News

If you haven’t been following my updates on it so far, you’ve almost certainly heard of Firefox by now anyway. That won’t deter me from my usual milestone upgrade-o-push, though.

Though the new Firefox 1.0 Preview Release isn’t as packed with landmark new features as previous editions, the focus has largely been on fixing bugs and improving stability, along with minor enhancements for improved convenience. The bookmarks manager now has a folder pane on the left, for instance, and bookmark icons are much less prone to disappear over time. The default theme which drew much criticism on the initial release of Firefox 0.9 is greatly improved. In addition, there are a number of enhancements designed to prevent spoofing of browser windows and secure sites: the location bar is now highlighted and shows a lock icon on secure sites, and the status bar security area shows the host name to ensure you’re in the right place. By default, the status bar can no longer be hidden in popup windows.

One of the more interesting new features is the addition of Live Bookmarks, which allow you to keep track of news sites, blogs etc. which provide a syndication service. Look for the RSS icon on the right of the status bar to see where this is available. I may even work on hooking up CoN news or recent posts at some point, since there’s basic functionality for it built into the board. Also look out for the new find toolbar, which replaces the familiar old find dialog, searches while you type and includes the ability to highlight your search term in the document.

The popup blocker has been improved, and now allows user-requested popups to open during page load, as well as being better at blocking unrequested popups (though it doesn’t seem to work properly with the popular TBE extension, which probably needs updating). A Windows XP SP2-style information bar now appears when popups or extension installations are blocked, or when plugins are needed to display a page. While these are good for new users, I personally found the popup notification bar to be irritating; thankfully, it can be disabled very easily.

I know I say it every time there’s a new Firefox release, but this really is the best one yet, and a great excuse to try an alternative browser if you’ve never stepped away from Internet Explorer — the browser being able to update itself for future milestone releases is certainly a very promising feature in terms of ease of use.

If Firefox isn’t for you, you might consider trying Opera or the old Mozilla "1.x" Suite before heading back to Internet Explorer. If you’re determined to stick with IE or one of its variants, it’s a very good idea to make sure you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, which provides security enhancements and, at last, popup blocking. It’s important to note, though, that there’s no way to obtain this IE update on anything other than Windows XP. There is also no improvement to Web standards support either, which is our main platform for bullying you all into changing browser, including the now pretty basic functionality of displaying PNG images correctly; it’s understood that this probably won’t even be improved in the next major release of Internet Explorer, which has been comfirmed only to be in production for the next version of Windows, codename “Longhorn”. In other words: don’t expect anything new from IE for a long time, if ever, and only if you’re prepared to shell out for a new OS. It’s also unlikely that future optional CoN styles will be available for Internet Explorer, if you care about that sort of thing.

If you want a Mozilla e-mail client to go with your Firefox browser, the excellent Thunderbird 0.8 was released at the same time as Firefox 1.0PR, now featuring the ability to import Outlook and Outlook Express messages, as well as store messages from POP3 accounts in a single inbox.

• Firefox Product Page


• Firefox 1.0PR Downloads


• BitTorrent tracker for Firefox releases


• The Burning Edge: Bigger Picture (notable changes in Firefox 1.0PR)
   



• Firefox Extensions


• Firefox Themes


• Warning: old extensions and themes from Firefox 0.9.x may not be compatible with 1.0PR.
   



• Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8


• Opera Software


• Mozilla Suite

A few of you have e-mailed us about the recurring problem with the forums, where a white screen appears instead of the proper forum page, with some SQL and a response "error 28 from table handler".

This is caused by the configuration of our Web host allowing the disk to fill up. We're told that this occurs when other users of the hosting provider use the site backup option in their control panel. We're also told that it won't be disabled, because it would be inconvenient for users not to be able to back up their sites.

Apparently it's not at all inconvenient that users can't use their site much of the time...

