Firefox 2.0 Portable & Extension: DownThemAll

Hmm.. Seperti yang sudah pernah disinggung sebelumnya, bahwa di kantor ga bisa sembarangan install software, akhirnya semakin getol buka mata dan telinga terhadap software portable.

Dan sekarang, setelah lama menggunakan Firefox 1.5 portable (+extensions tentunya), kemudian sempat mencoba Opera 9.0 (yang ternyata juga portable), kini aku sudah jatuh hati dengan Firefox 2.0 portable. Tak banyak berbeda, memang. Tapi fitur-fitur seperti tabbed browsing bawaan yang lebih elegan, spell checker, search suggestion dan beberapa fitur standar lainnya, tampaknya sudah cukup memenuhi hasrat menjelajah di dunia maya. Yah, dan juga karena sudah kadung terbiasa dengan environment Firefox sebenarnya.. :p

Kemudian, tak banyak extension yang kutambahkan, hanya:

1. Adblock Plus, extension untuk block segala macam ad yang muncul, termasuk gambar dan flash.
   
2. All-in-one Sidebar, sidebar control yang memungkinkan kita membuka panel extension, download, history, bookmark, page info, dll di sebuah sidebar.
   
3. DownThemAll, download manager untuk Firefox.
   

Dan yang terasa paling berguna --berkaitan dengan issue portability di atas-- adalah DownThemAll, sebuah download manager yang memiliki fitur lebih kaya daripada download utility bawaan Firefox, dan enaknya, terintegrasi langsung dengan Firefox. Jadi tidak perlu install download manager terpisah, dan kemudian mengintegrasikannya dengan Firefox.

PS: Extension yang dulu pernah kuinstall di Firefox 1.5.. Uhmm.. Lagi tidak dipake dulu.. :)

Trying Wordpress

Yup..

The past few weeks has been weeks without new posts. And I admit that i have become a lil' bit lazy these days. And I don't know why. But then again, it's not the first time when 'blogging' becomes so HARD.

But these few days, I am a lil' bit enthusiastic to try Wordpress. I knew it quite a while from Ronsen, but never had the chance to try it by myself. I thought that it's a hard thing to do. You have to setup your own web server, configure PHP and database in MySQL, install Wordpress, run it, and then configure the settings, and so on. Uugh, just thinking about it made me wanna stop blogging.. (Naayyhh, i'm being hiperbolic ;) )

But it turns out that it is not so hard to do. We only setup default Apache, PHP and MySQL installation; extract the downloaded Wordpress package; create new database in MySQL; edit configuration file a lil' bit; follow the instruction on the install page; and your local blog is ready. Just read the readme file on the installation package. And since it uses PHP (instead of some strange and new kind of tags), it becomes easier to understand (well, I do admit that I still have to learn many things and also read those tutorials that I've already forget ;) ). And the point is, we have the ability to explore and to do more with the system, instead of waiting some genius write software for us (which is not wrong after all! ;) ).

Well, the next thing is to import my posts and comments from my Beta Blogger account to this local blog. And when everything seems to be okay, and when I become more familiar with the system.. oh yeah.. I might start my own domain using Wordpress.. :)

Head Rush Ajax

Satu lagi, buku seru dari seri Head First (). Setelah beberapa waktu lalu membaca (hmm.. ato lebih tepatnya disumpel!!) ama Head First Design Pattern (related article here), sekarang di kantor lagi seru-serunya bahas Ajax. Dan jadilah kantor membeli satu lagi buku dari seri Head First, yaitu Head Rush Ajax (sebenernya udah punya buku Ajax lain, tapi biasalah kita-kita, udah kesengsem ama buku-bukunya Head First ;p).

Seperti biasa, buku dari Head First selalu identik dengan gayanya dalam bercerita, membawa pembaca mengarungi berbagai dunia dengan Ajax sebagai tokoh utama, dan juga masih dalam bentuk komik. Ga heran kalo pembaca yang agak ribet saat berurusan dengan text book, jadi lebih enjoy dengan seri yang satu ini. Head Rush Ajax pun seperti itu. Diawali dengan bahasan konseptual tentang Ajax, dan perlahan-lahan mengimplementasikan beberapa javascript sebagai pondasi, kemudian setelah beberapa bab, baru membahas XML request dan response, hingga sampailah pada pembuatan web dengan Ajax yang cukup menarik untuk dipelajari. Semuanya disajikan dengan contoh-contoh 'ga penting' yang membuatnya tidak membosankan. Jadi, dalam urusan 'meng-komik-kan' Ajax sehingga menyenangkan untuk dipelajari, buku ini mungkin salah satu yang pantas jadi pedoman.

