Dominic Sayers

HOWTO: Fix problems with Firefox extensions

I have been having problems with a Firefox extension that disappeared whenever I upgraded either Firefox or the extension itself. My specific problem was with an extension called Firebug, but I'm betting this affects other add-ons too. After extensive searching I eventually came up with an answer that worked for me. I'm posting it here so other people might avoid the hot tears of frustration that I cried trying to fix this.

The symptom

You choose a Firefox extension by clicking on the install link, the extension downloads and installs. You click the button to restart Firefox and the extension is simply not there. No error message, no indication why it failed. Just stubborn, passive-aggressive refusal to install. Arms folded, lips pursed, the extension just won't do what you want. Gah.

The solution

Yes, it's the old favourite - your virus checker. In my case all I had to do was open the AVG Anti-Virus control panel, double-click Resident Shield and unclick the "Resident Shield active" checkbox. Click on Save Changes. Then if you repeat the Firefox estension install you should find it installs OK. Don't forget to turn your virus checker back on afterwards.

South Africa bids to join the big league

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has made a strong move in the war to be the most ridiculous cricket governing body in the world. Don't forget this is big-league stuff - cricket's governing bodies are strong contenders for The World's Worst Sports Governing Body. Following on from brilliant efforts by the ECB[1], the WICB[2] and the ICC[3], CSA have appointed the likeable Ashwell Prince as the stand-in captain for the next Test Match then relieved him of the captaincy 24 hours later, appointing one of the world's least popular cricketers in his place - Jacques Kallis. This is on top of moving him from his favoured middle-order position to open the batting in place of the injured Graeme Smith. And dropping Neil Mackenzie for the crime of scoring 1073 runs in 2008 at an average of 50+. Moves like this always reveal underlying tensions in the governing body and team management. In this case the arrival of Mike Procter as the head of selectors seems to have been the catalyst. But it's unfair to blame Procter for this collapse into incompetence. Somebody appointed him (Gerald Majola presumably). CSA needs to get its act together quickly, or the relocated ICC Champions Trophy will join the long list of international tournaments that have made cricket a laughing stock in world sport. [1] The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) quite appropriately conceals the Welsh element from its abbreviation since cricket is a long tail sport in the principality. Notwithstanding this, the ECB have chosen the hotly-anticipated 2009 Ashes series to introduce a new venue to the Test Match roster. One that is smaller than all the other venues on the circuit. One that is not even the largest stadium in its town, or even the second largest. One that is in Wales. [2] Where to start? The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is responsible for squandering the revenue from the 2007 World Cup and Sir Allen Stanford's brief flirtation with cricket in the region. The result has been white-elephant stadiums in places that ordinary West Indians can't get to and which aren't even fit to play the game. CLR James would weep, as should everybody else. [3] Venal and incompetent, the International Cricket Council is dominated by Indian television revenue making it difficult for it to take a neutral view of world cricket. Incapable of running a decent tournament itself, it tries to avoid blame for other international cricket disasters by disassociating itself from, well, international cricket.

Another good experience

Following hard on the heels of my good experience cancelling my Sky subscription (i.e. only 2 years after) comes another successful conversation with a "retention team", this time at Orange. You don't hear much good about Orange, and certainly my user experience of their services has been pretty ordinary in the 10 years or more I have been a customer of theirs. But credit where it's due - I just got a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) from them in exactly 10 minutes. The gentleman asked me why I was leaving Orange. I said because of generally high prices and because if I joined the same network as my wife we could get free calls to each other. He asked me if an offer of reduced prices would tempt me to stay. I said no, it would make me angry because it would imply they had been abusing my loyalty for 10 years or more. He had obviously heard the same comments before and completely accepted what I said. I think its only fair to write about good customer service when it happens. Twice in two years, eh? Now if I can just get Tower Hamlets to empty my waste food recycling bin I will be happy.

Tony Benn doing what he does

Whether you agree with him or not, the world needs people who do this: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21MdXe3BOQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1] (Thanks, Glinner)

The customer is your servant

Tower Hamlets started a food waste reycling service last year. It was generally a good thing - put your food waste in a biodegradable bag and leave it for them to collect on bin day. From our point of view it meant that the regular bin in the kitchen was less smelly and moist, and also filled up a lot less quickly. A good thing all round, I would have thought. But we ran out of the biodegradable bags, and no more were delivered. So I called Tower Hamlets to see if they would deliver some more bags for us. No. No, they won't deliver any more bags. I have to visit a Tower Hamlets One-Stop Shop to collect some more. Now, a One-Stop Shop is exactly what it says. It handles every sort of customer interaction that a local authority has to deal with. You arrive, and take a ticket, and sit in a waiting room to see a customer service advisor. Last time I had to go (to renew a resident's parking permit) I waited for an hour although there were only four people ahead of me in the queue. So I have to queue for an hour to get some more food waste recycling bags. Yeah right. I don't think you've thought this one through have you, Tower Hamlets?

Scope creep

We have a long and dishonorable history in my country of introducing temporary legislation for a particular situation, then allowing it to become both permanent and general despite the eventual amelioration of the situation that it was intended to address. The classic example has always been our ridiculous alcohol licensing laws, which confuse overseas visitors so much (with good reason). These were brought in as a purely temporary measure during the First World War to ensure attendance at munitions factories at a time of national crisis. We also have these "temporary" laws to thank for our stupid British Summer Time upheaval twice a year. Thanks, but my Realm doesn't need Defending against the Germans so much any more. Can we repeal these temporary measures now? Thus, it was inevitable that the UK anti-terror legislation brought in during the panic after New York's World Trade Centre was destroyed in 2001 would both outlast the situation and be used for purposes not strictly to do with combating the terrorist threat. A cynic might say this was planned all along, and the public mood since 2001 has been used as an opportunity to bring in a series of oppressive laws under the guise of defending the nation (again). Many people have said exactly this but I was reserving judgement until there was clear evidence one way or the other. Yesterday provided that evidence. The UK-held assets of an Icelandic bank were frozen to protect the interests of UK depositors when it became clear the the bank was in trouble. The legislation used was the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 that I linked to above. The UK government's motives may have been entirely sound and in our national interest, but the precedent has been set (if it hadn't before). This is no longer anti-terrorism legislation, it is a fact of our lives and is here to stay. And it will be used for whatever purposes suits the government of the day. Which, in case you hadn't noticed, may well be formed by the Conservative Party after the next election. Now there's a frightening thought.

Pedestrians and velocity

John Whiteside made a perceptive comment about my post "Cycling to work - why people hate cyclists, part 3". I completely agree with him - what he said in his comment is what I intended to say in my post. Sorry it wasn't clear. The post talked about collisions between cyclists and pedestrians. I said

The cyclist will see a pedestrian many metres ahead and will calculate his own trajectory and the pedestrian’s to ensure there is no collision.

John correctly commented that pedestrians don't have a "trajectory". What they have is a "radius of occupation" - a theoretical circle around them that they could be anywhere in when the cyclist reaches them. The radius of the circle is a function of the pedestrian's maximum velocity and the distance the cyclist has to travel before impinging on the pedestrian. Here's what I meant to say: the cyclist unconsciously calculates this "radius of occupation" and avoids it. Of course, there are some parts of the circle that the pedestrian is unlikely to occupy. The sophisticated cyclist might try to calculate the probability distribution across the entire "radius of occupation" and choose to clip a part of the circle where the pedestrian is unlikely to end up. This sort of calcuation will be correct most of the time, but ultimately will result in a few collisions. I think such collisions are the fault of the cyclist. My diatribe against pedestrians was intended to include only those collisions that the cyclist could not possibly avoid.

