Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Firefox’ Category

I am a calendar and to do list person. I keep almost everything in the Thunderbird calendar and like it. But sometimes it’s a pain to have to leave Firefox, go to Thunderbird where I’m in the mail screen and go to the calendar tab. That’s why I was intrigued when I learned about ReminderFox.

ReminderFox manages to do lists and reminders. For those of you thinking that Thunderbird can do that, yes it can. But ReminderFox isn’t a calendar like Thunderbird. ReminderFox is  simply a really helpful add-on for Firefox that can display and manage lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. It sits in the bottom of your screen and displays a pink ribbon and the name of your reminder, which will stay there until you mark it complete. It can manage to do lists and reminders and includes an alarm. ReminderFox is a free add-on for Firefox.

• SearchStatus Firefox add-on tells you more than rank
• Firefox time tracking plugin
• Firefox add-on for website translation

FireShot is just one of the neatest add-ons there is. It’s like someone read my mind. Every time I take a screenshot if I want it cropped I have to edit it in another application. I stopped trying to do nifty things with my screenshots a long time ago because it was a pain. That’s no longer the case with FireShot.

FireShot is a Firefox add-on that creates screenshots from right within your browser. To install it just download and activate it. Once activated all you need to do to use it is press the big red S in the corner of Firefox. FireShot allows users to create, edit, save and share screenshots, which can be saved as a png, jpeg, bmp or gif file. Look at all of the neat tools in the second picture! Now I can draw little arrows and stick notes all over my screenshots!

• SearchStatus Firefox add-on tells you more than rank
• Firefox time tracking plugin
• How to update Firefox automatically.

I have a color picker on the computer, but I always have to open it because I don’t like to leave it running and sitting in the system tray. Today I found an alternative solution to use. I’ve installed the Firefox addon ColorZilla. This little addon sits in the status bar and is packed with features. Some (as in not all) of the features included are an eyedropper to obtain the color of any pixel, a color picker, zoom capability, the ability to choose which results appear in your status bar, history and favorites palettes, page pan and auto copy. There’s even a list of planned features for the future including predefined color sets and a color scheme generator. That’s a lot of stuff to pack into a handy little addon. I like it!

• Firefox time tracking plugin
• Pixel Pick, a free color coding tool
• Do you keep a calendar on your computer?

I came across a neat Firefox addon today that tracks the time you spend surfing with Firefox. The addon is called TimeTracker. It installs in one click (two if you count the restart). It runs in the bottom status bar. By right clicking on the clock or timer you can either reset the timer or access TimeTracker’s configuration options. Options include displaying time spent today or since last reset or install, an idle timeout (for when you aren’t using Firefox), and a filter to place sites that you don’t want time tracked in.

• Color picker Firefox addon
• SearchStatus Firefox add-on tells you more than rank
• Nice Firefox add-on for handling links

I got a message a new version of Firefox was available a couple of days ago and I did upgrade. I have noticed since then things seem to be loading more quickly then before. I like to keep up with browser updates because I know they’re working to keep things secure and running smoothly. Sure, you can visit the Firefox page to find out if an update is available. But why bother. Just follow these instructions and it will update automatically.

Go to the Tools menu and select Options.
Click on the Advanced icon and then the Update tab.
Check what you want updated automatically, and how you want the update done.
That’s it.
Try it, you’ll like it. It’s simple and easy.

• How to install Firefox
• How to add a favorite icon to your Wordpress blog address
• Firefox time tracking plugin

I am continuing to go through the helpful add-ons I’m using for the Firefox browser. The one I am writing about today does a lot. By that, I mean it really does A LOT. When installed, this add-on (located at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/321) displays the Google PageRank and Alexa rank, highlights keywords and no follow links, includes a link report, displays meta tags, has a built in keyword density analyser, displays whois information and shows back links. All of this information sits in a non-descript spot in a place of your choosing. I have mine set to display in the browser status bar. This add-on can tell you a lot about the site you’re on with very little effort by accomplishing numerous tasks while you’re on the site, so it can save you some time and effort. It’s good.

• ReminderFox
• How to install Firefox
• Nice Firefox add-on for handling links

There have been several times that I came across a website that was not in English. Now I took French, German and Latin in high school and college but that was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten far more than I remember. Today I got an offer to trade links. It was a PR5 link being offered, so I decided to check out the site. It was all in French. I hit the internet and found myself a Firefox add-on that will perform translation based on Google translation services. The add-on is found at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/918 and is called gTranslate. I downloaded it and restarted Firefox. I highlighted all of the text on the page offering me the link, right clicked, chose page info and translate page into English. Bam, the whole page appeared in English. Very cool tool indeed. It translates from English to German, German to English, English to Spanish, Spanish to English, English to French, French to English, English to Italian, Italian to English, English to Portuguese, Portuguese to English, English to Japanese, Japanese to English, English to Korean, Korean to English, English to Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Simplified) to English, German to French and French to German

• How to install Firefox
• Nice Firefox add-on for handling links
• How to make a url brief.

I am on the internet a lot. There have been more than a few times where I saw a group of links I was interested in and it took me forever to get them all open. With Firefox this is no longer an issue. I am using a Firefox add-on called Linky. It can be found at addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/425 and it is free. After downloading it you need to close and reopen Firefox and it will be working. All you do is highlight the group of links you’re interested in and right click. On the right click there will be an option for Linky letting you choose if you want to open the links in tabs or windows. It’s very cool.

• How to install Firefox
• How to update Firefox automatically.
• How to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird