Dec 5, 2009 | blog
One of the great things about technology is the ability to customize the tools we use every day. Small, lightwieght laptops for traveling, robust quad-core systems for gaming, the gaming monitor with optimal resolution and engineering work, multiple smartphones of wonderfullly variety to choose from… we have great options to choose from when looking for the right computing experience.
Luckily the same is true in most areas of technology. One of them being the killer app of the decade: the web browser. Today I happen to be a Firefox user, and the most important feature for me is the extension and plug-in architecture that allows 3rd part developers to add new unanticipated functionality to the browser. At first, I went overboard (who doesn’t) and added all the coolest plug-ins that I ran across.
Soon, however, I figured out the functionality that really enhanced my usability and quickly pared down what I needed to a select group of plug-ins that I install on computer I run Firefox on – including Linux boxes. The ability to have the same customized environment on both my Windows and Linux boxes is a huge productivity boon for me. I found that my eyes stress less on the best monitors for gaming, I’m glad they serve the dual purpose of work and play with the added benefit of being easier/healthier on my eyes.
Anyway, here’s the list of Firefox Plug-Ins that I run at the moment:
- Scribefire Blog Editor – Blog post creating/editing tool accessible right from the browser.
- XMarks Bookmarks and Password Sync – The best bookmark and password sync tool you can find
- Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar – Allows me to have more than one row of bookmarks on the toolbar
- Smart Bookmarks Bar – This tool allows me to remove the text labels and control the space between icons
- Read It Later – Great tool to bookmark interesting one-off pages and articles that creates my daily reading list
- ColorZilla – A nifty tool that let’s me identify the exact RGB and hexidecimal color codes on any site
- MeasureIt – Another great tool for measuring the exact size of on-screen components down to the pixel level
- ShareAHolic – For a social media guy, this one is great because I can share a web page to any service I want to include
- WiseStamp Emial Signature – Ever wanted to have an HTML signature in Gmail.com, Hotmail, Yahoo, and other web-based email? Here you go
- Prism – Allows for creating of isolated web-apps similar to what Google Chrome allows you to do. Facebook in its own simplified, minimal UI browser? Yes please.
- Download Status Bar – This one is great to get rid of the download window that Firefox uses and puts all that functionality into the statusbar area.
So that’s what I use right now. These tools help me in my daily browsing, monitoring, reading and writing routine. Will it change – undoubtedly. As new services and tools come about, I’ll adapt as the tools change. They always do.
Photo Credit: Lordcolus
Jan 11, 2009 | blog
I’ve installed Dan Zarrella’s new Tweetbacks WordPress Plugin today, and will be monitoring it to see how well it works out. I’ve seen a number of folks over the last week taking a close look at this new idea, and have always been trying out some of the cutting-edge Twitter tie-ins and tactics.
Have you tried out this new plug-in? What do you think?
Oct 15, 2008 | blog
With the knowledge that I’ll be moving to the T-Mobile G1 in the near future, I started thinking about my contact list. Yeah, the one I have in Outlook that I sync to my current Windows Mobile phone. But wait, there’s no sync client for Android phones.
However, in the case of the T-Mobile G1, it will sync it’s contact list with my Gmail Contacts over the 3G connection. Ok, I can live with that – it actually works out better in the end. More on that later. With that realization, I started thinking about how best to edit and update all those contacts I have in Gmail.
For a long time I had looked for some kind of utility to sync from Outlook to Gmail Contacts. I was hopeful when early last year Google themselves released a Outlook to Gmail Calendar sync tool. Alas there was no contact sync utility, just some API extensions to make it possible.
Since I’ve been playing evaluating Thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook on and off for a year or so, it occurred to me that there may be a way to sync Gmail items to Thunderbird via Add-Ons. Sure enough, they exist. With a Gmail Contact Add-On and a Gmail Calendar Add-On, I’m able to edit and update these times fast and easy via a great offline client.
The great part of all this is that because the G1 automatically syncs Gmail, Contacts and Calendar – all my PIM data will now effortlessly be in sync from PC to Web to Mobile. No matter where I go to send an email, make a call, or view my schedule, it will always be in sync.
Do you know of any interesting Google or Gmail related Add-Ons for Thunderbird that would make it even better? Let us know what you find that works!
Now to just wait for the G1 to be delivered…
Jun 20, 2008 | blog
My migration to Firefox 3 has been fairly painless. I specifically put off trying out most all the beta versions until the last release candidate. Since I’d embraced the plug-in feature of Firefox and installed upwards of two dozen of these spiffy enhancements to a great browser I knew a few (or many) would not be updated right away.
And I was right, many plug-ins were not updated when I installed FF3 rc3, and I had to do without a lot of functionality. The only thing that allowed me to ride it out from the release candidate to shipping code was the fact that Foxmarks was updated to work with FF3 – it’s my absolutely most needed plug-in.
But in the three weeks I’ve been running the latest versions of Firefox 3, I’ve seen updates to plug-ins on an almost daily basis! out of 21 plug-ins, I’ve only 4 that aren’t yet updated: Blog This in Windows Live Writer, coComment!, ColorZilla, and Thinger.
UPDATE: I just found the latest ColorZilla beta here that works with Firefox 3! In addition, I removed the coComment! plug-in as I see that the folks at coComment themselves will be getting their plug-in updated shortly. I’ve kind of given up waiting for any update to the Blog This in Windows Live Writer plug-in. That leaves Thinger, which I really do hope gets updated, because I really need a second (third?) bookmark toolbar.
Mar 7, 2007 | blog
I’ve been using FireFox as my main browser now for about 9 months (maybe a little more) and have become a true convert from IE. Since there is much more expandability on the FF side, I’ve really started depending on a select group of plug-ins. This expandability that was never available in IE, has allowed my browser to take on new functionality that I never dreamed could be possible. So here is a list of my current FF plug-ins.
- FireFTP – FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox.
- del.icio.us (classic version) – Keep, share and discover all your favorite things.
- ClipMarks – With Clipmarks, you can clip the best parts of web pages.
- GUtil – Google® Utilities in your Firefox Menu and Toolbar
- Cooliris – Cooliris Previews 2.1 for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
- Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized.
- Blog This for Firefox – The Blog This for Firefox adds a button to Firefox which starts a new Windows Live Writer blog post.
- Google Notebook – GNotebook allows you to clip & collect information in private & shared notebooks.
So there you have it – the mainstays of my FF add-ons. The one other really powerful tool in FF for me is the bookmark toolbar. I wish there was a way to make a second toolbar for bookmarks as I have trimmed each entry down to one or two letters with the “favicon” for the site.
Do you have any great FF add-in suggestions? There are thousands out there and I know I’ve only scratched the surface.
Technorati tags: FireFox, FireFTP, ClipMarks, GUtil, Cooliris, Foxmarks, Google Notebook
