This morning, at about 12:18AM CDT, someone sent out a mass phishing email to many University of Minnesota students. They claimed to be TCF Bank and there was some sort of a security issue which required account re-validation (even at 3:00AM, when I read, it I knew something smelt phishy).
Flash on the Droid
In the past few weeks Verizon pushed out an Android update to Droid users that allowed the installation of Adobe’s Flash Player for the Android browser. I received my update about a week ago—the first update that actually pushed to my Droid properly. While the Flash Player application/plugin is still installed on my Droid, I have already disabled it in the browser.
If I were to sum up my opinion on Adobe Flash player on Android in one sentence it would be: “You forget how much you did not miss Flash until you install it.” Flash in itself is not too slow, or so bad (when used correctly). However, the constant misuse of it makes it more of a liability than asset.
The Good
The best thing about Flash player is that the Android browser lets you selectively disable it—oh wait, that’s an Android feature not Flash feature. Ok, so you can now play those flash games, see the flash charts (e.g. what WordPress.com stats use), and visit the flash based video sites that don’t have a native app. All of these are nice things. Finally, you now technically get a “full” web experience on an Android device—unlike the fruitier phones out there.
The Bad
Many websites with multiple flash objects run very slowly. Scrolling around on the page is slow on these sites. Thought, pages with a ton of animated GIF images are no different.
The Ugly
Advertisements. I understand that content producers need to get paid, and that advertisements provide this income. However, I can not stand intrusive advertisements. There are so many poorly written, flash advertisements on many websites. The browser feels lethargic on these websites.
Flash, in general, is a victim of its own success. It is so popular that it is frequently misused (and attacked), which is the source of many of my gripes against it. Admittedly, this is better than people abusing CSS and JavaScript, as I can actually disable Flash (websites can be quite bland without CSS). The verdict? As I stated in the beginning, I have disabled Flash on my Droid. I feel it is worth keeping installed, but it is not worth having it enabled all the time.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Froyo on the Motorola Droid
So, Motorola and Verizon rolled out Android 2.2 onto the Droid at the beginning of the month. My Droid never received the update. This did not surprise me much—I had to do a forced 2.1 upgrade earlier this year. Motorola’s Froyo mix brings some some cool new things and some pitfalls, and at the same time, it is missing some features.
Breadcrumb NavXT 3.6.0 Auto Upgrade Warning
WordPress 3.0.1, for some reason, does not do a proper deactivation/activation cycle on upgrading plugins. Due to database changes in 3.6.0, Breadcrumb NavXT requires a deactivation/activation cycle before it functions correctly. This specifically affects your traditional post and page breadcrumb trails, and a deactivation/activation cycle should clear it up.
Update: It looks like this is caused by the Dashboard > Updates multi plugin updater, use the regular one in Plugins > Plugins.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Breadcrumb NavXT 3.6.0
Holy custom post types batman! With Breadcrumb NavXT 3.6.0 you can now have breadcrumb trails for all of those custom post hierarchies and custom post-custom taxonomy combinations. Additionally, if you use the built in widget for Breadcrumb NavXT, you can restrict the display of the breadcrumb trail on the front page. On the settings page side, Breadcrumb NavXT settings page no longer warns, it allows you to undo. You can undo save, reset, import, and undo actions. Finally, a Japanese translation is now shipped thanks to Kazuhiro.
There are a few minor bug fixes in this release. These mainly cover issues that have been around for a while but were never reported.
Please note that this release requires at least WordPress 3.0. It was developed in a WordPress 3.0 environment, and was not tested in WordPress 2.9. If it works for you in WordPress 2.9 (why are you still on anything older than WordPress 3.0?), let me know in the comments to this post.
You can grab the latest version of Breadcrumb NavXT from the Breadcrumb NavXT page.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]