Hey There!

Welcome to the homepage of Kyle Hotchkiss [Productions]! It’s not much yet because I don’t have a webhost. I post lots of things here about a variety of subjects, so thanks for reading!

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Kyle’s KwikFix – Change Firefox Appearance.

Difficulty: Easy – Moderate

Goal: To change the appearance of Firefox using several techniques.

Firefox is a great browser for many reasons. As soon as you switch to it, there is a noticeable difference in performance, convenience, security – and even appearance. Firefox boasts the ability to change appearance either rearranging the buttons and menus, or with a complete makeover with themes. Are you not using Firefox, but suddenly want to? Download it here.

This is an example of what Firefox can look like after you fix it up. Yours does not have to look like this, that is the beauty of Firefox, it's what YOU want!

Step 1: Turn off the status and side bar.
Turning off the status and sidebar doesn’t contribute to the look of Firefox too much, but does give you more screen real estate. What you do is go to the View menu in Firefox, find the Status Bar item, and uncheck it. Then to remove the sidebar, click the View button again, find the Sidebar submenus, and make sure all those items are unchecked. Now you should have a little more space for looking at your sites!

Step 2: Rearrange your menus.
Rearranging your menu items also saves some space, and gives you a chance to make it what you like it to be. What you do is go to the bookmarks toolbar, right click, and then in the menu that pops up, Uncheck your bookmarks menu. Then that bar with Live Feed and Most Visited disappears. Now go to where you can get that menu again (Right click in the toolbar) and click Customize this time. A window like this pops up:

The Customize menu allows you to add and remove stuff from your toolbars.

When this window opens up, you can add and remove icons from your menus (Drag N’ Drop), and the menus actually unlock so you can rearrange them (You can rearrange them like mine, and if it doesn’t look right make sure the “Use Small Icons” box is checked and that you turn off the navigation toolbar when you are done). When y0u are done, click the “Done” button and tada, just the way you want it!

Step 3: Pick a theme.
Visit the Firefox Addons Site and find a theme you like. When you find just the right one, click “Install” and a window will come up with its status. When it finishes, it will need to restart. When Firefox reopens, it will have the new theme automatically installed! (If you find that isn’t the right one, go to the Tools menu and click Add Ons. Click on the Themes icons, and then click the default icon, then click Use Theme. It will have reset.)

Well I hope this guide has helped you in your Firefox journey! There are plenty more ways to configure Firefox, just take a Google at “Firefox Tweaks”.

Burning CDs is HOT now!

Isn’t InfraRecorder cool?

Look at my CD burning!?! It's on FIRE!

OK, so maybe that program can wreak a CD until it’s nothing but trash, but using it in vista is fun!

Why the new name.

Good question. Needed a little more jazz then just “Kyle’s Blog” and yes there is a word that rhymes with it and a very famous guy lived there.

Quantum Encryption is inspired by females minds.

Don’t get me wrong – I have a super vague idea of how quantum physics and encryption go. I do know that it can exist in any form while being sent. Somehow I have realized that sounds a lot like how girls think. They say one thing but mean something else. (Hence the many forms whilst transmitting.). They also can contradict themselves quite often and think that because you are a boy you won’t notice but BAM, caught in transmission. Once caught it has one form and you know what it means! And they can use this to talk to each other, but guys lack the power to decrypt it!

Okay, I have my first girlfriend and she can confuse me with what she says. I’m sure the guy who discovered quantum stuff thought it over and just named it quantum to make it sound like it only exists in other dimensions. Buddy, you’ve been caught.

Me, Before I had people skills.

Come one people, if you don’t get your eyes off that screen once a week, you’ll end up making a fool of yourself as I do here. Good times really 🙂

Myspace is Desperate (People you may know)

Myspace has recently implemented a new feature called “People you may know”. Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar! I don’t think coping facebook is going to bring you guys back up in the long run. Facebook did it right the first time, so give them the glory.

Here’s my take on it:
1) It doesn’t work. I don’t know those people.
2) Who are they? How can I tell who they are when they have those unreadable Myspace names? I can’t. The terrible self pictures don’t help.
3) The “Show More” button does nothing other then refresh the current page. I would much rather have the button be labeled “refresh”.

So yeah, It’s not helping me. What’s the point Myspace?

Browser Feature Request

Err… this is an awkward way of making a feature request but I don’t feel like being ignored by the forums over at mozilla or webkit.

When you are on a site that requires images to be uploaded, don’t you find it annoying how when you click the select button, the window takes you to the program files where your browser is located? I wish that developers could pass on a tag that makes that window open where your pictures are defualted. (Example: <… loc=”userPhotos” … />) so that users would not have to climb around their files to get to their pictures folder. I don’t think this is a hard thing to implement, just make some code, and check a dictionary/config files for the directory list. The only problem would be, if this became a standard, internet explorer would add about 15 more directory locations then mozilla and webkit would use, therefore making web development a drag like they typically do (Have you seen IE8?)