Archive for the ‘Firefox’ Category
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Do you feel trapped by your place of work? Is the computer you use every day locked down tighter than the doors on a submarine? Are Facebook and Twitter considered “colorful metaphors” to the IT staff? Well, there may be some relief and a way to get back to the social networking world you desire. Firefox Add-Ons!
I recently went back to work, this time for a very large company with an IT staff dedicated to keeping things on total lock-down so we (the employees) can’t waste time or share corporate secrets via the internet or installed programs. What this meant for me was a return to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as my one and only browser choice. My first thought was “how bad could it be?”
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Tags: add-ons, AIM, AMO, computer, Facebook, Firefox, Google Talk, internet access, Internet Explorer, LinkedIn, lock-down, mozamo, Mozilla, Thunderbird, Twitter, work, Yoono, YouTube
Posted in Firefox, Free Programs, Social Networking, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Printing information from web pages has always been a hassle. You find a web page with some information you want to print out so you click on the printer icon in your browser. Instead of the page or two that you expected to come out of the printer, you get 14 pages of complete randomness with your information sprinkled in. 12 pages go in the trash, your wallet gets a little lighter from the paper and toner that just went down the drain, and a few trees scream somewhere off in the distance. If you are like me, you avoid printing from the web so you can escape this hassle and waste. That was, until the introduction of PrintWhatYouLike.com!
PrintWhatYouLike.com was created by two developers who shared our frustrations with printing from the web and decided to do something about it. The PrintWhatYouLike tool comes in several forms (listed below) and provides users the ability to choose what elements of a web page they want to print before the information is transmitted to their printer. Print a single paragraph, an article, an image or several pages of information. It is entirely up to you. This truly amazing service is provided to you for FREE, so there is no reason not to start using it today.
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Tags: Add-on, bookmark, bookmarklet, environment, Firefox, green, ink, papaer, PDF, print, printer, PrintWhatYouLike
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Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
“Sharing” has to be one of the biggest buzz words of the internet over the last few years. With the introduction of services like email, instant messaging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and now Google Buzz, people have been provided with the tools for staying in contact with friends and family continuously. These services are used mostly for staying in touch, catching up on recent personal events and chatting but they have also introduced one of the most used functions of our day, sharing. People share photos, videos, links to web sites, links to music, favorite articles… the list goes on forever. “Sharing is the center of the social web.”1
In the beginning, digital sharing was done via email. Attachments were sent and frustrations elevated when emails were not received or “kicked back” because the attachments were too large. Sharing methods have evolved and changed over time and we are now inundated with hundreds of ways to share information with one another. Facebook and Twitter are by far the most popular, but many others have great feature sets and large followings. Only one service pulls them all together seamlessly, ShareThis. That little green button (the trademark of ShareThis) has made it’s way onto 130,000+ sites and reaches over 400 million users per month.
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Tags: button, email, Facebook, Google, links, share, ShareThis, text, Twitter, web sites, Yahoo
Posted in Firefox, Free Programs, Social Networking, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
We’ve all seen this before. A desktop with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of icons and shortcuts. I’m sure that the owner (and maybe you are the culprit in question) of this desktop had great intentions when they first started adding these colorful little images to their workspace, but things just got out of hand. I too used the desktop as a catch-all for some time, until I realized that anything more than about 10-15 icons was too much to handle. Part of the blame for this icon hoarding must fall on, what I like to call “future-surfing.” Future-surfing is the process of adding shortcuts of newly found web sites to your desktop for the purpose of returning to them later, when you “have time” or are “will be able to focus on it.”
We all find new and exciting sites as we explore the internet. These aren’t necessarily our “favorites” or sites we want to “bookmark” but sites we just want to investigate later and now there is a way to save the links for these pages without destroying our desktop. SaveLink is an add-on for Firefox that incorporates a new option to your File and right-click menus. That option, shown as “save link as file” allows the user to save an entire page or an individual link as a shortcut in a folder of their choosing. Below, we have some screen shots of this great Firefox add-on in action.
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Tags: Add-on, add-ons, bookmark, Firefox, Link, SaveLink, Shortcut, URL, web page
Posted in Firefox, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Browsing the internet should be easy! Unfortunately, with all of the toolbars, icons, labels and preloaded bookmarks of the most used internet browsers (IE, Firefox) your viewable space can get a bit messy. If you have found yourself a bit overwhelmed by the “clutter” that has accumulated within your browser or simply want to see more of the web pages you are browsing, we have something for you. Welcome to JumpstartMyFirefox! We’re going to show you how to take your browser from A to B.
