Author Archives: Steve

Flashing Mozilla Firefox OS Flame Phone on Windows

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Steve

tl;dr the shallow_flash.sh file used to flash Firefox OS nightly builds t to phones such as the Flame now works on Cygwin on Windows. The reason for previous failure and the solution highlight a difference between Linux and Windows. Mozilla’s … Continue reading →

Posted in development, Uncategorized | Tagged | 10 Comments

Setting up home and office networks with a single line and with wifi extension

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Steve

tl;dr It is straight forward to connect a second Ethernet WAN modem/router/AP to a BT home hub (or other primary router) and configure it as a separate, independent LAN (TCP/IP subnet). A 3rd Wireless AP/Router can then used as a Wi-Fi client (or alternatively a bridge) … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

On Converting a VM from VMWare to VIrtualBox

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Steve

In short, don’t! It’s way too much hassle. It’s so much easier to create a new identical VM in VirtualBox and set it to use the same virtual disk file (.vmdk). I  expect this applies when moving VMs in the … Continue reading →

Posted in opensource, Win8, Windows | Tagged | 14 Comments

Help: I bricked my Firefox OS device by enabling the Accessibility Screen Reader!

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Steve

Well you would fiddle, wouldn’t you! 😉 The screen reader feature as introduced in Firefox OS 1.3 is experimental – hence it is burried away in the developer settings. If you are not familiar with mobile screen readers you will … Continue reading →

Posted in a11y | Tagged | 32 Comments

Success! Firefox OS 1.4 built and running on ZTE Open

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Steve

[Update 2013-04-13 : Trunk, currently 1.5.0.0 also happily builds and runs. Just use “BRANCH=master” with config and build] It’s been a long battle but I have finally got a Firefox OS 1.4 build running on the ZTE Open. I started … Continue reading →

Posted in mobile | Tagged | 35 Comments

ZTE Open – upgrading to Firefox OS 1.2

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Steve

[Continued in Success! Firefox OS 1.4 built and running on ZTE Open] I’ve just bought a ZTE Open phone with the intention of exploring Firefox OS, Mozilla’s new HTML-based, fully open mobile operating system. The idea was that at £54 … Continue reading →

Posted in mobile, Uncategorized | Tagged | 4 Comments

Free international SAPI voices from Microsoft

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Steve

Either this is a well kept secret of I’ve been asleep, but I’ve only just found Microsoft provide easy access to the SAPI voices provided with other language versions of Windows. The following is the case in my Windows 8.1 Pro … Continue reading →

Posted in Assistve Technology, Uncategorized, Windows | Leave a comment

User experiences for low digital literacy and cognitive disabilities with Firefox

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Steve

[Update 2014-02-15] I’ve just discovered Mozilla X-Tag that allows extension elements to be created much like XBL. It’s a library rather than native browser implementation (’till W3C Web Components land) and I’m not sure if it allows nesting and inheritance which I … Continue reading →

Posted in opensource | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Adding a sleep button to Dell XPS 12 convertable ultrabook

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Steve

I’m really happy with the Dell XPS 12 convertable ultrabook I’m now using as my workhorse machine, even after seeing the lighter Lenovo Yoga at the recent Presperity4All project kick-off meeting. One thing has been annoying me,though, and that is the lack of … Continue reading →

Posted in Windows | 2 Comments

Sending emails with PHP on cheap hosting

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Steve

Many cheap or free share hosting services block the PHP mail() function so it silently does nothing. For example, I just added a contact form to a small WordPress based web site for a friend but it didn’t work as … Continue reading →

Posted in development, opensource, PHP, web, WordPress | Leave a comment