Death to the Multi-paged Article or Post?

Comments (1) · May 1, 2008 at 6:31 am · Firefox Settings, Firefox Usability

Repagination is an add-on for Firefox that promises to end the need to click here to go to part two, part three and part four. At the end of some articles, you often see the links to more pages and for some people, that is a bothersome trait of Online publishing.

They want to see everything all at once. That is what Repagination has come to the dance to do.

For example, here is how you would use it on a Google search:

To use, right-click on a “Next” link (it works with other languages, too) or a “2″ link, select Re-Pagination, All. Or select Re-pagination, Limited and the number of pages to append. For an example, see the previews of this extension. For photos, right-click on the “Next” link, select Re-pagination, Slideshow and the duration in seconds of each page display. The pages will replace each other instead of appending.

So if your looking for an easy way to combine a multi-paged article into one single web page, give Repagination a shot.

Tags: addons, combine, extensions, firefox, navigate, repagination

Finding Your 404s with Firefox

Comments (2) · February 23, 2008 at 12:37 pm · Firefox Usability

Traveling to a link you want to check out, only to find that you reach the dreaded 404 (file not found) is a pain in the browser. Let say you bookmark a link, think you might read it later and then when you finally get the time to a few months later the page is gone. Well if you have Firefox there is new 404 extension that could help you recover your lost page.

Getting an award for the longest extension name ever, 404 : Page is Not Found ? Now it will be! will give you an “archive” button to push when you get your next 404 error page. This button will show you an archived version of any page. Under the hood it looks to be using the Wayback search at archive.org, so not all 404s will be recoverable. It is a very creative idea though, worth checking out if your find yourself running into dead ends a lot these days.

Tags: 404, errors, extensions, firefox, recover, wayback

Give Firefox 3 Firefox 2’s Address Bar

Comments (2) · February 16, 2008 at 10:08 am · Firefox Usability

Today I saw my first Firefox 3 extension that bring back “classic” features of Firefox 2. It was only a matter of time before some of these started to pop up and I have a feeling that many more may be on their way.

The oldbar addon replaces Firefox 3’s new address bar with the one that you are used to now in Firefox 2. Here is the new Firefox 3 address bar (or otherwise known as the location bar):

Then here is the classic one you will get with this Firefox 3 extension:

You can pick up the oldbar extension over at the Mozilla addons web site.

Tags: address bar, change, extensions, firefox-2, Firefox-3, location bar

Interclue for Firefox

Comments (2) · February 14, 2008 at 7:20 am · Firefox Usability

Interclue for Firefox kind of excites me because I think they are trying to do a good job with a browsing idea that really hasn’t been my cup of tea yet, the “thumbnail preview”. One positive is that they say it stays out of your way when you do not need it - which is my argument against other extensions like this. As you can see in the preview, they offer more than just your standard screenshot of the next page too.

Here is how the developers of the extension describe it:

Interclue displays useful information and relevant next actions for almost any link on the web. Clueview tooltips are not like other previews, they show you only the most relevant content straight from the page, rather than relying on small cached snapshots or large scrolling windows.

This could either be a really helpful tool or an annoying clutter feature that drives me batty after 3 minutes of use. I think different people may take different things away from it. if you enjoy the idea of having a sort of “picture in picture” preview with some other handy links give Interclue for Firefox a shot.

Tags: extensions, firefox, interclue, links, mozilla, previews, thumbnails, tooltips

Quick and Easy Location Lookup

Comments (1) · November 27, 2007 at 5:00 am · Firefox Usability

Having a hard time finding yourself around? Locator might be the Firefox extension you have been looking for. What makes it so special? Just simply select the address, right click with mouse, “Locate on Google Map” and your place will be located on the map.

Highlight, Right Click and Hold On!

It all reminds me of that time I went on a cross country trip with a midget named Sam and $20 in my pocket. From the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to White House - we never knew exactly where we were or how to find the next place we wanted to go.

Now if we had this baby loaded up in Firefox - finding our way would have been a piece of cake.

Ok, well maybe there wasn’t a midget named Sam. Maybe it wasn’t even $20 I had in my pocket. That doesn’t change the fact that Locator makes navigation an easier task for all.

Tags: directions, extensions, find, google maps, help, locator

Password Exporter Saved My Bacon

Comments off · November 23, 2007 at 9:58 am · Firefox Security, Firefox Settings

If you follow any of my other side projects, you might have noticed I got a new PC the other day. One of the not-so-much-fun aspects of getting a new computer is getting Firefox back up and running on it and getting all your bookmarks, settings and passwords moved over. For the most part Google’s Browser Sync did a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard.

Where Did My Passwords Go?!

I screwed up somewhere though, and all my saved passwords were not there. Before I freaked out (ok, I might have freaked out just a little ‘bit) I remembered about the Password Exporter extension for Firefox.

Here is a little more information about it from the developer:

This extension allows you to export and import your saved passwords and rejected sites between computers. Your passwords will be exported to an XML or CSV file and can be encrypted.

Did Password Exporter Do the Job?

I installed it on both the old machine and the new machine - then moved the exported backup (simple .xml file) from the old PC to my new PC. It worked! My passwords were not lost and I didn’t have to spend hours trying to set that whole mess back up.

So if your in a pinch and you need your passwords backed up - give the Password Exporter extension a shot. Might also not hurt to have it up and running 24/7 - so you can make a backup of your password list and store it somewhere safe.

Tags: backup, export, extensions, import, passwords

Firesizer - Resize Firefox to Your Liking

Comments (4) · November 19, 2007 at 7:07 am · Firefox Settings

Resizing your browser window. This isn’t just something that web designers need - I think we all move our windows around the screen from time to time. Sometimes, just to let you in on a little secret… I do it just for the fun of it.

Firesizer is an extension for Firefox that will let you pre-set a series of browser sizes so you can quickly jump from one to the other. Here is a little more information about the extention:

Provides a menu and status bar to resize the window dimensions to a specific size. Unlike other similar extensions, this one sets the size of the *entire window*, not just the HTML area.

Nobody is going to claim this extension is reinventing the wheel, but it is a small extension that does what it sets out to do. As long as you can get that much done, your alright in my book.

Tags: bigger, extensions, firefox, firesizer, resize, smaller