Category Archives: Programming

A new type of scam

Computers, Life, Programming, Society, Websites

Here’s a new type of scam I didn’t recognize as a scam right away. Got an email from someone requesting a new website and estimate. I suppose the first red flag is that he said “i also need to know what form of payment do you accept” in that initial inquiry. My response was entirely authentic, inquiring about the timeframe and explaining that I used PayPal for payments.

The next red flag (and this did raise some alarms) was that he said the business was a salon and spa. Who in their right mind would even go to a spa/salon right now, let alone open one, but I’ve gotten some strange requests for websites in the past and I don’t judge. So I asked about his budget and whether he had his own photography or would need stock.

I was sent his budget (a very generous budget, which I suppose is another red flag), a site to base my estimate on, and other specific information that I needed. But, another major red flag was this piece of information: that he was “out of state in the hospital recuperating from from a lung cancer surgery”. Now alarm bells were going off in my head. This guy is recuperating from lung cancer? And is opening a salon/spa?? While the entire planet is in lockdown because of a virus that targets people with weak lungs???

Well, I went ahead and did the estimate. Not a waste of time, as it gave me a chance to review my pricing (which I hadn’t done since 2016). I made the estimate very high and figured that would be the end of it. Instead, I got an acceptance by email in less than an hour! Way too fast, and without any further clarification or haggling over the price? And then I saw the word that confirmed that this was a scam – FAVOR. No-one uses the word “favor” (as in “i will need a favor from you and the reason I need this favor from you is because the consultant does not have the facility to charge credit cards so I will be glad if you can help me out with this favor?”) in a business negotiation, at least not in my experience as a business owner and a paralegal. By this point, I had told Vin about it and was interested in playing it out to see how far this would go.

My response was, again, authentic, as if I hadn’t a clue, and I simply reiterated that payments to me would be via PayPal and any monetary issues between him and his consultant were not of my concern. And here’s the reply, the final indication that this is a scam:

I will be giving you my card to charge for your fee and the consultant cause he doesn’t have the facility to charge for card. I want you to do me a favor by adding their charges to yours so you can have everything run on my credit card. When the total amount clears into your account, you will send their fees to them  via cash deposit and I will like you to hold on to $100 as gratuity fee for handling this for me. Could you do that for me?  

Another genuine and seemingly authentic response from me, and lo and behold, I no longer have a potential new client. Be wary!

Customizing the Vivaldi browser Bookmark Toolbar, part 2

Computers, Programming, Reviews, Websites

Last time I posted about customizing the Vivaldi browser, which the developers claim is simple and one of their objectives, I wondered if I would be able to push my toolbar icons closer together, like they are in Chrome. And the answer is Yes! Although there are a lot of steps, in a nutshell, one simply has to add a “custom.css” file to the application folder and a Vivaldi file. And again and again each time Vivaldi issues an upgrade (once every few months, it seems).

By the way, if you “know” css, then you can certainly investigate a lot more things to customize. However, this example focuses on the space between the icons in the Bookmark Toolbar.

First, create a css file. Simply open some sort of text application (i.e., Notepad or TextPad) and save the file as custom.css (be sure to save it as “All Files” file type or you will end up with “custom.css.txt”) in the location “C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Local\Vivaldi”.

Paste the following into the new css file:

.bookmark-bar button {
 padding:0 1px;
}

I like my icons close together, but you can experiment with making the padding a bit wider than 1 pixel (the default padding width is 6 pixels). Save and close the file, and now you have a backup of your custom stylesheet. Always leave a copy in this location, or you will lose it with each upgrade. That being said, now copy the custom.css file to “C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application\[current_version]\resources\vivaldi\style”.

Navigate up one folder level to “C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\Application\[current_version]\resources\vivaldi\” and open the file “browser.html”. Don’t just double-click on it, however, or you will end up viewing it in your browser! Instead, right-click and choose to open (or edit) it with the same text application you used to create your css file. Alternatively, you could select to open this file from the text application, navigating to the same location.

The opened file will look like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8" />
 <title>Vivaldi</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style/common.css" />
 </head>
 <body>
 <div id="app" />
 <script src="localeSettings-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="vendor-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="settings-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="urlbar-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="components-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="common-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="bundle.js"></script>
 </body>
</html>

Make a copy of the line “<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”style/common.css” />” and paste it right under itself.

 <head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8" />
 <title>Vivaldi</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style/common.css" />
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style/common.css" />
 </head>

In the second line (very important!), replace the word “common” with “custom”. Now the file will look like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8" />
 <title>Vivaldi</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style/common.css" />
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style/custom.css" />
 </head>
 <body>
 <div id="app" />
 <script src="localeSettings-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="vendor-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="settings-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="urlbar-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="components-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="common-bundle.js"></script>
 <script src="bundle.js"></script>
 </body>
</html>

Save that file, and (re)open Vivaldi. There you go! From

Vivaldi default bookmarks toolbar icon width

to Custom Vivaldi Bookmark Toolbar

 

Customizing the Vivaldi browser Bookmark Toolbar, part 1

Computers, Programming, Reviews, Websites

I’ve been using Vivaldi as my primary browser for a few weeks now, after using it as an alternative, and there is no going back. I really like it. I have more or less adapted to the differences between it and Firefox (bookmarks, mostly), and have installed the few extensions from Chrome I can’t live without (FB Purity), and voila, I’m set up.

However, there was one thing that bothered me that I could not find an easy workaround for: the distance between the icons on the bookmarks toolbar.  I live off that toolbar, but here is how far apart the icons are by default:

Vivaldi default bookmarks toolbar icon width

Here is what my Chrome bookmark toolbar looks like:

Firefox default bookmarks toolbar icons

So after a few weeks, I knew I could not work with the icons that spread apart. They all couldn’t fit onto the toolbar, and I really didn’t want any overflowing to where I couldn’t see them (okay, my OCD is showing here). Vivaldi is supposed to be so customizable, so I thought, well, let’s see! Was I able to do it? Stay tuned! Part 2 coming up.