Browser UI Chaos

Although I encourage users to run various browsers, getting to the Options and Settings menus can be confusing. 

Get real Coleman

Payment Gateways are Killing Us

Also Venmo, you're not even answering the phones because of COVID-19.   How are you even in business?

Firefox is Woke and goes Broke

Mozilla states, "Firefox is removing terminology from the browser that has been identified as derogatory or exclusionary."



Yet, in Tools->Options->Logins and Passwords, the struggling browser company is still insensitively displaying that evil "M*ster" word right there for us to read.  The "Learn more" link is there for you to LEARN, you unwoke user you!

A letter of complaint undoubtedly landed on Mozilla CEO Chris Beard's desk describing how painful the m-word conjurers up memories.  So he took action!  He knew as well as we did that social healing is of the utmost importance to a HTML rendering engine.

I will now take the torch to help eradicate the m-word from all civilized industry:

1. Auto Mechanics:  You shall refer to the Master Cylinder of the brake booster now as the "brake hydro cylinder -BHC".
2. Electricians: You shall refer to Master Switches as Primary Switches.  NO EXCUSES.
3. Transformer Engineers: Primary Windings is correct.   Very good.  You didn't call is Master Windings or some hurtful pejorative like that.
4. No more Master Jedis... because The Last Jedi was supposed to be it.  I didn't know Yoda and Mace Windu owned slaves!  Shame on you Samuel L. Jackson (and Jim Henson)!
5. The Master's Cup......  don't go there....
6. FedEx, the master tracking number lingo has to go! I refuse to track packages now.

7. Mad Max: You shall refer to Master Blaster as just Paul Larson.  That goes for you too Tina Turner.

In other IMPORTANT news....

Firefox usage is down 85%

Also, a tech company just called and offered a whitepaper for me to read.... I triggered, "WHITEPAPER"!

Thanks, Firefox, for exposing the tech sector's cruel insensitivities.

use target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" to prevent fraud and page hijacking

When searching Google, you're presented with results that seemingly has direct links.   You see them by mousing over the links and the true url is displayed in the browser's status bar:



For all hyperlinks, Google inserts a click and onmousedown event in order for the href hyperlink address to quickly change to their /url data collector link.  This tallies the number of advertising clicks and you can understand how /url is Google's most valued, ahem, url.

Note that there are readily available browser plugins which cripple google's url bait-and-switch events in order to circumvent tracking.  These plugins make google work more like the DuckDuckGo.com engine which doesn't track you near as much.

Speaking of url links, when you click one, search engines do not employ a target="_blank" to open a new windows (or tab).  You have to right-click->open in new tab if you want that to happen.   Normally the search engine page politely goes away and is replaced with your destination website like how normal links work since day one.

However, if your browser was to open up a new tab with the use of the target="_blank" function, then that new page could certainly be capable of hijacking the previous page.  The new page can run javascript to cause it's parent page's location to go somewhere else like a phishing site.  This is because the default permission is to allow for a new windows/tabs to have control of it's parent window/tabs.  Image if a rogue site silently replaced your parent page with a look-a-like scam page?  So, to protect us normal citizens,  browsers employed the new "noopener" parameter.

The noopener keyword for the rel attribute of the <a>, <area>, and <form> elements instructs the browser to navigate to the target resource without granting the new browsing context access to the document that opened it — by not setting the Window.opener property on the opened window (it returns null).

There is a nice write up on why you need to use "noopener noreferrer" IMMEDIATELY on all your external links: https://www.reliablesoft.net/noreferrer-noopener/

Uninstall VMWare Player

Uninstall

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Player\Uninstaller\bootstrap.lua  

or

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation\Uninstaller\bootstrap.lua   

using a text editor and comment out line

CheckForMSHyperV()  

with two dashes, so it will become

--CheckForMSHyperV()  

Generac Generator - Insulation Falling Down - FIX

The other day I noticed the heat insulation had soaked up moisture and came partially unglued from the roof of the generator.

After squeezing out the water the glue was fortunately still tacky and stuck it back to the roof.  I ordered some 23.6-44.5 inch curtain rods from ebay.   This should keep the insulation buttoned up for cheap!

It's still binary 0's and 1's

Also, check out this funny skit: https://youtu.be/IzNGkwGYE4E

New Windows Computer - Ulcer

Spiny wheel. Thanks for your patience.
Spiny wheel. We're still working.
Spiny wheel. Please don't turn off your device.
Spiny wheel. Still setting things up.

repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat....
repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat.... repeat....
repeat.... repeat........................

OK, we got through this part of setup...... Now let's see what's new
from Windows.

wait... wait... wait..... finally it's done.

So, the out-of-box experience is fine for most new systems but this
particular one just took a while.  Microsoft, I don't mind it doing what
it needs to do, but some status info showing real progress would help
people's nerves worldwide.