I was checking out an article about various keyboard shortcuts with KDE and I was blown away by a feature in Konqueror. When viewing a web page in Konqueror, holding down CTRL highlights every link on the page with a letter or number that you type in and hit enter to navigate without having to use a mouse. I don’t know how long I’ve wished for something like this. I hate having to use a mouse and especially with a laptop, it’s a really big bitch.

Unfortunately, I’m addicted to the various extensions that I depend on with Firefox and I just can’t switch over to Konqueror. So, I immediately started scouring through available Firefox extensions on mozilla.org and after a good long while (Mozilla’s extension organization sucks), I finally found the equivalent. NumberFox does the exact same thing. Using only numbers to tag links, the font is a little too small and there’s no options to change anything, but it does the job. On a web page, hitting ALT-w activates NumberFox for both Windows and Linux (APPLE-e on Mac) and you’re off, leaving that mouse in the dust. I find that some links and some pages do not respond to the extension&8212;links in Flash are obviously a no-go, but I find that it works in 95% of the pages I’ve tried so far.

Web filters are retarded. The only times I ever butt against a company’s web filter seem to be when in search of legitimate, non-offensive information. I’m not into breaking the law. I’m not into downloading porn at work. Why penalize me when I try and look up some technical information because an application like SmartFilter or SonicWall considers some geek’s tutorial on getting an Open Source application up and running, “Free Software/Downloads—Forbidden”, even though no actual software or source code is stored on the site? Or blocking a website as pornography because the author of the page has the unfortunate last name of “Dyke”. SmartFilter kind of seems like one big oxymoron. Perhaps StupidFilter is more appropriate. I could give a rat’s ass whether it kept kids away from pornography, all I know is that it often keeps me from accessing harmless, legal and innoffensive information—usually technical in nature. Fuck that.

Sick of being hamstrung by obtuse internet filters I set up a proxy on my server using squid that I tunnel to via SSH. Once connected, I bypass all web filtering wherever I am and as a bonus, all information sent to and from my browser and my server is encrypted and therefore private to anyone snooping on the local network. Here’s how.

(more…)

Every once and a while, I come across a website where some bumblefuck idiot tries to stop visitors from right-clicking on their page, usually in a sad little attempt to prevent people from downloading their images. They copy and paste the little Javascript trick to disable right-clicking and sleep peacefully, under the impression that their dearest little JPEGS are safe and secure.

Anyone with half a brain cell should know that if you’re going to insist on controlling your content and being a greedy little fuck, putting your crap on a website is not the way to go. By viewing a web page , your computer is requesting and downloading the files that create the page to it’s hard drive and then displaying them in your browser. If you put an image in a web page, anyone who views it has already downloaded it. Disabling the right-click is not only pointless and retarded, it’s really fucking annoying and a bit insulting. Who the fuck tells you what you can or cannot right-click on? Screw that!

If someone’s decided to go all control freaky and disable right-clicking, they should know that it takes me all of a few seconds to open my browser cache to get at it. Easy shit.

So fuck this anti-right-clicking shit. It pisses me off. I rarely make a habit of using images from other websites and if I do, it’s a site that has an explicit Creative Commons license encouraging me to do so. So why be such a hater? Loosen that sphincter! Your shitty Photoshop Elements pixel vomit is hardly worth stealing anyway.

It’s possible that at this point, dearest reader, that you may be picking up on the fact that this stupid little practice seriously irritates me. Okay, okay, I admit it. It makes me want stab things and fling poop like an irate Rhesus monkey. So is daveb the type of punk-ass bitch to take this no right-clicking shit by bending over, grabbing his ankles and reciting the Lord’s Prayer? Fuck no, people of the world! You can disable that shit permanently and he’s going to show you how. This wild man we call daveb rules!

First off, this tutorial assumes you are using Firefox 1.5. If you’re not using it, you should be, so switch. Do it. Do it now. It’s the dog’s fucking balls, daveb swears. Got it? Cool.

Disabling right-click blocking with Firefox

1. Open Firefox (duh)
2. Get all up in your options/preferences. It varies by OS. For Linux, it’s Edit>Preferences. OSX is Firefox>Preferences. Windows hides it in Tools>options.
3. From there, get your ass into the section named “Content” and find the little checkbox named “enable Javascript” and click the “Advanced” button that’s next to it. This will pop up a new little options window.
4. In this window, you will see a checkbox named “Disable or replace context menus“. Uncheck that shit!

That’s it!