With PeekURL you can see a preview of a shortened website address. This tool comes in handy because it can confirm that you are not being sent to a “bad” website.
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CoolPreviews Come to Firefox
Do you remember when picture in picture TV watching was going to be the next best thing? You could watch one show, while another one was going on in the corner of your screen. Well, picture in picture browsing is here and is on Firefox thanks to CoolPreviews. This add-on from the developers of CoolIris is a great browser add-on that will let you preview links and media without leaving the page you are on.
Raindrop Makes Communication Easier to Manage
Over the weekend I started checking out the newest project out of the Mozilla Labs, Raindrop. To some it might sound a little like Google Wave – however it offers much more, and is also much easier to wrap your mind around.
Here is more about the program, in a nutshell, from the developers:
When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.
I am all about the “making things easier to manage” so I eagerly anticipate learning more about what Mozilla has planned for this service. If you want to learn more about the fundamentals of Raindrop, watch this video:
Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.
What do you think? Are you excited, or does it look like another web trend that is doomed to trip over itself? Leave a comment and let me know how excited you are about Raindrop.
Firefox 3.7 First Screenshots Maybe?
With Firefox 3.5 out the door, the Mozilla guys are hard at work brainstorming around what Firefox 3.7 might look like. To help with the brainstorming, they have released a few mock-up screenshots of what Firefox 3.7 might look like. There has been nothing finalized thus far, but it is still fun to check out and see what they have in mind for the next big design refresh of our favorite browser.
- Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Buttons translucent and slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D lookachieve tactile "feel".
- Page Button: Connect the Page button to the left side of the tab area. Directly connected to the Page.
- Tools/Bookmark Bar: Connecting the Tools button to the side of the Window to emphasize the fact that it is used for customizing and changing the UI. Adding a button next to that to toggle the Bookmarks Bar which is turned off by default.
What do you think thus far? I kind of like the idea of removing the menu bar, as long as all the important aspects are still easily reached (maybe via “tools”). However, not sure if I want everything to be as see-through as it is in the example. Here are two more screenshots:
Want a Slickerfox?
Are you searching for a unique theme that doesn’t go over the top? Slickerfox might be your new favorite Firefox add-on then. It promises to be slicker, simpler, smaller, flatter, fuller and foxier. Can it live up to all that hype?
Here is a little more about Slickerfox from it’s creator:
There is a philosophy behind the shapes, colors and designs of all of the Slickerfox icons, which aspires to be user friendly as well as recall older Firefox designs. Simplicity and intuitive control is the overall goal of the theme. Slickerfox uses native OS Scheme settings just like the default Firefox theme, so it will follow the look of the rest of your OS.
Like what you see? You can pick up the experimental theme, Slickerfox for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons web site.
Get a Timeline with Your Online Videos
The people at VideoSurf have developed a really nice addition to Firefox, for all of you out there who are fans of watching Online video. The VideoSurf Videos at a Glance add-on enhances your video playing experience with what they call video summaries.
This comes in handy because it allows you to check out scenes from a video before you watch it. It works with: YouTube Search, the YouTube Home Page, the YouTube Video Pages, and FriendFeed.
It also works for your search results too:
A few other features included are:
- Use the visual summary to jump in time while watching a video on YouTube’s video page
- Discover more videos featuring the characters in the videos you click on, and learn more about them
- Make all HD-compatible YouTube videos play in high quality (or HD) by default
If you want to give it a shot, go check out the VideoSurf Videos at a Glance page over on the Firefox Add-ons site or go lean more about VideoSurf on VideoSurf.com.
Ubiquity – Mashing the Web Naturally
Now when you hear mashing or mashups of services, you think of wacky combinations like Yahoogle or Microdigg. A web site or service that awkwardly brings two or more services together. Ubiquity, a new Firefox add-on from Mozilla wants to turn mashing on it’s head. How? They are going to take a more natural approach to it.
Ubiquity takes language based instructions and turns them into action, right where you need them to be. This video goes a great job at explaining the add-on and showing it in action:
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Here are a few more tutorials to get you started:
The initial prototype is a little rough, and not ready for prime time yet. It does show a lot of promise though, and with a little creativity this type of tool could go a long way. Ubiquity looks to be another amazing tool to add to the many that have come out of Mozilla Labs.
Move Tabs to the Sidebar
The Tab Sidebar add-on for Firefox does a simple change, but after I can promise you you’ll get a whole new perspective for the way Firefox works. It acts more like a replacement for the tab bar and includes an always visible thumbnail preview of all the tabs you may have loaded up.
Here are some of the other Tab Sidebar features:
- Provides navigation options for each tab including history, stop and reload
- Allows you to move tabs around with drag and drop
- You can drop links, local files and bookmarks anywhere you like
- Displays the security status of tabs
- Automatically refreshes the tab preview whenever the page changes
To activate the extension, just go to View and then Tab Sidebar to see it. On the down side, some have complained that CPU usage goes way up when using this addition. On the good side though, hey – you get pretty thumbnails for all of your tabs! In the “what would I like to see” I would like to see if work flawlessly with the scroll wheel on your mouse.
There is a lot of promise and a lot to already love, so give Tab Sidebar a download either via the Firefox Add-ons site or the official web page for the extension.
Firefox 3 Themes Get Named
According to Mozilla Links, the new line of Firefox 3 themes all have their own names now: Tango!, Strata, and Firelight.
Personally, I think I might like the Tango one the best. The other day played with Strata some but still not a big fan of it. I am sure it will also be only a matter of time before people release “classic” versions to make the theme look more like Firefox 2.
Tired of these themes? Try a few of the best new ones out there!
New Firefox Add-ons Site Goes Live
I shared a preview of it with you a few weeks back, and it looks like the Mozilla team has flipped the switch on the new Firefox add-ons web site. All your old favorite features are still there, the categories the search and the recommended extensions. They are all just displayed in an updated and prettier fashion.
At first glance, it didn’t really give me any shock and awe feeling or emotion but after navigating around it for a while it is an improvement over the older styled web site.
So What is New to Love?
They have made the "review and rate" box easier to reach when checking out add-ons one by one, which will encourage more feedback to be given. Also there are a few more related links on each add-on’s web page to give you that, "Well, if you like this then go check out that!" sort of feeling.
The larger search box at the top of all the pages is a welcome addition too. Not only does it give it that Web 2.0 feeling but it is handy to have it bold and in my face when looking where to search for more extensions.
Also when you are doing a search, you now have the option to "Add to Firefox" right from the search results. You no longer have to search, pull up the addon’s profile, and then add it to your browser. There are a lot of little things that just make this a really welcomed update I think for many Firefox users out there.
To get some more inside information about the back end of things be sure to check out Basil’s Bodacious Blog.
