Now that Kubuntu has been upgraded from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon, it was time to re-install my copy on VirtulBox. Why re-install instead of simply upgrade? Well, I did try that but the update seemed to regularly crash. In the end I had an upgraded version of Kubuntu but it wouldn’t install and future updates. Which is obviously bad. So I decided to try afresh instead.

Now, the install is a breeze but, as before, I had 3 browsers to re-install. However, since my original instructions I’ve got it down to a more fine art. And, as before, Konqueror comes as standard with Kubuntu (hence me choosing the KDE interface).

So here are the rest…

Firefox
Go into Add/remove programs
Search for & install Firefox

Opera
Browse to http://www.opera.com/download/ and download the latest version to your desktop (it should be a .deb file)
Right click and select “Open With” followed by “Gdebi Package Installer”

SeaMonkey
This is the tougher one.
Download and install (as with Opera) the automated script.
Open up a command window and change to root
Now run the following command…

ubuntuzilla.py -a install -p seamonkey

Ad-blockers. Browser plug-ins that get rid of website adverts. Nasty, annoying adverts. And Adblock Plus for Firefox is one of the most popular add-ons that you can get.

Except, of course, the reason why so much on the web is free is because they make some money from these adverts. Suppress them and they end of withdrawing the service or charging for it. Usually it’s the former.

The Copy+ website provides a unique, useful piece of software for free. Instead, we make money from licensing and from some non-evasive adverts at the top and bottom of each page. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I’m not keen on ad-blockers.

However, I’ve had a number of Copy+ visitors reporting that with Adblock running the website doesn’t display properly. I’ve had a look and – yep – I can see it happening but sure as hell don’t know why (because I don’t know how Adblock is working).

So, I posted to the Adblock forum. Instead of some useful advice, I got criticism of my code. Yes, it was my fault. My fault that it worked perfectly fine with Adblock turned off but then didn’t with it turned on. Of course. How foolish of me.

So, guess what? That’s right – I’m going to change the site to detect Adblock and not let you on if you have it installed or turned on. The Adblock people could have just helped me work with it, but they weren’t prepared to. It’s only fair.

Ok, I’ve spoken about CAPTCHA‘s before. After reading an article on the BBC site, though, I was ready to change mine once again.

reCAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA with a difference. Many books are being scanned digitally for posterity but, as well know, character recognition is not perfect – often words can’t be read by a computer. So when you use reCAPTCHA is presents you with two words. One is a word that couldn’t be read by OCR. The other is a word that is known. You don’t know which is which. During the CAPTCHA process you enter both words. If the word that it knows is correct is correct, then it assumes the other is too. When the unknown word is tried by a number of people, all giving the same answer, they know what the word is and can update their digitized document.

So, in a nutshell, it helps digitize books. And what a fantastic idea that is.

It’s also free and provides a speech method for those with sight problems.

It can be found on both the BMTG and Copy+ contact pages.