A few months ago I decided to update the Linux version on the desktop computer in my home office. I used it as a chance to decide if I wanted to stick with Fedora or move to Ubuntu. We are moving from CentOS to Ubuntu at work and so I wanted to start with Fedora just to be able to compare and contrast multiple flavors of Linux.
Unfortunately the upgrade from Fedora Core 10 to Fedora Core 18 was not painless. There was the problem with importing my old e-mail that I was able to figure out. The worst problem appeared about a week after the upgrade. For some reason, my Firefox browser kept crashing. I thought I could just download Google's Chrome, but that didn't even load. Previously I had been running the 32-bit version of Linux and upgraded to the 64-bit version. I figured there was some library mismatch in the 64-bit versions of the software and that by constantly sending crash reports to the developers, it would eventually get fixed. In the mean time, I just used the browser on my laptop.
I work in the Bay area during the week and fly back to Utah on weekends. Every Saturday, I would patiently update my system only to discover the bug with my browser hadn't been fixed. One perk I have with my job is that I get to work from home one week per month and this was that week. On Monday, I gave the old update a shot and cranked up the browser. I let it sit there and several minutes later the browser was still running. Next I cranked up Pandora and filled my office with music. It has been running all week with no crashes. I have yet to give Chrome a try, but I don't like Chrome and avoid it if I can.
Running the latest versions of software can be a little dangerous sometimes, as I was reminded. However you can send in the bug and crash reports. Eventually things will get fixed and the updated software becomes the stable version. Just be sure you have a second computer to use in case things don't work.
Showing posts with label Firefox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Firefox. Show all posts
Friday, August 16, 2013
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Three Browsers
Yesterday I was trying to hunt down a very annoying problem with database reporting. In the course of troubleshooting I ended up installing yet another browser on my Windows laptop at work. So now I have Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox all on the same machine. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
My preference is Firefox. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Internet Explorer only runs on Windows. Chrome is something new and so I have tried to avoid it until recently. The one advantage Chrome has over the other two browsers is security. If you need to visit a website where there is a chance it will try to install a virus or malware on your PC, Chrome is the browser to use as it does the best job of keeping that from happening.
The only problem with Chrome is its user interface. Google (the developer of Chrome) does a great job of adhering to the KISS principle. KISS is an acronym that stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. While that generally works to its advantage for its search engine website, it becomes a negative for its browser.
The sad thing is that I use all three browsers. If I am reading some of my old e-mail that uses Microsoft Exchange Server, I use Internet Explorer because the interface is so much better. If I am using my work computer back on the boat and surfing the net, I use Chrome just in case I unintentionally visit a site that may try to zap my computer. Then I use Firefox for everything else. Wouldn't life be simpler if the best features of all three products could be found in one?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Internet Explorer vs. Firefox
This morning I was awoken by a phone call before 7am. Some software I wrote during this past year is being shown to a large company and it was not working correctly. I thought that was strange because it was working just fine before I went to sleep last night. So I got to spend my morning debugging software and figuring out why it worked last night and not this morning.
The software I have been working on is a web-based application and meant to run in a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The first thing I did was go down to my office and retest the software on my computer. It worked last night and it worked again this morning. So I called the person reporting the error to try and find out what the problem was.
The page causing the error has an animation that counts down for 6 seconds and then jumps to another page. At the end of 6 seconds, the other computer was giving a cryptic error message and stalling. So I pulled out the delay and had the page go immediately to the next one. It worked for my computer but not for the other. Trying to figure out the problem over the phone was extremely difficult because I couldn't see what was going on. Furthermore I couldn't see those really obvious problems like the user trying to use a word processor instead of a browser. It was incredibly frustrating.
After about fifteen minutes of asking questions it became clear that the other person was using Internet Explorer and not Firefox. Having managed a software development team for one of the first browsers (Netscape), I know that there are differences between browsers and what works in one will not work in another. My software was developed to only run in Firefox and not Internet Explorer. This eliminated the need to test the software in multiple environments. Since all the computers running the software were supposed to be configured with Firefox, this shouldn't have been a problem.
Unfortunately my software was about to be shown to the big company using a browser I hadn't anticipated. Furthermore it wasn't working and I had less than ten minutes to fix it. It took me five minutes to track down the single line of code causing the problem and remove it from three different places. We did a quick run-through on Internet Explorer and the software ran flawlessly but without my countdown delay. The delay was there only for cosmetic purposes and so it wasn't really necessary but kind of looked nice.
So what was the problem? Stylesheets. What are stylesheets? They are what control how the page looks. Should I, as a regular computer user, care about stylesheets? Nope, but as a software developer I do. So if you ever stumble across a web page that doesn't look quite right, it is probably a stylesheet issue.
The software I have been working on is a web-based application and meant to run in a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The first thing I did was go down to my office and retest the software on my computer. It worked last night and it worked again this morning. So I called the person reporting the error to try and find out what the problem was.
The page causing the error has an animation that counts down for 6 seconds and then jumps to another page. At the end of 6 seconds, the other computer was giving a cryptic error message and stalling. So I pulled out the delay and had the page go immediately to the next one. It worked for my computer but not for the other. Trying to figure out the problem over the phone was extremely difficult because I couldn't see what was going on. Furthermore I couldn't see those really obvious problems like the user trying to use a word processor instead of a browser. It was incredibly frustrating.
After about fifteen minutes of asking questions it became clear that the other person was using Internet Explorer and not Firefox. Having managed a software development team for one of the first browsers (Netscape), I know that there are differences between browsers and what works in one will not work in another. My software was developed to only run in Firefox and not Internet Explorer. This eliminated the need to test the software in multiple environments. Since all the computers running the software were supposed to be configured with Firefox, this shouldn't have been a problem.
Unfortunately my software was about to be shown to the big company using a browser I hadn't anticipated. Furthermore it wasn't working and I had less than ten minutes to fix it. It took me five minutes to track down the single line of code causing the problem and remove it from three different places. We did a quick run-through on Internet Explorer and the software ran flawlessly but without my countdown delay. The delay was there only for cosmetic purposes and so it wasn't really necessary but kind of looked nice.
So what was the problem? Stylesheets. What are stylesheets? They are what control how the page looks. Should I, as a regular computer user, care about stylesheets? Nope, but as a software developer I do. So if you ever stumble across a web page that doesn't look quite right, it is probably a stylesheet issue.
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