be working again.

You can test if WP-DBManager backups are working by clicking Backup DB which runs a manual backup.

By the way, Dreamhost already backs up your mysql databases for you, so if you are in a pinch you can use those.  But, WP-DBManager still provides more robust, automated backups, that are not overwritten by default and are easier to restore, so you still need the plugin.

I use the NoScript plug-in for Firefox.  However, there are tons of websites that use JavaScript for legitimate functionality.  For example, the Mozilla forums use a javascript:history.back() for the back button in the forums.  There is obviously no need to block this.

Originally, I tried to allow everyone to use JavaScript and then block the ones I didn’t want.  Of course, that is easier said than done since you never no where a link might lead you, and legitimate sounding sites can be full of garbage.

Now, I use NoScript to block everyone by default and then allow various websites as I use them.  At first this is time consuming and frustrating because nearly every big website uses JavaScript for something.  However, over time, it becomes less of an issue because when you set a site to “allow”, NoScript remembers that setting and you never have to change it again.

NoScript also allows for a “temporary allow” setting which essentially is the same as regular allow, but sooner or later I click “remove temporary permissions.”   When that happens, the regular allows stay allowed and everyone else goes back to not allowed.

I bring this up today because this morning, I removed temporary permissions and was stunned at just how many of my “main” sites are now needing their permissions changed.  The issue is the large number of sites which I don’t know about.  Some are ad services of course, but others are functionality that is served to site owners from elsewhere.  Usually, these fall in the category of animations or other fancy things that, frankly, I don’t care if they load or not because I don’t really need those.  But, sometimes that cripples the website because they do everything that way.

So, starting with this post, and permanently listed and archived on my NoScript Plug-in Graylist page will be sites that I get the time to investigate and make informed decisions on.  You are free to use my list, make comments on the list, and make suggestions for the list.  We’ll see where it all goes from here.

NoScript Blacklists

I am aware that there are various services and lists out there that publish various “blacklists” for NoScript.  The problem is that what is an anathema to one man is fine by another.  For example, I have no problem with Google Ads being displayed on a webpage.  They are unobtrusive, and do not interrupt my browsing experience.  So, if it helps a useful website stay in business by displaying some ads, then I have no problem with that.  (I control my Google privacy in other ways.)

However, I despise those ad services that use programs to underline words (sometimes randomly so) and turn them into links which go to ads.  For starters, that makes me afraid to click any links on the site even legitimate ones. Second, they almost always have a mouse-over bubble component that means innocent mouse movements create bubbles that get in the way of what I am trying to look at.  So, I want those blocked no questions asked.

In other words, I can use other people’s lists to block the horrendous no-value JavaScript as well as the dangerous virus, trojan type JavaScripts, but when it comes to that gray area where something is maybe fine for one but unacceptable for another, I’ll need my own list.  And this is it.