Trying to recover my compromised Hotmail account

[Edited to add: Microsoft Live support resolved this issue very swiftly and professionally. I now have control of my Hotmail account back.] Somebody, let us call him Anthony Ikpe, has hijacked my Hotmail account and sent a begging letter to everybody in my address book. A transparent ruse but apologies to everybody who got this message. Needless to say I am not stuck in West Africa nor do I need an urgent transfer of funds to help get me home. If you would like to send me money then please do so, but don't send it to an address in Nigeria. I don't know how Anthony Ikpe was able to get access to my account, but he has managed to change the password, change the alternate email address and change the challenge-response questions so I cannot get back control of the account by the usual means. My old password was not a strong one, but nor was it an easily-guessable one. I suspect he has somehow spoofed the password reset system, which would be a security issue for Microsoft if it is true. My Hotmail address is the one I publish publicly - the Hotmail account is designed to be the one that gets attacked. My friends, family and colleagues know that it's not the address I normally use. I also use it for buying things online so that the resulting marketing messages don't bother me. However, if I'm in the middle of a buying something it assumes a temporary importance. And I am indeed using my Hotmail account quite heavily at the moment. Or not, as it turns out. Inconvenient then, and I'd like to get it back if possible. And I'd certainly like to stop Mr Ikpe from reading the messages I'm currently getting on that account. So I am trying to contact Microsoft to let them know what has happened and see if anything can be done. Attempt 1 I click on the Help link on the Hotmail home page. Yay! there's a link for "What do I do if I think someone is using my Windows Live ID? ". I click it. It gives me another link to "Report to Microsoft" any suspicious activity. I click it. It leads to a Technet page with another link telling me to fill in a form on this page: Helpful Information for Microsoft Passport Network I click the link. It takes me back to the Hotmail help page. Presumably Microsoft think their customers are so stupid they will continue round this loop for ever without noticing they aren't getting anywhere. Attempt 2 I call Microsoft UK. After patiently navigating their call centre menus, I arrive at the Hotmail options. For billing enquiries please press 1. For all other enquiries please go to http://uk.msn.com My first reaction is Gaaah! But surprisingly there is a form on the MSN site that allows you to report Hotmail security issues. I filled in the form and submitted it. The waiting begins.

World's worst sports governing body

I have in mind a post about various governing bodies of world sport, comparing them to see which is the worst. Every time I sit down to write it, another governing body makes a spectacular arse of itself in some way and puts me back to square one. The obvious candidates are these (in no particular order at the moment):

• The Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA). Max Mosley. nuff said. But the historical track record of the FIA is not good either, having been in Bernie Ecclestone's pocket for a long time (for sound financial reasons of course).
• Any international governing body of professional boxing (e.g. IBA, IBC, IBF, IBO, IBU, WBA, WBC, WPBF, WBF, WBO, WBU). It's not a crime for a sport to have many governing bodies, but to have so many ineffectual ones that have no interest in the participants' welfare is remarkable.
• The International Olympic Commission (IOC). Has there been another governing body whose members are so willing to be induced?
• Oh yes, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The rot starts at the top.
• And so we come to the International Cricket Council (ICC). Supine in the face of political awkwardness and dominated by self-interest, this organisation is ill-equipped to govern a rapidly-changing sport.

So there's a lot to write about, and my thoughts are not really in order yet. This pilot post is to ask if anybody can answer the following questions:

1. Is there a world governing body that does a good job, i.e. acts in the long-term interest of the sport without favouring any subset of its exponents?
2. Have I missed any obvious bodies from my initial list?

Answers on a postcard.

Cycling to work

I started to cycling to work again this week. The reasons why I haven't done this for three years come under the Too Much Information category so I will not discuss them here. Suffice it to say that it wasn't lack of motivation but forces beyond my control. Things I quickly remembered:

1. Pedestrians are lethal. Stay away from them at all costs. They are deaf, dumb, blind, stupid, suicidal sheep. I know this because I am one and I am as guilty as anybody else of crossing the road with my ears rather than my eyes. Ladies and gentlemen: bikes don't make a noise. Look before you step into the road.
2. Car doors should be banned. I was once cycling behind somebody who rode into a car door that somebody flung open in front of him. I will never forget (although I would like to) both the sound and sight of the impact and of body parts doing things they weren't designed to do. Planners who mark cycle lanes next to parked cars should have their limbs snapped. Ignore the cycle lane and occupy road space like the vehicle you are.
3. Don't be bullied. Drivers will shout, gesticulate and sound their horns if they think you are delaying their journey by a few seconds. Be a generous and thoughtful road user but never, never, never do that at the expense of your own safety. There is only one loser in a cycle accident whoever is at fault. Don't give the bastards an even break.

Does that sound angry? I used to be an angry cyclist but I'm trying to be a lot calmer this time round. There are more bikes on the road than there used to be and I think drivers are a bit more used to them. I try to remember to acknowledge any good driving. So far it's working. I am arriving out of breath and a bit warm but not nearly so cross as I used to. And now I have a blog to vent my frustration with. Lucky you, reader, you can look forward to some Slightly Annoyed Cyclist anecdotes in the next few months.