Firefox Aurora and its New Multi-channel Approach

With its 5.0 Beta, Firefox has debuted a new feature designed to speed up its own development to counter Google Chrome's rapid release schedule. With it's new Aurora release Firefox allows users to easily switch between three different channels: Development which is the normal version of the software, Beta which includes new features which are still being tested; and Aurora which is the latest nightly build of Firefox which can be expected to be unstable but also full of interesting new features.

It's all credibly slick and cool. Just select About Firefox in the Help Menu which tells you your channel and click Change to select a new channel. You select your new channel and click on Apply and Update and Firefox installs a new version of itself and restarts.

But I have to wonder if this is the right approach for Firefox. As slick as Firefox's channel switcher is, I prefer Chrome's approach of having separate installs of the browser for different channels. With Chrome's Canary Build, you can have your cake and eat it too. One safe, always up to date browser and another separate browser with cutting edge, experimental technology which will occasionally crash. And one can have dozens of pages open in tabs and another can open to just one or to your start page.

Aurora on the by contrast feels like an all or nothing proposition. You can switch between channels easily within one install of the browser but what happens if the latest nightly Aurora build is unstable? Will there be a way to switch to a more stable channel without bringing up the About Firefox box? I hope so.

And I think that Firefox with its more powerful extensions can benefit even more by having two separate browser installations. It is fairly common for early Betas of Firefox to be incompatible with many extensions. Having a "stable" installation of Firefox with all your favorite extensions and a second "experimental" installation which runs alongside it would probably be something that most Firefox users would enjoy.

While I realize that I could probably set this up myself using Firefox's Profile Manager, that tool is on its way out. And in any case it's probably overkill for most users. It would be much easier to have a check box that says "Maintain Separate Aurora Installation" or something like that in the About Firefox box.

Teaching My Tether to Get Along With Classic

I posted this guide to Hotsyncing my Pre with my netbook using My Tether as a wifi hotspot in Precentral in this thread. I am archiving it here on my blog because I don't want to have to spend a lot of time searching for it on Precentral's vast forums.

Running My Tether and Can't Hotsync? Use My Tether to Hotsync!

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I'm not sure if this post will fall into the "Duh, we all knew that already" category or the "That's just crazy enough to work!" category but it's new to me and I haven't seen it on these forums.

I was thinking about doing a hard reset on my Classic PalmOS installation in hopes of getting it to perform better but wanted to do one final Hotsync in order to back it up. But I had been having a lot of trouble performing a Hotsync. Wifi? Failed. Bluetooth? Failed. Then I remembered reading in these forums that a lot of users of My Tether were having trouble hotsyncing.

So I had what seemed at the time to be a crazy idea. Since My Tether is doing a fairly good job of turning my Pre into a wifi Hotspot, why not tether my Pre to my netbook via wifi and do a wifi Hotsync that way? Since I was having no success in Hotsynching while connected to my home wifi network, this felt like a rather unlikely solution but I tried it anyway. And it worked.

So to summarize:

The Problem: Cannot Hotsync Classic via wifi or Bluetooth.

The Cause: Users of My Tether often suffer this problem and it is widely believed that My Tether is the culprit.

The Solution:

1. Launch both My Tether and Classic.
2. Turn on wifi tethering in My Tether.
3. Connect to your Pre as you would connect to any other wifi hotspot.
4. Take note of the IP address which your Pre assigns to your computer.
   • In Windows 7,
     1. Click on the wifi icon in your system tray to bring up your wifi network.
     2. Right click on your wifi network (by default My Tether calls itself, AoNet).
     3. Click on Status and then click on the Details button.
     4. Your IP adress will be listed in the Network Details box that comes up.
   • In Windows XP,
     1. Your connection will sometimes put a network icon in your system tray.
     2. Click on it and select the Support tab of the status dialog that pops up.
     3. Your IP Address will be listed here.
        or
        1. If this icon is not in your system tray, open My Network Places instead.
        2. Click on View network connections in the sidebar and click on Wireless Network Connection.
        3. It will pop up the same status dialog as in the above example.
5. Launch the Hotsync app in Classic.
6. Tap on Select PC.
7. The Hotsync app will be unable to find a PC and will ask you to enter your PC's name or IP address by hand.
8. Enter the IP address that your Pre assigned to your PC.
9. Tap Done.
10. Tap Hotsync.

That should be it. You should now be able to do a successful hotsync. Or at least that's what I did to get Hotsync running in Classic.

