In Mitchcraft, I will be playing Minecraft.  For those of you unaware of the game, the best way to describe it would be Legos mixed with a role playing game.  Your goal is to mine and collect supplies so you can build new things.  It is very open ended and lends itself well to basing a series around it.  I’ll be recording myself playing the game and invite all my Firefox Facts fans to tune in and check it out.

Just visit my YouTube channel page and click on the “Subscribe” link at the top. New videos will also be posted on Mitchelaneous.com too.  I’d love to hear your comments too on what you’d like to see me do and build.  This series will be as much for you as it is for me, so give me your feeback and be sure to “like” a few of my videos too.  It is nice to know you guys are out there.

Check out these great Firefox inspired wallpapers:

Thanks to wallbase.net for helping me find all these great Firefox wallpapers to share with you all too.  Which is your favorite?  Do you know of one that I missed?  Make sure you leave your suggestions or picks in the comments.

Update:  It seems that wallbase.net doesn’t keep the same static URLs for images, so this is why some of these were broken.  The best way to find these wallpapers (and many more) would be to search wallbase.net for “firefox”.

I got an e-mail the other day from a Firefox Facts reader that wanted to know where the best Firefox related forum on the Web is.  Well, there are a lot of places that might discuss Firefox in forum form, however there are two places I like to point people for their Firefox forum needs.

Mozilla Support Forums – With over 240,000 topics started, these forums have a lot to give a confused Firefox user.   You can easily search though each thread, or contribute with your own questions and answers.  Really wish Mozilla hyped these forums a ‘bit more because they are an awesome resource.

MozillaZine – Here you have THE set of Firefox-related forums you want to keep an eye on.  Covering add-ons, features and themes for Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey and more, these forums are active, fun and very informative.

What is your favorite Firefox forum?  Who knows, maybe you think I should setup some forums here on Firefox Facts.  Share your thoughts in the comments.

How do you use it?  That much is simple:

1. Click the "Add Proofreader" link on your link bar to add a Proofread button above each text box.
2. Click to find spelling mistakes, misused words, and grammar errors
3. Click to continue editing.

Right now the bookmarklet does have a few limitations, such as it is limited to 7,000 characters worth of text, and it only works in text area form elements, however this is a great way to bring a great tool with you, no matter what web site you are on.

You can pick up the After the Deadline bookmarklet on AftertheDeadline.com.

The web site is divided into two main sections, the map and the graph of data and statistics.

On the map, you can use your mousewheel to zoom in and then click and drag your mouse around to pan around the map.

The graph gives you the total number of Firefox downloads, a breakdown of downloads per country, and the current trends too.  Here is more information about each of the stats on this graph:

• code Country code
• name Country name
• trend Changes in downloads per second over the last minute
• cur Number of downloads for this country per second
• min Minimum number of downloads per second over the last minute
• max Maximum number of downloads per second over the last minute
• total Total number of downloads since Firefox launch

So if you ever wanted to watch Firefox being downloaded all around the world in real time, this is the resource for you.  This is another great web site to file und the “cool things Mozilla has released” category.

One complaint I have heard time and time again is that Firefox doesn’t document the “how to” process very well, when it comes to building a Firefox add-on.  Well, thanks to the Add-on Developer Hub, I think that is one complaint I will not hear again.  The Mozilla team has put in a lot of hard work and effort into creating a place to centralize the help, tutorials and guidance you’ll need to build the next great Firefox extension.

Here are the main three categories to dive into:

• How-to Library – Get add-on development guidance in a top-notch collection of tutorials, articles, and more.
• API & Language Reference – The official documentation on APIs and languages. What you need, when you need it, to create your masterpiece.
• Case Studies – Start-to-finish success stories. See how add-on developers made magic with Mozilla.

They also have a couple of tools to help you along the way too:

• Add-on Builder – Auto-generate add-on packaging by entering basic info and picking UI parts. Get working without setup.
• Add-on Validator – Check your add-on for common problems and errors. Open to anyone, not just add-ons hosted here.

I would also suggest checking out both the developer forums and blog for more help on how you can build that extension you’ve always wanted, or how to make your current add-on for the browser even better.

All in all, the Mozilla team has put together a fantastic guide to help you build an extension onto the Firefox browser.  No matter if you have always wanted to write an add-on (but didn’t know how) or your just interested in finding out how the sausage is made, the Add-on Developer Hub is a resource well worth diving into.

Taking a screenshot of the various web sites out there on the Web is usually done for a slew of reasons.  Sometimes it is done to help you debug a web application, other times it might be done to show off a future design.  No matter what your reason, I have six great Firefox add-ons that will make capturing an image of a web site a very easy thing to do.

Screenshot Pimp – Need a screen shot? Screenshot Pimp lets you easily save images of web pages with multiple options for selection, output destination, and image type.

Abduction! – Adds a right click option to take screenshots of an entire web page or just part of a web page to save as an image.

FireShot – This is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages (entirely or just visible part). Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools.

Talon: Screen Capture & Aviary.com Quick Launch – Take screen shots and edit images directly from your browser with Aviary.com applications.

Snapper – This add-on allows users to designate an area of a web page for a focused snapshot, cutting out the additional work needed for cropping unnecessary information.

Screengrab – It will capture what you can see in the window, the entire page, just a selection, or a particular frame.  You can then save the screen capture as a file or to the clipboard.

Have another favorite, or which of these tools have suited your needs the best?  Be sure to let us know in the comments which one you like best.

So we are to believe that Firefox and Chrome are both insecure, difficult to use, and unreliable?  The Internet Explorer team might want to check their calendars, because last time I checked – it is June 26th, not April 1st. 

If that isn’t enough – they also have a MythBusting page.  What is your favorite “fact” they are claiming?

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.

• Best 5 Firefox 3 Theme Alternatives
• Darkest Popular Themes for Firefox 3
• The Best Greasemonkey Scripts
• Change the Default Search in Firefox
• Super Mario Bros 3 Firefox Theme
• Security Zone Policy Error in Firefox 3
• 20 Tips to Tweak Your Tabs
• Give Firefox 3 Firefox 2’s Address Bar
• Think You Lost Your Firefox Bookmarks?
• 25 Tweaks for Your Firefox Status Bar

Have a favorite post of yours that didn’t make it on the list?  Feel free to share it in the comments, and maybe we can put together a user’s list of some of the favorites we have had here over the years.