Technical Tips From A NYC IT Consultant

I loaded Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Remix onto my Dell Inspiron. And though it comes with OpenJDK 6, I wanted to load Sun Java 6 Plugin. You can see what versions of java are on your system by typing the java -version command in a Terminal window.

Here are the simple steps I followed [writtern for Ubuntu 10.10]:

Download and Install Sun Java

• Open Ubuntu Software Center
• From the menu bar, select Edit > Software Sources, then click on the “Other  Software” tab
• Enable the Partner repository

• Click “Close, at which point it should reload
• Search for sun-java6-plugin and Install

That’s it!

Now, if you go check out the Plugins tab in the Firefox Add-Ons list, you should see Java listed:

And, if you visit this Sun Microsystems Java page, you can run a quick test to see if your Java is working. If it is, you should see a result like this:

McAfee Site Advisor Add-On broke my back button in Firefox!

Everything was fine and dandy until, my Firefox was updated to 3.6.16.  All of a sudden, the back button wasn’t working. Sooo, if I searched for something via Google, and clicked on a found link, I couldn’t go back to the search results page if I wanted to because the back button was grayed out!

As usual with these sort of updates, some other third-party extension broke this functionality.

I went through my Add-Ons list:

1. AdBlock Plus
2. AddThis
3. Evernote
4. Garmin Communicator
5. Google Toolbar
6. Java
7. McAfee SiteAdvisor
8. Microsoft .Net
9. NoScript
10. Nuke Anything
11. ShortenURL
12. WOT
13. XMarks

I disabled all the add-ons and one-by-one re-enabled them, restarting my Firefox each time. to see which add-on broke the back-button.

Turns out, it was McAfee SiteAdvisor. I compared it with another user who posted a list of add-ons he had, and who also lost the back button function. He too had McAfee SiteAdvisor.

Sooo, if your back button stops working, and you have McAfee SiteAdvisor, disable it and try it out.  If you don’t have that add-on, try the method of disabling all your add-ons and re-enabling them, one-by-one, to isolate the culprit:

1. From the menu bar go to Tools–> Add-ons [to open the Add-ons window]
2. Select Extensions on top
3. Click on the Add-on
4. Click “Disable” then “Close”
5. Restart Firefox

From TechCrunch:

Developer Eric Butler has exposed the soft underbelly of the web with his new Firefox extension, Firesheep, which will let you essentially eavesdrop on any open Wi-Fi network and capture users’ cookies.

As Butler explains in his post, “As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed” in the window. All you have to do is double click on their name and open sesame, you will be able to log into that user’s site with their credentials.

Read more: Extension Lets You Hack Into Twitter, Facebook Accounts Easily.

Make sure your IE has the up-to-date patches (or switch to Firefox) and update to the latest Adobe Flash

Potent malware link infects almost 300,000 webpages • The Register.

A security researcher has identified a new attack that has infected almost 300,000 webpages with links that direct visitors to a potent cocktail of malicious exploits.

People who visit infected pages receive an invisible link that pulls code from a series of sites tied to 318x .com. The code looks for insecure versions of Adobe Flash, Internet Explorer, and several other Microsoft applications, and when they are detected it exploits them to surreptitiously install malware known as Backdoor.Win3.Buzus.croo. The rootkit-enabled program logs banking credentials and may do other nefarious bidding, Landesman said.

Another program which can help determine if you have all the latest updates and patches for your installed applications is Secunia PSI.

Downloaded and installed Firefox 3.5 yesterday, and the first thing I noticed was that the “x”, the close button, was missing on the tab, when only one tab is open.

Where did it go? I don’t know if it’s a bug, or a feature, but I miss it.  Sometimes I want to close a page without closing the whole browser. Well, doing a little digging on the internet, I found a solution.

Basically, you need to do two things.

1. Add the following lines to the userChrome.css file (if you don’t have one, create it using notepad or download this one ; right-click and choose Save As):

/* Add tab-close-button to last tab*/
.tabbrowser-tabs[closebuttons="alltabs"] >
.tabbrowser-tab >
.tab-close-button {
display: -moz-box !important;
}
.tabbrowser-tabs:not ([closebuttons="noclose"]):not ([closebuttons="closeatend"]) >
.tabbrowser-tab[selected="true"] >
.tab-close-button {
display: -moz-box !important;
}

This file is usually located in the chrome directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\RANDOM.default\chrome

The words in red obviously will be different for your computer and your profile.  Save the file you created (or downloaded) there.

2. You need to open up Firefox, and in the address bar type in about:config for the url, to open up the config page:

You’ll get a warning that you might void your warranty! Click on the button to continue:

That will open up the config page. Scroll down to “browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab”, doubleclick on it to set it to false

Restart your browser and…

Tada! It’s back!