Mark Headrick's Blog

After updating to LongURL Mobile Expander v2.0.0 it stopped showing Tooltips with the destination when I would move the mouse over a short URL. I would also get “current domain is NULL” errors when browsing locally (I have a local copy of Apache installed for development). The problem existed in both Firefox 3.0.11 and 3.5.

I got it working after seeing a comment here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8636 so all the credit goes to Matthias Jansen.

Edit the file: C:\Documents and Settings\(user)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\(your profile)\extensions\{a7101e54-830c-4d33-a3ed-bedc17ec44da}\content\longurlmobileexpander.js

I am using Windows XP so your location might be different.

Around line 79, change

var current_domain = document.location.href.match(/^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?([^\.]+\.[^\/]+)/i);

To:

var current_domain = document.location.href.match(/^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?([^\.]+(\.[^\/]+)?)/i);

Update: I’ve been told here that the following change is also needed. Around line 89, change

if ((domain !== current_domain[1]) && (typeof(this.known_services[domain]) !== 'undefined')) {

To:

if ((current_domain != null) && (domain !== current_domain[1]) && (typeof(this.known_services[domain]) !== 'undefined')) {

After doing this and re-enabling the extension.. it started working. I can now see the tooltip pop-ups and it’s supposed to fix the current_domain is null problem. Hopefully this will help anyone else that ran into this issue.

Due to the limited length of 140 characters Twitter allows in a status update or tweet, the use of URL shortening services and short URLs has become a necessary evil. I don’t know about you but I am NOT going to just blindly click on some gobbledygook looking short URL without knowing exactly where it’s going to take me before hand. It’s just too easy to hide links to malicious websites this way. Luckily there are a number of ways to preview where these short URLs are going to send you.

Currently, Twitter uses Tinyurl by default to shorten long URLs when it sees fit. Lucky for us Tinyurl has a preview option that you can set on their site. I would advise enabling it. Then, when you click on a Tinyurl link it will take you to Tinyurl’s website first where it shows you the long URL associated with the short URL which you can then click if you so choose.

Unfortunately, this only works for Tinyurl links. Many other URL shortening services are also used: tr.im, is.gd, bit.ly, ping.fm and who knows how many others. This is where longurl.org comes to the rescue! Using this site, you can expand just about any shortened URL and it will let you preview where it goes. For this to work, you do have to copy and paste the short URL first. This site will even work with personally created short URLs as long as they use a standard Redirection. For example it will show that http://mhurl.com/000 goes to http://blog.markheadrick.com/2009/03/15/a-nascar-inspired-destroytwitter-theme/

The above two methods are universal in nature and should work no matter how you Twitter. Luckily there are alternative ways that are more convenient and I’ll let you know about the one’s I’ve tried.

Firefox Add-ons:

For Firefox users, you’ll want to check out the following:

LongURL Mobile Expander: The LongURL Moblie Expander uses longurl.org’s web service to display a tooltip with the expanded URL when the mouse hovers over a known short URL service link on a web page. This is handy when viewing Twitter pages in the browser.

• Update June 29, 2009: version 2.0.0 of this plug-in no longer seems to work correctly, at least in FireFox 3.0.11
• Update July 9, 2009: Please see this post to find out how I got it working again.
• Update January 21, 2010: Author posted Experimental Version 2.0.1 which corrects the issues. This version is not yet directly compatible with Firefox 3.6, however.

Long URL Please: This plug-in replaces the short URL with the expanded URL in the webpage itself. This one uses the longurlplease.com API to determine the destinations from known services. I have been using this one after LongURL Mobile Expander quit working on me.

Echofon (aka TwitterFox): Twitter client add-on that will show the expanded URL in a tooltip when the mouse hovers over a known short URL service link.  I say “known” because these will not show expanded links from unknown services or personally created short URLs.

Stand-alone Twitter Clients with Short URL preview abilities:

TweetDeck: If you set the option to Show preview information for short URLs in the general settings tab, it will display a preview dialog with the expanded URL after you click on a link. This only works with known short URL services. My shortened link does not preview.

DestroyTwitter: Version 1.5.3beta introduced a URL preview ability. When you ALT-Click on a link it will preview the URL for you. This will work with ANY link as best I can tell. It will even preview my shortened link and display both the title and expanded URL. In this aspect, DestroyTwitter beats all the other Twitter clients I have tried.

I am sure there are other Twitter clients that have built-in preview abilities (no, I’m not going to download and try everything that exists), just make sure you enable it if they have the option. With that, have a happy and safe twitter experience.

Well, I’ve decided to try the Twitter thing out with my profile page at http://twitter.com/mrheadrick. I was tempted by some threads at my webhost and CNN Newsroom where Rick Sanchez has his Twitter board. What can I say, my TV seems to be tuned to CNN when there’s not something else I’d rather be watching.

Time will tell how much I really use it and if it eventually goes the way of my ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and who knows what other instant messenger type programs I’ve used and now no longer do, or at least very rarely.  It’s almost annoying how many of these instant messenger and social networking things there are around.  Probably why things like Pidgin are often used so you only have to use one program to connect and send messages to users via a variety of messaging protocols. I will admit that Twitter is a little different from your typical instant messenger service and MySpace type community.

