Prevent websites from hiding UI elements in Firefox browser window

This is freaking annoying

I find it very annoying when websites disable the menu bar, back and forward buttons, navigation bar, or bookmarks in windows. Banking websites and Paypal both have pop-up windows that 'castrate' my browser.

The JavaScript / HTML code that does this is quite straightforward; this is a comma-separated properties list of string tokens that define the new window behaviour:

window.open ("url","title",
"toolbar=no,
status=no,
scrollbars=no,
resizable=no,
location=no,
directories=no,
copyhistory=no,
menubar=no")

It took some digging, but Firefox allows you to disable modification of the attributes of windows with a little bit of about:config magic. Simply search for disable_window_open_feature as shown below, and double-click on the attributes that you don't want websites to be able to enable or disable. My preferences are to manually set the following properties to true:

• dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar
• dom.disable_window_open_feature.minimizable
• dom.disable_window_open_feature.personalbar
• dom.disable_window_open_feature.scrollbars
• dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar
• dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar

LibreOffice: Interpreting CSV money "$XX.XX" as numeric value

For as long as I can remember using LibreOffice, I found that CSV files did not seem to be interpreted in a way such that monetary values preceded by a dollars sign (e.g. $12.34) would be interpreted as a numeric value. For example, when highlighting multiple numeric values, LibreOffice very conveniently shows the sum of the values in the lower-right area of the window.

The fix is simple. Check the box "Detect special numbers" as shown in the image below:

After this fix, LibreOffice very nicely formats any negative numbers in red ink.

Hurray! Now I'm all ready to analyse my 2015 expenditures!

Chase Ultimate Rewards sale item: Kohl's card 10% off

As part of my quest to hunt for cash back credit card bargains:

As of Feb 1, 2016, I had about $100 of Chase Ultimate Rewards built up, and noticed the Kohl's cards are currently 10% off.