Before you begin

Here are a few caveats to keep in mind as you explore and tweak:

Not everyone will get the same benefits by enabling these tweaks. This is especially true for changing the network settings. If you habitually visit sites that don't allow a large number of connections per client, for instance, you won't see much benefit from raising the number of connections per server.

Some hacks may have a limited shelf life. With each successive release of Firefox, the need for tweaking any of the performance-related config settings (like the network settings) may dwindle as Firefox becomes more self-tuning based on feedback from real-world usage scenarios. In short, what works now may not always work in the future -- and that might not be a bad thing.

Keep a log of everything you change, or make backups. If you tweak something now and notice bizarre activity in a week, you'll want to be able to track back to what was altered and undo it. Firefox does show which about:config changes have been set manually, but this isn't always the most accurate way to find out what you changed.

To make a backup of your preferences in Firefox, just make a copy of the file prefs.js, which is kept in your Firefox profile folder. If you mess something up

, you can always copy this file back in. (Be sure to shut down Firefox before making a copy of prefs.js or moving a copy back into the profile folder!)

Speed up page display

Some of the more recent Firefox customizations I've examined are ways to speed up the rendering of Web pages. The settings to do this are a little arcane and not terribly self-explanatory, but with a little tinkering, you can often get pages to pop up faster and waste less time redrawing themselves.

Start rendering pages faster
Creating an nglayout.initialpaint.delay integer preference lets you control how long Firefox waits before starting to render a page. If this value isn't set, Firefox defaults to 250 milliseconds, or .25 of a second. Some people report that setting it to 0 -- i.e., forcing Firefox to begin rendering immediately -- causes almost all pages to show up faster. Values as high as 50 are also pretty snappy.

Reduce the number of reflows
When Firefox is actively loading a page, it periodically reformats or "reflows" the page as it loads, based on what data has been received. Create a content.notify.interval integer preference to control the minimum number of microseconds (millionths of a second) that elapse between reflows. If it's not explicitly set, it defaults to 120000 (.12 of a second).

Too many reflows may make the browser feel sluggish, so you can increase the interval between reflows by raising this to 500000 (500,000, or 1/2 second) or even to 1000000 (1 million, or 1 second). If you set this value, be sure to also create a Boolean value called content.notify.ontimer and set it to true.

Control Firefox's 'unresponsive' time
When rendering a page, Firefox periodically runs a little faster internally to speed up the rendering process (a method Mozilla calls "tokenizing"), but at the expense of being unresponsive to user input for that length of time. If you want to set the maximum length of time any one of these unresponsive periods can be, create an integer preference called content.max.tokenizing.time.

Set this to a multiple of content.notify.interval's value, or even the same value (but higher is probably better). If you set this to something lower than content.notify.interval, the browser may respond more often to user input while pages are being rendered, but the page itself will render that much more slowly.

If you set a value for content.max.tokenizing.time, you also need to create two more Boolean values -- content.notify.ontimer and content.interrupt.parsing -- and set them both to true.

Control Firefox's 'highly responsive' time
If Firefox is rendering a page and the user performs some kind of command, like scrolling through a still-loading page, Firefox will remain more responsive to user input for a period of time. To control how long this interval is, create an integer preference called content.switch.threshold.

This is normally triple the value of content.notify.interval, but I typically set it to be the same as that value. Set it to something very low -- say, 10000 (10,000 microseconds) -- and the browser may not respond as snappily, but it may cause the rendering to complete more quickly.

If you haven't already created the Boolean values content.notify.ontimer and content.interrupt.parsing and set them both to true in conjunction with content.max.tokenizing.time, you'll need to do so to make content.switch.threshold work properly.

If you are more inclined to wait for a page to finish loading before attempting to do anything with it (like scroll through it), you can set content.max.tokenizing.time to a higher value and content.switch.threshold to a lower value to allow Firefox to finish rendering a page faster at the expense of processing user commands. On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who likes to scroll through a page and start reading it before it's done loading, you can set content.max.tokenizing.time to a lower value and content.switch.threshold to a higher one, to give you back that much more responsiveness at the cost of page-rendering speed.

i'm is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit.

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For a Jolly Good Time, Chat With Santa on Windows Live Messenger

This year families can avoid the lines to see Santa at the mall and spend time at home together chatting with Santa Claus through Windows Live Messenger.

REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 13, 2006 — Ho, ho, ho! This year there is another way for kids to share Christmas wish lists with Santa Claus. Using Windows Live™ Messenger, parents can spend time with their kids chatting in real time with Santa online. Customers can simply add Santa’s address, Northpole@live.com, to their Windows Live Messenger contact list and instantly open a conversation window to communicate with Saint Nick. Kids will enjoy immediate responses from the jolly big man himself through an interactive online chat, and they can even visit Santa’s page on Windows Live Spaces at http://santaonspaces.spaces.live.com. Filling Santa in on Christmas wishes and asking all about how the reindeer are doing or what’s new at the North Pole are a few of the things kids can talk to Santa about. Santa can even tell kids where they stand on his list: naughty or nice.

Starting Christmas Eve morning, kids can check in with Santa through Windows Live Messenger to follow his journey around the world. As Santa circles the globe delivering gifts, kids who ask him where he is or when he will arrive at their house will be directed to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Santa-tracking site through a link in the conversation window. More information on chatting with Santa through Windows Live Messenger can be found at http://santaonmessenger.com

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Would you like to be on Santa's nice list?

Hello kids!

I hope you are all as excited as Mrs. Claus and I am for Christmas! Our elves are working hard in the toy shop creating special surprises for children all around the world. The reindeer have been getting extra exercise everyday in preparation for our long trip on Christmas eve. We are hoping for lots of snow before Christmas but clear skies on Christmas eve so that we can drop off even more gifts this year.

If you have been good this year you should ask your parents to add your first name to the comments section.  I am sure I already have you on my good list, but I will have one of the elves double check just to make sure.

Ho Ho Ho!
Merry Christmas!

-- Santa Claus

Browser add-ons can help personalize the way you use the Internet. The add-ons available here have been carefully screened from the Microsoft new IE Addons website and rated by users to help you select the ones that suit your needs and preferences. Start exploring them today.
With so many powerful extensions to choose from for Internet Explorer 7, it can be difficult to decide which ones to install. To help you find what you need to enhance your Internet experience, I have compiled a list of some of my favorites.

Inline Search by Core Systems: Search for text within page while you type
Inline Search is an extremely useful free add-on for Internet Explorer that adds while-you-type searching within the current page, with the option to highlight all occurrences of your search term. It integrates flawlessly into IE7, giving it that little extra that makes you a lot more efficient when you are looking for a specific piece of information on a web page. 

IESpell by RedEgg Software
IESpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell-checks text-input boxes on a Web page. It will come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of Web-based text entry (Web mail, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your Web application already includes spell-checking functionality, this utility is faster than a server-side solution. Plus, you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications instead of having to maintain separate ones on each application.

Trailfire
Trailfire provides a unique new method of web navigation. By leaving "Trailmarks", which are essentially electronic notes, on individual web pages, users can lead their Trailfire contacts on an interpretive trail for the web. You can use the trailmarks to express your opinions on sites you visit, to plan a vacation, or for any number of clever uses not yet invented. This add-on for IE7 makes it possible to experience the web in a far more personal way than ever before.

StumbleUpon Toolbar for Internet Explorer:One of popular Extensions for Firefox now supports IE7.
The StumbleUpon Toolbar for Internet Explorer allows you to 'channel surf' the Internet and discover great websites and web content according to your interests. Whether it's a website, video, picture, game, blog, or wiki, StumbleUpon helps you find interesting stuff recommended by like-minded people with just a single click of the Stumble! button. The more you use it, the better it gets. Join over 1.3 million users who have rated over 7 million websites.

Del.icio.us Toolbar by Del.icio.us
del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. You can use del.icio.us to: Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes, and more, and access them from any computer on the web, share favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and the del.icio.us community, and to discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it.

Technorati Tags: IE7, Browsers, Addons, extension

Live Writer is a new application designed to create blog posts for Live Spaces and a number of other services. Appearing like a slimmed down version of Microsoft Word, the tool is available free of charge.

Users can author blog posts in a WYSIWYG environment that makes editing easy and shows exactly how the post will look when published. An HTML source code editing mode is included for more advanced users, as well as a Web preview option.

Photo publishing has been integrated into Windows Live Writer, enabling users to quickly add an image to their blog post and modify it with the application's built-in tools. Size, text wrapping, borders can be edited, and a variety of graphical effects are also available.

Microsoft has additionally including mapping support with Live Writer. Users can insert a Windows Live Local map directly into their post, and customize it to show road, aerial or bird's eye detail. Pushpins can also be added to highlight a specific point.

The application currently supports Microsoft's own Windows Live Spaces blogging service, in addition to Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress and others. Support for RSD (Really Simple Discoverability), the Metaweblog API, and the Movable Type API are also included.