So far I can’t say that I’m pleased with Twitter’s support. I have an open request that’s been sitting there for 5 days now without having even been assigned to anyone. The request is irrelevant now so I’ve just told them to close it. I was wanting them to confirm that MarkRH was actually taken since I was not able to create it as it said it already existed but there’s no Twitter URL for it nor does a search show that username. Oh well, what can you expect? It’s free.

I am trying out a Firefox plug-in called TwitterFox which seems to work pretty well and doesn’t consume extra screen space or require the need to always have a Twitter tab open; although, I seem to anyway LOL. I did manage to stumble onto the public Twitter timeline which shows what everyone is saying or doing.  It’s kind of interesting to check that out every now and then. If I make another post about Twitter I’ll create a category for it most likely.

All this reminds me of what my dad says to mom all the time: “What’s the word bird?”, to which she responds: “Tweet” LOL.

I have finally done it!!! My website is no longer using frames after years and years. It’s now using a combination of CSS and DIV containers to control the layout. I think I have made changes to all the pages and scripts that I needed to LOL. As you’ll notice, I no longer have my embedded midi player on the bottom left. Instead when clicking on a link to play a random midi file or any particular one, it will open a pop-up window with the midi player. Any future midi files will be targeted to that same pop-up window and start playing.

As a result of this, I have had to modify my .htaccess file to redirect any links that might be going to my old index.shtml (the file that contained my frame information) or main.php (which was the home page file loaded into the right-hand side) to just the root at “/” so that it loads the new index.php.

The main thing that is bugging me so far is that with Firefox, the pages that have an embedded object such as a media player, flash player, or YouTube player causes the left menu to be redrawn… except for the NASCAR page for some reason . In IE, this does not happen. Trying to make things behave the same or as close to possibly can be a real pain sometimes. Anyway, now my website will be easier for search bots to handle and for people to bookmark and refresh pages!

Over time I have noticed the percentage of access on my sites with Firefox has been slowly increasing and has reached around 30%. That was even with me accessing it with Maxthon, an IE shell. So, I decided I would download Firefox and see how my sites looked with it and work with it enough to form my own opinion about it. One of the things I really liked about it “out-of-the-box” is the built-in spell checking that works on any form you type in. I then started to look around the Firefox Add-ons site to customize it to my liking to work as closely like Maxthon did functionally and feature wise, and even beyond. Some of these add-ons I’ve installed to help overcome issues I have come across.

Add-ons installed:

1. Adblock Plus – adds the functionality of Maxthon’s Ad Hunter. I actually like the user interface of this one better.
2. Add Bookmark Here 2 – puts an “Add Bookmark Here” option at the top of each Folder, to match what Maxthon could do.
3. AI Roboform Toolbar for Firefox – was installed when I installed Roboform which I use to manage all my passwords..
4. IE Tab – This is a real handy add-on. It let’s you swap the render engine on a tab back and forth between IE and Firefox (Gecko) and adds context menu items to open a link in an IE tab or external application. I am using this add-on to also get around some printing problems that Firefox has with some web pages. I can just swap the render engine (or open in an IE tab) which will then print the page using using the IE print preview and printing method.
5. Live HTTP Headers – captures HTTP headers on fly as you browse, going to and from the server.
6. Mouse Gestures – to match Maxthon’s mouse gesture feature which I use as a reflex now, and keep trying to use them in places they won’t work, such as normal IE.
7. Print Preview – adds print preview and page setup options to the context menu and to the print button on the toolbar. A convenience modification.
8. Tab Mix Plus, to add more control over what would cause a new tab to be created, such as from the address bar and search bar, again to match Maxthon’s ability.
9. Web Developer – Adds many development tools.

With these installed, I will have to say that Firefox has exceeded my expectations and I like the way some of these additions work. The Web Developer and Live HTTP Headers are a real handy feature for getting at the nuts and bolts of web pages, which I do not have the ability with Maxthon. There are some other additions that look interesting as well.

Other than some rendering differences, there have only been two issues with Firefox:

1. If you visit a site that has a favicon.ico with only a 32×32 image, then it seems to mess-up the bookmark’s appearance in the sidebar as it doesn’t resize it to fit like the others. The icon looks fine in the bookmark menu and toolbar, however. My blog here had such an icon. So, I just made a 16×16 icon instead.
2. It doesn’t seem to handle printing as well as IE. The Shrink-to-fit option doesn’t work as well, the print preview looks somewhat amateurish in comparison, and it doesn’t even print some pages properly at all, such as my gallery. It actually fails to print and produces an error. I’ll see if I can find a fix or work-around, but this one is almost a deal breaker for using Firefox. Perhaps an add-on to use IE’s print feature instead.

As you’ll have noticed, I installed the IE Tab add-on as one work-around for printing. I also found this thread in the Firefox Support Forum, and it seems that using CTRL-A to select the whole page and then printing with the selection option chosen will print the page okay; however, this doesn’t work with print preview and will sometimes chop-off the right side of the page.

It is these printing issues/oddities with Firefox that makes me unable to recommend Firefox as a browser for novice users , such as my parents; however, I most certainly would for more technically savvy users. In fact I have made Firefox my default browser now. One of the things Firefox does seem to handle better is WordPress’s post writing form.

I previously mentioned that there were some rendering differences which caused to me to modify some of my website’s pages; however, I will discuss that in a separate post .