j's scratchpad

Andrea Mercado of LibraryTechtonics had a posting on hacking FireFox for library use:

“Hacking Firefox at my library: instructions & stuff

I think I’ve done enough tinkering and tweaking with the Firefox hacking that I think I can share the instructions with the world. This post is on the long side, because I tried to make the instructions as clear as possible without too much tech speak, and without drowning you in too much minutia, while actually giving you proper instructions. Enjoy!

Now, you will need more than basic computer poking skills to make this work, and I must say, these instructions may not be *perfect* (for sooth, I’m basically trying to clean up my notes without having to rewrite everything). There are files to download and copy into places (userChrome.css and mozilla.cfg), and there are links to those files in the instructions. Make sure you get this working exactly how you want it before you try it on any other machines. Trust me, you don’t want to get to machine 4 and realize that you need to correct something big (I’ve *totally* been there ;D). If you have questions, post comments here, and I’ll do what I can.

Quick computer configuration context notes:

* We have 4 “kiosk” machines right in front of the Information Desk, meant for catalog and quick internet stuff. Patrons only have access to a browser, readers for Adobe, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, My Documents, Recycle Bin, basic Accessories, and Windows XP Accessibility tools.
* The Reference room has 4 computers, and the Computer Lab has 6 computers. These computers are more “normal,” with the full Office Pro suite, FTP and web editing freeware, IM clients (Yahoo!, MSN, and AIM), Picasa, browsers and more.
* All public computers have Deep Freeze Enterprise (which requires unfreezeing/refreezing the computer for the changes to take), Firefox installed.

Now, for the actual instructions…”