Archive | June, 2009

Firefox Add-on Collector

Jun/19 in Add-ons Reviews, Firefox News

Firefox's Add-on Collector It would not make any sense to have an add-on collection without having a collector to collect them with.  Alongside the new collections feature on the Firefox Add-ons site – there is an extension to go with it.  The Mozilla Firefox Add-on Collector will help you discover and organize your favorites into easy to manage collections.

How can you access them?  Well, collections that you have marked as favorites in the Collection Dire4ctory will show up in a special section of the Add-ons Manager.  That way, you can stay up to date with each collection.  Also with it installed, each add-on you install can be easily shared with a friend or published to one of your own collections.  So this makes testing and using add-ons for Firefox a much more social experience than it was before.

Go here to download the add-on and get started with your own collection.

If you have posted your own collection for the public to see using the Firefox Add-on Collector, post it in the comments.  Would really love to see what you have all come up with.

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Firefox 3.0.11 Downloaded 150 Million Times in 24 Hours

Jun/18 in Firefox News

Firefox vs Safari

In the first 24 hours that is was available, Firefox 3.0.11 was downloaded 150 million times.   This big news comes on the heels of Apple boasting about 11 million downloads of Safari 4 in three days. *tries not to chuckle*

Now it is likely that both companies included the automatic updates in their download numbers, however that doesn’t really take away from the fact that many more users are getting those latest updates these days, which for security reasons is a very good thing indeed.

So congrats to Firefox for 150 Million downloads, and to Safari… well, 11 million is pretty good too. *holds back “that is cute” remark*

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When a Mac Theme Meets Gonzo From the Muppets

Jun/17 in Best Themes

Is Firefox Feeling a Little Blue?

Looks like this Firefox theme is feeling a little blue.  The Blu Canidae theme for Firefox is a modified version of the iFox theme with Photoshop CS3 style icons.  The combination of those great features makes for a really nice looking blue/mac-ish theme. 

Here is a little more about the theme from the developer:

This was designed to be a cleaner, blue version of iFox. It has stylized buttons, and is intended to be a new alteration of my old theme, Blu Vos. I hope you like it. If you can, please leave a comment and a review. This helps me out immensely. If you run into any problems, or find any flaws, please tell me! I want to make this theme better, and your assistance makes that possible.

You can pickup the Clu Canidae theme yourself on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

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Collections of Add-ons

Jun/15 in Add-ons Reviews, Firefox News

Firefox Collections Along with the new Firefox Add-ons web site, the people at Mozilla also treated us to a new feature called collections.  What are they?  Well, they are a group of related add-ons that are assembled for easy sharing. 

Here are some of my favorites I have found thus far:

  • Web Developer’s Toolbox
    12 add-ons to help you speed up the development process when it comes to web development and managing the ins and outs of your own web site.
  • Downloadsquad Pack
    Soup up your browser with selections from the Downloadsquad.com staff and some of our readers’ favorite add-ons. They’ll help make your browsing safer, more hassle free, and more productive!
  • Traveler’s Pack
    When the travel bug bites, these add-ons make it easy to plan, book and document your trip — without getting lost along the way.

That is just a small sample of what is out there, and who know – I might be working on a Firefox Facts Pack in the near future.  Creating your own pack is easy to do.  All you have to do is login to the addons.mozilla.org web site, and then visit the create a collection page.  From there, you give it a name, description, decide if you want your pack to be public or private, then start naming off your add-ons that will be included. 

What have been your favorite add-on collections, so far?

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Cluster Tabs in Firefox

Jun/13 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

Since the release of collections of add-ons for Firefox, it seems like everywhere I turn I see somebody else offering ways to bring things together (although I am sure Opera would say they did it first).  With that in mind though, I would like to introduce you to Cluster Tabs.  This add-on for Firefox will let you easily cluster web pages together for easier sharing and saving.

Cluster Tabs Example in Firefox

Creating your own tab cluster is easy to do.  Once you have installed the extension for Firefox, all you need to do is:

  • Use the Cluster Tab button to create one from the current active tab
  • Click the "+" icon on any tab and select ‘create cluster from tab’
  • Alternatively simply drag one tab into another

Be sure to check out the ClusterURL.com about page to find out the other two ways you can cluster your tabs together.  Want to see what a cluster looks like?

Overall, very excited to see what all they do with this in the future.  It is a very interesting idea – and the human aspect of it is something I really think has a good chance of taking off. You can pickup the Cluster Tabs add-on yourself from the Mozilla Add-ons site or get more information about the project from ClusterURL.com.

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Remove Chat from iGoogle

Jun/11 in Hacks and Tweaks, Usability

Remove Chat from iGoogle!

If you are a user of the Stylish extension, you will love this little tip.  I use iGoogle, however I never stay on the page long enough to use the embedded chat they included a while back.  However I am happy to say I found a solution. 

Install this Stylish user style:

Once doing so, the chat (as you seen in the screenshot above) disappears.  To make it work for me, I had to change:

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

to 

http://www.google.com/ig

However, once that was done – it worked flawlessly.  An easy hack for a very lovable web page.  Got to love these Stylish user styles!

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Firefox Add-ons Site Gets a Makeover

Jun/10 in Add-ons Reviews, Firefox News, Resources

New Firefox Add-on Love!

Today is the day that Firefox’s new add-on site has gone live.  You can check it all out at addons.mozilla.org.  The new look and feel does look nice, and there is a lot to love here.  For example, on the main page you have  rotating list of suggestions based on categories like web development, family, social, travel and more.  Each category on the left-side menu also has a number count – so you can see exactly how many extensions there are.  My favorite new feature might be the listing of recommended, popular, just added and updated extensions all right on the front page.  No more hunting around link to link to find them all. 

So, what is your general feeling for the new Firefox add-ons site?  Love it or hate it?  I’ll be sure to be diving into more features from this new site later on – but till then I want to hear what you think about it.

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Get a Chrome-ish Tab Page with JumpStart

Jun/08 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

JumpStart for Firefox

You can always tell when a new way of navigating through pages becomes popular, because you end up with three or four extensions for Firefox that do the same thing.  With that said, I have one more add-on for Firefox that tries to copy what Google Chrome does with its page you get on a new tab or browser window.  New Tab JumpStart does a great job at bringing Chrome’s thumbnailed pages you have seen before.  One nice feature that I haven’t seen others follow up on is the ability to permanently “pin”  page so it never goes away.  You can pickup New Tab JumpStart from the Mozilla Add-ons web site.

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6 Add-ons to Grab Usage Stats from Firefox

Jun/03 in Add-ons Reviews, Best of Firefox

How do you use Firefox? Want to know exactly how you are making use of the Firefox web browser?  Here are six of the best add-ons for Firefox that will give you every statistic you would ever want from your own day to day usage.  From cache, to download usage, and even easy cache status – we have something here for everybody to make use of.

Net Usage Item – Displays a progress bar of your Internet usage (grabbed from your ISP) on your Firefox Toolbar.

Usage Counter – Tells you how much time you have spent using Firefox and browsing sites.

StatusbarEx – Show some useful information on status bar of Firefox, such as the memory usage of system & Firefox itself, network speed, system power status, etc.

Minimeter – Monitor your provider’s upload/download usage meter.

DataFox – Check your BSNL DataOne and MTNL Triband bandwidth utilization in Firefox at the click of a button. A color coded progress bar and bandwidth usage tracking helps you stay within your monthly cap and efficiently utilize your bandwidth.

Cache Status – Easy cache status & management from the status bar.

Know of another favorite usage add-on that didn’t make it to the list?  Be sure to leave your suggestions in the comments!

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Are You As Fast as Firefox 3.5?

Jun/02 in Firefox News

Fastest Firefox Ever! As a part of a new marketing campaign, the fine people at Mozilla want to know how fast are you?  They are asking for anybody and everybody to start sending them a video of your speediest skill, no matter what it might be.

How do you participate?  Here are the details from Mozilla:

It’s easy to participate in Fastest Firefox. Pick your talent (knitting, flipping burgers, brushing your teeth, whatever!) and make a video doing your thing—FAST! Follow the steps below and update before 6-21-09.

  1. Make a 30-second video (home-movie style is perfect) of your fastest talent.
  2. Click the button below to upload your video.
  3. We’ll compile as many of your clips as possible into a single community video, so check after the Firefox 3.5 launch to see if yours made it!

Firefox 3.5 is two times faster than 3.0. And ten times faster than 2.0, or so they report via this new web site where you can learn about this speed run challenge. 

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