Anyway, rest assured that we'll be badgering the host incessantly about sorting this out, or they'll be losing our business before too long. In the mean time, please do keep letting us know when the error occurs, so that we can track how serious the problem is (although obviously it's better that not every member e-mails us: perhaps the folks in chat at the time could arrange for one person to send the e-mail). Keep the subject line "SQL Error" (change the '+' in the default subject to a space, if it's there) so we can filter the messages nicely.

Thanks for your patience, folks.

After a long period of not having the ability to update, there are now two fanfics on the site.

Madness ...and a Beetle is an FF6 fanfiction by Djibriel that centres around Cyan.

Sialla and Idi is a short and funny piece by Zephir that takes place in a familiar village, but with new characters (not characters in FF4).

Both of these authors are members of the forums, and have contributed before. Their previous work can be found in the FF6 and FF4 sections as well.

Enjoy! More to come soon.

We here at CoN have always wanted to offer hosting to a few small sites that present good or innovative information to the Final Fantasy community; however, that has rarely been an option in our history.

As you've seen in the last few months, we've started to do just that. Now that CoN has a relatively stable and relatively permanent server to call home, we have extended a couple welcomes to our compatriots in the world of Final Fantasy sites, first Fierce Legends, and now, our second hostee, the Unoriginal White Sheet published by CoN member Master ZED. We know that this site is quite popular among the Final Fantasy hacking community, including those who don't hack but like knowing the inner workings of the game. We're pleased to help ZED to get away from his horrid old host.

In other news, we've added another new affiliate to the group - this is, I think, the third or fourth this year, an impressive number of top-tier sites who want to link with us. This time around, it's our first-ever foreign-language affiliate (and before you ask, we can say that because we don't consider bad English to be foreign). Everyone, please say hello to Final Craft, a German site with extensive coverage of PSX and PS2 Final Fantasy games. Give it a brief check, even if you don't know German.

There we go, that's our site update for the day. We're working on stuff around the site now, hopefully we'll have more to tell you soon!

Couple weeks ago, CoN turned seven. You might have noticed that I said that we had some stuff planned for you. You might have noticed also that I so gently implied that if you still insist on referring to CoN as a FF6 site, you might not be all that bright.

Maybe you weren't paying attention then. Perhaps you haven't the imagination to look past the name of this site and realize that we cover four games now, and have coverage rivaling or surpassing sites out there (and if you don't think so, feel free to PM me to tell me who does it better and why).

Perhaps you'll notice when you're done reading this message, or at least that is my hope. I want this to be a nail in the coffin - we're serious about the future of this site. While most sites out there are stagnating, you can count on CoN to stay here and keep trying to give you what you want.

So here's your nail in the coffin; here's what we wanted to offer you as a birthday present but couldn't quite get there. The staff and I proudly present to you the fifth game in the CoN stable - Final Fantasy. We've got data for both the NES and newer PSX versions, and we want you to get into this classic game if you never have before. We think this section is by far the most detailed and best coded we've ever done, and we hope you feel the same.

So please, visit the section, and let us know what you think. We hope that you will get as much enjoyment out of using the FF1 section as we got out of putting it together! ...oh. We hope you enjoy it more.

As a teaser of sorts, Square Enix has added three songs from FFXII to the game's official website.

The songs are the work of FFXII main composer Hitoshi Sakimoto. This will be the first Final Fantasy in which Nobuo Uematsu does not hold that title. As of right now, the titles of the first and third songs are unknown. Song two, however, is believed to be "Ashe's Theme."

The tracks are streamed from the website and cannot be directly downloaded without a hassle. However, one can download them in MP3 form from ffxiionline.com's Music page.

Source: Gamesarefun.com

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I've only listened to the first two tracks, but I've liked what I've heard thus far. It's a shame that Nobuo Uematsu isn't the main composer for the game, but I'm sure he probably wanted a break after working on all those other Final Fantasy games. Hitoshi Sakimoto was a good choice, in my opinion, to replace him though.