Namun terus terang, ada beberapa hal yang membuat saya kurang sreg ama buku yang satu ini. Bayangkan, untuk membahas mengenai XML response dan request, harus jauh-jauh dulu ke halaman 300 dari sekitar 400 halaman. Nearly at the end! Kita kemaren baru aja selesai diskusi dan membahas chapter ke-5, dan kalo diinget-inget lagi, kayanya masih sedikit banget yang telah kita pelajari. Padahal chapternya 'cuma' ada 7. Memang hampir semuanya begitu menarik, tapi ternyata kebanyakan hal-hal yang fundamental dan belum mengupas Ajax secara mendalam. Should I say: tidak 'straight forward' (mengutip istilah bos).

Kesimpulannya, jika Anda termasuk salah satu yang tidak begitu gemar textbook (seperti saya :p) dan ingin mendapatkan hal-hal mendasar tentang Ajax, sementara di saat yang sama ingin mencari bacaan yang 'ringan' sekaligus 'berbobot' serta 'menyenangkan', bolehlah melirik, membeli, atau meminjam buku ini dari sumber-sumber terpercaya. Namun jika Anda ingin mencari buku tentang Ajax untuk tingkat yang lebih mahir, hmm.. mungkin masih ada buku-buku lain yang bisa dijadikan pilihan.

Anda bisa langsung melihat contoh-contoh aplikasi dan juga men-download contoh-contoh dari bukunya di sini. Banyak contoh di sini menggunakan PHP script untuk server processing-nya. Cukup membantu, apalagi jika sudah punya bukunya.. :p

"Head Rush Ajax is a most enjoyable launchpad into the world of Ajax web applications, well worth the investment in time and money."

Barry Hawkins, Slashdot.org

Selamat ber-Ajax ria..

PS: To you all football fans out there, we're NOT talking about a football club!!

IF conditional test and NULL value in JAVA

quick question: what the difference between these lines? which one will go smoothly without error in Java??

1. if ( null || false || true ) { .. /* some statements */ .. }


2. if ( false || true || null ) { .. /* some statements */ .. }


3. if ( false || null || true ) { .. /* some statements */ .. }

yupp.. you're right!! it's the second one with true condition before null. feel so funny about it. afters 2 years of knowing Java, i just found out that (looks like.. :p) IF conditional skip the rest of the conditional test right after it found true condition. So, in the second lines above, Java wouldn't recognize any null pointer exception, unlike the first or the third. In the first example, the compiler will stuck in the null value and throw NullPointerException. In the third example, the compiler will meet the false condition and move forward, and then stuck in the second value just like at the first occurence.

well, i guess if we weren't sure whether we gonna get null pointer exception or not (in the conditional test), just put it last like the second example.

what do YOU think..??

Firefox Extension

Are you using Firefox..?? I think you better take a look of it. I found firefox is way more than 'just a browser'. I has zillion of extension, themes, and also regularly updated (I currently used 1.5.0.1).

Currently, there're several extension that I'm using in my Firefox (sorted alphabetically) :

1. AJAX Yahoo! Mail -- add a lil bit of AJAX dinamic web experience into Yahoo. You dont have to open new window just to read your mail -- it will expand some space to show you email so you can read it on the same page.


2. IE Tab -- Well, some website only able to show up in IE. But dont worry, Firefox can simulates the IE environment in it.


3. Performancing -- The one i'm using to write blog..!! You dont have to go to blogger.com just to post new stories or news. Open Performancing in Firefox, and post it..


4. Sage -- Just some RSS reader. It uses XSLT to view the feed in one window.


5. Tab Mix Plus -- Add more information to your tab and also customizing the behaviour of your tab.


6. Wen Developer -- A must-have-extension for web developer. Many features in one extension. You could manage cookies, CSS, display anchor, div, and other elements od a web page.


7. Yahoo! Mail Notifier -- Well, unlike Gmail, Yahoo! Mail page doesnt relaod automatically. This extension let you know whenever a new message arrives.

Can't found the features that you need? Just go to the Firefox extension page, and find new web surfing experience. Good luck..!! ;)

PS: You could also try Flock. Pretty much like Firefox, but with blogging tool and photo uploading tool integrated. But currently it has only few extensions available (waiting for some more actually.. ) Oops, my mistake..!! Eventhough we only find few extension in its official website, Flock has also have many extension available at this flock developer site. But then again, since Flock hasn't reach stable version (the newest version as developer preview is Flock 0.5.12) so I think I'd prefer Firefox for my daily browser (at least for now :p)