Michael Koziarski will be “speaking about Ruby on Rails”:http://webstandards.net.nz/august-meeting-ruby-on-rails-writemark/ next Thursday afternoon at Web Standards. Marcus and I will be there too. The details are:

* Time: 4.00pm to 6.30pm
* Date: Thursday 24th August
* Venue: “National Library Auditorium, corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Wellington”:http://www.zoomin.co.nz/nz/wellington/pipitea/molesworth+street/-national+library+of+new+zealand/.

They will be charging $10 a head – to cover the drinks and food. Also, they give everyone a personalised name tag, so you need to RSVP – see the details at “their website”:http://webstandards.net.nz/august-meeting-ruby-on-rails-writemark/.

Do you want to try out the new beta version of Firefox 2.0, but none of your extensions are compatible? This brief howto guide will explain how to manually update those important extensions to run in Firefox 2.0.

*About*

Most of the extensions you use will probably work just fine in Firefox 2.0. I have updated many of the extensions I use, and have not had any problems so far. My guess is that there are few, if any changes to the APIs that most Firefox extensions use.

*Step 1: get the XPI file*

Download the XPI file from the mozilla website, or the extension developers website. Save this to a temporary file on your hard drive.

*Step 2: open the file with WinZip*

The XPI file format is a simple Zip archive. You can open it with WinZip or any other compatible Zip archive viewer. You should see something like the screenshot below:

!/images/12.jpg (screenshot of XPI file contents)!

*Step 3: extract the install.rdf file*

The file called install.rdf describes the contents of the XPI file. Extract this file into a temporary directory on your hard drive. With WinZip, you should be able to drag’n'drop the file onto your desktop.

*Step 4: edit the install.rdf file*

Use notepad, or a similar text editor to open the install.rdf file. It contains a number of XML tags. You should look for an entry named em:targetApplication – this defines which applications and versions the extension will operate with. It should look similar to the screenshot below:

!/images/11.jpg (screenshot of install.rdf file)!

You will need to change the maxVersion setting to match the version of Firefox that you are using. In the example above, I have set the maxVersion to 2.0+

Note: there may be other instances of the targetApplication tag – these may declare that the extension can operate with other Mozilla based applications – for example the Flock browser. You can safely ignore those applications that you are not interested in.

*Step 5: update the XPI file*

Open up WinZip a second time, and add the updated install.rdf file back into the XFI archive. Using drop’n'drop may be the simplist way to achieve this. Confirm that the file has been updated by checking the date field of the install.rdf file. It should be today.

*Step 6: install the XPI file*

Install the XPI file by dragging and dropping it into Firefox. The Software Installation dialog will appear. Press the Install button to proceed. You will be prompted to restart Firefox.

*Step 7: confirm the installation*

After you have restarted Firefox, you can check that your extension has been installed by selecting the Add-ons option from the Tools menu. You should see your extension listed.

*When it all goes bad – uninstall*

The extension you have manually upgraded may not work correctly in Firefox 2.0. This may be due to some upgrade issues that can only be solved by the extension author. You’ll just have to be patient and wait until a new release supports the new Firefox.

To uninstall your faulty extension, you can remove it from the Add-ons panel. If this fails, you may need to start Firefox in safe mode. Select Start > Programs > Mozilla Firefox > Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode). Then remove the extension from the Tools > Addons menu.

Here is the Abletech Top 10, the most popular downloads from the website in the last month. Enjoy.

I have recently been asked what steps I took to get iTalk running successfully behind a firewall. This howto guide will walk the user through the process of configuring their various devices to acheive a “crisp and clean” telephone service.

*1. Configure network settings on the VOIP(Voice over Internet Protocol) device*

I am using the Netgear TA612V Broadband Telephone Adapter – a simple device that has a single ethernet port and two regular telephone ports. First, this must be set to use a static IP address. This will allow the firewall to forward the appropriate packets to this device.

On the Netgear device, this is set on the “Basic Settings” page. You may also need to set your dns servers and default gateway here. i set my IP address to 192.168.5.2 with my default gateway set to 192.168.5.1 – you’ll need to set the appropriate address for your network.

*2. Configure port forwarding on the firewall*

You need to setup your firewall to send any packets that arrive at a certain port number through to your VOIP device. As it shows in the screen grab below, I am forwarding ports 5060 and 30000 through to the VOIP adapter at address 192.168.5.2. The “both” indicates that this is forwarding both TCP and UDP packets.

!/images/8.jpg!

*3. Configure VOIP settings*

On the Netgear device, there is a “VOIP settings” page. The settings for other devices should be fairly similar. I have the following service settings:

!/images/9.jpg (Service Settings)!

and theses settings for line 1:

!/images/10.jpg (Line 1 settings)!

As you can see from the settings above, I’m in the Wellington free calling area. You will need to apply the appropriate settings for whatever calling area you are in. The “SIP proxy settings are available here on the iTalk website”:http://www.slingshot.co.nz/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=999&tabid=21&subnav=34&leftpane=hide&rightpane=hide

Also, you need need to use the appropriate telephone and user numbers, etc. Note that I am using a 644 prefix, which is for the Wellington region. If you’re in Christchurch for example, you’ll need to use 643.

*Hardware*

I am using the Netgear 612V Broadband Telephone Adapter. It’s not the best one around, but it seems to work OK. Apparently iTalk are planning on selling a VOIP adapter in the near future, and I suggest people wait until it is available. That way you’ll be able to get support from iTalk themselves. Other options include getting something from Dick Smith with a 14 day right of return.

A lot of VOIP adapters can be plugged directly into your cable or DSL modem, and the plug your other computers into it. I think this is the preferable way getting connected, as you don’t need to worry about firewalls and port forwarding.

*Conclusion*

Well that’s about all you need to do. The iTalk service works fairly well for me. There are a few quirks:

* Message waiting – I seem to have the message waiting indicator stuck on. This is both the small icon that is displayed on my DECT phone and the beep-beep-beep you hear before the standard dial-tone kicks in. I am hoping it’s an issue with the recent rollout of the Wellington service, and someone will fix it in time.
* Calls to Germany are pretty poor quality. Although it doesn’t cut out, there is lots of line noise. Both to land lines and mobile phones. But the good news is that I can use Skype to call Germany for cheaper. The iTalk rate is 5c a minute to landlines and 40c a minute to mobiles. Skype undercuts those rates by about 30%.

!/images/5.png (document view)!
!/images/6.png (edit document)!
!/images/4.png (projects)!

I have written a “paper”:white-paper-10-reasons-for-ruby-on-rails outlining some of the pros and cons of developing your next web app using the Ruby on Rails framework.

*A quote from Michael Koziarski:*
??After being on stage for 5 minutes at webstock, I’ve come to realise that I’m rather unusual — I actually like public speaking. Especially about “Rails”:http://www.rubyonrails.org/. So I’ll be speaking at a few places in Wellington NZ over the next 6 weeks, if you’re interested in Rails you should come along??

First up, Koz is speaking at “WellRailed’s 25th July meeting”:http://groups.google.com/group/WellRailed/browse_thread/thread/da4c1003d4489f56 where he’ll be covering what’s coming in rails 1.2, and talking about what cool new things were talked about at RailsConf.

Then on the 24th of August, he’ll be talking at a “Web Standards NZ”:http://www.webstandards.net.nz/ meeting, giving a more detailed introduction to Rails, and hopefully answering a bunch of your questions.

If there’s anything you’d like to see covered at either event, drop a comment here and we’ll do our best.

I’ve been using a Firefox extension called “Fangs”:http://www.standards-schmandards.com/fangs for testing the accessibility of some of the web pages I’m working on. It provides a visual representation of how a screen reader would render the page.

As well as the screen reader output, you also get a list of all the headings and links in the document.

For people new to accessibility and screen readers, I suggest you watch “Darren Fittler’s recent presentation”:http://www.webstock.org.nz/recordings.php at WebStock. His presentation was a huge eye-opener to both myself and many of the conference attendees. By devoting just a little effort to accessibility issues, we can make web browsing a whole lot easier to those with visual impairments. In addition, there is the added benefit of search engines being able to index your website more effectively.

We now have an RSS feed available for our blog.

Click “here”:http://www.abletech.co.nz/rss?section=blog to subscribe.

I have modified to Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox, so that it is compatible with Bon Echo, the alpha 3 version of Firefox 2. Click “here”:http://www.abletech.co.nz/file_download/3 to download.

The only change I needed to make, was to modify the _install.rdf_ file. I changed the _maxVersion_ value to 2.0.*