Now I want to post some information on Mozilla's RC3 release of Firefox 2.0.  Why?  Because it's Firefox 1.5 - only better.   If you are a Firefox user, you might want to check it out.  The latest version out is Firefox 2.0 RC3, and can be downloaded at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/all-rc.html.  The list of features can be found at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox2/Features.  If you are not a Firefox user, why not?  Do you favor IE?  I hope not.  I am running Linux, so it is hard (but not impossible) to run Microsoft Internet Explorer.  It runs really slow under Wine, so I only use it to test websites that I design.  Even if I could run it efficiently, I wouldn't.  When I was a Windows user by default, I still used Firefox because it had more features, and it was more secure.

Here is a feature that would make your Firefox browsing very efficient - the search engine bar.  In Firefox, you have a bar at the top and to the right of your address bar.  Wouldn't it be cool if you could add eBay to that search bar, well, you can!  Just go to http://mycroft.mozdev.org/ for a list of search engines that you can add to your list.  With eBay's search bar in place, you can search for anything on eBay right from your browser.  It's very useful for me because if I have a buyer call or email about an item, all they have to tell me is the item number.  I punch it into the search bar, and I go right to the item they are talking about.  Another use for it - if you are an eBay Radio listener, callers often call in with questions about an eBay item.  If you are listening and want to see the item.  You have to stop, go to the eBay page and type in the number, or you can simply go to the search bar and type in the number.

I haven't found a search engine that allows one to search for an eBay member or feedback profile.  If somebody finds one, please post it.

Yes, I know MS put the search feature and put it into their IE7.  There are many reasons why I don't prefer MS Internet Explorer.  One of them is their slow response to bugs.  Don't believe me?  See http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/how-to-crash-internet-explorer.asp to see what I'm talking about.  That page has a script that will crash your browser if you are running IE6.x or older.  Yes, it appears that they fixed it in IE7, but that makes it over a year response time.

So at the end of the summer, gas prices started to fall as we all know.  Everyone was commenting that $2.50 /Gal was a "good price".  I said (sort of sarcastically) that I wouldn't be officially impressed until the gas prices falls below $2 for regular unleaded.  I said that because NW Indiana usually has the highest prices in the state even though we are closest to the refineries (go figure).

Well, today, as I was driving to school, I saw gas for $1.99 /gallon.  No car wash, no catch.  I am officially impressed.  I would have filled up, but my tank was already full.  Maybe it will still be that low next time I need a fill up.

In my ever-interesting college career, I find myself taking a class on Assembly this year.  Now, since we are only a couple months into the semester, we haven't gotten into any actual Assembly programming yet.  Instead, we are taking an in-depth look at how computers work.

So when I heard that we were going to take a couple months to learn how computers work, I was thinking that I was going to have another boring class on learning Windows, drivers, programs, kernels, etc., but no, I get the privilege of learning how a computer works all the way down to the 1's and 0's.   Yes, it's a little interesting, but do I really need to know this?  This class is technically a Computer Science class, and my major is Software Engineering, so it's not really a huge part of my major.  As a programmer, I work in the higher-level programming languages like languages where you can use actual words and syntax, not 1s and 0s.

All I have to say about this class is that it makes me thankful for the higher-level programming languages.  I guess my question about this class is that if it took several geniuses to come up with computer logic, why do they think I should learn it?

By the way, the title of this entry is one of the quotes I have on my website and forums sig.  Every day, my websites selects a quote to show for the day randomly from a collection of mine.

Disclaimer - I am in no way saying it's a bad class to take.  It's a class that does fascinate me and makes me feel more like a nerd to know this stuff.  I just don't see a need for me to be learning it.

Before I post anything here or on the forums, I always spell check it with Google's toolbar.  If you don't have it and you like Google's services, I would highly recommend that you give it a try.  It's one of the few toolbars that I trust in my browser.  I know that eBay's forums have a spell checker, but it takes to long to correct a single word because it reloads the entire page for every correction.  Google's toolbar checks it live on the page.  Pretty cool.

Another plus is that it has all Google's features such as a search box, PageRank, link to Gmail account, etc.

Another important feature is that the toolbar protects you from fishing sites just as the eBay toolbar does.  It stops you from entering your information on a page that tries to look like an eBay page.  It's a big plus for FireFox users that can't use the eBay toolbar.

http://toolbar.google.com