Over the past few years, Firefox add-ons have grabbed my attention more and more. Each time I found myself with a browsing need or problem, a quick Google search led me to a solution using add-ons, which are basically mini-programs that work within Firefox to customize some part of the browsing experience. I have installed and tested many add-ons during that time and today I bring you my own collection, titled JumpstartMyFirefox, to help you take back your browser.
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Tags: add-ons, bookmarks, Browser, Firefox, Google, secure, Security, streamline, web of trust, WOT
Posted in Firefox, Free Programs, Security, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
“Malware Peddlers Look to Exploit Olympic Luge Tragedy“ That is the title of an article posted on mashable.com yesterday. Yes, the sad truth is that cyber-criminals are using a man’s death to find a way into your computer and your wallet. Many were interested in the details of the Winter Olympic tragedy and, in their search to find the video of the accident in question, were tricked into installing malicious software on their computer.
Scams like these are becoming more and more common. As PC and internet users we have just a few choices. We can avoid using the internet completely (not likely) or arm ourselves with the right tools to prevent malware attacks, spyware trickery, phishing scams, etc. Anti-virus and anti-malware programs can detect and prevent most malicious software when it gets to your computer, but what about preventing this malware from ever getting to you. This is where My Web of Trust (WOT) comes in.
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Tags: malicious, Malware, My Web of Trust, Olympics, safe, scam, surfing, threats, WOT
Posted in Firefox, Free Programs, Security, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Windows Update in the middle of the night = Firefox restart. Find a great new Add-on for your browser = Firefox restart. Browser crashes = Firefox restart. There are so many reasons why you might find yourself in the middle of a waiting game with Firefox, but so few tools to help your browser through the process of reloading all of those tabs. If you have ever sat and watched as Firefox attempts to “restore your previous session” then you know what I am talking about. All of your tabs appear, but it could take a minute or five, depending on how many tabs you had open before the restart was needed.
Firefox Reloading Tabs after Restart
I am a tab person. If I see a link that I want to check out later, I right-click and “open in a new tab.” My thought process are arranged by windows and each tab is a work in progress. I jump around from tab to tab and use them as reminders of what I was researching, working on or playing. To me, they are kind of like post-it-notes. Thankfully, Firefox added the ability to restore sessions a few years back. Until then, my thoughts and projects would vanish. Until this morning, I would just have to wait patiently as all of those “dot circles” finally turned into real icons. I assumed that this was just part of life and something that I was gong to have to deal with on a regular basis.
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Tags: Add-on, BarTap, Firefox, reload, restart, tabs
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Just like television viewing, surfing the internet quickly becomes a repetitive, addictive activity. You stare at a screen and before you know it, you find yourself on the same channels (sites) day-in and day-out. The only problem is, there are no on-screen guides or remote controls in the world of web browsing. Well, at least until now. Today, we take a look at yet another add-on for Firefox, called Site Launcher (Sorry all you Internet Explorer users).
Site Launcher is a “simple Firefox add-on that gives a highly convenient and clutter-free method to quickly open websites that you need often. One keyboard hotkey makes the ‘Launcher’ panel instantly appear, followed by a single key press to jump to the site you wish to open.” (quote taken from donesmart.com web site) I took a few minutes yesterday to install and test this great new FREE feature and I have to say I love it! The only trick now is remembering that it is there.
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Tags: Add-on, Favorite Sites, Firefox, Site Launcher
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Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Your Browser Can Look Like This
For the last couple of days, we’ve talked about increasing your elbow room in your workspace. Once you’ve tackled that project, you might find yourself just motivated enough to handle some other issues in your office (home or work). Removing clutter and reorganizing can also be applied to another important part of your daily workspace, your browser. This might not be something you have thought about before, but once you see what is possible, you’ll realize just how crazy your browser was getting.
Remember when you first started on your new computer or new install of a browser? It was clean, organized and ready for you to destroy. You began browsing for work and/or personal use and quickly began collecting bookmarks, toolbars, sidebars, etc. Reading your favorite blogs, participating in social networking, playing your favorite online games and checking your personal email quickly caused a disorganized, overloaded browser. The more you used it, the less space you were actually left with to view web sites at all.
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Tags: add-ons, Firefox, organize, Strata40, StrataBuddy, tabs, toolbars, workspace
Posted in Firefox, Free Programs, Tips and Tricks | View Comments