Hurry Up and Wait—Palm's Update Cycle Slows Down

Ever since Palm came out with its Pre phone, they have been updating its webOS operating system approximately once a month. Sometimes the updates have been small and sometimes they can introduce bugs. But even so, it was OK for me since there would usually be another update just around the corner. Now with their latest update which brought webOS to version 1.3.1, the update cycle has apparently slowed down. webOS 1.3.1 came out in mid-November and now we are nearing the new year with precious little word of another update. While normally a delay in updating webOS might not be a problem for me but webOS 1.3.1 has unfortunately introduced a rather serious bug which causes Motionapps' Classic emulator to be very unstable. Worse yet, just running Classic now can leave my Pre so sluggish that I have to reboot it both before and after using this program. And just to add insult to injury, apparently Motionapps has already fixed this bug but can't release the fix until Palm does its next update.

A perfect storm of incompetence. Suddenly the new Palm is starting to look a lot like the old Palm.

Palm's Angsty Update

Due to heavy thunderstorms in the Chicago area, a large swath of the city and suburbs were plunged into darkness, including my own home which was without power for about four and a half hours. Without TV and without DSL Internet access, I turned to my phones with their 3G connections for information. Thanks to Palmdoc's Twitter feed, I learned that there is a new update for my Palm Pre which breaks the Classic emulator. So I'm sitting in the dark with only a flashlight to illuminate me, my Pre's battery is down to less than 50%, and I could break one of the applications which I depend upon the most. Naturally I had to try it.

And sure enough, when the update installed and the Pre restarted, Classic crashed. But I wasn't too worried. I'd gone over the Treocentral thread which reported the problem carefully and thought that I had a good idea of what was going on so I connected my Pre to as a USB drive and cleaned out the ClassicApps directory, moving everything to my netbook. When I disconnected and started Classic, it came up just fine.

Interestingly enough following the 1.03 Pre update, Classic now reports its version as "1.1.05." It looks like there was an undocumented update for the Classic bundled in the Pre update. Which explains the crashes and the subtle changes in Classic's behavior. For one thing it is a little "slower" to start up in that the MotionApps logo takes longer to fade away even if though it is still possible to scroll through the Launcher and launch apps while the logo is displayed. Also, Classic now informs me that none of my apps is "Classic certified." (Tapping on this message launches the browser and displays Classic's web page but does not appear to offer any solutions at this time.) I'm not too worried about this as they all continue to work properly.

Classic has also added a Preferences item with a number of options. "Emulation Mode" allows you to choose from "Games," "Normal," "Fast," and "Safe" modes. Fast appears to be the default. Games mode enables sound in Classic but warns that it is very experimental and could cause Classic to crash. And indeed it does tend to crash once it has been restarted a few times. Normal also enables sound but toggles off Classic's "Turbo" mode. (Turbo mode is probably the reason why MotionApps claims that Classic is twice as fast as real PalmOS devices.) The speed difference between Normal and Fast modes are negligible but turning on sound support tends to cause Classic to crash. Safe mode turns off both sound and Turbo mode. In general the default Fast option seems to work best on with Classic.


Classic also has a new directory structure. (Which perhaps is what caused all the crashes in the first place.) It mimics a Palm SD card more closely by creating a PALM folder with Launcher and Programs folders underneath it. Notice from the screenshot that there are now two Install folders. The one underneath the Launcher folder is the new "Install" folder for Classic. You put .prc and .pdb files here if you want Classic to import them when it starts up. The other Install folder, the one directly underneath the ClassicApps folder is the old install folder and will cause Classic to crash if it is used. Naturally Classic dutifully recreates it if you delete it....

If you avoid the first Install folder, you should be fine but MotionApps would be wise to delete it altogether in order to avoid confusing users.

Update: Precentral reports that MotionApps has put up a blog post and FAQ to address the issue.

Classic—Bringing New Life to Some Old Apps

I checked the Palm Pre's App Catalog today and it had the same thirty applications that have been there for at least a week. Thirty apps. That's one ten thousandth the number of applications available for the iPhone and about one thousandth the number available for Android phones like the T-Mobile G1. But all is not lost for the Pre. One of the apps in Palm's App Catalog, is MotionApps' Classic PalmOS emulator. This app makes it fairly easy to run many of the thirty thousand apps available for older PalmOS devices on the Palm Pre.

But how easy is it to run PalmOS apps using Classic really? Since I've been a Palm user for over ten years, I was eager to learn. While the results are somewhat mixed, I've come to the conclusion that Classic is definitely a viable solution for Palm enthusiasts trying to convert to the Pre.

