Author Archives: Mark Headrick

Website Changes During April 2013

Main Site Updates

Yesterday I noticed that my YouTube players on my Entertainment and NASCAR pages had quit working. They were completely blank. My guess is they finally pulled the plug on these old style players. So, I grabbed the latest embed code, using iframes, for my playlists and replaced the old players. I guess the added benefit with these newer players is that they will detect if your browser supports HTML5 or not and display the appropriate HTML5 or Flash based player. You need to be part of YouTube’s HTML5 Trial for it to show the HTML5 version, provided your browser supports it.

Speaking of HTML5, Firefox 20 added support for videos encoded with h.264 in certain operating systems (namely Windows 7 and above at the moment as the OS comes with the codec). This is disabled by default, however. You need to go into about:config and set media.windows-media-foundation.enabled to true.

Gallery Updates

April 22, 2013: Gallery released version 3.0.7 which I have since upgraded my galleries to. It addressed a couple late-minute security vulnerabilities that were discovered.

It seems that not long after Gallery v3.0.5 was released that Gallery v3.0.6 came out to fix some bugs. So, I’ve updated my galleries accordingly (actually did this a few days ago). Exact same process as before.


That’s all for now. Anything else I do this month I’ll update this post. šŸ™‚

Website Changes During March 2013

Well, let’s see. March has seen numerous changes to my website. If you’re reading this on my main site, you’ll notice some additional menu items: Firefox Configuration, Speed Test Results, System Information, and Winamp Info. The only actual new page is the Speed Test Results one. The others have been in existence for some time which I link to in various support forums. I made the Speed Tests page after I removed the images from my hardware page that were beside my cable modem entry.

I have also modified my NASCAR page to display the current driver standings using the data from ESPN’s Driver Standings instead of Yahoo’s. Yahoo’s page was acting kind of funky so I changed it. I also stopped pulling the data down every time my page was viewed. I run another script that collects the data and saves it to a static text file that my NASCAR page just includes. Much more efficient as the standings information only really changes once after each race.

I have also modified my MOD page to include a playlist of videos I created while playing MOD files in XMPlay. Why did I make these? A good question LOL. Just ’cause I guess. I could probably write an entire post about the tools I’ve used to generate them. But, just so you know, I used CamStudio to create the videos and I’ve tried the CamStudio LossLess, XviD, and x264vfw Codecs to make my initial capture videos. Testing the various codecs, the options within them, and how they look after being sent to YouTube is enough to drive one crazy LOL. I did a fixed region capture of 640×360 which is a 16:9 ratio and matches the default size of YouTube’s player that way you can read the text clearly.

I think that’s all I’ve done lately.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day for 2013

Saint Patrick's DayJust wanted to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Everyone be safe out there and don’t do anything stupid like drinking or texting and driving. If you’re in the Oklahoma City metro, Shawnee, Enid, Ardmore or Lawton, AAA is offering their Tipsy Tow Service for free by calling 1-800-222-4357. Please take advantage of it if you need it. Have a great time! šŸ™‚

How to Add New RSS Feed Into Feedly for Firefox

Update April 2019: Thought I would add that for Firefox 63+, RSSPreview also allows you to preview a feed directly in Firefox and view it’s source code if you want. In order for this to work, you would need to select RSS for the Subscribe Using option in Awesome RSS‘s options.


Update December 2018: For Firefox 63+ they’ve removed most of the RSS handling code and adding these about:config entries don’t do anything now. See: Mozilla plans to remove RSS feed reader and Live Bookmarks support from Firefox – gHacks Tech News. Using Awesome RSS still works though.


Update November 2017: For Firefox 57+ there is now the Feedly Subscribe Button or Awesome RSS extension (which now has a Feedly option). The about:config modifications shown below also still work to add it to Firefox’s list of handlers.


Update November 26, 2013: Feedly changed their URL. They took “cloud” out of the URL. So, the correct URL is now: http://feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s which I have altered below.

Update July 3, 2013: After reading How to add web services to the RSS signup page? on the mozillaZine forum (and comments below), thought I would put what needs to be done for Feedly here (after they finish re-doing the Firefox extension, none of this should, hopefully, be necessary):

To add a feed handler manually,

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
  2. Press the big button to bypass the warning.
  3. In the search bar, paste browser.contentHandlers.types. and note the highest number of the preferences listed (e.g. browser.contentHandlers.types.5.title)
  4. Right-click somewhere in the lower pane and choose New, then String.
  5. Create preferences with the following values, replacing 6 with the appropriate number in your case. %s is a placeholder for the feed’s URL; Firefox will send that URL to the feed reader website.
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.title Feedly
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.type application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.uri https://feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s
  6. Restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.

You should now see a Feedly option in your drop-down list for feed readers. šŸ™‚


Update June 25, 2013: Thought I better update this post. Currently Feedly is up to version 16.0.528 of the Firefox extension and I am now running Firefox v22.0. Also, it looks like my account is now completely handled by the Feedly Cloud. As such, my URL to add a RSS feed into Feedly has changed from what is used below. The current URL which I now use when making the bookmark is:Ā http://cloud.feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%sĀ . It also seems like the extension is more of a front-end to the web only version of Feedly that adds some additional abilities over the website by itself. Hopefully this helps others that have been completely moved over to the Feedly cloud. šŸ™‚


Update March 28, 2013: Feedly just released version 14.0 of the extension for Firefox on their site. It does seem to correct the problem with adding new feeds and does seem to fix the Google+ button issue when trying to share with it. It’s got some of its own little quirks (which some may not even notice). Version 10.2 is still available on the Firefox Add-On site (actually, they keep most of the older versions archived).


As most are aware by now, Google has announced that as of July 1st, Google Reader will be shutdown. I have been testing out Feedly as a replacement. If you’re reading this then odds are that you’ve already installed the Feedly Extension for Firefox. At the moment it’s basically a front-end for Google Reader and syncs its content with Google Reader. Changes made in Feedly will appear in Google Reader and visa-versa. More information can be found here on Feedly’s blog: Transitioning from Google Reader to Feedly.

The biggest problem that I and many others have run into is adding new feeds directly into Feedly. The normal process in Firefox usually displays an error like this. Anyway, here’s the easiest way that I’ve found to do it.

First, create a new bookmark of one of your existing Feedly pages or just make a new bookmark of anything really. Then, right-click the bookmark and select properties so that the following dialog is shown:

Bookmark Properties

Like I’ve done, change the Name to something more meaningful, and most importantly, change the Location to http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s be sure to add the “%s” at the end. Then add a keyword, such as “f” like I have done, and click Save. (Note: see the June 25th update at the beginning of this post for the current URL if you’ve been moved over to the Feedly Cloud.)

Now, simply preview the RSS feed you want in Firefox using the normal method or copy the link to an RSS feed. Then in the address bar, either insert a “f(space)” (or whatever keyword you decided on) in front of the URL if it’s already showing or type “f(space)” followed by the URL to the RSS Feed:

Address Bar

After pressing enter, you should see the new page being displayed within Feedly’s context. At this point, just click on the green +Add button:

Add feed to Feedly

Success!! šŸ™‚ (oh, as of this writing I am using Firefox v19.0.2).

Update March 17, 2013: Another work-around is to simply refresh the browser using F5, the address bar’s refresh button, or Feedly’s circular arrow refresh button, if you see that unable to load feed error page. After refreshing it seems to properly decode the URL and display the appropriate content to then add.