Technorati Tags: Windows Live, Liver Writer, Blog

Office Live opens it beta door to Americans...

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Your ‘wait’ is over
Since we debuted our waitlist for the Microsoft Office Live Beta back in November 2005 we have had over 275,000 customers sign-up in our Beta waitlist, and we thank each and every one of them for signing up. But what we’ve heard over and over is: please don’t make me wait in a list; I want to try Office Live NOW!! So, good news to everyone who hasn’t already gotten a product key, your wait is over (maybe before it even started!)

We have dropped the requirement of a product key from our signup! The Beta is still only open to US residents for now, but ANY US resident with a valid credit card can sign up for the Beta and experience Office Live! All you need to do now is pick your product (Basics, Collaboration or Essentials) and pick your domain. So head over to OfficeLive.com now to get your Beta subscription started.

The fine print: Product keys and the waitlist are off ‘for now’ but may come back again at a later date. We may have to turn them back on if demand exceeds our expectations and capacity for the beta… so sign up now before everyone else ;-)

-- Matt Rolak, SDET Lead
Matthew.Rolak@microsoft.com

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Office Live, Office Live

1) Add this link to your "Bookmarks Toolbar" (may only work in Firefox). "javascript:Ywzc();if(!/%5C.google%5C.com$/.test(location.host))%20%7Balert('Use%20this%20bookmarklet%20at%20google.com,%20not%20here.');%7D%20else%20%7B%20anon='0000000000000000';%20newlook='ID=fb7740f107311e46:TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu';%20C=document.cookie.split(';%20');for(i=0;%20c=C%5Bi%5D;%20++i)%7Bif%20(/%5EPREF=/.test(c))%20%7Br%20=%20c.indexOf(newlook)==-1%20?%20newlook%20:%20anon;%20document.cookie%20=%20'PREF='%20+%20r%20+%20';%20domain=.google.com;%20path=/;%20expires=Mon,%2007%20May%202007%2020:03:11%20GMT';location.reload();}}}
" 
2) Search for something on Google.
3) Click the bookmark

Alternatively, you can set the cookie manually to achieve the same results. This method requires a cookie editor — a good extension for Firefox is Add 'n Edit Cookies. Delete all Google cookies to start clean, then add a new one with the following details.

name: PREF
content: ID=fb7740f107311e46: TM=1142683332: LM=1142683332: S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu
(spaces added to prevent formatting issues — please remove)
host: www.google.com

However, It seems the "blog it" feature of 10 is NOT compatibile with spaces blog.

1. I like our new URL scheme. http://spaces.msn.com/mike is much better than /members/mike. But it isn't good enough for me. I've owned about 15 domain names over the years and I want a real, honest-to-goodness, personalized domain for my space. I love MSN, and I know I will love Windows Live. But this isn't Microsoft's space; it's mine. And I want the URL to reflect that.
2. I want a greater number of HTML modules (three or four would be nice) with even bigger size limits. That way I can do all sorts of fun things that I can't do today.
3. Lack of support for anonymous comments bugs me. Requiring Passport sign-in to post a comment is great because it really limits comment spam. But it's frequently annoying because it doesn't always remember me. Plus not everyone wants to sign-in with a Passport just to say "Thanks!"
4. Photo navigation. Our photo albums are great fun, but there are so many things we could be doing to make it easier to navigate within a photo album. Snapfish and Flickr - while not perfect - both have a simple, easy-to-use model for choosing a photo from a large collection. We need to do better here.
5. I want more variety in modules (i.e.stuff I can put on my space!) Don't limit me to what Microsoft can offer. If I want to add my Netflix queue to my space, I should be able to. What about a New York Yankees sports ticker? Or my (horror) Flickr photostream? I would be one happy camper if I could pick and choose things from all over the web to add to my space.

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Talking about 5 things I dislike about MSN Spaces $part 2$

 $49.95 for up to 3 PCs a year, it is a good deal.

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Windows OneCare Live Pricing and Licensing Details

Our customers have been asking us for months and we’re finally ready to share our pricing and licensing details.  When Windows OneCare Live goes final in the U.S. in June, the subscription service price will be $49.95 per year.  And here is more good news – many customers have told us they have more than one computer, and want OneCare’s security and system optimization features on all of them.  We listened.  For this same price, you’ll be able to install OneCare on up to 3 PCs per subscription!

 

We encourage you to take a look at what our competitors are offering – we’re confident that no one else is delivering a value like this for an “all-in-one” service on up to 3 PCs, like Windows OneCare Live.  Those of you that read the blog often know that we are somewhat obsessed with providing consumers a simple to use, comprehensive PC care service, and understand why we’re absolutely thrilled that we’ll be able to offer this service at such a great value.         

 

Throughout the development process we have depended - and continue to depend - on the feedback and input of our beta testers to improve the service.  We asked for your help and you engaged deeply with suggestions, comments, issues, recommendations, etc.  To reward you - our beta customers - for your invaluable efforts, we will be offering a special beta conversion price.  Beta customers who convert to being paid OneCare subscribers between April 1^st and April 30^th will be offered one year of service for only $19.95 – again, for use on up to 3 PCs!  We’ll remind you when this offer is live, and remember, beta testers can simply click on the “Purchase now” button within the main Windows OneCare window.

 

Not a beta user yet?  Don’t worry.  There’s still time to download the beta directly from http://ideas.live.com , but remember, April 30^th is the cut-off date to get on the beta and become a subscriber at this discounted rate.  If you don’t sign up with OneCare, we strongly encourage you to do two things. First, tell us why – we want to know how we can improve. And second, please be sure to subscribe to someone’s service.  Having up-to-date anti-virus and overall PC care protection is essential to keeping your machine safe and healthy.

 

As you can tell, we’re getting closer to final product availability and continue to get very helpful user feedback.  Your input is being heard – in fact we plan on delivering a beta refresh later this month. Please keep sending us your feedback – we love to hear your comments and truly appreciate your input.

 

Thanks again,

 

Yoav

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blogging: don't sweat the little things ... oh wait, we should

Blogging was one of the first features we released on Spaces. Since then we've gotten a lot of feedback  about these 'little' things that annoy our users. Thanks to all our users out there that reported these things to us and helped us make the experience better.

Who cares what date I posted my blog entry on? It's still damn good.

While your blog entries are ordered reverse chronologically, doesn't mean that the date is the most important thing. Lots of people complained that the way that blog entries were displayed make it look like date was more important than the title or your content. There's something about emphasizing 'not today' that makes things seem less appealing. Well now you can change that - for those out there were content is way more important than the point in time it was posted, you can now choose to display where the date/timestamp gets shown. At the top (as it was before), or down at the bottom of the entry.

Rinse, Repeat - Why can't I multi-delete comments/trackbacks on blog entries? My finger is tired from all this clicking.

Yeah, we know hitting the "X", and then hitting the OK on the delete confirmation dialog is a pain in the butt, especially when you want to delete a bunch of things. Now you can multi-delete comments/trackbacks (even entries if you decide that chronicaling your love life over the last couple of months was a bad idea and you want to wipe out any record of that)

• Sign into your space
• Click on the blog tab in the navigation across the top OR in your blog module click on "view entry details"
• Click on the (+) to expand comments or trackbacks on an entry
• Check the box(es) beside the items you want to delete
• Click on "Delete selected items"
• And click OK on the dialog to confirm.
• Ta-da!

I just want to respond to a comment!

You log into your space and are reading new comments and stuff. You notice a comment that someone left you, and all you want to do respond with by leaving a comment. Too bad to leave a comment you have to go to the 'preview' or public view, find that entry (which may or may not be on your front page), and then finally leave a comment. Geez I'm tired just thinking about it. Wouldn't it be nice that when you're looking at that comment, you could click a link to add a comment and magically go to that entry? Now you can!

Help! I'm stuck in a category and I can't get out.

Ever clicked on a category to see what else was related and then couldn't get back to the view of all entries? It's kinda silly and we agree. So we've added a link to "view all categories" which gets you back to the default view.

I click on a blog entry from a contact card in messenger and then I dont know where to go OR I want to read more but I can't figure out how to get to the rest of the entries

On the first thing - Previously when you clicked on a blog update from the contact card in Messenger, you landed on the permalink page (the permanent 'link' to that particular entry). It wasn't obvious that you could read more blog entries or go other places in the space. While this problem is still being solved (ie. exciting stuff coming in another release), its way easier to get to the next entry.

For the second thing, users can choose how many entries they want to show on their front page. We didn't make it easy for a visitor to your space to figure out to get to the rest of your entries to keep on reading. Now there's a 'View more entries" link at the bottom of your blog module on your front page.  
 

Like really, I'm SICK AND TIRED OF LOSING MY BLOG ENTRIES!

 

uhm, yeah, so are we. Some times I swear at my computer but that doesn't really help. Eileen (one of our super fantastic devs) worked on improving this so that this happens less. (Mind you, if you decide to unplug your comp