Archive for the ‘Firefox Facts’ Category
September 9th, 2010
How do you quickly scroll to the top or the bottom of a webpage? While we might often think of the mouse’s scroll wheel as a pretty default “duh-like” answer – there are other and maybe better ways to get the job done in Firefox.
Keyboard Tip – The first scrolling tip I have to share with you is related to the pictures you see above. You can hit the Home key on your keyboard to go to the top of a webpage, and the end key on your keyboard to navigate your way to the bottom of a webpage very quickly.
Now, for the super handy extension to save the day.
The Scroll to Top/Bottom add-on for Firefox gives you a few more ways to do this same task. You can either do it from the buttons in Firefox’s navigation toolbar or you can go up and down from the right-click menu.
You can pick up the Scroll to Top/Bottom add-on for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons website.
So, now it is your turn. Tell me how you quickly go from the top of a webpage to the bottom (or the other way around) in the comments.
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© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
September 9th, 2010
Along with all of your productive and useful websites out there, gaming websites or online games often get tossed to the wayside. You know what though? Supporting games and independent developers is just as important as supporting the guys making the awesome website applications we all know and love. With that said, I am happy to see Mozilla has launched the new Mozilla Labs Gaming.
From the sound of it, it looks like they are really reaching out to online game makers to provide them with the community, platform and tools they need to create new and innovative games for the browser.
From the Mozilla Labs Gaming blog, here is what Pascal Finette said about why Mozilla is traveling down this new fork in the road:
Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geo location, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web. With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform. And what better way than through games? Traditionally games and game developers have been at the forefront of technology, often pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible.
To to kick things off, and start them off right, Mozilla Labs Gaming is going to launch an international gaming competition called Game On 2010. Not much news has been released about it yet – but keep your eye on gaming.mozillalabs.com for more information.
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© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
September 8th, 2010
It isn’t that often I get to gush over how awesome a dark theme for Firefox is. There just are not that many worth getting worked up over. However, the SmallringFX series of themes are well worth downloading and trying for yourself.
Coming in dark blue and magenta, this theme is about ask dark, cool and collected as a dark theme for Firefox can get. Sometimes, it might be a little too dark even. The only bad thing I found about this theme is the toolbar tips are even black with white text, so it often comes up looking odd. Other than that though, I can find no complaints about either of these themes – and highly recommend them both.
Both themes can be picked up on the Firefox Add-ons website from the above links. Also, to learn more about the designer behind the themes, check out smallringfx.com. Can’t wait to see how this theme evolves in the future.
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© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
September 7th, 2010
Firefox Facts has finally finished moving from our old sponsored hosting account from another hosting provider, to a brand new (and powerful) VPS hosting account. What is a VPS hosting account, and what does this mean for you, you and you over there? Check out the details on my fantastic other website, Mitchelaneous.com.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
September 1st, 2010
Why read something now, when you can simply save it for later? I am always running across neat articles or reviews I want to read more in-depth, but I don’t have the time. That is where a service and add-on like Read it Later comes in handy.
The add-on in question will save pages for you to read later with just one click. When you have the time to check it out, you can access your Read it Later list from any computer or phone. As you save things, it syncs it to your profile on the Read it Later website.
Some of the features of the Firefox add-on include:
- Save pages to a reading list to read when you have time.
- Offline reading mode lets you read the items you’ve saved for later on the plane, train, or anywhere without an internet connection.
- Sync your list to all of your computers, at work or home.
- Sync your list to Read It Later apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android and more.
- After reading, bookmark pages on your preferred bookmarking service or share them with friends.
- Click to Save Mode lets you quickly batch a reading list just by clicking on interesting links.
- Text view strips away images, ads, and layout from articles and presents them in an easy to consume way.
Personally, I have been using Instapaper, for some time, to get this same task done. However, Read it Later does offer a little more functionality – so I might have to switch my “reading list/bookmark saver” down the road.
You an lean more about the Read it Later service at readitlaterlist.com and you can pick up the Read it Later add-on from the Firefox Add-ons website.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
August 31st, 2010
With Firefox 4 being right around the corner, are all of your favorite add-ons and themes going to make the cut? In my own opinion, I think that the drastic changes in both the backend of Firefox and the visual frontend will lead to a lot broken add-ons and favorite themes. Hopefully though, this will not be the case once Firefox 4 is ready for the general public at large.
Add-ons Compatible with Firefox 4 – First, lets take a look at the Firefox extensions. Doing a quick search on Firefox’s Add-ons website I found 1,000 add-ons that claim to be compatible with Firefox 4.0. That might sound like a lot – and it might cover all the basic bases, but Firefox currently has at least 10 times that amount in all. So this means that possibly only 1 in ever 10 add-ons might be compatible.
Themes Compatible with Firefox 4 – So, what about Firefox themes? Currently there are 412 themes for Firefox (or 694 if you count the ones that are un-reviewed). So how many Firefox themes are compatible with Firefox 4 right now? There are 29 themes that are ready for Firefox 4.
