diesel powered

Picked up a 2010 Golf TDI yesterday, and i’m glad i did because they’re incredibly hard to come by at the moment. Still breaking in the engine, loading up the HDD with tunes, and getting the hang of all the gizmos; it’s a fun ride already though.

The turbo charged diesel engine is a hoot. Combine that with paddle shifters and tiptronic and you’re in for a sweet ride. The 50-60 MPG ain’t too shabby either, that’ll beat all the hybrids on the current market if i recall.

Plans for the TDI:
smoke/tint side markers
blue LED (or tint) for the rear plate light
custom front and/or rear badge (thinking either classic VW blue and white or glossy black)

nothing too crazy, i’m not a crazy honda-driving teenager, nor am i made of money. The above are quite cheap and will give me just a big enough sense of individuality on the road, not to mention i’ll feel better driving in it with a more polished look.

So long firefox, and thanks for all the fish

i don’t even remember how many years ago it was when i moved away from internet explorer, i remember using mozilla’s browser and being really pumped about the new, lighter, firefox browser. I remember it feeling so fast and clean; i’m getting that same feeling now that i’ve completely swapped all of my systems over to chrome. just looking at the numbers it seems like chrome is eating more memory, but the feel and the excess gigage of memory in my system quash that issue flat.

I admit i was pretty unimpressed with chrome when it first came out, i think it must be almost 2 years since my initial dabble into the chrome plated window to the world (wait, it’s not even chrome plated, or even silver for that matter). It still feels the same, but something clicked one day and i’ve been sucked into it ever since.
Features that helped me cross the threshold:
1. keywords for searching – never having to type in youtube, wiki, or clicking on the “i’m feeling lucky” link ever again will make the information come even quicker. by setting up keywords for searches you can go to, and search a site straight from the google address/search bar. few examples from my own browser would be: “yt soccer” immediately brings me to youtube search results for soccer, “g keepass” google searches for keepass, and goes to the very first link (i’m feeling lucky).

2. the singular address/search bar – while there are less overall options for changing the ui compared to firefox (or at least not that i’ve taken the time to find) it provides you a minimalistic ui right from the start, there’s very little need for tweaking whereas i feel like it takes hours of editing config and stylish markup to get firefox just the way i like it.

3. less plug-in dependent – let’s face it, most firefox users are going to have at least 5 extensions, and many will have 10 or more. google may have this advantage from being newer so it has had time to adapt some things from popular browser plugins, but then so has firefox, since it’s constantly being updated. right now the only extension i have in chrome is the gmail checker icon. there’s nothing i’m missing and i haven’t had the need to install any of the 15 or so extensions i was using in firefox. i’m sure as the extension directory grows for chrome i’ll find things i like or may eventually feel i need, but for now i’m quite happy with the way chrome has little things here and there that would’ve required an extension in other browsers.

While google is probably recording every click, keystroke, and data about how much time i spend on each site i visit, i enjoy the browsing experience i divulge very little personal information online these days. i’ll probably write up some thoughts on extensions as more come out and they seep into my life. well here’s to coming back to the internet publishing world after years of dormancy. i need to get some thoughts out, i keep too silent and it’s affecting my communication with people out in the real world. so here’s my plea, help me internet. for those random passers by that may stumble upon this, comment and lend me a few seconds of your time to help me stay committed to posting. in turn i know i have some things to say that will be interesting to someone, i just need to get back into the rhythm of opening up my very tight-lipped opinions and thoughts.

Most UnTriumphant Return?

It’s been i don’t know how many years since i’ve published anything to the internet, let alone a “blog” of sorts. I’m giving this wordpress stuff a try, abandoning notepad.exe for the time being. Temporarily using the wordpress hosting until i get my other hosting solution taken care  of. I’ve grown a little, learned a lot, still don’t capitalize my “i”s but at least i’m back on the web. Hi.

Beware Storing Passwords in Firefox

This was actually what made me decide to start a blog again, the fact that Mozilla Firefox stores all of your saved passwords, and by default leaves the door wide open for prying eyes. With so many websites begging us to log in these days even some of the most privacy-minded of us tend to use the “Remember My Password” function in firefox. I stand by this feature, because without it, i would be lost when it comes to remembering passwords that I use but once or twice a year.

The danger with this however, is that someone need only to open up firefox’s options –> security: show passwords, and all of your usernames and their passwords are in plain sight. This is particularly dangerous in multiuser environments like on family computers, or public spaces like the office or the college dorms where there are plenty of people who need only the desire, and your identity is theirs. The solution? Aside from abandoning the bult-in password organizer, use the “Master Password” feature. I’ve been using this since I can remember and would never consider saving passwords where they are so easily discovered. Now that Firefox 3 has steamlined the password management, feel free to take advantage of it while still retaining your security.