How to get any popup window into your web browser (with Firefox)

All right, so you’re surfing the web and you click on a link that opens up a new window. But what if you want that new window to open up as a tab in your web browser? And it just won’t work that way?

Well, here’s a nifty little trick for those pesky Javascript-generated windows.

1. Open the link in a new window. (This is not an option )
2. In the new window, press Ctrl+T.
3. Drag the original tab (the one not named Untitled) to the window you want it to be in.

Voila! You now have the tab exactly where you want it. If you want, you can now bookmark the tab for later use.

Why this works: Although there are no menus or toolbars, and the current tab is not being shown, you can rectify the problem by opening a new one. Since the menu is hidden, you need to use a keyboard shortcut instead: Ctrl+T (new tab). And since you can drag tabs between windows in newer versions of Firefox, the problem is solved.

Mozilla SeaMonkey

To: Mozilla Foundation
Re: SeaMonkey
Content:

We’ve been friends for a long time, Mozilla. I’ve been using Firefox since version 2.0, and I’ve supported it wholeheartedly. I read your book, “Don’t Click on the Blue E!”, religiously when I discovered it, quoting it to my friends and telling them  of the evils of Internet Explorer.

I also know about… Netscape. As much as I hate to admit it, I used the browser once upon a time too, and I thought that the editor was great. 

Sort of.

The editor really didn’t do anything I couldn’t do myself — actually, it slowed down the process. Click to edit the source, save (and it jumps away), wonder if it’s rendering the way it’ll appear in the browser. Publish, look at in browser, see it wasn’t the same at all. Go back to document, can’t edit the source. Go to source, save (and consequently am forced to leave source again). Something just went out of whack. I hit Publish. It looks better on the browser, but my Composer isn’t working so I turn the whole suite off and then back on.

Unfortunately, SeaMonkey is not a new way to give you an Internet suite. It’s a shiny new face for an old, cruddy, nasty program. Face it, Mozilla. Netscape’s mistake is becoming yours. Stop falling behind and developing things that don’t work. Pour your effort into something else, something new, something that will actually start to compete with Microsoft’s Expression Web.

Until then, I’ll just use Windows Notepad. Or edit.com. Watch me, Mozilla. Sea this code Monkey suffer less.

Why I hate Bing

After I searched for a pretty weird query, “Why I hate October” during a pessimistic spree this afternoon, I decided to compare my results on Microsoft’s new Bing engine and Google. What I found:

• Google wins. It hit the nail on the head in the first page, giving me results with the words I had typed verbatim, ones labeled “i really really hate October”, “Why I hate today, October 27″, etc. Good job at giving me relevant results!
• Bing loses, badly. It has a lot of posts regarding hatred, written  in October. Its results were along the lines of “Why I hate Java”, “Why I hate blogs”, “Why I hate tampons”, “Why I hate flu shots,” “Why I hate Apple.”

Do you know why I hate Bing? Because it doesn’t care what I hate.

Gunslinger Girl desktop buddies

They’re fun, they’re adorable, they’re… Okay, they’re not that special. But they do sit on your desktop and add a healthy dose of moé to your otherwise very bland life. Get your Gunslinger Girl desktop mascots today!

Download zip file (mediafire)

Oh no! Funimation!

(DISCLAIMER: This is a rant. None of my sources have been checked save for my personal experience. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance but probably won’t retract anything.)

Part 1: The Early Years

When I found out about the Funimation company, I was at first apalled. I mean, it dubbed Fruits Basket, for goodness’ sake, so

girly I was almost afraid it wasn’t straight. It also dubbed Fullmetal Alchemist (girly or not, blonde male protagonists).

These were two shows the one anime girl at my old school continually ranted happily about, so I avoided them at all costs.

Funimation also dubbed Samurai Seven, which I saw as the last straw in determining whether they were a good company or not.

While the art for the show was superb (if redundant), the voices were quiet in every possible way. The voice actors couldn’t be

heard over the imposing soundtrack, and the subtitles were annoyingly small, especially compared to ADV’s on a little TV.

Oh, and the “Babes Blades Blood Beauty” idea, selling old anime with new B-words? No.

Part 2: The Takeover

When I first realized ADV’s slow demise, it was when Funimation had picked up several of ADV’s titles, which I picked up for their own merit and started to examine. And they were good. Very good. I also noticed some of Funimation’s own releases had increased in quality, and quite stunned me in their selection in the long run. ADV titles and ADV quality seemed like a good reason to buy their stuff, and the price really wasn’t that bad.

Part 3: Today

With (or without) the collapse of ADV, Funimation is now at the top of the anime world, with smaller companies like AnimeWorks, Sentai/Section23, and Bandai trying to close in from behind. Their power is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Look how they distributed School Rumble: By releasing Season 1 (26 episodes) for about $40, then releasing the first half of Season 2 (13 episodes) for $40, then the second half (13 more) for $40. That’s $120 — the price certainly goes up quickly, doesn’t it?

Granted, for stockholders Funimation is probably an excellent investment right now (one of the best returns since I’ve purchased shares in it in fact) but might not be the best deal for anime fans. On the other hand, ADV and Sentai films are at closeout prices, as ADV sort of promised their own demise by re-releasing old titles at blowout prices. Get them while you can, anime fans. And welcome to the Funimation Monopoly.

Let’s Take a Look at Excel 2007

I’ve been avoiding Microsoft Ofice 2007 since, well, 2007. But I decided I would finally get with the picture and look around a little bit.

The first thing that’s pretty apparent is the interface has changed a lot. And now it’s prettier too. Very pretty. Instead of having menu bars where things are organized in an easy-to-find fashion, there are “ribbons,” which show pictures of things you may or may not misunderstand as helping you towards your goal. But still, pictures are better than organization.

Ribbons. They’re just prettier. Would you rather like a girl with a ribbon in her hair, or a girl with a menu in it? Yeah, thought so. Well, the same concept applies completely for computer programs.

All right, now let’s take a look at the top of the window. There’s a big round button up at the top, and it’s glowing at me. Orange and white, and orange again. What the heck. Does it want me to click it? Maybe even double click it. So I do, and the whole thing closes.

I start Excel again.

I swear I’m going to be productive now. Really. I type in a few rows of cells, but something I typed wrong isn’t showing up in red. So I spellcheck the cells. Umm, I spellcheck them. I… I can’t spellcheck them. That option isn’t there. What would it be under? A few clicks later I find it under Review, even though I’m not done with the first draft, let alone the review.

I want to insert a row of cells. So I navigate my ribbon back to “Home,” and click “Insert.” Whoops, wrong command. Apparently I have to “insert” via the bottom half of the button instead of the top half. And look a little closer, and I see that some of the little boxes in the ribbons have little buttons you must click in order to do everything possible.

Thank you, Office, for hiding your options. I feel like I’m being patronized and hidden from my own undoing. I love you.

ADV is gone… and I saw it coming

I looked up ADV on Google News today, and lo and behold, the behemoth is dead as of three hours ago. All rightey. I know it’s sad, and I know you won’t like it one little bit, but the famous animation-dubbing studio ADV Films is no more.

How could this be? They are the ones who dubbed Neon Genesis Evangelion into English! At one time they dominated the anime component of the industry and were branching out everywhere else! Well, maybe they branched a little too far.

Did you see it coming? I know I did. And I’ll tell you why.

• Anime ADV’s biggest and most obvious problem was with the anime they were supplying. They lost many, many of their best titles to Funimation about a year ago. Instead of picking up a better line of films, their agreement with failing Geneon fell through, and grabbing up the rights to an even older, even sadder Central Park Media didn’t even work on paper.
• Manga It’s no secret: I loved Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&!. It wasn’t just because they were both by the awesome Kiyohiko Azuma; it was also because I was an ADV fanboy. There, I said it. Unfortunately, ADV has not only had trouble keeping their manga in stock, they also dropped the continuing Yotsuba&! series because they simply couldn’t afford to produce it… or so was my original conjecture.
• TV The Anime Network was the most redeeming-looking aspect of satellite TV. Unfortunately it fell through to On-Demand programming and never recovered.
• Magazines Newtype Magazine was ADV’s crowning prize — imported from Japan and directly translated into English. It was packed with features and, unfortunately, very expensive. Newtype died February 2008 and was replaced by the PiQ magazine, which tried to be more universally appealing. A few short months later, PiQ went under as well.
• Online ADV never had a working website for its products. Never. The sites were flawed; the design was old-fashioned; most of the time they just plain didn’t work. It didn’t bode very well at all.
• (Re)releases Neon Genesis Evangelion, ADV’s crowning work, was released over and over again, in multiple versions (including a Christmas Special Edition).

So, sayonara ADV. I’ll miss you; I really will. Evangelion was amazing, Azumanga Daioh was wonderful in its slightly-on-drugs way, Excel Saga was insanely hilarious. Rest in peace.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-09/newtype-usa-to-cease-publication

Death Note comes to America

Hello, culture. We are weaning ourselves towards accepting anime. The first step was Transformers, the giant-robot movie (and sequel) that took the country by storm. Then there was Dragonball the Movie, which introduced old characters in well-known anime to theaters. And now, a lesser-known show is being snapped up by a quite well-known name.

Death Note: The Movie (from Wikipedia)
In 2007, the Malaysian paper The Star stated that more than ten film companies in the United States had expressed interest in the Death Note franchise.[6] The American production company Vertigo Entertainment was originally set to develop the remake, with Charley and Vlas Parlapanides as screenwriters and Roy Lee, Doug Davison, Dan Lin, and Brian Witten as producers.[19] On April 30, 2009, Variety reported that Warner Bros., the distributors for the original Japanese live-action films, had acquired the American rights for the remake, with the original screenwriters and producers still attached.[20] The release date is tentatively set for the year 2011.[21] Zac Efron has denied rumors of playing the lead role, Light Yagami.[citation needed] New reports claim that Taylor Kitsch will play Light, and that Henry Cavill will star as L Lawliet.[citation needed]

The Shack

I was inspired by all the posters I saw about The Shack — the new RadioShack ad campaign — so I decided to create a few of my own.

The 50s, all over again (but better!)

The 1950s are great, but kiosk computers (without my own flash drive) are not. So, along that train of thought…