How Can I Get Involved?
So, how can you make sure your favorite theme or add-on is compatible with Firefox 4? The best way would be to visit that theme’s profile on the Firefox Add-ons website – and then either find the official site for the add-on or search for the “E-mail your question” link on the profile page:
Contact the add-on or theme author and let them know you would like to continue to use their wonderful work once Firefox 4 rolls out.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
August 31st, 2010
With Firefox 4 being right around the corner, are all of your favorite add-ons and themes going to make the cut? In my own opinion, I think that the drastic changes in both the backend of Firefox and the visual frontend will lead to a lot broken add-ons and favorite themes. Hopefully though, this will not be the case once Firefox 4 is ready for the general public at large.
Add-ons Compatible with Firefox 4 – First, lets take a look at the Firefox extensions. Doing a quick search on Firefox’s Add-ons website I found 1,000 add-ons that claim to be compatible with Firefox 4.0. That might sound like a lot – and it might cover all the basic bases, but Firefox currently has at least 10 times that amount in all. So this means that possibly only 1 in ever 10 add-ons might be compatible.
Themes Compatible with Firefox 4 – So, what about Firefox themes? Currently there are 412 themes for Firefox (or 694 if you count the ones that are un-reviewed). So how many Firefox themes are compatible with Firefox 4 right now? There are 29 themes that are ready for Firefox 4.
How Can I Get Involved?
So, how can you make sure your favorite theme or add-on is compatible with Firefox 4? The best way would be to visit that theme’s profile on the Firefox Add-ons website – and then either find the official site for the add-on or search for the “E-mail your question” link on the profile page:
Contact the add-on or theme author and let them know you would like to continue to use their wonderful work once Firefox 4 rolls out.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
August 28th, 2010
I have a quick and easy tutorial you can all do (as long as you are on Facebook, that is). I have started up my own fan page for Firefox Facts and my other projects – and here is how you can make sure you do not miss any of the awesome tips, links, videos or anything else I post there for you.
Step #1
The first thing you have to do is go log into Facebook – and visit this link (I don’t yet have enough fans to have a personal short URL yet).
http://www.facebook.com/MitchProjects
Step #2
Next, you will want to click the “Like” button at the top of the page.
Step #3
Enjoy! This Facebook Fan Page is not for me – it is for you. So if you have any questions, comments or just want to say, “Hey there!” please feel free. Also the fan page is still a work in progress, so if there is something you would like to see there (such as a certain application or ability) let me know and I will try to make it happen.
For the last four years, I have absolutely enjoyed providing the over 7,000 subscribers of Firefox Facts with the best Firefox add-ons, the coolest themes, the neatest hacks and more. This is just one more place we socialize, connect and make this resource even better. Thanks for the future, “Like” and hope you stop in and say, “Hi!” too.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
August 26th, 2010
Need a quick way to go back to web pages you have already visited? The TidyFox add-on for Firefox will help you get the job done, and will also organize your visited pages into subpages too.
Once installed, TidyFox adds two new menu bar buttons. One is to go back and visit your most visited websites and the other is to visit your most recently visited websites.
As you can see from the picture above, each webpage in the TidyFox menu is organized by the URL. So, if you visited my about page on Firefox Facts, you would see it listed under www.firefoxfacts.com. So, as you can see the add-on does what it set out to do, bravo!
Now, as for the bad side of things – I found two annoyances. One thing was that it picked up on Google ads for some reason, giving me a chance go to visit doubleclick.net. There should be some sort of filtering in place for this I would say. Also, when you click on the “Most Visited” text or the “Last Visited” text in the menus you are taken to a weird page that has little to nothing to do with Firefox. The least they could do is link to Firefox Facts. (Just kidding!) I would like to see a more useful use of this link, if it is going to be a link at all.
Give it a shot, and let me know what you think. You can learn more about the TidyFox extension at tidyfox.com and pick it up to use at the Firefox Add-ons website.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
August 25th, 2010
Did you know that Opera already has a Tab Candy-like feature? No? Neither did the anybody else apparently.
Who would have guessed, the Opera browser has yet again jumped on the, “but we did that first!” claims against Firefox. For those who might have not followed the history between the two browsers – Firefox gained a lot of free press, for having tabs in its browser. Of course, Opera had done this before – and they made a big stink about the fact that they did it first. Now Opera is at it again, this time saying that they had Tab Candy before Tab Candy was cool. Here is what Haavard Moen from Opera had to say…
There has been a lot of focus on grouping of tabs in browsers lately as a new and wonderful way to manage tabs, but did you know that you have actually been able to group tabs in Opera for many years already?
You can check out more about the debate over at The Register and Haavard’s Opera blog. My thoughts on the issue are simple. Opera needs to pay less attention to saying, “hey, we did it first!” and maybe a little more attention to saying, “hey, we did it best”. Right now first doesn’t mean a whole lot, because people will always head towards the better execution of any idea.
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!