Troubles with Google maps

[Gerald I. Evenden]

With Firefox 3.0.6 on my Kubuntu/Hardy desktop, I go to Google->maps->my maps 
and click on a "created by others" tool "Position Finder."

I get an annoucement of "Position Finder" on the sidebar  with the 
instructions to click anywhere on the map to show lat/lon.

I follow instructions and *Nothing Happens*.  Not a sneeze, not a cough, 
nothing.  On my Ubuntu Dell laptop and my wife's M$ when I point at something 
the sidebar changes and gives the lat/lon position in decimal degrees.

There is another similar tool for crow-fly distances which also works on every 
machine but my desktop.

Any ideas as to the problem?

Many, many thanks in advance.

PS: the identical problem existed on Firefox on the previous release.

Another *possibly* related problem is that I cannot get Java bins to work.  
Since I do not know anything about Java I only put this in as an aside.

-- 
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due
to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
-- Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) British psychologist