So, who are BuyDig anyway? They’re a Digital Superstore operating in the US who have been around since 1996. They sell all sorts of electronic goods from flat panel TVs to security cameras; a wide range of SLR digital cameras (including the Nikon D90 and others) all the way to their Home and Garden category including kitchen gadgets and baby gear. It’s a pretty comprehensive catalogue which merits the name “SuperStore”. The pricing looks pretty competitive too, but as they don’t ship outside the US, this site is really for my buddies across the pond.

They have some cool kit too. For example, one of the things that I saw on their Twitter feed was the Wacom Bamboo Craft Scrapbook Kit which is a tablet, mouse and pen combination that lets you play around with your photos, create drawings and creating and maintaining your digital scrapbooks in a brand new way. Another product that caught my eye was the Celestron VistaPix 8×22 Binocular (shown alongside) which has a built in digital camera, now that’s a cool gadget.

So if you’re based in the US and looking for an online supply for your gadgets, check out BuyDig.com and make sure you follow them on Twitter.

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is a full cumulative update that contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and includes cumulative services updates to the .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0 subcomponents. The .NET Framework 3.5 Family Update provides important application compatibility updates.

Sounds fairly innocuous, right? Wrong! Besides deploying the fixes to the .NET framework mentioned above, the update also installed a stealth Add-in for FireFox, without any warning, permission or request for consent:

To add insult to injury, not only is the plugin useless (Not compatible with Firefox 3.1b2) as you can see above, but the Uninstall button is actually disabled!

Looks like it’s not a new problem, with reports of Microsoft violating Firefox since last August, but this is now bundled as part of a package that is described as an “Important Update”, rather than a component of development software (Visual Studio) that a person may or may not choose to install.

You can hack your way through uninstalling the plugin, but it’s not the sort of thing someone inexperienced should try. Here are the instructions from the site above:

Against what many people think, though, it can be uninstalled – but by nothing less than hacking the actual registry of Windows! Open your Start Menu and choose Run. Type in regedit and press enter/click OK. Within there, you have to look for something called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions and delete the key there (for Windows Vista 64-bit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions).

When you have done that, type in about:config in the address bar in Firefox, accept the warning and then remove general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet and microsoft.CLR.clickonce.autolaunch.

And, to finish it off, open Windows Explorer and go to \WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension\ to remove the last remnants of the evil extension.

Instructions thankfully found through Remove the .NET Framework Assistant 1.0 from Firefox

My question to you is this. Granted that Microsoft may “own” the operating system you’re running your software on, but does that give them the right to install additions to non-Microsoft software on your machine? The plugin didn’t work in my case, but let’s say it broke Firefox for me, would Microsoft have acknowledged this was a problem they caused and fixed it? Is it right for them to circumvent any features Mozilla put into Firefox to protect their users and violate their software in this way? Isn’t this the sort of installation route you’d expect malicious software to take?

It’s been a busy week, but I’ve still managed to collect some interesting links for your browsing pleasure.I think there’s more sweet honey than my usual honeyposts, but there’s some serious links in there too. Enjoy!

• A blog newbie on Naked Conversations: Mel shares her thoughts after reading the book: Naked Conversations
• How to delete “nobody” files from a directory I own in FreeBSD: Matt Cutts deals with a tricky issue.
• Twitterfeed: One way to feed your blog content to Twitter
• Viewzi: A new and highly visual way to search that brings all your favourite things in one place.
• Fantastic Contraption: A fun online physics puzzle game, guaranteed to suck hours and hours of your free time.
• How can I recover my Windows Vista password? Anna gets herself in a pickle
• Rules for a diet: Struggling with your diet? These rules may make it easier for you to cope.
• IZEA Hunt: John Chow has a great time at IzeaFest
• Ping.fm: An easy-to-use service that lets you broadcast any messages to all your social networks in one go. I’ve added 16 social networks to my account, but I’m sure I have accounts on more!
• Nudist Tramolining: The sun is shining, the birds are singing, so why not get your kit off and jump around on a trampoline.
• How much does online advertising cost in relation to other media? Leo shares some thoughts on the subject of online advertising expenditure
• Microsoft Open Source inside Google Chrome: Scott gets down and dirty with Chrome Internals. Great read.
• 15 horrible ways to Kill and Torture a Gummy Bear: Not for the faint hearted

