I did some digging and it turns out that WPF did have a vulnerability, but it was patched a couple of days ago. Firefox, however, has no way of knowing if you’re running the patched version or the original one with a security flaw (which Microsoft forcibly added to Firefox without warning a few months ago). You can read more about the issue here.

Interesting times huh?

Instead the Google Wave Add-on for FireFox will poll the service for you and let you know if there’s anything new that needs your attention. It’s a tiny widget that sits in your status bar, so it’s not even very intrusive.

Get it here – and if you’re on Wave, I’m owen.cutajar@googlewave.com

You might have noticed that my Tweetroll (in my sidebar) has been changing colours recently. Well, you guessed it, we’re almost ready to release the next version. The main thrust behind this new version has been allowing greater customisability and conformance. Hyder has been improving the design to make sure it works with more and more blogs. I’ve been working on customisation options, allowing you to select one of a variety of sizes, and specify whatever colours you want to match your blog.

Writing presentation widgets is interesting. You have no idea how hard it is to deploy something that lives in an ecosystem you don’t control, just like trying to merchandise Sferra linens in a food market. The great thing about the delivery mechanism we’re using (Javascript/CSS) is that it gives us fine control over what gets deployed and the ability to resolve issues instantaneously for everyone who’s running the widget.

So watch this space, there’ll be more info soon!

photo credit: erix!

Go to the “Add New” option under plugins and search for TweetRoll:

Click Install and Activate the plugin. When you go to your Widgets page you’ll see a new widget called TweetRoll. You can add it to a sidebar and configure it by adding your Twitter username.

That’s all you need to do. You should now be able to see your Tweetroll in your sidebar.

Let mw know if you have any problems.

One plugin I really miss on FireFox is FasterFox. The plugin only works up to FF2.0 and there hasn’t been a release for FF3.0. Here’s what I had written about it:

I’ve been using FasterFox for some time now and it has definitely been useful to measure the load time of different websites. See, one of the things it provides is a counter that goes at the bottom of your browser showing the load time of the page you’re looking at. And it’s more accurate than a Rolex in that it produces timings down to a millisecond. Check it out.

I wonder if anyone could suggest a different plugin that can show page load times?

The graph is a bit ugly, but functional. I’ll be working to improve this in the next drop.

Please, please .. try it out and let me know what you think.

Anyway, the Entrecard widget on your website has a “Drop” button, however there’s no way to show who were the last few people who dropped their card. EntreDroppers works hand-in-hand with this widget and lets you list as many past droppers as you would like. You even have the option to show a description of their blog in your sidebar.

So, if you use Entrecard, check out EntreDroppers.

p.s. and I just wanted to thank Lisa and Tina for their kind help in testing the widget

• Upload multiple images for each auction
• Sell items only on ‘Buy It Now’ basis
• Sell items with a ‘Buy it Now’ price
• Show your auctions in a list, rather than graphical, format
• Include link to your eBay feedback if you have any
• 5 free styles packaged with the theme
• Use on as many blogs as you like

The new version comes at a small cost, but if you do sell items regularly, it will quickly make up for the cost in saved fees. The previous version is still free, and can be downloaded from WordPress Plugins. Oh, and you can also make a 40% commission on any sales, so if you know anyone interested, check out the details on Hyder’s blog.

It’s nice to get to a stable release that can go out to the world. It’s funny really, I feel like I’m undergoing drug rehabilitation as I was hooked on continuing the effort on the plugin and now that’s been taken away. But don’t worry, I have other things lined up that are bound to keep my busy. I’m messing with Drupal, Facebook Apps and I have my final two MBA exams in June. I’m a sucker for punishment really …

One of the configuration opens in WP Auctions is the ability to specify different display styles which can match the look and feel of your blog. This way the plugin is more aesthetically pleasing and integrates much better with whichever WordPress theme you have decided to use. These styles can look like anything you want. If you look at my sidebar, you’ll see that my auction widget now matches my theme, and so does the popup window. At the side of this post, you’ll see a different style that can also be used in the sidebar. I think this particularly nice, but it doesn’t match my theme.

Switching theme is relatively simple. Simply upload the theme pack to the Styles folder in the plugin and the next time you visit your Styles option in your management console, the new style appears in the drop-down list. Simply select your style, click Save and you’re all set. Here’s what the drop-down looks like (click for larger image):

One idea I just had is that maybe I should add an option for people to be able to upload themes straight from the administration console (instead of FTPing them to their website). I wonder if that idea would get any traction …

There’s more info about styles and options on the WP Auctions blog.

Neat huh? The map display is interactive and supplied by Microsoft Live Earth. It’s the first time I’ve played around with mashups and I’m impressed at how easy it was to get great looking results. Anyway, if you have a WordPress blog download GeoWidget and let me know what you think.