The Classic screen resembles that of a Treo smartphone—well, really it resembles the Palm Centro with its stacked, paired buttons and big d-pad. Unfortunately, Classic is locked into a 320x320 interface, using the rest of the screen for its virtual buttons. On the list of improvements that I want to see in Classic, being able to take advantage of the Pre's 480x320 screen is number one.

Number two is being able to copy and paste between other webOS applications. Classic handles copy and paste among applications that run inside it just fine. In fact in some ways it's even better than the implementation of copy and paste in webOS as a whole. But you can't for example cut a block of text from the PalmOS Memos app in Classic and paste it into the modern webOS Memos app.

Classic is also missing sound and codec support. This makes games somewhat less exciting and is a disappointing omission.

Classic also has problems with stability. It will sometimes throw up a Windows like BSoD which asks you to close the window and try again. Sometimes it will even crash the Palm Pre itself, causing it to reboot. Fortunately, these crashes are rare and have become even more rare since MotionApps updated Classic to version 1.0.2. MotionApps also has a separate Rom Update application which helps fix some bugs when it is installed inside Classic. We sometimes forget how unstable and cranky the PalmOS had become in its final years and some of these problems have definitely been carried over into Classic. But again, these problems are rare. Generally speaking most apps run faster and better under Classic than they ever did under the old PalmOS. MotionApps claims that PalmOS apps will run twice as fast under Classic as they would on a native PalmOS device and that seems about right. Everything in Classic seems to happen instantly and that is definitely a good thing.

While Classic does emulate an SD card treating its "ClassicApps" folder on your Pre as if it were an SD card, I've found that most of its crashes can be traced to a conflict between the app its trying to run and Classic's SD card emulation. It's much easier to "install" applications into Classic by putting them into a folder, appropriately named "Install" which Classic creates under its "ClassicApps" folder on your Pre. In the case of older applications which don't support loading from an SD card this is your only option for running them anyway. Also apps which consist of a .prc file with several .pdb data files tend to run better and more stable when they are installed instead of being run from Classic's virtual SD card. This causes a slight start up delay as Classic imports these files but the increased stability is absolutely worth it.

While Classic does not at this time support PalmOS Hotsync (MotionApps claims that it is looking into adding it in the future), it does support a Hotsync ID. This allows users to use software which they've bought and registered over the years without buying it again.

Importing PIM data is a little more involved than importing third party applications. MotionApps has fairly detailed instructions on how to do this but the gist is that you need to use a third party file manager like Filez on your PalmOS device to move the PIM databases to an SD card, copy them to your computer, and copy them again to the "Install" folder on your Pre. Once they are on your Pre, the Classic PIM apps look just like the PIM apps on any PalmOS device. If nothing else they are a good way of handling your imported data while waiting for better native Pre apps to come along.

Overall, Classic is a good way to ween PalmOS enthusiasts off their old apps while plugging some software holes in the Pre App Catalog. Buying Classic was fairly easy. I went to MotionApps' website and bought it and the next time I ran Classic it already knew that it had been registered. While this process is easy, it is interesting to note that the purchasing process for buying apps on Android is even more seemless—if you've ever bought anything through Google, the Android Market has your information and that makes purchases instantaneous.

Here are the applications which I've tried to run in Classic along with brief summary of the degree to which I succeeded:

AcidFreecell—Crashes when run from the ClassicApps folder. Generally stable (still occasionally crashes but not often) when installed into Install folder.

AtomSmash—Not compatible with Classic. Crashes under all circumstances.

Bejeweled!—Runs well in Classic.

BellTime—Runs well but without sound support, alarm clock apps are essentially useless.

BibleReader—This is a pretty good application for showing off Classic's strengths and weaknesses. It crashes when run from the ClassicApps folder and runs well when installed in the Install folder but it cannot see its databases unless they are also installed in the Install folder. Once everything is installed properly, BibleReader runs instantly in Classic—faster in fact than on any PalmOS device which I've ever used it with.

Bubblet—Runs well in Classic.

Converter—runs well in Classic.

D2RuneWords—Crashes when run from ClassicApps folder. Runs well when installed in Install folder.

DateBk5—Runs well when installed in Install folder but floating events require no longer "float" as they require Classic to remain running at all times.

Diddlebug—Runs well when installed in Install folder but requires more precision than is possible with the human finger.

Eat Watch—Runs well when installed in Install folder.

eReader—Runs but cannot see books unless they are installed in the Install folder.

FreeJongg—Runs but distorted graphics make the game unplayable.

HandyShopper—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

JFile—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

Keygen—Runs well.

Mass Transit—Runs well

Noah Pro—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

PalmFiction—My favorite ebook reader on PalmOS runs very well under Classic, viewing books no matter where they are in Classic's directory structure. If only Classic supported 480x320 resolution.

