08/03/16

[Maik]

97% of top officials at 'northern powerhouse' department work in London

It is the government department tasked with delivering the chancellor’s “northern powerhouse” agenda and devolving power to cities and regions. But 97.6% of senior civil servants at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) are based in London, the government has admitted.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/07/97-of-top-officials-at-northern-powerhouse-department-work-in-london

[Maik]

Anger over car park only accessible by foot

Residents of a Hampshire town allegedly plagued by parking problems have reacted with incredulity to the news that a “secret” rooftop car park has been lying unused above them for five years.

Plonked on a roof above a gym complex in Farnborough, the car park has all the necessary accoutrements: painted bays, disabled spaces, direction arrows.

In fact, there is only one flaw: it can only been reached by foot.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/back-page/anger-over-car-park-only-accessible-by-foot-1994310

[Maik]

Firefox 45 now available, should auto-update or download from mozilla.org.

Biggest change looks to be add-on signing is enforced. Up to v45 anyone could create a Firefox add-on and make it available for download via un-official websites. As a result, some malicious add-ons - masked as something useful - were finding their way onto PCs. With v45 any unsigned (unapproved) add-ons won't run - for v45 this can be disabled:

Type about:config in Firefox address bar >
Enter >
If the "Here be dragons!" warning appears click "I'll be careful" >
Scroll down to xpinstall.signatures.required >
Double-click on it to toggle value from "true" to "false"

Starting v46 the disable option will be removed.

Probably best to get add-ons only from AMO: addons.mozilla.org

Technical point: afaik, add-on signing only applies to extensions, not to plug-ins (What's the difference?)

[TonyKath]

Thanks Maik - helpful to know.  I wouldn't use an extension not from Mozilla but it's interesting that they will be blocking unsigned extensions from the next version. 

And it's better now that FF doesn't update virtually every week like it used to.

Tony

[Maik]

it's better now that FF doesn't update virtually every week like it used to

Probably just a temporary lull between cock-ups