Hacking Firefox: The secrets of about:config – part 2

 

Have tabbed browsing your way

Right from the start, one of Firefox’s strengths has been tabbed browsing. But if the tabs don’t behave quite the way you want them to by default, or you hate the way the default behaviors have changed since Firefox 1.x, the following changes will bring them in line.

Corral close buttons
The integer preference browser.tabs.closeButtons controls how the close buttons (the “X” icons) are rendered on tabs:

0: Display a close button only on the currently active tab. This is a nice way to keep from accidentally smacking into a close button for the wrong tab.

(You can press Ctrl-F4 to close only the current tab, but many mouse-centric people never bother to do this.)

1: Display close buttons on all tabs (default).

2: Don’t display any close buttons; the only way to close a tab is by pressing Ctrl-F4.

3: Display one close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x‘s default).

Open search results in a new tab
This one is a favorite of mine. When browser.search.openintab (a Boolean preference) is set to true, any searches launched from the Search tool bar are opened in a new tab instead of overwriting the contents of the current one. I can’t tell you the number of times I mistakenly wiped out my current page before I started using this.

Note that if you launch a new browser window with Ctrl-N and perform a search there, you’ll see the search results and the default home page for the new browser instance loading in separate tabs.

Open bookmark groups in new tabs
If you open a group of bookmarks at once, Firefox’s default behavior is to replace any existing tabs with the newly opened pages. Set browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace (Boolean) to false, and opening groups of bookmarks will append new tabs to the existing window instead of overwriting existing ones.

Squeeze more tabs into the tab bar
The integer preference browser.tabs.tabMinWidth controls how narrow, in pixels, tabs can be shrunk down before scroll arrows appear on the left and right edges of the tab bar.

The default is 100, but you can set this to something smaller so you can fit more tabs in the bar at once. Note, however, that you might find the shortened titles harder to read.

In the same vein, the integer preference browser.tabs.tabClipWidth sets the minimum width, in pixels, that a tab must be in order to show a close button. This is 140 by default, so if you set this to something lower, you’ll see more tabs with close buttons when the tab bar is heavily populated.

 

Technorati tags: Firefox

How to run file manager with root privileges

If you have set up your sudoers file and have a working sudo command (recommended), then simple issuing a `sudo programname from a terminal will allow you to run the program with root privileges. Since you’re looking for a file manager, you would use `sudo nautilus`, enter the root password and nautilus will opon up in /root with full access to all files/folders.

Ubuntu desktop users: If you’re constantly creating “sudo” sessions in Nautilus (or other applications), it’s very easy to confuse your sudo windows with your regular windows. This often results in accidentally opening read-only versions of your system files — very frustrating! A quick way to visually separate your simultaneous sessions, is to assign a different theme to your sudo applications. To do this, open a terminal and type the following:

sudo gnome-theme-manger

Pick a new theme, and any time you launch an application using sudo, you will be able to clearly see the difference between your sudo windows and your regular windows. Check out the difference in the Nautilus sessions shown above (the sudo window is shown in brown on the right, and the regular user window is shown in blue on the left).

 

 

Technorati tags: linux, Ubuntu, gnome, sudo

Costco selling praying mantis as insect control

Wow.. I can’t believe they are selling these things at Costco. Seems like a good price and beats using pesticide.

 

Praying Mantis Natural Insect Control Egg Case

 

Approximately 40 to 400 
Praying Mantis Eggs

$18.99

Item # 129014

Shipping & Handling included

 

An excellent general predator! Praying mantis consumes aphids, beetles, flies, mosquitos, moths, caterpillars and any insect they can catch. Praying mantis, an insect with an innate killer attitude, is a great garden predator. One egg case hatches many tiny babies that quickly disperse throughout your garden. Your egg case contains approximately 40 to 400 eggs.

Mating occurs in early fall and another egg case will be laid that will hatch the following summer. The egg case is laid as a foam that hardens into a spongy almost indestructible mass, usually laid attached to a shrub, weed, grass, etc., a few feet off the ground. The egg mass survives freezing, thawing, rain and all the elements to hatch in the early summer to start the cycle again.

Features:

• Hatching will occur by June

• Egg case contains 40 to 400 young mantis

• Most often green but sometimes brown

• Very territorial, will create a home where hatched

• Feeds on anything they can catch

• Late summer mating season

How to apply

• Place egg case outside in the spring attaching the egg case using the included mesh bag in a plant, shrub or tree 1 to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft.) above ground, or to observe, place in sealable white paper bag and place inside in south facing window checking daily. Tiny mantis will hatch in 1 to 8 weeks and all eggs will hatch within 1 to 2 hours, leaving the egg case visibly unchanged. Release tiny mantis immediately outside onto plants after the hatching occurs. They will quickly disperse throughout your yard to mature and lay eggs, continuing your population next season.

How much do I need?

• One egg case covers approximately 90 sq. m (1000 sq. ft.)

Specifications:

• Egg case dimensions (dia.):
  2.54 cm (1 in.)

 

 

Technorati tags: costco, insect control, funny