Firefox Facts

Change the Browser Icons with Favicon Picker 3

Mitch — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:11:07 +0000

Favicon Picker used to be one of my favorite add-ons for Firefox, mainly because I am a ‘bit of a control freak and I like to be able to customize every single little thing about my browsing experience. Yes, even down to the favicon image that is saved for my bookmarks.

For those of you unfamiliar with the extension, it adds an interface for replacing bookmark icons. Just right-click on any bookmark, select “Properties”, then “Browse”. (Folder icons aren’t supported yet).

Here are some of the other features of Favicon Picker 3:

It works with popular image formats including jpg, gif, png, bmp, ico and animated gifs!
Any image size can be used, as well as the standard 1kb 16×16 pixels
You can grab images from a URL. Click “Browse” and paste in an address like http://www.cnn.com/favicon.ico or if a page has an image you like, right click on it and select “Copy image location”, and paste that in.

Get to customizing your own bookmark favicons with Favicon Picker 3 today!

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Firefox 3.0.1 and Your Add-ons Not Working

Mitch — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:53:29 +0000

Has Firefox 3.0.1 given you trouble? Well it sound like you might want to contact the extension’s author to make sure thy are using the right compatibility range. Once again Basil does a great job at explaining this in a way that should make sense to us all.

When add-on authors publish their add-on they declare the compatibility range for an add-on. It typically looks like “2.0 to 3.0.*” - meaning that at minimum, this add-on requires Firefox 2.0 and works with any maintenance release of Firefox 3.0. (End of the compatibility range is also called the maxVersion).
Some add-on authors have erroneously used “3.0″ as their maxVersion so when users with these add-ons upgrade from Firefox 3.0 to Firefox 3.0.1, the add-on gets disabled. We encourage these add-on authors to use “3.0.*” as their maxVersion.

So shoot your favorite extension authors an e-mail and ask them to get this fixed, or check to see if this might be the problem. Another suggestion for people with lots of problems would be to try running Firefox with a new profile or Safe Mode. In Safe Mode, you can reset some settings or disable extensions and themes that might be the source of the issue. By comparing Firefox behavior in normal mode to its behavior in Safe Mode with various items disabled, you may be able to diagnose issues.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Firefox 3.0.1 = Patched Up and Ready for the Masses

Mitch — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:50:01 +0000

The latest version of Firefox is out and patches a few holes here and there in our favorite browser. Here is the official word from Mozilla:

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3.0, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

So what exactly is new in Firefox 3.0.1? Here are a few of the details from the release notes.

Fixed several security issues.
Fixed several stability issues.
Fixed an issue where the phishing and malware database did not update on first launch.
Under certain circumstances, Firefox 3.0 did not properly save the SSL certificate exceptions list.
Updated the internal Public Suffix list.
In certain cases, installing Firefox 2 in the same directory in which Firefox 3 has been installed resulted in Firefox 2 being unstable. This issue was fixed as part of Firefox 2.0.0.15.
Fixed an issue where, when printing a selected region of content from the middle of a page, some of the output was missing (bug 433373).
Fixed a Linux issues where, for users on a PPP connection (dialup or DSL) Firefox always started in “Offline” mode (bug 424626).

For more information, be sure to check out the official release notes for Firefox 3.0.1 and happy browsing to all, and to all a good ~~night~~ day.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Google Calendar Notifier

Mitch — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:52:07 +0000

Need a quick reminder as to what you need to do today? Now there are several ways of making Google Calendar more accessible to you via Firefox, but not too many extensions. the Google Calendar Notifier has been updated to Firefox 3 though to handle that problem for you.

Living in your status bar, the extension will pop up with your daily to do list. It provides you with robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for tomorrow.

On the positive side, this add-on for Firefox looks like it would make the perfect companion to the browser (if your a Google Calendar user). On the bad side, if you visit the official web site for it the author says he’s not supporting it anymore.

Maybe he could hand it off to somebody interested in keeping it up?

Pick it up while you can, the Google Calendar Notifier promises to keep you up to date when it comes to keeping track of your schedule.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

More Free Firefox Wallpapers

Mitch — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:18:25 +0000

In the need for from free Firefox wallpaper?

If so then be sure to check out the 70+ Nice and Beautiful Firefox Wallpapers highlighted over at hongkiat.com. Some of theme are those that you have seen rounded up here in the past, but others are even new to me so I am sure they are probably new to you too.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Move Tabs to the Sidebar

Mitch — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:37:47 +0000

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.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Launch Plurk in a Floating Sidebar of Productivity

Mitch — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:08:59 +0000

I have made not secret that I am a big fan of Plurk, one of the newer social status micro blogging services out there. I needed a way to keep tabs on it without taking over any of my current browser real estate though. The solution? Another bookmarklet!

This one I call mini plurk. After you have clicked, it will launch a popup window you can move around to where you need it so you can both browse the web and Plurk about it at the same time.

Just drag and drop this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

mini plurk

That isn’t the only Plurk love I have for you though:

So do you like to Plurk or do you need a friend? Feel free to add your favorite Firefox fanatic to your own friends list. (*cough* that would be me *cough*)

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Really Simple Notepad for Firefox

Mitch — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:26:17 +0000

Need to jot something down real quick before you forget, and don’t want to be bothered launching another web site or program to do it? The Really Simple Notepad bookmarklet is just what the forgetful web user needs.

Just drag and drop this link to your bookmarks toolbar:

Really Simple Notepad

Now when you need it, hit the bookmarklet link and up will come a popup window where you can type. The fun doesn’t stop there though. If you want to save what you have put in, just hit Ctrl+S to bring up the “Save As” menu. Make sure you set it to save as a text file and you have a simple backup of what you just wrote.

Thanks goes out to 7 is 7 for providing this hidden browser treasure.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Google Notebook Add-on (without the add-on)

Mitch — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:03:22 +0000

Like the idea of the Google Notebook add-on but you don’t want to be bothered with installing yet another extension? Google has released a useful bookmarklet for people using browsers who can’t take advantage of the browser extension.

The secret here is that this bookmarklet also works for handy dandy Firefox.

All you have to do is visit the Google Notebook Bookmarklet web site, and drag the “Note This” to your bookmark toolbar. Your done! Now clicking that link will bring up a pop-up window asking you to “Please confirm that you want to add a note from this page.”. Hit “yes” to do so, or “cancel” to go right to your notes.

Here is Google’s official help video on adding it to another browser, the dance is just about the same in Firefox too.

Like this tip? Then don’t forget you can also add Google Notebook to your sidebar too for more Google note taking fun.

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!

Camifox Theme for Firefox Rocks!

Mitch — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:47:19 +0000

As soon as I say I like this theme, somebody is going to pop out of the wood work and say how awful my choice in themes really is. To keep those people at bay I will only say… oh forget them. Camifox is a unique new look for Firefox, yet doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Here is a little more about the theme from the designer:

Firefox 3, in living color. Camifox replaces Firefox’s monolithic toolbar buttons on Mac OS X (and the icons on Windows and Linux) with the bright, colorful icons from the Mozilla Camino browser, and it also makes the tab bar easier to read with higher contrast.

How does it look? Camifox, if I dare to say is a great looking theme in my opinion. Here is how it looks on Mac, Vista, XP and Linux:

You can pick Camifox up for yourself on the Firefox Add-ons web site. How do you feel about it, love it or hate it? (Having Problems? Try the Alternative Download Link!)

Free Download: Download Your Free Copy of My Best of the Web Hosting Show Guides eBook!