Enjoy the honey

Free cards you ask? Well, yes, Vistaprint do them as a promotional offer. All you pay is the shipping for them, and they do have Vistaprint’s details on the back; but they were great for what I wants them for. You can pay a bit extra and clear the advertising details, and they still work out to be quite cheap. They also do rubber stamps, full colour postcards and anything else you may need to help market your company, so it’s worth keeping them in mind, especially if you only want a small run of materials

Anyway, if you want your 250 free cards, you can get them here

Here are some interesting questions that I answered on AskOwen this week:

• How do I submit my site to search engines?
• How do I connect to Windows Terminal Server in Vista?
• How can I connect to the Internet while on the move?
• How do I use onMouseOver in Javascript?

If there are any question you think might be interesting to you, just pop in and check them out. Don’t forget, if you have any pressing technical support questions, just ask. I’ll be happy to answer if I can.

• Is your company ready for social media? Three factors to think about before diving in
• Hitta.se: Check out this 3D map of Sweden. Great for a play
• FreshTweet: A WordPress theme to make your blog look like Twitter. How cool!
• Week 1 of my diet: I’m chewing hard on the diet pill
• Speed up Vista: Some advice to make Vista go quicker
• Let’s put on a show: Seth talks a bit about the veneer
• BizTalk BAM Poster: Thanks to Andy for the link
• Flash Best Practice: Some thoughts on effectiveness and accessibility
• Turn your dreams into millions: Advice to help your success, both online and offline
• Is the Internet getting full? Worried yet? Have a read ..
• 40 things you’d like to say out loud at work: Let’s finish with a giggle

Get stuck in!

It’s a real shame, because FireFox 3 performs much better than the previous version. It’s much snappier and it’s more fun to use, but I’ll wait for the next release before trying to switch again. It might be a problem with one of the Addons I have installed, but I can’t put my finger on what is causing it. First time it happened I was browsing SearchMann, the next time when accidentally hitting a medicare advantage website and today when loading Facebook. So there’s no rhyme or reason behind the questions. Anyway, I’ve submitted crash dumps so I’ve done my part. Now it’s back to “old browser” land

Update: Hmm .. what seems to break it is the TinyMCE that WordPress uses as an editor. Can’t live without that I’m afraid. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next drop.

Topic: Microsoft Vista Windows Server 2008 – A Feature Overview
Speaker: Huw Turvey
Venue: The Claremont Hotel, Douglas
Date: Tuesday 13th May 2008
Time: AGM at 18:00 – Talk starts at 18:30

Windows Server 2008 is the most advanced Windows Server operating system yet, designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services. With Windows Server 2008 you can develop, deliver, and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a highly secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within your organization.

Huw Turvey works for Microsoft in the Technical Account Management arena and fronts up the support of all of Microsoft’s products in the field with real live customers; he has to make the products work not sell them.

Please confirm attendance in advance by replying to: publicity06@isleofman-bcs.org

Should be a great event, make sure you come

• A common codebase for ALL Vista and Windows 2008 editions
• A massive improvement in IIS 7
• Minor update to Direct 3D
• New APIs to control the Data Execution Protection and Kernel Patch Protection features
• New cryptographic and random number generation algorithms
• .Net Framework upgraded to v3.0 SP1

There’s also some other information that is pretty well know (speed improvements in file copy, less aggressive UAC) but you’re best off reading the entire post.

The great thing about Vista SP1 is that is really is a leap forward in terms of stability and were needed more than a tonneau cover on a stormy night. I’ve been running it for around a month now and have been counting how many problems, blue screens, freezes etc I’ve had. To date … none!

• Upgraded my laptop OS to Vista SP 1
• Upgraded my phone to Windows Mobile v6.1
• Upgraded my browser to FireFox 3 Beta 3
• Upgraded Skype to v3.6
• Upgraded Filezilla to 3.0.7

Everything seems to be working nicely, which attests to the maturity of the software I suppose. Everything pretty much looks the same, except for the lovely new features in Firefox.