I've had a few reports from people saying that the latest version of the Stop! Hammertime! firefox extension hasn't been working properly on Windows XP and Windows Vista. A new version will be coming soon but here is a fix for the time being.

The problem that people are reporting is that when you go to the preferences section for the extension and try to change the stop button to the custom hammertime button, it won't let you press the "ok" button to proceed with the change. It is currently only affecting Firefox 3 on Windows XP and Windows Vista but I'll be making a patch to fix it shortly. For the time being, if you can't live without a hammertime button (despite the fact the stop button still works and plays the sound), then you can follow the steps below to get it working.

First of all, you need to type "about:config" in the address bar of the browser. This allows you access some of the internal preferences and config settings of firefox and all of your installed extensions. You will most likely get a "here be dragons" warning but you can skip this - you do know what you're doing right?

You will then need to use the filter option to locate the Stop! Hammertime! preferences. You can do this by typing "hammertime" in the filter box - this should give you one result which by default is set to "false". You need to double click to change it to "true".

Once you've done this, simply restart firefox and the new hammertime button will be there for you to enjoy! To change it back to the stop button, simply follow the steps above but make sure the hammertime config entry is set to "false".

An update will hopefully be available in the next fews days so that you won't have to perform the above to switch between the two, but this should do for the time being. Alternatively you can buy an Apple Mac or install Linux!

In other Stop! Hammertime! news, it seems that the copyright holders for the song "U Can't Touch This" have noticed it's popularity and are attempting to cash in on it. I recently had an email from the Integrated Copyright Group (ICG) informing me that I'd need to purchase a license in order to play the 2 second sound clip in the firefox extension otherwise I would be in breach of copyright. After a few back and forths we came to the conclusion that they could send a "cease and desist" letter from their lawyers but that the extension wasn't being removed (and I wasn't paying for a license). So, we'll see what happens - expect updates on this shortly!!