Upgraded the freetype library to version 2.3.6, which fixes “A bunch of potential security problems have been found [and fixed in this release”
Upgraded to pixman library to version 0.11.4.
Xquartz fixes from xorg-server-1.3.0-apple21, the key fix being support for monitor hotplugging, although several security fixes also occurred.
Again, if you upgrade MacOS (say to version 10.5.4, which is supposed to be released soon in order to support iPhone G3 and MobileMe), you will likely need to reinstall Xquartz (unless Apple has upgraded their X11 installation to match Xquartz).
I have been an avid Firefox user for quite some time. But when I moved to Intel-based Macs, I discovered that that Schubert’s PDF Browser Plugin didn’t work on Intel Macs (except if I placed Firefox in Rosetta mode, running its PPC code in emulation). hat project appears to have died on the vine, with no updates in abut 2 years. Furthermore, Adobe has insisted on making its inline PDF plugin Safari-only. This always struck me as rather redundant, since Apple has used Mac OS X’s Quartz graphics engine to allow viewing of PDFs inline in Safari. This, combined with Firefox’s longer launch times, made me slowly shift to using Safari about 80% of the time.
Yesterday, Firefox 3 was released. I have been using the betas for the last month and have been happy with its improved speed and functionality. Its part of the reason I am back to about a 50/50 split in Safari vs. Firefox use. Today, the other show fell in the form of this posting on MacOS X Hints:
There is now a Firefox extension named firefox-mac-pdf, available for Firefox 3 under OS 10.5 that utilizes the built-in PDF support in OS X to display PDFs in-browser. In my testing, it appears to work very well. It doesn’t have the nifty fading bezel that the Safari PDF viewer does, but it supports all the same keyboard shortcuts and you get the standard Mac OS PDF contextual menu when you control-click on a displayed PDF.
Its interface is not quite as easy to use as Schubert’s plugin, but it works. I now have inline PDF viewing in Firefox and things are better in the world again.
Saving PDFs: The one issue I noticed is there was no seemingly obvious way to save the PDF once you were viewing it. Nothing in the contextual menu allowing “Save as…” for example. Turns out it was easier to save the PDF than I imagined. In the “Issues” page for firefox-max-pdf I found this exchange which included the solution:
We had a set of hard storms come through yesterday afternoon. I was doing SkyWarn spotting with the local hams. I think (but will leave it to experts to confirm) that the structure under the smooth part of the storm (”the shelf) is a wall cloud. For a sense of scale, this is 8 photos stitched together covering above a fifth of my horizon and the leading edge of this storm when it was about five miles away.. Shortly after I shot this picture, the sirens went off. Rotation was spotted, but luckily, no funnel cloud touched down. Thankfully, while the storm blew through at 60 miles per hour, we had no significant damage… Still, it looked mean…
Addendum: I sent the picture to Greg Gust, who runs some of the SkyWarn stuff for the National Weather Service in Grand Forks. He sent me these additional comments:
Most of the structure is a classic shelf cloud on the leading edge of a line of thunderstorms… this the widespread strong to severe winds as it came through. One the south end was the feature that we believe was a wall cloud… rotating updraft… and was what prompted us to issue the Tornado Warning across the southern part of Fargo and Moorhead.
[Added August 9,2008] It appears at least two people saw this wall cloud and posted videos on YouTube. I have embedded them below.
This first video is from “bluemanhal” and contains some audio. Notice how far he has to pan the camera to see this. My photo was a panorama about 150 degrees, which loses its perspective in the image:
This second video is from “cpilotkid” and appears to have been shot from the West Acres Mall parking lot, but again notice how far he has to pan to get the entire wall cloud:
