Easy Firefox

Archive for December, 2009

All in all, 2009 was a great year for Firefox.  It grew by leaps and bounds, and continues to be the best alternative browser out there.  Firefox Facts did pretty well in it’s own right too – surpassing the 7,000+ RSS subscriber mark.  So with today being the last day of 2009, let us all sit back and revisit some of the best posts of the year.

Here are 10 of the most read stories, tips, tutorials and reviews I have posted here in 2009.  Hope you check out some classics you might have missed, or revisit a favorite post or two.

#10 – Love (or Disable) the New Tab Button in Firefox

Love it, or hate it – Firefox got one more addition to it’s browser that seems to have gotten a mixed reaction from the fans. The open new tab button rests at the end of your tab bar in Firefox 3.5 giving you an easier user interface to open a new tab.

• More Tab Fun – Move the Close Tab in Firefox

#9 – 10 Popular Web Designer Tools for Firefox

Thanks to Firefox and some of the great add-ons that have been developed for it, your browser is your best friend when it comes to web site design.  From CSS tools, to promoting your domain, here are 10 of the most popular web designer tools for Firefox.

• Top 10 Greatness – Top 10 Personas Backgrounds for Firefox

#8 – Add Another Bookmarks Toolbar to Firefox

Have more than a few bookmarks you want to keep handy on the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox but don’t have the room?  Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar, an extension for Firefox, will help you solve that issue by letting you add as many bookmark toolbars as you need.

• Popular Add-ons – Most Downloaded Bookmark Add-ons

#7 – Firefox Private Browsing Mode Help and FAQ

Want to increase your privacy on your PC?  With the release of Firefox 3.5, our favorite browser now has a Private Browsing mode.  Usually your browser remembers the web sites you have visited, your user names and passwords, your browsing history and more.  However, with this newest addition to the Firefox 3.5 feature list, you can now go incognito on the Internet.

• Firefox Tip – Easier Access to Private Browsing Mode

#6 – Convert YouTube Videos to MP3

The experimental add-on YouTube 2 MP3 will convert and download YouTube videos in the .mp3 audio format.  There is no doubt that YouTube has a large collection of music videos, so this type of service was bound to happen eventually.

• More YouTube Tips – 1-Click YouTube Video Downloader

#5 – Speed up Flash Videos in Firefox

Want to speed up your flash video watching?  By default, Firefox takes a sort of “snapshot” of whatever you are doing every ten seconds.  Why?  It is so that the browser can restore itself, just in case of a crash.  Now you might ask, what does this have to do with flash videos?  Well, the snapshot action is what is causing your ten second delay, at times, with watching flash videos on the Web.

• Firefox Hacks – More Fun Tips with About:Config

#4 – 10 Popular Themes That Are Firefox 3.5 Ready

One of the negative side effects of a new version of Firefox rolling out is the fact that some Firefox theme creators neglect to update their themes to the newest versions.  So, when updating our browser, that leaves some of us in the dark, when it comes to using the themes we know and love.  However, this time around many more popular themes have been updated to support Firefox 3.5 and here are my favorite ten for you to choose from.

• Skins Galore – All the Great Firefox Themes I’ve Reviewed

#3 – Skip to the Download on Rapidshare, Megaupload and More!

Want to skip the totally unnecessary “wait to download” pages on Rapidshare, Megaupload and more?  SkipScreen, and add-on for Firefox is here to help.

#2- All About Perspective – Firefox Wallpaper

Firefox wallpaper that I would actually see myself using is hard to find.  The main reason behind third is that I don’t really like text on my desktop, and I really don’t like feeling like a marketing campaign either.  So with that said, what type of Firefox wallpaper does make me happy?

• Desktop Decorations – Five Star Firefox Wallpaper

#1 – Beginner’s Guide to Greasemonkey

In a nutshell, Greasemonkey is an add-on for Firefox that allows you to customize a web site’s look and function.  Now you don’t have to be a coder to use it though, because there are already hundreds of scripts out there available for free that you can use to help you do a number of different things.

• Another Great Guide: Beginner’s Manual to Stylish

I hope you have enjoyed reading all the Firefox Facts tips, tricks and more this year – and you’ll subscribe to the RSS feed, visit daily and be entertained and informed all the way though 2010 and beyond.  This site wouldn’t be a success without you, so thank you for making Firefox Facts on of the most popular Firefox tip related blogs out there today. Happy New Year!

BONUS – Check out the Best of Mitchelaneous (2009 Edition)

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2009 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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One big complaint about search engines is they are all rather vanilla with their visual representation.  Wouldn’t it be better if you could color code things a ‘bit more?  One Greasemonkey script that does a great job at this is Colorful Search.

Once you install this user script, it will generate a random light background color for Bing, Yahoo and Google.  Colors are decided and grouped together based on the domain name they come from.  So you can quickly see that if Firefox Facts results are light blue, and you see 7 out of the 10 results are light blue, they all came from here.  It makes the visual representation much more useable. 

Want to color code your own search engine results? You can pick up Colorful Search from userscripts.org.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2009 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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When you mix simple and Firefox together, you can get my attention every time.  The Simple Links Counter add-on for Firefox shows the number of internal and external links on any given page in the browser status bar.   This makes it the perfect companion for all your other web developer tools and add-ons for Firefox.

By default, it gives you a simple numerical count, as seen here:

However, when you expand it, you get much more information about each link:

This comes in really handy when your looking to see how many links you have on your web site, and then see how many are external compared to internal (linking to somebody else versus linking to your own pages inside your web site).

You can pickup the Simple Links Counter for Firefox at the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2009 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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I know I have a lot of creative and opinionated readers here, so I thought this challenge would be right up your alley.  Last week, Mozilla Labs announced the Winter ‘09 Design Challenge.  What is at stake?  You might get to help design how Firefox 4’s home tab looks.

In the future release of Firefox, it seems the home tab will replace your default homepage as the big starting point for the browser.  Rather than having something like MyYahoo or iGoogle, you will have your own personalized home, served locally, just for you.  This page will have access to a lot more of your information since it never leaves the browser — history, add-ons, bookmarks, and pretty much anything you can see in Firefox at the moment.

Here is a little more about the project from Mozilla:

To participate in this Design Challenge you need to create a short video explaining your idea(s), presenting the mockup and showing how your idea works. Your video can contain anything from a napkin drawing, a wireframe, to a polished graphic/prototype.

Here are the important dates you should make note of, if you want to participate:

• December 2009 – Launch of The Home Tab – Winter ‘09 Design Challenge
• February 14th, 2010 – Submission Deadline
• February 15th, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting starts
• March 1st, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting ends
• March 15th, 2010 – Best in Class honors are announced

Good luck to all those who get involved with this challenge.  To learn more about it, be sure to visit the design challenge page over at the Mozilla Labs web site. You can also get updates via Twitter, @mozconcept.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2009 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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We are happy to announce the release of Jetpack 0.7. Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project which makes it possible for anyone who knows standard web skills (HTML, Javascript, CSS) to make Firefox add-ons.

Jetpack 0.7 is mainly a stability release with a new API thrown in: a unified first-run experience. Notable improvements include: debugging your Jetpack-enabled add-on can once again be done with Firebug; status bar widgets now look better; and the settings feature has a number of tweaks and fixes. With these bug fixes and improvements we hope to see even more innovative Jetpacks in addition to the hundreds already written.

First Run

When users install a jetpack authors can now specify a greeting page tailored to their jetpack. For example, as an author you can guide the user on how to use your jetpack, link to the jetpack’s homepage, or otherwise provide a wealth of rich information. The page can be defined as either HTML or a remote URL.

var manifest = {
  firstRunPage: "http://example.com/myJetpack"
};

Get the details on the Jetpack blog ⟫

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A number of places are showing off some new design concepts for the Firefox 4 browser.  Now we have seen pitched some awesome Firefox 3.7 designs in the past, but it makes me wonder if the design phase for that is over, or if they are going to skip it to go directly to Firefox 4.

Not sure if I am digging the big orange button, but one would think it could be skinned over with a custom theme.  Are you excited about this new application button?

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2009 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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It has come to our attention that there are reports on the popular Thai forum Blognone, มีบริษัทไหน โดนคนจาก Mozilla โทรข้ามประเทศมาเช็คยอดคนใช้ Firefox บ้างไหมครับ, and from Mr. Paiboon’s blog เมื่อมีฝรั่งแปลกหน้าโทรเข้า ออฟฟิศของผม !!, of someone called ‘Edison’ calling Internet businesses in Thailand and using the Mozilla Foundation name. These callers are asking about how many computers in the company are using Mozilla Firefox and are connected to the Internet. Mozilla has no representatives named Edison and no representatives in Thailand doing any telephone-based market surveys. If you receive a phone call from a ‘representative of the Mozilla Foundation’ they are not a representative of Mozilla Corporation or the Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla has done web-based surveys from the Mozilla website and other websites and does market research via email, but not via phone in Thailand. If you receive a phone call in Thailand from someone saying that they are from Mozilla, please do not provide any information and take their name and number and send it to press at mozilla dot com for confirmation.

Thank you very much for your support of Mozilla and Firefox in Thailand.

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Just in time for the winter holidays, Mozilla Labs is back with a new Design Challenge. Participate in the Winter ‘09 Design Challenge and help the wider Firefox UX team determine the future design direction of Firefox’s new Home Tab feature.

Read the full article here.

Go to Source

I don’t yet have a full job description handy, but figured I could start with a draft:

Mozilla Messaging is looking someone who can help us drive forward Thunderbird’s test automation framework, tooling, coverage, and community. We’re looking for someone who combines the usual skills we need:

• Strong domain expertise: in this case test automation of a multi-platform desktop application
• Big-picture thinking: you’d be the first paid test engineer working on a huge codebase with lots of developers and millions of users, so the hard thing won’t be to find things to do, rather figuring out what’s the right thing to work on
• Ability to lead and build a community of peers and contributors
• Ability to prioritize and drive your own work, and happy to collaborate with a wide variety of contributors

Our current test infrastructure relies primarily on MozMill, and most tests are written in Python or JavaScript, so solid understanding of those technologies is obviously useful.

This is a unique opportunity for someone who takes testing, engineering, and community seriously, and who wants to have a huge impact on software that is used daily by millions of people.

Relocation not necessary.

Pass the word!

(resume submissions to jobs at mozillamessaging.com)

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We have good news for late holiday shoppers in Europe (or, really, anyone on that side of the Atlantic who’s looking to get some Firefox gear this winter): our UK-based Mozilla Store is offering a series of “packs” that bundle items together at a discounted rate.

If that sounds intriguing, definitely head over to the European Store and check them out:
* The Workout Pack
* The Champions Pack
* The Portable Pack
* The Office Pack
* The Good Morning Pack
* The Rainy Day Pack

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