PsMemo—Runs well.

SplashMoney—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

T-Crisis—Runs well but virtual D-pad makes control difficult.

Thesaurus—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

TopSecret—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

WordPop!—Runs well.

USDA Foods—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

Windows 7's Quiet Problem With AVG

One of the nice things about Windows 7 is that it's notification system is a lot less in your face than Vista's notification system. This allows you to ignore things that seem minor to you but that nevertheless bother Windows. It also allows you to tackle problems at your own pace. One of the great historical annoyances of Windows XP and Vista is the way they through up a flurry of messages when you set up a new computer. This is especially the case with antivirus software.

Warning: This computer has no antivirus software.
Duh, I haven't installed it yet.
Warning: This computer's antivirus software is out of date. Duh, it's not finished installing yet.
And so on.

I have been using some version of AVG's free antivirus on my computers for years. But apparently Windows 7 doesn't like it because it is now throwing up this message:

"AVG Anti-Virus Free is on but it is reporting its status to Windows Security Center in a format that is no longer supported. Use the program's automatic updating feature, or contact the program manufacturer for an updated version."

This doesn't seem to be a huge problem to AVG is updating itself every morning and still seems to stop viruses from coming into my computer. While I do hope that AVG eventually gets around to fixing this problem but I am in no hurry. Windows just doesn't understand the messages it sends to it. On an earlier version of Windows this would lead to an endless stream of pop ups battling for your attention. On Windows 7, this leads to a flag in the taskbar which allows you to read all the messages Windows has for you. Much better and much more logical.

Update: AVG is apparently aware of the notification problem, has included it in their FAQ, and promises to fix it soon.

CompanionLink to Bring Palm Desktop Sync to Palm Pre

One of the concerns for PalmOS users (at for this user) about the Palm Pre is data migration from older PalmOS devices. CompanionLink which for years provided solutions for syncing Palm devices with Outlook is now showing demo video of how syncing between a variety of desktop PIMs, including Palm Desktop and Outlook, and the Palm Pre will work.



This isn't a perfect solution for everyone I suppose since it uses Google as an intermediary but for those of us who have to use Google for their Android phones anyway, it makes migration to the Pre fairly natural. Now the biggest question is how much all this will cost. The Pre itself is likely to command a premium price when it debuts and MotionApps' PalmOS Classic emulator will likely be a separate purchase. Now we have CompanionLink's new desktop conduits as yet another potential expense. While a healthy eco-system of third-party applications will be necessary for the Pre to catch on, Palm also needs to consider the expense of upgrading from an existing PalmOS device to a Pre as well.

So We Meet Again Yahoo!

I like to play around with different browsers. Yahoo! Mail doesn't like that. Currently I'm playing around with the new Firefox 3.5 Beta, which for some reason was named "Shiretoko" by Mozilla, when I try to read my email. And Yahoo! Mail blocks me. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Yahoo! Mail lets certain versions of Opera log on and then sends them into a constant redirect loop when you try to access your inbox. Yahoo! Mail also complains that the 1024x600 resolution on my Acer netbook is too low.

Ironically enough, the error screen that Yahoo! Mail throws up at me lists the browsers that it supports and one of them is Firefox 2.0.0.1 or higher. Guess what Yahoo, Shiretoko is Firefox 3.5. That makes it Firefox 2.0.0.1 or higher. Your own splash screen is locking me out of Yahoo! Mail even though I'm using a browser which technically is on your list of supported browsers. Another irony? Chrome which is not in Yahoo's list works just fine with Yahoo Mail!

Granted, Yahoo! Mail does let you go to its "classic" mail page but it's nowhere near as nice as the one that they are locking down so zealously. I have been using Shiretoko on a spare laptop for about a week and I haven't had a single crash. Google applications like GMail and Google Reader work just fine with it and I suspect that Yahoo! Mail would work just fine with it too. Yahoo! needs to get its act together or it will continue to fall behind Google in terms of web app functionality.

A Conflict Between Google Reader and Firefox?

So I fire up Firefox to read my blogs and what happens? Google Reader comes up as a blank page. I'm not sure exactly why this is the case but I do know that Chrome and Firefox 3.1, Beta 1 are not affected by this problem. Just Firefox 3. This is disappointing as many of my Firefox extensions still haven't been updated to work with the new Firefox Beta.

It's weird and disappointing but on the bright side, the new Firefox Beta is very nice—fast and stable.

Updated: In the end, I just cleared my private data and Google Reader came back. I must have had a corrupted cookie or something.